Omg They Did It!

Mmmm, alright. So we are not allowed to enter this second grid?

So who will sell things to the teenies and do business there? Sounds like Linden Lab is going to protect the dishonest business people from competition by honest business people. All the market to those who can talk little sister to sign up one account for them. Sounds like paradise for the Paris Parks of the world.

Or did I get something wrong here?

I think teeny grid sounds nice. But making it "inaccessible" to adults really looks like some kinda prohibition that only produce more cheating.

And, yes, once some teenies have smelled the soup in teenie grid they will inevitably try to get to main grid, if only to sell their items and services to bigger market. Honest teenies will have to stay in the playground while dishonest teenies will make the big $$$ in main grid using mom's account.

The more I think about this the more I think Linden Lab are blue eyed if they believe this will not lead to one big flood of teen sex whores and burglars on the MAIN grid. But what we don't know we don't care about, right? So lets all enjoy unknowingly make cyber love with pretend-to-be-adult 13 year olds who came to real thing after bored in the "teen grid", which should rather be called "teen tutorial grid" then? After the lawsuit get filed by one mom or dad we all wake up then. Fun fun fun!

And 17 year old teen must leave all his/her friends behind and move to main grid when reaching 18th birthday? And what if boy friend is 18 and girl friend is 17?

Mmmm, kinda not very optimistic about where this idea will lead to...

Talen, I know that personally I'm not adverse to a seperate grid for teens but, I am against it at this time because LL already have their work cut out trying to nail down the serious problems that have got worse with their technology, the growing list of bugs and half-assed implementations and the obvious understaffing of support that leads to such poor response times on support questions it's laughable. That's why, at this time, creating a new SL for teenagers is going to lower our level of customer service a lot. They're not advertising for new Liasons on the LL site (apart from the International Liason position) so it stands to reason that the Liasons and support will be working on both grids, spreading them thinner.

SL does have to grow, you're right, but it is growing at present. How will you feel in a few months time when this new grid has been a reality for a while and LL responsiveness has fallen even further, when we begin to realise that we're seeing the demise of any sort of customer support at all simply because they're increasing their catchment but not increasing their support team accordingly. It's going to take a lot of policing, and however immature we feel many of the residents are in SL currently, the teenagers will be even more so and demand more of the Liason time in being policed - we stand to get the very raw end of the deal unless new Liasons (and we're talking many more than one or two here) are employed straight away and dedicated to the teenager grid.

I fear that the timing couldn't be worse. The platform is in such a mess right now that I cannot help but feel that this is a mistake that will bite LL back.

I'll have to disagree with the idea until I know more on how they will prevent any crossing over from teen to adult and vice versa. Though, we are told now that they will have no access, what about in the future? I can almost picture the day when CNN is reporting about some kid who ran off with a 40-year old guy she met in an online game called Second Life. As for behevior...well, we don't need teens here to have asshats or griefers...adults do that quite well on there own.

*edit below

...and to piggy back on Mooph's points: if they are under staffed in CS at LL at the moment, don't you think there will be even more reports to CS (in addition to the ones from us) coming out of a grid of teens?

Umm yeah, we had a town hall about it.

Hmmmmm

It's Official, they finally lost thier collective minds.

I guess this means that they are willing to raise rent to subsidize the following.

Lawsuits against pedifiles found on the kiddie grid
Lawsuits from parents sueing Pedifiles and LL for letting the pedifiles on the kiddie grid

More Liasion support..figure 1 liasion per 35 kids...thats gonna eat up an 8 mil budget real quick.

Less Customer support for the 18+ crowd on the main grid.

Oh I love this already..ty ty ty may I have another.

Shadow

I do agree their user base has to grow, but why not first start with actively advertising SL? So far they haven't while that would attract many more players. Instead they run the risk turning SL into another TSO or some sort of first person shooter.

There goes LL again. Wasting time and resources on things not related to the main grid. *sigh*

i have a 13 y/o son who loves to look over my shoulder as a create/explore this world. He badly wants to be part of this but I have firmly denied him access. I think this is a great idea that I not only will be a blast for him to mingle with his peers but he will learn a lot of great things that will be of great value when he is older.

Hell, most my programing knowledge came from writing Punters and Bots in AOL when I was in college. Imagine if I had this to play with as a kid?

Mmmm, Beau, could I hire your son to help me take over real estate market in the teen grid?

I have a feeling at least 10% of the Teenworld population will be older and curious SL players. We'll see how things go.

How are they going to sign up for the account--with whose credit card? And what will happen if they recklassly buy a bazillion acres of land using mommy's credit card without asking? Dun-dun-duuun.

As long as they never, never, never, never come into our grid - I don't care.

Well Rose in all honesty a lot of them are already here...

True - but it's not the Lindens legal responsibility because if they are here, they are formally in violation of the TOS. To be truthful, the kids don't bother me at all, it's their asshat parents who will inevitably want to change the content of SL "for the children".

Wouldn't that opportunity cost analysis imply that they are spending resources on the main grid?

I just hope the "kid-grid" uses the same asset server - it could use some exercise. At least Devlin will finally be able to play legitimately

I understand why LL would have the desire to open up SL to teens. SL is a world of creativity, and teens are creative too.

My concern, however, is an increase of griefer activity on the adult grid. We all know that there are already teens in SL that are operating under an adults' credit card or account. Opening up a "teen grid" just entices teens to visit the "taboo" adult grid, much like making alcohol or pot illegal entices teens to consume it. I strongly believe we will see an increase of "stealth teens" on the adult grid as a result of this decision.

Granted, griefers are of a wide age range - so simply being a teen does not make one a griefer. But my point is - LL is expanding SL to a wider audience, and we still have not been provided with anything to handle grief other than simple land tools, and some basic scripting calls that could open one up to an abuse report if not used with great caution.

My concerns would be virtually eliminated, however, if LL were to roll out enhanced anti-grief tools for landowners in tandem with the opening of a teen grid. This would make me happy.


Travis

I give it one week. This is a big big mistake.

The only reason I would say these things about teenagers is because a) I was a teenager not so long ago, and b) I've played in virtual worlds where most everyone was a teenager.

We were all teenagers once, yes? It would be silly to discriminate against something you are not or have never experienced -- such as being homophobic, or racist. The difference here is that we all KNOW how teenagers act in video games and MMPORGs, and some of us have acted similarly when WE were teenagers.

The great thing is that we grew out of it, sort of. Even if you're a nice person as a teenager you still feel this weird pressure to talk like everyone else or ally yourself with a certain group. That can mean that even if they really are delicate blooming flowers on the inside, they're still annoying pain in the asses at the moment, and while I like kids, I also enjoy chilling out however I want to in SL without feeling the need to police my language or clothing or whatever.

So there's my answer. I lived through it, I know how it is, and I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, but more power to them all the same if they want to screw up their own grid. K thx bye.

So.....while the majority of SL's current player base is playing on older servers, are the teens getting the new servers?

This could be a disaster, but a lot of great content might come from it too. It could possibly be a refreshing break from the strip mall / club / casino wasteland.

Here's a suggestion that might solve some concerns:

/13/cd/29406/1.html

Ok. I picked other. hehe.. Here is why:

THE BAD FIRST: The only real thing I'm worried about is this draining resources and time from the Lindens that we here on the 18+ grid still very much need. If they can balance this, fine, but I'm wary right now as I know they work with a small staff.

THE GOOD: Well. I agree that SL needs to grow. As long as the two grids are kept totally seperate, I am fine with this. They *must* stay seperate though. I think most who would sneak into the 18+ SL already have or would when they found us whether there was a teen grid or not. I do think though that something in the TOS should state that if anyone under 18 is banned because they snuck onto the 18+ grid, then they should also be banned from the younger grid.

SL is not the type of game that appeals for long to your average teen gamer. I can forsee a lot of teens who love games like the SIMS and Teen Chat Rooms coming into the younger SL grid. The hardcore gamers are going to get bored and delt with on that grid just as they would on this one. So I think overall, the quality of the teens in the younger SL is going to be similar to the quality of adults we have on the main SL.

Those are my opinions on this issue.

I have a concern about this;

What would stop some adult sl players from sneaking into that grid and taking advantage of the new kids?

Cat

Muwahahahaha!

I would say not a thing. Of course, I'm sure LL has looked at how some of the other teen online only games handle these issues. Those worlds do exist and are popular, so they must have figured a way around this. That takes me back to me being wary about the Lindens and their time. And of course, people like me who come from a gaming background, it is actually rare to find online enviroments where there are not teens and adults mixed. It was one of the great appeals to me about SL. A chance to be able to be in an online world that could have mature themes if it wanted.

They need to focus on this grid not some kiddie version also.
They are getting greedy!!

My guess is that the "seed money" recently infused into LL was done so on the premise that LL open a kiddie grid. So long as the two grids do not cross over, I think that there are ways that we can benefit from this provided LL uses the funding to bugfix/feature both grids.

Also - oddly enough, some of the minors in SL now may decide to move to the other grid to be with people closer to their own age.