The Horror: How New Sims Are Disfigured

When I saw Clunn and Dowden listed together on the auction the other day -- brand new sims! -- I flew out to take a look. They merged together in a gorgeous basin with high views. After I got over my annoyance at the Lindens for making a beautiful basin like this but splitting it between two sims and numerous parcels (maybe they had their reasons? having a bad sim day?), I thought to myself: Ok, this will never be as beautiful as the day it is born. It will surely be crapped up. It's just a question to see how big and how bad it could be...No sense crying over the basin-that-was, that-could-have-been...

I saw a girl flying around eyeing the plots at auction and I warned her about just buying one of them -- unless a potential bidder was willing to bid high on all the plots on both of the sims, they'd risk having a viewblocker built on one of the parcels that would ruin the entire basin. She conceded the point but continued to hover -- it was *beautiful*. I hope for her sake she didn't buy. I then commenced to watch Clunn/Dowden every day to see what would happen.

I figured it would be the usual SL process. Like...after these overpriced chunks of basin sell and re-sell a few times, maybe there will be a few people who build beautiful eyries or cliff-dweller homes but there will always be one who will put in some horrid newbie experiment that will make everyone flee? Or...there will be a couple of nice homes and the overpriced chunks will sit out there for weeks because no one can afford them. So overpriced land marked up from auction sells once, twice, some enthusiastic impulse buyers looking only at fleeting beauty buy it, then flee when some awful build goes up, especially if it is a laggy club. But that's ok...that's the process that drives the Lindens to keep making more sims and more sims...except do they hurry so much that they start to cut corners and do stuff like put a basin like this strung out between two sims (meaning they are bound to have different FPS rates, owners, etc. etc.)....when they could have kept the entire beautiful thing contiguous on one lot? It seemed Clunn/Dowden was going the usual SL route as some plots got bought but no builds went up (thank God!) and some sat there...I forgot about it...

...But a few days later, curiosity got the better of me and I flew out there to see what was happening.

You know, you think it can get bad in SL...then it gets worse!

Blue Burke had plopped over the basin a HUMONGUS black club or something, with huge "feet" stradding the basin, dragging down into it. It was needless construction because even if you build a huge ugly heavy building, you don't really need to add arches or feet or saddles to it to hold it up in SL, duh, the gravity is like on the moon. But there is hangs...in all its hideosity. Meanwhile, Bob Bravo is doing his poor best to sell his overpriced parcels there in the shadow of that hulk....some other unknown names are bravely trying to unload their formerly beautiful land with ads like "beautiful view!"....Not!

What can buyers do in a situation like this?

So often everybody kvetches that there is no "standard for beauty" and "one man's ugly is another man's beauty" blah blah and their liberal mindset prevents them from common-sense action. But couldn't we all agree about THIS???

1) Ask the builder nicely if he could remove somoe of his unsightly build -- it is not at all necessary for his building or his business and destroys property values like a neutron bomb for miles around. Maybe offer to pay him something.

2) If he doesn't respond, have all the neighbours and their friends negrate the big-ass builder. Of course, he may respond by banning you all from the area so you can no longer even fly into your horribly-devalued-anyway property. But c'est la vie.

3) Sell and move. Maybe the big-ass builder wanted you to sell anyway, and as soon as he acquires all the land in the area his offensive building will be removed? We live in hope...

What would *you* do? Move probably...and that's just what the Lindens want you to do...move to a brand-new sim they just rolled out! Hooray! I'd be really curious to hear from everyone who bought in Clunn and Dowden. Maybe I'm the only one in the universe that thinks this is a horror...

what they really want you to do is buy an estate. you can attach them to other estates owned by like-minded people and maintain your own beauty. waht you cant do is attach those "continents" to the mainland.

it seems that by now, there could be a few rows of terminal sims hanging off the map where estates, or groups of estates could attach. groupings would only be allowed to attach one "gateway" sim so that they didn't take up all the room on the terminal.

ll could even start adding mainland to the other end of the terminal row at some point if they needed to. i dunno. it's just an idea. you advise well those newbies to not buy land in pretty sims for the view. there is a certainty that all mainland sims end up looking like camel butts a few days after the auctions close. the only way to battle it is to buy the whole sim. but those all seem to end up being carved into little parcels that are resold to the camel dealers.

First, it's not like this sort of thing hasn't happened before. Oh.. and (you ready for this?) it *will* happen again... and again... and again.

Seems like an awful lot of energy to spend on something that you can't possibly control. Beyond that...


It is thier land, and thier right to build whatever type of build they like. My opinion, your opinion, and the opinion of everyone else really doesn't matter.

Oh, and it has nothing to do with a "liberal" mindset. It's being realistic and recognizing we all have the right to build whatever we want within the guidelines of the TOS.


That's not a bad solution and it might even work.


This is just petty. If you are a neighbor and don't appreciate his builds, then a neg rating for thier build ability might be in order. However, hosting a party with the sole intent of applying a bunch of negative ratings is just pissy and rude.


This would work too.


Suck it up and wait for them to sell out to *me*, or move. Most neighbors are willing to work with each other, if you just ask.

"maybe there will be a few people who build beautiful eyries or cliff-dweller homes but there will always be one who will put in some horrid newbie experiment that will make everyone flee? "

I'd like to remind yall that not all horrid builds come from newbies. And the one's that do, usually end up turning out pretty nice after they grab a few building and texturing lessons. Everyone was a new person once.

But yeah, why split a basin? I'm curious too.

"So often everybody kvetches that there is no "standard for beauty" and "one man's ugly is another man's beauty" blah blah and their liberal mindset prevents them from common-sense action. But couldn't we all agree about THIS???

1) Ask the builder nicely if he could remove somoe of his unsightly build -- it is not at all necessary for his building or his business and destroys property values like a neutron bomb for miles around. Maybe offer to pay him something.

2) If he doesn't respond, have all the neighbours and their friends negrate the big-ass builder. Of course, he may respond by banning you all from the area so you can no longer even fly into your horribly-devalued-anyway property. But c'est la vie.

3) Sell and move. Maybe the big-ass builder wanted you to sell anyway, and as soon as he acquires all the land in the area his offensive building will be removed? We live in hope...

What would *you* do? "

Since I have in the past due to college and other adventures, moved residences almost yearly, when I decided to buy land, it was my intent to settle in one place and never ever move once I found my Happy Place.

It took a couple tries, as I was learning the land ropes as I was going along. But I have found my Happy Place and no matter what any neighbors decide to construct. I ain't going anywhere.

I suppose that's counterproductive to the move to the new sims and keep the lindens flowing plan but that's just me. There are creative ways to ensure yourself a lovely view no matter what might arise in the plots next door, that don't involve having to buy up acres around you, move, or attempts to tell others what to do with their land.

IM me inworld if interested in some tips and tricks on how to do that. Hope you all find your Happy Place

Juro,

Basically what I'm trying to do here is start a discussion. I realize there's nothing new under the sun, but as a newbie, I continue to be amazed and even appalled at the collective inaction and sense of powerlessness in groups of neighbours or the public at large when faced with huge unsightly builds. There ought to be a standard protocol that has wide public acceptance for what is done in these situations so that people don't feel so helpless.

I don't believe there is anything awful at all about negrating, especially group negrating. Negrating was built into the game and is legal under the TOS. It has become devalued, to be sure, but not so devalued that someone like you doesn't find it "pissy" if a group of like-minded people band together to use their collective clout of a group negrate. I'm not suggesting a mindless mass negrate for griefing, I'm suggesting groups of people consciously pooling their negrates to end their sense of powerless and to take control over their second lives. So often I find people in a puddle of tears on their land as they sit helpless next to some hideous build. Yet they let that person negate their existence and never think to end their powerlessness with a negrate -- and more negrates from other like-minded. It's an extremely valuable tool that could turn the game around and end the ability of individuals to poison land and the game at large for miles around. In a few extreme cases I've negrated -- and then reversed the negrate after the person changed some ugly thing that devalued property for miles around. I don't think players should be so skittish and self-righteous about negrating -- it's a very, very healthy function and should be used much more and with great consciousness.

You didn't say whether you agreed this was an ugly unnecessary build -- but you do thikn that, don't you?

Sure, there's freedom, and everyone wants freedom to buy land and do what they want on it. But there is always the notion that the right to swing your arm ends at the beginning of someone else's nose. And why not also use the other freedom seldom used in this game -- the freedom to negrate and indicate public opprobrium of the unsightliness, devaluation, and ugliness that happens with actions like this.

We can't expect the Lindens to do a damn thing about it, because ugly builds are what drive people to move from pretty land and enable the rolling out of ever-new sims....

Prokofy,

I understand your frustration. When the very first group of new sims came up for auction after the launch of 1.2, I fell in love with Mavericks. It had a beautiful bay that sloped up into a cliffside road with water beyond. I worked with a friend to win as much of Mavericks and the neighboring sim of Kelham as I could. I started out with about 32,000m in Mavericks and another 10k in Kelham to protect the view, and have progressed to about 52k of Mavericks and 18k of Kelham. The end result is the geography of the bay is identical to what it was a year ago. I did minimal terraforming of the land - I built my house there in a way that slopes with the ground beneath it. I did all of this to avoid a repeat of what happened to me in Federal, where I watched the sim be destroyed by a giant black box club.

Unfortunately, without gaining control of as much of a sim as you can, there is very little that can be done. The 4 m terraforming restrictions have certainly helped compared with the original group of sims which bear no resemblence to their original shapes, but many sims end up being wastelands, no matter how beautiful they started out. It is a shame really, but it is part of the freedom we enjoy. The alternative would be building restrictions, which I think go against the spirit of what SL is about.

Cristiano,

I will take a look at your area, it sounds great. And I agree that you have to try to take over a sim or most of a sim to have even a ghost of a chance of preserving beauty. However, it's never enough, because there is always water right smack next to your beautiful sim that someone puts something in. I could collect examples...I just think this needs more discussion and less helplessness.

And I don't agree that there is no alternative, or the alternative is building restrictions. There shouldn't be building restrictions. There should be likeminded people who group together and push back. Either they pool their money and tier to take over a sim and keep it free of ugliness. Or they pool their negrates, if they can't pool anything else. It's that sense of helplessness that needs to be tackled.

Many players have asked for residential sim zoning, which I agree with (even as someone who has a small store next to my home in Mavericks, I would move it). I am sick of clubs/malls/casinos eating up all of the resources of a sim and leaving everyone else to suffer or move. This has been an ongoing problem that has never been addressed (though thankfully many of the larger places have moved to island sims). There have been some themed builds that have had limited success. Prior to Club Elite steamrolling Federal, everyone there worked together, as we were all friends and bought our land near each other. Pendari and Launa eventually moved out because of the lag, and I focused on Mavericks since I could not use my land in Federal. It can happen, it just takes a lot of cooperation between people in a sim, and as SL gets larger and larger, that becomes more difficult.

the rich define the ethical rules of second life

Casting my vote for Khamon's idea of island sim attachment points. The world looks HORRIBLE with all those scattered squarish islands...

Cristiano, I don't believe in waiting for the Lindens to address all these player disputes. They are too busy and I doubt they have the motivation, given that players' moving is what gives them a chance to get people to buy in their freshly-rolled sims.

What I did was I just went ahead and bought a sim -- Ravenglass. I declared it residential and got architects to build on it and get 50 percent of the sales. With houses on the sim, it says "residential" and maybe serves as a bit of a deterrent to someone wanting to put in some huge laggy store or club. Of course, you can't control what people do when they buy a plot of land. But you can set out an example, give them a notecard saying you hope they will keep it residential and try to build beautiful homes, and hope for the best.

I truly think beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So many here appreciate the beauty of LL's terraforming and landscape, others can not wait to flatten it and return all the trees.
I see neither as being wrong. Nor would I ever neg rate because of a difference in taste. People who needlessly hog resources and create lag is another story....

I do agree that the citizens of SL should create zones for those that desire the same attributes to their region of SL. I am glad to see this happening. I am currently in the process of aquiring a private island to rent to 4 people who desire a lag/mall/club free environment. Residents who participate in this will get 1/4 of the sim, a telehub adjacent to their land, pay the exact same tier fee as they would to LL ($75), and pay nothing for the land. We are still looking for 1 more tenant to preregister, if you are interested PM me here in the forums or IM me inworld.

/me shrugs... In SL, like in RL.. buy the view.

Surreal

thank you eggy. but frankly, i think most of us would be a lot happier if ll exploded the mainland overnight. they'd quickly see most people/groups owning entire sims if they had complete control of the landscape and view. land would be selling like hotcakes and they could begin auctioning entire sims only. it would be a great boon for forced community as people would have to join groups to own land at all.

of course it would require that every sim have a teleporter. it'd be kind of like the www at that point wouldn't it. we'd browse from site to site sorry i mean island to island oh khamon what the hell are you talkin bout up in here?

Funny thing happened to me last night. The author of this thread bought alot of land from me I think he was protecting his view, and good he should he has a beautiful development in Ravenglass. Home rentals in the attractive woods sims. Great Idea maybe I should have thought of that. Oh yeah I did, Grizedale Plushtopia. <<< yet another shameless plug. Point is he asked what I built in Clunn then told me to read the forums. This was a perfect oppertunity to discuss the Clunn Build. I would have told him then that Clunn is a test. If you will notice its HUGE and the whole build is less than 300 prims. No textures where used in the build very few scripts and light objects. The design was accecented using only color and shades. The Plush Shops in front is built with the same princples. The idea is to maintain my projects while adding as little lag to a sim and or community as possiable. If you are a "Clunny" or a "Cliff Dweller" you will be happy to learn that it is not my long term intent to leave this build here and it will be avaliable for sale in the future. With that said whats next? Its telehub land. We all know the cost so what do I or a new buyer build there to justify the cost. A home? a Park on the mountain top? befor we start FLAMING a land owner (me) for what I build on my own land. Lets look at the fact that the buyers of the land behind me knew that this was a Hub sim and show me a hub sim in SL without monster builds. If anyone has any ideas as what the community may want or use in this area other than a vacant lot to maintain a view, Please IM me I am always open for new and exciting projects.

BTW if you took the time to read this, thanks.

Blue, while you're in this frame of mind, if you could un-terraform the land you sent upwards in Ross next to the waterfall, that would be great. Not the part that your mall sits on, but the area with nothing on it. Your neighbours will love you for it.

You brought this to my attention befor, and I see no reason why not. I didn't then either but, being the "Space Cadet" that I can be from time to time, I simply forgot. Will do this today and please forgive me for completly frogetting about this.

Blue, if you recall, my tenant, neighbours, and I were alarmed at this gigantic, glowing, neon-bright yellow box that you put on property in Alston adjacent to ours which was there for several days on land that wasn't immediately set to sale. It seemed utterly shocking. It seemed almost as if you were putting it there either to deliberately annoy, to devalue other's land, to force them to buy from you to protect their view and keep their tenants-- great concept, huh? -- or who-the-hell-knows.

My original purpose was to buy the adjacent land and remove the yellow cube. Then I saw you had cleverly perched the box so that it went over 3 parcels at once.

When I contacted you and politely asked you to remove it so I could buy that property -- it has a fantastic view and shouldn't be spoiled merely by a business that doesn't even face out to the view -- you eventually said it was a "test".

But how is anyone to know it's merely a temporary test? I wasn't aware that you viewed SL sims as your personal testing ground. Obviously anyone can build what they want on their property -- but when it is that big and that glowing or that intrusive, people are going to ask questions. We're all relieved that it's temporary -- but how were we to know?

In the case of the glowing yellow box, you were trying to prove some point about lighting and lag and prim numbers. Perhaps you could share the results of this test with the community. But next time you could also put a notecard in a gigantic ugly thing like that to say "this is only a temporary test".

Life in SL is volatile. Your temporary test in a giant glowing ugly yellow box scares away buyers and tenants in one day -- the duration of your test -- and then they don't come back. I'm sorry, but it's time for people like me to push back against people like you when you do that. After all, I have the right to do what I want on my property TOO : )

The same with that huge black monster in Clunn (where I have no personal interest). There is absolutely nothing on it to indicate it is merely "a test". Some people looking at it wondered if it was a test about volume in construction, etc. but you give no indictation. In fact, it looks like just one of your standard clubs or malls. What was the "test" here? And why didn't you indicate?

It's just that I'm not afraid to call you on these things, and your neighbours suffer in silence. As I pointed out, there is absolutely no objective need to put gigantic black legs from a monster building down into a pretty basin like that, ruining the property value of everyone else adjacent to make the prim test you wanted to make. It's just not being a good neighbour. This has nothing to do with "what you can do with a telehub sim". Everyone understands you can build a mall or a club in a telehub sim and those that want residences should find something farther away from a telehub. But that's no reason to impose a gigantic unwieldly and illogical structure on others. You claim your tests are for the good of the community, to build less laggy and intrusive clubs. But it was only this post that forced you to announce that, and on the way to doing it, you scared away many owners or even your own potential customers.

I wouldn't negrate over taste issues, either. I won't negrate merely because somebody has flutter in their building, is a newbie still learning, or has a taste different than mine. I personally can barely put two prims together so I respect anyone who attempts to build something. I can see lots of great builds that aren't to my taste at all, but I recognize that they took workmanship and competence and are pleasing to many.

That's not what I'm talking about at all, however.

I'm talking about big public nuisances -- a giant glowing yellow square or giant legs descending down into a basin, for starters.

I'm not trying to single out that builder -- and he builds all over the place and has a vast empire so I could hardly touch him with my little criticism.

It's more to make a point: can't we all agree what is a public nuisance damaging to the community's interest and take action? The action can range from polite -- and increasingly firm -- notices to collective negrating. It's a range of actions. Ingrid asked Burke once to lower that land that is an eyesore for the entire sim and has been for months without any purpose -- there isn't even a building on it! He didn't get around to it. Now finally in a public forum Blue is willing to end his "space cadet" status on that ugly terraforming issue in Ross and put it back so that miles of neighbours and their views aren't inconvenienced. We've all spent months looking at that monster -- but was it necessary?

I believe only by raising issues like this publicly are we going to begin to see some action, some more awareness of impact on the community, and some improvements in that horrible sense of frustration and helplessness that so many people feel in SL. I'm quite aware that on the way to doing this, I'm going to annoy people and not acquire friends but I think the results are worth it and in the end you will thank me.

Look at what has been accomplished already, merely because I was willing to speak out, and not just with a polite squeak but with the potential notion of conscious collective negrates:

1. A giant yellow square is removed from Alston.
2. We're on our way to removing a giant black building in Cluny with legs descending into Dowden.
3. The huge raised terraform in Ross is going to be lowered back to natural dimensions.
4. The builder will think twice before doing these kinds of things and maybe put in a notecard if it is a "test".

Add me to the list of people who'd like to see rampant building checked. I spent quite a bit of money to get my plot of land in Grishin, a steep snowy hillside that overlooked the sea. Most of my neighbors built pretty houses and such....I even had a cool walled German village built just next to me....life seemed good.

Then, out of nowhere, the plot next to me gets bought, the ski chalet there is removed, and this butt-ugly club building is plopped onto the place. And across the street an 'erotic arts' shop with spinning signs gets setup. So much for the peace and quiet.

I don't buy these people's excuses...it's just a test, nowhere else to build, etc. There's only one honest reason I've heard for people making ugly builds. My best friend built a nice little house out in the woods, with an ice pond and a small hot springs. Then, the land next to the back windows gets bought up, and down come 10 different gambling machines...a craps game, roulette, etc...just left out there in the snow. It looked like a Vegas Yard Sale. When asked politely if he could move his games elsewhere, the player told my friend that houses were "eyesores that do nothing to contribute to the economy". Oddly enough, the gambling machines were removed as soon as my friend sold his plot and pulled up stakes elsewhere.

There's a reason why the core concept of Sim City was zoning. Land use has an effect on the enviorment of the land...it doesn't matter if it's real or pixelated. It would be nice if we could figure out some means of building standards...so that we don't have to put up with the uglyfication muscling of unscrupluous players who'd like to see SL become one big shopping mall/strip club.

Lol

Too bad you cant look at some land's properties and click like an 'ignore' box which causes the game to not render anything on it. So all you see are the people and the land itself. Of course that kinda defeats privacy in some ways, but a thought. Or you could make it where it didnt display any people or items at all. Then you'd have privacy, all you see was land.

Thanks for fixing up the waterfall at Ross, Blue. looks MUCH better.

I have to give Blue credit on this one - most aren't so accomodating.

I LIKE this idea. Very existential.