The Empire of Ice Cream

I think it's fair to ask; when will we be assured some permanence in SL? The game is long out of beta and I'd like to be able to confidently build something intricate and not have to worry about the next patch forcing me to remove or remodel it.

Every time the world changes, the most prolific are the hardest hit. Will this occur again with 1.2.5...then 1.3...and so on? This ongoing exercise in resilience is exhuasting. SL will never take on the continuity of a world if this continues. May as well turn the whole grid into a sandbox.

One of the few benefits of being in world longer than the other guy is maybe you've had more time to perfect and detail a build. That, however, has turned out to be a liability for me.

100% AGREE! Twice now I have had to totally start over. And frankly, I'm about ready to give up on rebuilding all together. The game is far from out of beta. Should we be paying to test the system?

** deleted **

The amount of time and effort some people put in their builds should not be squandered and I am pretty sure LL understands this and goes through great pains to keep things up for us, but I agree permanence would be a damn good thing.


Neil

I dont think these changes would have been made were it not neccesary to do so. Clearly a lot of situations were at a critical point, prim counts and land availability being two big ones. The changes they have implemented solve that nicely- just like many many ppl have been asking them to do for a while now.
It tests a build (and builder's) flexibility when these changes come around, yes, and that can be frustrating. But i think it is worth remembering that sometimes, if we want an SL to be able to build ANYTHING in in the future, sometimes these things have to be done. Its awful that it affects the creations people have worked hard on in world, but remember that LL is doing this so that we will have a better and more fair system in the long run.
I dont recall LL ever stating that the world and its systems were fixed and would NEVER change. Thats a promise we've never had, and maybe thats a good thing. It keeps the world dynamic, always changing, and room being cleared for new people and thier new ideas and thier new creations. that doesnt mean there isnt or shouldnt be room and consideration for builds that have been around a while, but it does mean that everyone, builders newb and established, will need to be dynamic as well.

I just visited my store in Aqua and checked out my land to prim useage. My prims are about double what I am allowed and most of my stock isnt even out since I have not had time to check for flaws since the last av change.

While I am not disputing the need for change I do feel a little frustrated at the fact I now need to redesign my store.

Sure, I can make it look like it does now with texture (and get the flat cardboard house look) but I would not be satisfied with that. Part of marketing is image. My store has had the same or similar look since its inception and now I have to undergo a radical change. I'm not feeling happy about it. I'm even considering just taking it down.

Yes, LL needs to adjust to make itself poised for success and no thats not too much to ask... BUT I also dont think its too much to ask that we want to know if and when the dust will settle.

MJ,
as a fellow store owner, I understand completely where you and the others are coming from. I too am in the process of reorganizing a business, and I too have had to pull down a build that was very very close to my heart. Yes its frustrating, and even worse, disheartening.
There needs to be a middle ground on this. my point, which i admit i waxed verbose on, was mostly that if we are going to ask LL to accomodate and plan around pre-existing builds, we need to be willing to meet them halfway. Of course, considering the short notice we had to prepare for such a HUGE change as what has happened in 1.2, i dont think it is unreasonable to ask LL to warn us farther in advance of these upheavals. a BIG tip for LL in the future would be, PLEASE cease from doing this to us around the holidays. Its a busy enough time as it is, I dont know what circumstances forced them to do it at this timing, but i personally feel that the timing is a huge complicating factor.
This was far far from a seamless and transparent transition. Im hoping the next one, when it occurs, will include lessons taken from this one on how to move to a new system, or improve upon the old one, with more minimal upset to the current residents.

Second Life will always be an experiment. If you want continuity, try Everquest.

I bet if Linden Lab was worth as much as Microsoft, SL would still be in the beta stage. We'd be at version 0.6.7 and the final would be far off.

What you have to keep in mind is that Second Life is the first MMOE of its kind. If every sim could support a billion prims and thousands of avatars at once without even blinking, SL wouldn't have implemented the idea of money in the first place and prim limits on land wouldn't be an issue.

Basically the old economy was not the solution and LL is trying to find a new one. Nobody can say for sure whether this new one is or isn't what we need and a large percentage of the population is up in arms about it, but with the old system, things would have become much worse anyway.

As far as I'm concerned, one of the greatest things about Second Life is change. Maybe that makes me weird, but I don't care.

I Like Ice Cream. Baskin Robins Gold Medal Ribon is the bomb.

SL is a truely dynamic game. Not only is the world forever changing, but the rules of the world as well. I think it is part of the experience to be expected, even anticipated. Permanance is not something I think should ever be a part of SL.

Ama while I can agree with you in spirit on this, (and yes I have many sided feelings on the issue if I appear to be contradicting myself by agreeing after I just said I was cranky about change) I have to note that LL appears to want to support people running businesses here in SL. If that is indeed a fact, buisness owners are going to demand a certain amount of consistancy.

If I had not been trying to run a shop I really wouldnt care either way. If my shop were a real one, between the losses pre protections, the changes to inventory over av changes and now the need to rebuild, I'd be bankrupt.

YES this isnt real life, yet. LL seems clearly to be trying to make the crossover to combining RL & SL commerce. To be a success they will need to have some stability.

MJ, if you need to pick up some more land in Aqua so you can support more prims I'll be releasing the land my store is on in the next few days. Since I had to go up to the $40 tier to keep what I had, I ended up with more than I had to start with... so I'm moving the store to the land vacated by Av Central and expanding it. If you'd like the other land let me know. I really hope Aqua can stay a shopping sim to blow the new shopping sim away

And to anyone else (if MJ doesn't want it) I'd love to release the land to someone I know will put a new store there.

I know it's off topic -

But it's really nice to be in a MMOE with people literate enough to title posts things like "The Empire of Ice Cream".

B

Thanks Chip. Being one of the first makes it hard to pull up stakes. I'm trying hard to get creative about the situation. I was over 223 prims and am now only over 79 (I think). It meant putting even more stuff away but I have something in the works to get it all ironed out. I cant even play on my lot with building design since Im over prims.

I dont want to own a huge plot with a modest store on it, that seems silly. Im trying to figure it out and still have a decent looking shop on a modest amount of land.

I am eager for some shop owner to really make use of the 'Temp on Rez' feature to have the items for sale only rez when needed and go above and beyond the prim limits set. And I just wanna know how well it really works.

I feel your pain MJ. Hope you get something figured out. It wouldn't be Aqua without your store there. I'm trying to figure out how to do more with less too. I don't like the idea of putting everything in vendors since I think the "everything visible at once" approach is better for the customer, but I might start moving older stuff into vendors.

And Tcoz, I feel yours too! I so couldn't stand to have to tear down my house that I just decided to pay for the damn thing. I think my house and I will be having a love/hate relationship from here on out

It sucks Ama. Presently, it's a ghost factory. If LL can finally solve the ghosting problem it will work better.

I can't reconcile the creator's intent of "build your own world" with "nothing is permanent".

If there is no permanence, why not a big sandbox world.

Forget taxes, ownership, any kind of stake. Just freeform creation that you either inventory or lose.

Jerry G. is dead. The wall is down.

Hallejuleh. * repeat *

i truly believe that the new economy is based partly on the fact that LL needs more money a month to operate. they've closed the lifetime option (paid off the current players), implemented a one time fee to attract people (advertisement), and converted land taxes to RL$. they are obviously trying very hard to vastly increase the size of the paying community. people with life accounts aren't included in this part of the equation.

i say "partly" because i also think they're trying to manipulate (to strong a word?) us into building less on larger sections of land so that the world doesn't seem so packed. it's very unattractive and overwhelming to a new player for every square meter of a sim to be covered in build. the lag such places cause is enough to make potential people decide the world is just too much for them to fool with.

I just read this line...

"SL will always be an experiment. If you want permanence, try EQ".

No. This is a business, offering a paid service to the public. Not a voluntary university experiment. We are paying customers, not beta testers. These are professional service providers and game developers, not scatterbrained computer hackers. They have thrown their hat into the arena of professional online gaming services, not onto the network of Comp. Science lab 103, located just down the hall past the bathrooms.

Since there are no pre-designed objectives, we have to depend on emergent practices to really see where SL can go. If the game is in a permanent state of flux then it will never realize its potential. If you think about it, the general player practices in the game haven't evolved at all; people are still pretty much doing exactly what they were doing in beta. They just have less builds because the system keeps taking stuff away.

Look at it as an objective customer, not somebody that has been associated with the developers since early beta.

So for the sake of SL, the "forever experiment" had better be uninformed. If the potential of this game ends at exploiting the API and tools in exerpimental builds until it's time to redesign once again, then it's fun the for the developers, not the players looking to put a stake in the virtual ground. Which, incidentally is what we are told we can do.

** deleted **

The only constant in SL is change. No one has ever said anything about anyting in SL ever being permenant. You signed nothign that said it would be.

The general consensus I'm seeing in this thread is that it sucks that people cant use more prims than would be a fair alotment for the land they hold in a sim. I feel no sympathy.

*I* am a bloody prim whore. I know it and accept the new limitations. There are way's around them.

Gwd,



I disagree that this is the general consensus. The main point here isnt prim hogging but rather getting some sense of normalcy so builders can plan and execute. To make a plan that you have to abort and replan on a consistant basis is a drag.

I'm making adjustments as needed on my build and inventory. I dont think I need more than everyone else. To have to redo something thats already done (and lose sales on inventory that cant be out in the meantime) is counter productive, and just plain not fun.

As stated before if LL wants people to have businesses inworld, constant change does not support that.

I stick by my remark that the only constant in an evolving world created with an evolving system is change (or Anywhere else for that matter but meh).

That fact leads to the understanding that some times you will have to ajust. Trust me I experianced this well before 1.2 as have many others.

Remeber the Giant Angel I created, It could be seen 2 sims away almost. I loved it. I had to take it down because it was costing to much.

I lamented it as did others who liked it there. But I understood that If i wanted to do other things (or just not go broke) it had to go. So it went.

Why would you want something to stay the same way forever anyhow? Change is good. Change is art. Change is the oposite of entrophy which is NOT good for business.

Because you can't build on your past works. That is why. People who spend a lot of time and energy building something just to have it destroyed shortly thereafter aren't likely to build much more. Change is fine. But stability is necessary.

Personally, i feel that Change is one of the big draws to SL. Change is what keeps the world going, keeps it fresh and keeps it alive. It's good to see a great looking build, to just sit there and look at it (and for us builders, try and figure out how the person did it). But if you look at it long enough, it can get dull, even ugly. As humans, we are prone to want stability, but only as long as we can stand it. After a while, seeing the same things, looking the same way, doing the same things can get dull and boring. When I first joined, i was amazed at the all the builds i saw as i was flying overhead (which few people ever do anymore, because teleporting is so much easier, and costs nothing anymore), so there is no point to having truly permanent builds. Most people probably won't ever see them because they don't fly to their destinations anymore, and if they do, they probably won't stop or slow down just to see your little prim swan or house.

I understand where store owners are coming from, wanting to plant somewhere to sell their wares, but honestly, i don't think a big elaborate shop with your 50 prim columns are really all that necessary, beautiful yet, but once again, unnessecary. Why use 50 when you can use 4, sure, it may look a little flat, but your trying to sell clothes or things, not columns. And i think vendors are great, sure, i have to sit there and wait for the image to pop up, but i don't mind because i know it's saving about 10 prims that would normally be out in a box that i have to wait for the image to load anyways. All i'm saying is, focus more on what your main objective is, to sell things, and not trying to make this beautiful large shop. You can't have it both ways people, because the world isn't perfect. RL, nor SL.