Fed up... bailing out

I am tired. When the Lindens decided to stop support for events, thought "no big deal". Didn't affect me all that much, and thought I could offer hosts the same amount as the Lindens; that there would be more events hosts available. Then they mess with the calendar so that the hosts I do pay, can't host as much as they'd like. No problem, will split up my land and deed it to a group of hosts, problem solved.

I wake up the day AFTER splitting up the land to find that after 2 months of being in the top 10 traffic listing, I have dropped to 26. Well, a few weren't able to host events when the changes were made (without notice) and things will be back to normal tomorrow.

Next day, have dropped to 43rd place! We had about the same number of events that we always do, traffic was typical. My first thought was that it must have something to do with deeding my island land. The Lindens have said that this is not the case. If I am getting the same traffic as I always did, but drop 40 places I can only assume that this new system has certainly benefitted someone else.

Then I began reading a thread posted by Blaze Spinnaker in hotline to Lindens. Apparently Island owners can now "sell" their land and have the tiers paid directly to them. So, if I have an island, I can split it into 120 parcels of 512m each, then sell them for $1L. I can then collect $10 (US) per month from the residents and collect $1200 per month while it only costs me $195 a month. $1000 (US) a month profit, not bad.

But what is this going to do to the land prices? I have lost my ass on every piece of land I ever bought due to "adjustments" to the economy. While Ansche is collecting her $1000 a month, will she also get developers incentives?

I am all for competition, but these constant rules changes that seemingly benefit one group or another at the expense of everyone else are getting to be a drag. The peoples voice in here doesn't count for shit. SL is a social experiment for Linden Labs. They want to dictate what is "fun" and what is not.

At this point the only form of protest I have left is to sell my Island. I have a wonderful staff, and recently they have shown more support than I could ever ask for. Many of them also depend on hosting and the lindens associated with it to enjoy SL. To all of you, I am sorry. I told you all in a meeting last night that I was going to take the island off the market. I didn't lie to you intentionally, but even more has happened since last night and I am just fed up and tired. I will miss all of you, and wish you all the best of luck.

Patrick Playfair,
Elite Island, Club Elite

This sounds all too familiar to be honest.I can see Lestats following you Patrick, the only reason we've stayed open is for the staff and regualrs who have a pretty strong community there but I'm not sure how much longer we can stand the tier.

Just wanted to say you have my complete sympathy and I understand how you feel.It will be sad to see Elite go and there isnt anything to add to what you've already said because I agree 100% with you. No amount of petitioning LL has made a scrap of difference so it's time to sell up and move on.

Good luck Pat.

I'm only asking because I'm genuinely curious...

Is there going to be an 'Islandsplosion'?

How many of you private sim owners are close to throwing in the virtual towel?

There was much speculation that clubs would close en-masse after the Linden event support changes were enacted.

Are we seeing the second wave of industry-wide liquidation/consolidation?



btw: I'd be happy to buy any club equipment that closing clubs would like to cash in.

Sorry, no implosion. Except maybe the explosion when I refund all of the vendors and apartment dwellers. I am sure they will all feel screwed, but I will only have a few days to warn them. I don't blame them, I would be upset too. All I can do is refund their money. I hope that they will direct their wrath at the root cause of all of this, mainly the anti-user policies being deployed by Linden Labs.

I don't know how many are throwing in the towel, but not many are buying new Islands. With the exception maybe of the land barons who want to exploit the afore-mentioned means of making $1000 a month on tier while dropping land prices to $1L per m.

I'll be throwing the towel in at the end of the Numbakulla project, not because I'm not making money out of it (I've never been interested in doing that) but because I'm just not happy spending any more cash on this system as it currently stands and my enthusiasm is close to nill. Not sure it will be an implosion though (which is what I presume you mean?) as there appear to be lots of people willing to pick up an island for less than buying a new one to do their own thing with it. That might not always be the case though, I suppose.

What we are seeing is Linden Labs getting out of the land business and turning it over to Ansche and a few others. I don't blame them for taking advantage of it either.

Here is what I predict. "Land Baron" will own 10 islands. He/She will collect $1000 a month tier on each of them. He/She will also get all the traffic from those 10 islands, therefore collecting all of the developer incentives.

This means that developer incentives will no longer go to CLub Owners (or builders, or scripters, or game designers). They will go to whomever owns the land, eg: land barons.

I'm asking to guage the despair level in private sim ownership, so the specific reason isn't so much the goal, but I'm glad you elaborated.

I don't really want an implosion, but I had to wonder out loud how many feel as you and patrick do and want to sell their islands.

It's disappointing things aren't working well Patrick and urge you to also x-post to the thread started on 1/3/2005 -


Tiering Down, Scaling Back?


_/_/

No, I know, I just felt like giving a reason The private sim is something I wished I'd never gotten in the first place. When I decided to sell all my other land in October and stop developing and selling, I couldn't bare the thought of wasting all the money I'd paid for the island, so decided to do something with it for the community, hence the Numbakulla project. For me, when I finally do unload the island that will be me finished completely with SL (at least for the foreseeable future), as the island and the project on it have the only things keeping me here. So I suppose I don't fall into your despair level in private sim ownership, I'm more a despair and lack of interest in SL as a whole candidate

I know what you mean. The two things I love most about SL are the Island itself, and the people associated with it. I will miss them dearly and will probably not find SL much fun anymore. To be honest, I will be ashamed to show up anymore. I have been flooded with pledges of support from my staff and customers, and I feel like I am abandoning them. But I can't beat the system, and as long as the types of "social engineering" that we have seen lately continue, things will just get worse.

I cannot understand why the Lindens cannot trust the residents to create their own society. There is a wealth of talent out there, and people CAN have fun when left to do their own thing without roadblocks being thrown up constantly. Using SLingo and CLubs as an example, sure there are people who hate them. But their existence is not infringing on their ability to do other things. Why wipe them out? It is OBVIOUS that LOT's of people enjoy them. Just seems like bad business to eliminate them.

This even makes things MORE frustrating. I have always been under the impression that popular places was based on dwell on individual parcels, and that the TRAFFIC listing (leader board) were based on dwell obtained by a particular land owner (ALL of his parcels).

Well, it is MOSTLY right. The TRAFFIC listing is actually the dwell that goes to DEEDED owners as well. So, now that I have deeded my land, the daily dwell payments are split up amongst the group. I am told however that the DEVELOPER INCENTIVES will still go to me. Well, I have been using that leader board to judge how I was doing on the incentives. There actually IS NO way to determine how I am doing on incentives.

I decided to sell my island based upon what the leader board was telling me, and because I got no explanation from the Lindens (not any that made sense to me). It is too late to back out of the island sale. Regardless, the system is still screwed up anyway, I am not going to change my mind now and just come back for more.

I think this about sums it up.

Anything you accomplish in this game will be achieved by trying to override this horrid social experiment.

And your other very reasonably cry:


I couldn't agree more.

I struggled and struggled to try to get across to the Lindens in the meeting with Pathfinder Linden about the zoned residential sims the problem with their dwelloper awards. They ask seemingly sincere questions about how to promote residential sims or planned sims of any kind and groups.

I tell them they have to fix it so that groups can win dwelloper awards, and not just the high tier-payer and the deeder or however it works.

They just can't seem to get this. The don't have respect for groups. They admit the need to fix the group tools regarding land, but they don't want to fix it all the way, or have workarounds now, because of their "socialist" vision. I can't explain it any other way.

You're right, they ARE doing a social experiment, and they aren't creating something in a liberal market economy. My expectations that they were "normal" in that way have been dashed. I see time and again how they tinker with social engineering and just slam and undermine anyone engaged in business, althought they're happy to apply the rules of capitalism to themselves.

I used to think it was an accident. Now, after the meeting with the Lindens at Pathfinders, I understand it is a conscious, deliberate policy based on their ideology, which isn't fully articulated, but which shows all the earmarks of the usual socialist utopianism of the 19th and 20th centuries, which have been discredited in RL.

They haven't done anything to show me anything to the contrary.

The one thing I could say is that incentives, like "socialist competition" are in fact theme songs from socialism. And ideally, we'd dump them. But what we have is a way of constantly hobbling people who in fact *do* go around or do without the socialism. Now that you are required to hold events on land you or your group owns, and forced to draw down the menu from that group, capitalism and fun are hobbled.

The events menu, the awards systems are all ways of hobbing the natural innate tendency of people to devise their own fun and find ways to pay for it.

Drop to the one time fee (already covered by any payments you've made) and just never log back in... or very rarely... It's what I did.

Hi, I'm new to Second Life and I just want to say that I think it's so cool you have a free market and have these kind of problems to worry about.

It goes without saying that I don't understand most of this. But it is depressing, giving me more of the feeling that I have just come in on a game that was fun and is starting not to be that much fun any longer.

I get this feeling because of two things which have bothered me since I started the game two months ago:

1. The dropping of subsidies for events (and the recent further tinkering of who can post events and how often).

2. What looks like turning the game from what was us and Lindens - i.e., we buy land from them and pay tier to them - into us and a few rich and powerful players, where we buy land from them and pay tier to them, and they control how we play. In other words, instead of playing SL, we play Ansheland, and she has all the power.

Nothing against Anshe in particular - I just use her as the most obvious example, but there are and would be others. Now I myself live in a place where I "buy" land from the owners and pay "tier" to them, and this works out well for me, since I'm a basic account. However, insofar as this sort of thing may feed into the evolving of the game into something run and controlled by a few rich players (and it may not be the same thing; as I said, I don't understand this stuff), then it is not a good thing.

The system as it's evolving seems to me to be more and more favoring a few rich and powerful players, so that eventually, they will be running the entire game. And from what I can see and understand, it's getting harder and harder for the average player to achieve any kind of visibility or success, in terms of his establishment and events, while it gets easier and easier for the large land-holders to gain a monopoly on all forms of success.

Course I may be totally wrong about all this, but I'm just giving you my impressions. In any case, I hate to see good players providing good services leaving because the system has been tweaked to make it impossible for them to continue. That's an obvious imbalance.

Like I said, I don't understand this stuff at all. But from what I've seen and understand so far, it is depressing as all get out. And if this does get to be playing Ansheland, with little people and new players and/or people without a bucketload of money to leverage the game with (and an interest in doing same) having no real way or incentive to succeed, then I would play it no longer.

coco

It is the forums that are depressing, not SL. There have been major policy changes in SL since it's inception. With every change we see the 'sky is falling' drama on these forums, don't buy into it.

Go play SL and enjoy yourself.

I've been in SL since December of 2003. I hold events on occasion, and with the assistance of two close friends own a sim's worth of land. I've never asked for Linden support in events, never received a dwelloper's check for anything I've done. Dwell has been modest at best, and we're not exactly accussed of being feted, even if we try deliberately to be feted.

So how's been my enjoyment of SL been throughout all these changes?

Let's see.....never had to worry about being top of some list....never had to worry about if I'd get a paycheck from LL. I still hold events, create stuff, etc....still doing quite well. I bought my land at varying prices, ranging from great to awful. Overall, it's been enjoyable, fun, and never boring. Not bad for only seeing a Linden once a year.

If your definition of fun in SL is being rich and famous (Linden event support, dwellopers cheques and high dwell), then it's no wonder you're not having fun. Your definition of 'fun' is dependent solely on the Lindens keeping policies in place that benefit you, and only you. Sounds like LL shook you from their proverbial teat, and now you've gotta fend for your own success.

Welcome to what the 90%+ of the rest of the SL population has to do - you know, make their own money, doesn't get the dwellopers cheque, find a way to enjoy SL that doesn't necessarily means winning some vague popularity contest. Become part of what's called the 'player-contributed' community, rather than being of the 'Lindens sponsored' community.


- Newfie

I fend fine on my own. I am more concerned about those I socialize with in SL than myself. As I understand it, you are saying that I am motivated by greed. I will let those who know me in game make that judgement on their own (which you do not).

.

Right, and which Linden did you tell me you were?

I have no idea what motivates you in SL. However, it certainly *appears* (based on the above posting) that your definition of fun is dependent on dwell, top lists, and dwelloper award cheques. If that makes it look greedy, then I would say yep, your 'fun' is my 'greed'.

As for these others you're being concerned about....they weren't mentioned in your post. Perhaps you can elaborate?




To which I wonder....why then post about it in a public forum? Why bother to say anything in a format whose targeted audience is the entire SL population, wether they know you or not? If you are only concerned with the opinions of those who know you in-world....perhaps you should talk to them in-world. But if you post in a public place....you really should expect the public to post back.


- Newfie

I've read some bilge in my time in these forums but this post deffo takes top prize.

Tell me something Newfie - how the f**k does sinking $200+ a month into something and not making ANYTHING back other than the fun of bringing people together on a daily basis add up to us having to make our own money you moron?

WE NEVER MADE MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU JERK


So many of you people just dont get it do you? People like Patrick & ourselves did this for FUN - geddit? FUN! With all these ridiculous policy changes that LL have made we cant afford it anymore - now is that simple enough Newfie or should we go back to ABC's?

I've contributed more to this community in the last 9 months than you'll EVER know & so has Patrick, and Jenna Fairplay at the Edge continues to do so.You oxy morons think that clubs are just places where people go to win prizes and dress up - you just CANT grasp the fact that each club is a thriving community can you?

Am I pissed? you bet I am! I've seen enough posts from jerk-offs like you, who dont have the first bloody idea what running a club community is, to last me a lifetime.

I've seen people dying of cancer,people get married for REAL,thousands of wonderful people from all over the world and all walks of life meet up every single day to be with their friends,I've seen much heartbreak and much hapiness,a ton of drama good and bad,had people make their first clothes & goods and sell the at our FREE vendor spots and countless new players make it their first home in SL before moving on to other things.



I'm already a part of it thanks - how many players are in Second Life at this moment in time that YOU started down the road m8?????

And you know what? I never made a cent.

SEE? you dont have the first fkin idea do you?

Sure. I am talking about those who enjoy having a place to host events, and to earn a couple of lindens so they can buy some of the things they want in SL. It IS a consumer based world (have you noticed the number of malls around? People aren't GIVINg it away). The ones who want to use my land to do so because they don't have land of tehir own. The ones who want to host Slingo or a Costume contest because they consider it fun and enjoy the socializing. The ones who are being told that what they consider fun is crap, and so are being limited even further on their ability to do so.




Actually, I didn't post here to gather opinions at all. I posted to voice my own. But I have no problems with people posting back. I can respect anyone's opinion, even your own. I don't have to agree with it though.

.

The point I made was that if one's definition of 'fun' depends on dwell, dwelloper incentives and being number 1 on some list, then you should not be surprised if that bubble ends. For every club/place/etc that gets these items, there are a hundred that dont, and many more that do not even aspire to. But guess what, they apparently seem to get along having loads of fun without needing to be the biggest/richest/most-popular.




I would suggest you do a little research. Hear of a club named Punany? I wasn't owner (and heaven forbid I didn't want that responsibility), but I donated hundreds of hours myself helping the owner in trying to promote the success of that place. The community that cropped up around that club still exists, long after the club itself went away. If anyone knows how much blood sweat and tears it takes to keep a club running successfully, it's myself. Then again, I never cared much about my name being associated with the club, basically because I did it for fun, not for recognition or awards.



Me too. Some of it was in clubs, much of it wasn't. All of SL has that history, it's not unique to yourselves. That's where the fun comes in, not in being rich and popular.



That might be the key difference here - I never bothered to count them, I just appreciated each as they came and went. I concentrated on having fun, not winning an incentive cheque or climbing to the top of a popularity list.

And if we're talking about cents...then what does it matter if the Lindens aren't sponsoring, or if one does not get a monthly cheque from them? Or what does it matter then if one isn't #1 on some list while they do it?


- Newfie