Holy Crap!

I encourage everyone to speak loud and clear, the Lindens do not have a world without the residents and over time I have occassionally seen things done without regard to popular resident opinion, but in most cases I have seen that overall they listen. The Lindens know they have nothing left without us and it's important that they listen, so speak up and speak out.

My first reaction to this as a lifetime member is that I paid for lifetime membership so that I would not have to pay ongoing costs to play, I sometimes struggle to maintain my preferred lifestyle in SL, but I do manage it and I do work hard in world to make sure I can afford it. While the option to pay rl money for things I am not able to afford the $L to pay for (ie taxes on more land) is an attractive possiblity, having my lifestyle and current land/prim ownership that I have for so long maintained using in game resources now limited unless I foot $US is disturbing and dissapointing to say the least.

I also think this takes the whole game out of secondlife... there will be no more need for high scores, or leader boards as it could be considerred discriminatory to allow any scoring based on what your able to afford to pay LL for your in world lifestyle. Don't we have enough of that in our first lives?

I am with the others on this, we need answers to what happens to our current land and objects iw.

thanks to you too hehe

Every sim is approximately sixteen acres or 65,000 and change square meters, so you lifetimers will have an acre without a penny extra and no taxes on it. Thats actually more land - a bit - than I have now, so Im happy so far. it seems like the right thing to do in the way of resource allocations and gives newbs a fair shot at decent land.

i agree with you Oda, this kind of worries me, as i paid the lifetime membership because i can't afford to pay anything else down the road at all. Its the reason i signed up for Second Life in the first place. I'll just be patient until we hear more in depth of how this will affect things.

I'm wondering how this effects things like uploading textures will we now have to pay a fee for that as well?

Ok, anyone thats seen my land in Teal, is that over 1/16th? I'm not good at figuring these things out lol

Yes, 1.2 will bring changes. Let me mention some 1.2 facts that might get lost in the excitement:

- Developer Incentives. Yes, Linden Lab pays YOU. I know that this is a strange concept, so let me be clear. The creators and operators of the best experiences, content and services in Second Life WILL GET REAL US DOLLARS. The first $1000 is going out this week. We recognize the time and effort that goes in to making Second Life the unique world it is.

- Most of you will be able to pay less than your currently monthly bill for what you currently have. That's right, less US$ per month than you are paying now. Nearly all the rest of you will pay the same.

- Parcel-based allocation of objects makes for a better world. No more will a single user decide to lock others out of a sim by object banking. We are currently scanning the world to determine the right parcel allocations on a sim by sim basis to minimize the changes that you will have to make.

- You still receive a stipend. Even users who choose the one-time sign up fee will get a stipend if they use Second Life that week. This makes it even easier for you to bring your friends in to Second Life to visit events and special parties.

- There.com asks its users to spend US$ to buy Therebucks. Second Life users will convert L$ into US$, first chances to buy land, and more.

- We are not reseting the world.

Please keep asking questions and reading through the email. There are a lot of changes and we've been working hard to make sure they are the best changes for you and for Second Life.

Cory

ok, what are you guys thinking over there at LL, seriously... are you trying to kill SL?

Paying more to play is not an option here. So.. now i'm gonna be punished for being broke in RL & SL? See, that was the great thing about SL, its a clean slate.. you can start over in a way...

Now, from the looks of things.. unless i'm well off in RL, i can't have what i want in SL either. Merry Christmas to all!

dunno about you guys but i'm ready for World of Warcraft =P

The reason I baught a lifetime membership was also because I can't pay out monthly/annualy, having to do this for more land kinda botches the point.

I think this is the reason alot of people baught the lifetime.

I've loved this game very much for the month and a half I've been playing it and this all makes me very sad. In game objects/real estate should not be affected by real world cash. I don't want to think everytime I go over a large plot of land that av has got lots of real world cash. I like to think they earned that land in the game through their creativity and relationships. This will probably destroy the game for me. So if the Linden's don't change their minds I'll likely be saying bye to you all. I don't have a trigger finger though so will see how this turns out. It's been such a wonderful game.

this is clearly going to be a situation where some are very happy and some are not.

the 1/16th sim grant for lifers is great... if you *had* the option to become a lifer.. which i didn't.

<whine>ive worked hard since i joined to build a good reputation and perfect my building skills to create things that are nice to look at and people want to use. now, unless i want to pay through the nose for it, all of it is gone.</whine>

im not complaining on a non-lifer vs. lifer stand (as there should be some kinda perk for being in the game early on), its just unfortunate that those of us who work our butts off and didnt have the opportunity to buy a lifetime membership, well, sorta get shafted.. and not in a warm, slickery shafted sorta way either.



lindens... hopefully you'll see all of this and come up with some answers soon.

Hell I WOULD have already bought the lifetime if I could afford it... (currently not working.)

Mark me down as 'unsure and apprehensive' about the new system. I'm willing to give it a chance, but if SL turns into There, I am SO outta here. I'm a bit nervous about incorporating RL money into SL's economy.... from what I've seen so far it shouldn't be too bad... here's hoping.

What about other changes? Havok 2 and the UI changes that were rumored for 1.2? Any word?

When does this begin? If the world isn't changing how is additional land allocated if you decide to say .. go for the 40/month subscription? .. are new sims going to be added or are the current sims going ot be enlarged somehow so they contain more space?

What is the $1000 based on? I'm pretty sure I'm not getting any of it but does it go by the leader board? Amount of events you host?

Folks ,

I dont really have time to play Sl any more. However I am sure if you saw a bill for the bandwidth the server uses you would understand . I do want to point out that a lot of Sl users brought this on themselves ! If you go back and READ what they are saying it will make sense .

See what prim banking and land hogging did ? It will bite you every
time !


Question ? I have a quarterly subscription. When Do the new rates take effect ?

In addition to buying land from other users or parcels that are for sale, as new simulators go online you will have the opportunity to bid on new locations.

Yes, 1.2 also has substantial UI improvements. Havok 2 is not in this release because we have instead focused on viewer frame rate improvements, especially for situations with large numbers of avatars in view. Parties will work much better now!

Cory

Coincidentally, I returned to There this weekend for the first time since early summer when it was still in beta. I was shocked at how sparsely populated it had become, and how very few of the hundred plus people on my buddy list seemed to have converted their beta accounts. I would be very interested in seeing what the retention numbers for There subscribers are; I'd be very surprised if they weren't awful.

I'm sure there might be several reasons for this, but the single overriding complaint that I continually heard while i was there, and also the reason which drove me away from the game too, was the facility to buy inworld currency with RL money.

It might be economically expedient in the short term for Linden Labs to head down this path, but once you introduce a hierarchy within a game that's dependent on RL wealth, you run the risk of alienating everyone but the most wealthy of your customers, and that can be very dangerous in the long term.

I would hate to see SL go the same way as There. Or worse, have to merge with There.

So many questions. I'll answer what I know. But first, the main thing to understand is that the vast majority of people will be paying the same or less than they do today - including lifetime members.




If you mean the monthly plan, you would get somewhere in the neighborhood 1024 sq. meters plus any other land credits because of your current status in SL.




Forever. The one-time sign up fee will only apply to new residents. Current residents are exempt.




Prim limits are enforced as a ratio of your land to total land in the region. For example, if you own 1/10 of a region, you get 1/10 of the region prim limit.




The UI will have indicators you can read.




Group land will be temporarily exempt and will stay as-is until we finish group owned land controls.




4096 square meters. A 4x4 square meter plot (the default 1-sqare selection if you grab public land) is 16 square meters. So, the current lifetime members will be able to have 256 of those without ever paying a single US$ ever again.




The land will reamain yours as long as you have enough land credit to maintain it. The vast majority of users will be paying the same or less to maintain what they currently hold.

What possesed a LINDEN to divide Olive so that there was a 1/4 sim plot (Baby Sim as it was said) when changes like this were just around the corner. What a wonderfull wedding present we thought, Yes we paid Linden bucks for it, hard earned Linden bucks !!!!!

So how do 2 lifers keep a 1/4 of a sim? Bare in mind that I am an unemployed guy.

I got a chance to play There.com (does the CEO really know Philip, is he working for SL now?). I fundimentally dissagree with the sliding scale subs. It really does feel like the RL rich can have it all and the poor guy gets just what life dished in RL, how is that a second life?

What is the point of making Linden Bucks? What do you do with them now, you don't need to pay taxes? why sell stuff?

It negates all that SL stood for, a virtual chance to put aside RL and make something and have a business empire of your own.

Also where was the disscussion on this? It came like a bolt from the blue !!!!!

Will we be complensated for what we lose? will that be in L$ or US$ ?

Please answer. I am sure I am not the only one wondering this

i like the prim allocation part. i think that really will work better for everybody.

i do not like the variable rate for additional land owned beyond the basic subscription allocation. if i understand properly, we can own 1/4 acre for our base $9.95 a month then pay more for land owned beyond 1/4 acre. frankly, i'd rather pay the property taxes in L$.

granted, they are taking the "game" out of it and turning the world into a creative and intellectual community. some projects, such as SLU, will thrive in this kind of atmosphere. others, based on the current economic and L$ only model will not.

my prediction is that second life will become very much like first life. people that play for escape and roleplay and such will drop out to be replaced by people wanting to exchange artistic ideas and information. did we used to call that the world wide web?

Yes, we are introducing real world money into Second Life -- we are giving it to our best creators, entertainers, and developers! Where There.com forces you to pay US$ to do anything, Second Life is giving you the option to turn your hard earned L$ into US$!

Yes, you will be able to spend US$ to buy extra land, but for the vast majority of you, you will be able to own as much land as you do now, or more, for the same amount that you are currently paying. If you decide that parites and events are your cup of tea and that you don't really need land? Then you can pay less than you are paying now -- you could even drop to paying nothing per month but still be a Second Life resident!

However, if you've always been aching to try your hand at a truly massive build, but full simulators and neighbors that you don't like keeping you from trying? Well, for a reasonable amount of money, you can give it a shot -- if you create something that is great, Developer Rewards could pay for it!

Cory

Also, for sims that are largely owned by Linden in order to keep open spaces, the parcels will actually support extra primitives in order to allow the user built prims to approach the simulator limit.

So, if a sim is 50% open space, the parcel that covers 1/10 of the sim will actually get 1/5 of the objects.

Cory,

This is the part that I don't quite understand. If I'm a lifetime member, and I own over 1/16th of a sim right now, how am I going to be able to "pay what I'm currently paying", which is nothing?

As I understand it, 1.2 only allocates 1/16 sim for a lifetime customer. In order to own more than that (whihc I do) I have to sink in more US $$?? If I would have known about that at the end of Beta, I would have never bought into the lifetime account. It seems more like a 'limited lifetime trial' in retrospect.

-Bone

Does that sould fair to you? so if your lucky you get to have more than others in prime allocation.

This is not very well thought out

What this means is that players can't get ahead in-game by doing well in-game. Players can *only* get ahead in-game by having lots of real-world spending money.

What this means is that the many months you spent earning L$, and therefore land, through your in-world efforts is now worth less, because you can only use L$ for clothes and objects.

On the bright side, you may have to part with your hard-earned quarter-sim... but think of all the nice outfits you can buy with the L$ you get when you give up your land!!

Exactly! This takes all of the fun out of SL for me. Essentially, my fun has been capped. Unless I sink more US $$ into the game, as a lifetime member the most I can ever own is 1/16 sim with a 1/16th prim alottment.

I have nothing to work for or towards, because the best I can ever do is my alottment of land and prims.

And as far as the Linden's paying out US $$ to their customers- that's all well and good. But I came to SL to relax, build, and have fun. RL is the rat race, SL was my place to hide from all of that.

-Bone