Down with the LCC!!

All this talk of creating a system for point-to-point teleporting has had me thinking. It has been stated by a Linden that they are evaluating the impact this would have on telehub landowners. These people argue that these areas are "community centers" Most of us would agree that is a false argument. The percentage of people who hang around laggy telehubs I am willing to bet is a very small number.

Most these people are not worried about the community. The land value was inflated in these areas on speculation. I know its not their fault if people are willing to pay that much money but the fact is the large land holders made a lot of profit in these areas. They continue to do so also, I have watched one particular land dealer buy and sell the same piece of land about 4 times in the past 6 months. They keep flipping a profit on the same parcels. A never ending cycle of buying low and selling high.

I have had more than one parcel of mine drop in value because of stuff I could not control. I’ve had casinos, clubs and malls block my view, and make the whole sim laggy. This makes lots of us small petty landowners stuck with land that becomes worthless and useless. Do we get protection? Has a Linden ever stepped in and told a mall to please move to a private island because I was being forced to sell my land at a loss?

If Direct Teleportation makes SL a better place for the majority of us, and 95% of us benefit. I don’t see why the other 5% should be able to impact a decision because of land value. Who controls Second Life anyways?

FIC??? Forget about that fairytale of a conspiracy. The LCC is very real and has got protection more often than not. The Land Controlling Core is the real people who control the Lindens and have the power of the USD to pull strings like a puppet.

But hey, this is all just my opinion.

*grabs popcorn*

You make a lot of good points there.

I would just add that new players, when they land at a telehub, find Linden freebies there. I remember I did, and stocked up! (I enjoy being Frog Princess every so often.)

Then there's the issue of if they ruin the large land holders and sellers, that might have a deleterious effect on the economy at large. And seems to me like people worship the economy more than anything else in the game.

As for the large land-owners being so favored, I've seen lots of decisions not going their way. Anyway, things that affect all of us are qualitatively different from things which are open to only a few.

What would be wrong with keeping the telehubs and still having point to point? (Not that that would solve the problem of those with land near telehubs.)

In all my reading, I've never quite understood the answer to that question.

coco

Amen.

Good post.

-Ghoti

Cocoanuts, I agree with you. I like the idea of having both. I am also for a small fee per direct teleport, maybe $L10?

10 quid for a tp? u must be joking..I'll fly first

A ten for a direct teleport. The current hub system would still be there for your less rushed travels, with what Beau just proposed.
Getting you to choose to fly first has really always been one of the many points of having telehubs.

I'm having a crappy day at the office today, so if I'm not my usual happy-go-lucky pup-self, I apologize.

This whole p2p telehub drama du-jour is really grating on my nerves.

Its not because we're having the discussion. At its root, it is a good discussion to have, as it affects everyone - and certain folks have very strong feelings about the issue. Discussing it is a productive way of coming up with creative solutions to the perceived problem.

What I don't like - is that certain people who are very emotionally involved in this issue, are choosing to intentionally marginalize the people who might be adversely affected by this change - in order to lend more weight to their argument.

This is being done *instead* of trying to find compromises that - if each side was willing to give a little, might make the world a little better for *everyone* involved.

Yep, I know - that's standard fare in American politics. But I thought this was Second Life, where we don't have that crap. Ugh - there I go.... naiive Travis again.

For those of us who get little or no L$ because of the one time fee - charging per teleport sucks.

I'm for point to point travel with no fees attached.
I don't like wonking into halfrezzed things at teleport hubs when I'm trying to get somewhere.
Especially the ones that seem to cover and overlap them.

I have no problem with a fee for a fast TP, but land owners and group members should be pemitted to travel for free.

SL could use a another money sink, this would be a good one.

Travis, I am not saying I think anyone deserves to lose money. I am saying LL needs to think what is best for the world, not whos land may be worth more or less L$. Most of us have all had land that lost value.

The whole reason they will be losing money is because the same people (in most not all cases) are the ones who priced it high enough to earn monsterous profits anyways. So why should I have pity for them?

Besides, I think the sollution I support is a fair comprimise

Sure... I can spend what little L$ I accumulate on teleporting instead of supporting the artisans I like in SL.

This would work out well for me. Probably most older players wouldn't ever have to pay.

But if I think about who is mostly likely to fund this money sink instead of what works for me,...No, a system which exacts fees primarily from new and basic players seems unwise.

I've almost always used friends to teleport me directly somewhere. If I can do that without having someone else send me a tp, then that would be better.

SL isn't an immersive experience -- it should focus on access rather than travel. At least IMO.

Travel if you want, but instant tp is far more efficient. I could care less about travelling to point B unless I'm in a whimsical mood and feel like it.

Access, access, access.

Hubs might've just been a limitations of the times, wether technical or policy based is of little consequence. Change for the better, not for the interests of individuals.

.. but yeah. Just my 0.02L$ on an issue that seems over-dramatized to me.

First of Travis I agree with you.

Second it is very easy to get around the telehub tricks as I do it all the time and ask for TPs 1 out of every 10 I do. I went out and bought these great pair of scripted mechanical wings that let me travel at up to 50 times normal flight speed. If I want to get somewhere fast I just turn up the speed, fly up, and fly over. When I get near my destination I turn the wing speed down. Problem solved and if the new system came online I'd probably do the same thing.

Well said, Beau. I don't see why protection should be extended to one sort of business because the SL climate changes.

That's the risk of doing business.

Here is my idea of a compromise to the TP issue:
Keep the current Telehub system in place as is, perhaps add a few more telehubs to ease the transition while possibly increasing local land values.

Implement a point to point TP system using an idea like this:

Land owners can have the ability to have customers, guests, or members TP directly to their land parcel under these conditions:
1. They would need to have a "mini" TP hub, like 1 or 2 prims created by LL on their land.
2. This mini TP hub would come with a price, either a 1 time fee or a weekly fee like how the find places is set up, let's say $50 just an example(or both). <--- There, mini money sink and PTP TP in one
3. The land owner can only have 1 per parcel per sim to prevent TP hoarding and system overload. This also prevents them from dividing land into smaller parcels just to have a TP there, perhaps a minimum size parcel for a TP unit too, say 512 to prevent a super tiny plot just to have a TP unit there.
4. The land owner fails to pay the fee each week, the TP unit fails to work.
5. The land owner cannot charge for PTP TPs, you want the feature on your land then you pay for it.

Just my idea of a PTP TP system that comes with a price. In theory, popular places would get more popular due to ease of transport. A voluntary system that could ease a landowner's pain of distance to telehub but like I stated it comes with a price, so not everyone will either be able to do it or it may not be worth it to them to buy into (ie small shop with low sales)

IMHO, I think the telehubs are outdated and overvalued. I avoid them at all costs due to lag. I prefer to fly using a craft or get a direct TP from a friend. When I do use a Telehub, as soon as the PGUP key responds, I fly up and outta there, I don't even bother waiting till it all rezes out because I did not TP to look at what is around the telehub, I TP'd to go to a specific spot from Find Places.

Great idea, I do like that even better than the idea of $L10 per direct teleport. Store owners get what they want, money sink is created (though it wouldnt be as much as a per TP) but most importantly, new and baisc players that have nothing but weekly stipend are not forced to spend extra money just to get somewhere.

Has this idea been posted in the main thread on this topic? I'm too lazy to read all those pages.

I like the idea of a mini-hub, which shops can pay for.

I'd like to toss my backing to the mini-hub idea. Free "surfing" for the traveler, adds a sink to the economy, and further carries the like-the-web analogy, we pay for the content hosting.

Sorry to skip backwards but in rereading this thread, I just noticed this paragraph Coco.

What decisions have not gone their way? They benefit from the auction changes. LL has stated they are trying to make the mainland more appealing to compete with private islands, this is a win/win situation for land dealers. And now they can maybe impact a decision on direct teleporting.

I am not saying your wrong, maybe I am just ignorant to things that didnt go their way. Can you please tell me some?

I seriously doubt that telehub land owners are worried about the base value of the land. That's their talking point because it pulls at our heart strings and hides the real issue. Telemall owners are protecting their newbie milking business model.

Every month newbies join Second Life. The first thing they want to do is set up shop and try to sell things to make money. The best apparent place to do this is of course at a telemall.

So Josephine Newbie rents space in a telemall, pays the rent for a month, realizes that she's not making any money there, and moves her shop to another telemall. It likey takes her several months to reach the conclusion that she's never going to make money just for having a shop in a telemall. Meanwhile, hundreds of other people have joined the wonder that is Second Life and begun setting up their teleshops thus replacing Josephine, and her generation, who've sensibly abandoned their false hopes.

Now telemall owners can hardly explain this in a way that makes them seem anything other than money grubbing warts on the face of The Grid All Hail The Central Grid. Instead, they've sensibly keyed on this "value of the land" rhetoric. Don't fall for the trap of arguing compensation for the devaluation of telehub land. It's far from the point.

This train of thought is what annoys me more then even the points that Travis pointed out. Why is that YOU know what is best for the world and for Linden Labs? Has LL ever done something that is not good for LL or SL?

What's best for the world might be not scaring away everyone who wants to make a significant monetary investment into SL.

So you're saying if I visit telehubs I will not find senior players selling content?