Reaching a Population / Infrastructure Balance

I've used Second Life on again off again for a while now, and everytime I log in and run around I feel alone. The land to person ratio is extremely low over a large percentage of the territory. There's no incentive to replace stuctures with better stuctures over time, generally improving the overall quality of the world over time.

To introduce a world that strives to evolve itself. I recommend a test server where land and the objects built on it -decay- over a short period of time, based on the amount of population it can maintain on average.

Think of it as a PvP server where there is more risk and reward, verus a PvE server where everyone is satisfied. In this kind of system I believe the population would come to an balance with the infrastructure built to support it. If a part of town becomes derilict it decays away. The point is all the tiles are directly connected so the city is continuously expanding or contracting in whatever direction.

Setting a goal for a -vibrant- metaverse may turn some heads if accomplished successfully.

You are right when you say that there are really not many population centres of people in SL.

(With the exception of the awesome Shelter of course)

This job used to be served by Telehubs and such but now everyone seems to be off doing their own thing, locked in their private sims like they're locked in their own bedrooms.

Giving people incentives to keep their lands populated isn't the greatest way to increase land to person ratio. In order for this to happen, the average resident has to be targeted rather than Land barons.

Just because a land is well maintained and constantly changing doesn't mean the hordes will flock to see it, and even if they do, it's likely that other lands are going to become sparsely populated as a result.

Not everyone can access the World all the time constantly, having objects that degrade isn't necessarily fair to those with RL commitments who'd like to know their builds are still very much alive.

I think the land to person ratio problem will be solved as time goes on, population is nearly hitting the 1 million mark and should do in not too many months at this rate.

It's not that there's too much land or too few people, they're just concentrated in certain areas.

Look at the Popular Places tab...that will tell you where people are spending their time.

Pretty much if you want to find the people, go to the casinos, places that give away "free" money (camping chairs, dance pads), and all the sex places/clubs...that is where the majority of your population is hanging out. *a few exceptions are sandboxes, welcome areas, newbie places, and combat areas* And people hanging out in these places generally do not care about evolving, or improving the quality of the world around them. People in these places are into self gratification, and are just self absorbed.

Most people do not look at the big picture, they just see their little piece of the puzzle and are happy with that. They don't think about the future, they just think about right now.

Make friends, and then invite them over to your place.

Or, invite them all to some nice place at the same time.

Don't spam them.

The population may be 1 million, but there are only about 10,000 max logged in at a time. Accounts are free and last a lifetime, even if you never come back.

The feeling of emptiness is what struck me most as a newbie. I'd been on Help Island, which was busy and bustling, then I left for the mainland and found myself in what seemed like an empty industrial area. I started exploring and pretty soon I found empty sex shops, empty pet stores, and an empty Gorean town. It was really quite creepy. If I hadn't been determined to experience SL, I probably would have logged out and gone back to FFXI.

In the end I set up my home in Svarga. It has an aliveness to it even when there are no people around, and there are often a few people there anyway.

I'm not sure how to fix this. More public parks might be a good way. Places, like Svarga, where anyone can go and that LL protects. They could recruit residents to be park superintendants.

For example I see that Svarga's owner is moving on and selling his island. If he doesn't get a buyer, will he just delete it? That seems like a terrible loss for SL. It's his, so LL can't keep it around if he really wants to delete it, but perhaps LL could have a buy-back plan for exceptional sims and turn them into public parks. That way we won't lose amazing content as it becomes too expensive or time-consuming for the owner to maintain.

We could teleport people to the parks when they leave Help Island. It'd be a much softer introduction to SL than being sent to some empty swampland at night, as I was. And because everyone would know about them, they'd become a gathering place to spend time and relax.

Try A Tale in the Desert
Newbie Island population: Thousands.
Rest of the ENTIRE desert population: 16

After finishing the tutorial and TPing to the main grid, I was lost, confused, and lacking a skill REQUIRED to continue on the main land but not required to leave the island, yet unatainable on the main land. I ran around for three hours looking for people. I found two, niether of whom were willing to talk.