The Big Prim Problem

A lot has been said about their annoyances at extra big dimensions.
But I think it goes back to simple stuff : the limit size of the original building block (10x10x10) was too small ...
So like one of the other comments posted, I'd have to say : MAKE THEM LEGAL ... up to a certain size that allows builders to build and stops annoyers to annoy ...

The Good: "Mega Prims" are good and useful. They make building large (legitimate) structures much easier to do. I like them and use them. What with the prim limits on parcels, it's much more reasonable to use "Mega Prims" to keep the total number of needed prims down. And that's great for building.

The Bad: "Mega Prims" can and are abused by some. But that does not mean we should punish the legitimate users. If someone comes across a prim that is crossing a boarder between sims, and thus interferring with their movement, that person should right click and report abuse and let the Powers That Be (PTB) deal with the offender.

The Ideas: We can build effectively enough with a 50x50x.5 prim when building large structures. But how often do you need to cover a whole sim with a single prim? However, it may come to pass that that is exactly what someone wants to do with their sim, in creating a huge skybox/club/mall. That would save them from using a plentitude of 50x50x.5 prims.

The real issue is not the lack of a good reason to have "Mega Prims". It is an issue of dealing with abusers. We're all supposed to be adults, so we should act like responsible adults and use the "Mega Prims" with care, and when we are confronted with someone abusing them, not just building and it crossed a border and that person is going to move it, or remove it, report the abuser via the Help drop down menu, "Report Abuse". It should be noted that we can send in a screen shot by clicking the correct box, and that you can "attach" the prim in question to the report.

I own Trivia Playground at Six Minute Hill.
If you get rid of megaprims - I'll have to lose our bull, our hot tub, our piano bar, and possibly our cannon, just to keep the walls and the dance floor. And I can't give up our walls because some annoying idiot (who hasn't been back to her land since February) put 3 disco lights on her open property! My prim limit is at capacity now with the use of megaprims. So where does that leave me? Take away megaprims and you'll put me out of business.
And for the record - I am on everyday at least 5 hours a day. Since April - I have not seen
4 of my neighbors, 3 of them left in the middle of building (one has a monstrosity that hasn't been worked on since April!) and haven't been back. And one of them has a house with sex poseballs in it - that is quickly becoming a newbie attraction, and is frequented by at least two escorts and thier John's. The Playground is mature land and I'm engaged in sl so I'm not a prude, but who needs to see that.
I use megaprims just to keep my members from having to look at the crap that surrounds Trivia Playground. And I pay a tier to do so.

I have a limited capacity to pay tierage on the land I own so I buy what I can afford. Linden labs are not overly generous with their prims so, to me, prims are more valuable than money. I built a sky structure that measure 60m X 80m and had 40m tall walls. I used 18 large prims to do it. Had I used 10mX10m prims it would have required 224 prims. So now I have prims to make things inside my sky box and render it more useful than an empty box in the sky. I have used large prims ( 40m X 40m X .5 m amd 20m X 40m X .5 m in other projects on my land and have saved even more prims that I can use to make the place more fun and livable.

My question is Why are there always people who want to punish and hamper the innocent for the rude, crass behavior of a very few? Is it so hard to track down those who misuse larege prims and ban them? Why punish the innocent? Why make me tear down a lot of my building efforts because of a few jerks? I hope this is not the solution to the "problem."

Elaine Bennett

Theres alot of things in SL that people use unknowingly that are an exploit, such as invisiprims, are you all for getting rid of them too? Putting countless shoe makers and AV makers into grief?

Plus show me how they effect the servers so bad that they're annoying the heck out of people, and I'll show you a sim using regualr prims with the same amount of lag.

Like I posted before, to the extreme of physics using mega prims, the race track I created was perfect for the conditions. Loading time was improved, considering there was less prims to process (Even though there was 1000+ mega prims). Again, its how you use them.

Theres a considerable amount of things that Builders and Scripters use to get round the restrictions of their limitations. People that say - get rid of them all, they will have to use better techniques to work around the oversized problem - is crazy, theres no other way of creating a 20 x 20 or 50 x 50 prim, that cuts out using 25 prims for a 50 x 50 m area.

I've been using mega prims for over a year now in my sim, and theres alot there, creating a city on a platform that could not of been done otherwise.

Is it laggy? a little yes, but thats because theres alot of detail, a mass of prims used in small areas and 70 + textures to load... Go to other sim, like a famous shoe brand in SL *naming no names* and because all the REGULAR SIZED prims have been used in a small area, it lags, but yes, the physics are good *Rolls Eyes* that is, if you can walk (I'm not critisising the build btw lol I love that sim).

I have never been encroached by a mega prim, but I have been encroached by trees several times. Let's get rid of those rascally trees too.

I am the owner of three of the FurNation estates and as far as I can see things, Megaprims have had alot of issues regaurding them with the use/misuse.

Some see them as a problem while others see them as an asset. I have been reading through this thread and everyone seems to agree that the 'smaller' of them have a conciderable benefit while it is largely agreed that the gigantic ones are a significant problem.

So what would be a solution to make everyone happy? Here are some of the good points I have seen:

Significantly cuts down on the prim count a building will take up.
Allows for platforms to be built high in the sky basicly allowing owners to build a sim on top of a sim.

And a couple of the bad points:

The oversized ones can cause line of sight issues.
If the center of the prim is out of draw you can't see the prim on top of your head.

So what would be a viable solution to take the good and the bad points of all of these away and what do we do for the people that currently put them to use?

Destroy all the current Megaprims over 40 meters cubed.
Increase the maximum size of prims to 20 meters cubed.

It seems that this would be the general agreement as it is currently. When thinking about building you have to take into concideration the person living and dwelling on the smallest generally accepted mainland parcel ... the 512 meter plot. this plot is 16 meters by 32 meters. So allowing them to make a 16 x 20 prim gives them a floor that would normally take 4 prims thus saving them three. Also hollowing it out above that saves them another Seven prims. Then the roof again saving them three more. And this is for the most basic of builds. So 16 prims turned to 3 which is a net gain of 13 prims. Doesn't SOUND like much but when you are talking a parcel that allows 117 prims total that's a VERY conciderable change and would allow the land owner to make their home far more decorative.

Moving on to the larger builds and having the ability to make flat walls and cathedrals. Increasing the maximum prim size to 20 meters would give builders a HUGE oppourtunity to make more and more detailed structures to truly make the entire game even more beautiful then it is.

And that is my official two cents.

~Corsi Mousehold
FurNation General Manager

I am currently using the 20x20x0.5 version of the mega prims as border to blot out unsightly neighbours buildings not in keeping with my own, having purchased the plot covering 1/8 of a sim and paying $40 for the prims it causes me great dismay to have to use so many normal prims to cover a 160m high 60m wide sky scraper built on the edge of my property, for this reason i have built a wall and covered it with a background picture, I made to stay in keeping with my own buildings using the mega prims mentioned above.
This has still used alot of prims but i did not want to use something of a silly size that would make my plot as much of an eyesaw to others as my neighbour is to me.
It seems to me that linden labs should enforce sensible usage of these prims, but as my above example shows they do have a place and acceptable use within second life.
I would like to see them stay as they use a quarter of the prims a standard sized prim wall would have required on my land for the size I required, equivalent to a saving of 72 prims which as we all know is a lot of landscaping.

It may be worth mentioning that I have made mine phantom and transparent on the reverse so they cause no affect to any one else but me.

Here's the problem: people have legitimate uses for prim sizes all the way up to the largest they can possibly be. If you check a few posts above yours, you'll see a user who has a 65535m prim.

65535m! They can't BE any bigger because of the limitations on the integer size!

If you want to cut down on megaprim (or just about any) abuse then go back to requiring CC or cel phone info for account activation. Then you could have a better chance of tracking and banning abusers and actually making it stick!!

No one pretends there are actually 6 million individuals in SL anymore. That marketing ploy's usefulness has passed.

I ve used a 60X30X1 for ground and two 60X1X1 and two 30X1X1 as a fence for my garden. I used only 6 Prims instead of 36 prims !.
I think number are speaking by them selfs and I think its not acceptable to forbit these kind of prims because you really "kill" builders by limiting them at such a small sizes as 10X10X10.
I ve seen marvelus places and I got really sad looking the builders to try to save prims by cutting many details or even limiting their constructions.

I would say YES to Huge or Mega Prim and no to abusers.

Let the people create !!...

Owner of the 'Southern Star' Steamboat,my builder used several 'mega' prims in building this huge riverboat.I see no reason why these big prims should be banned,when,used properly,make outstanding builds.I am NOT for the abuse of such prims,because they can cause problems when used for the wrong reasons.(and i'm not gonna be real fond of ANYBODY taking this boat apart) !!

Clearly Megaprims have a huge peaceful use in SL. I personally have used them to create a lake to sail radio controlled ducks on. I can't see any other way to create a seamless area of water using normal prims.

I think the issue is not Megaprims themselves but the way certain people have taken to using them for abuse. In this case even if you remove Megaprims people will still find a way to harass and abuse others. It seems such an ingrained part of the way some people use SL that they will find a way to grief and abuse regardless of what features are available to them.

If Megaprims are to be removed perhaps LL need to think of a way to provide the same functionality in a fully approved feature.

And while we're on the subject...YES to tiny prims without prim torture. They are vital to detailing builds but it is most annoying when you can't re-size an attachment because it's got some tiny prims on it.

So in my humble opinion LL should leave Megaprims in SL, improve the harassment reporting process to deal with those fools who use them for grief and implement better tiny prims.

Or while we're on the subject how about a complete re-write of the building interface to include booleans. (oh how I wish)

I say limit them to 64m per side, but let new ones be created at the exact size people need, maybe open object creation up any increment size up to 16m, then in 8m increments beyond the 16m limit up to 64m in size.

It would solve a lot of the unintentional encroachment issues and would make them more valuable to players with smaller plots of land or water.

I can't imagine may uses for a prim bigger than 64x64, except as a platform or barrier or some type

I would have to agree, huge prims or a feature that second life citizens would be hard pressed to live without. All the problems we face with these items, or not the fault of the prims themselves however. The real sticky point here is where, how, and who uses these prims. The way I would handle this use issue is very simple. I would limit the use of huge prims to paid members only! This limit could be done on a square root basis of the property area owned by the landowner / member.

Example: If you owned a 512 plot of land the sq root of that lot size is 22.6 sq ms. (rounded down to an equal# 20X20 sm prim.). (A sim owner would end up with a prim size of 256x256 sm).

To regulate boundary issues, you could use the old carrot and stick approach. If your builds encroached on another’s property and they filed an abuse report, you could lose (temporary or permanently) your rights as a landowner to use your large prims. Best of all, the trouble makers (non paid griefers & other freeloaders) get it in the end!

I think they should be allowed, with size limitations. A 65,635x65,536 prim serves no real purpose. Also as with any other method that can be used to greif- manage the greifer, not only the tool.

I think that LL should get rid of the mega prims and allow us to build bigger prims. We should not be limited to 10x10x10. maybe a 20x20x20 or a 25x25x25. I get tired of messing around with the mega prims since half of the time I can not rez an object on it.

You cant realy say megaprims are bad and should be removed most rely on them due to the mast shortage of prim's common ppl are alowed even builders as my self can agree wen building big projects its a helpful thing to have , tho it can be misused in the wrong hands and thats the same with everything ., if you agree to have it banded and remove then mite as well remove secondlife alltogethere and every one can just go back to WOW lol
thats how silly it is

the most used mega prim is a rectangle. why not make a custom shape that's a resize only cube(no morphing) that has no size limits. this also allows you to take what is supposedly bad for the physics engine and allow any special interactions that you need to get it to work better. saves on bandwidth loading only one prim that only features an 1/8 of the data of other prims, instead of a bunch of prims.

Certainly should consider setting size limits on big prims! 50 to 100 meter max should allow most builds to stay in place.....my neighbor has a HUGE castle....really adds to the overall appearance of the sim and causes no problems! The beauty of her structure is due to big prims....eliminating ALL big prims would eliminate such builds. Advanced noticed allowing time to replace builds with big prims that would be eliminated, is of concern and may have an overall effect of interest in SL by many residents. SpyCat Wheeler

Clearly a blanket removal of megaprims would break huge numbers of builds and it would take SL a very long time to recover. Whilst removing certain of the more problematic megaprims might constitute an "acceptable loss", it's frankly too late for a blanket removal. Even an a tacit acceptance thus far of megaprim usage puts Linden Labs in a position where they are largely stuck with them.

If Linden Labs are serious about solving the megaprim "problem" the only real choice is to depreciate their usage by giving builders access to tools that make use of megaprims in future builds less obviously appealing. Quite simply there are some major gaps in the utility of the current standard prims. The issue of covering large flat areas is the obvious and much referenced one, and could easily be solved by allowing larger prim sizes.

Although the Linden Labs profit model does to a significant extent depend on selling prim counts, the need to cover large flat areas with 10x10 prims isn't really helping anyone. Profits for LL depend on user created content to generate an inviting environment for users, and if builders are wasting large numbers of prims on floors and walls, it cuts down the amount we can use for detailing. Allowing a "wall" prim class might be a good solution here - limit z to 1 meter but cut loose on x and y. People would be unlikely to want smaller prim counts because of the introduction of such a prim -- but they could construct more attractive builds.

There are however other uses for huge prims than walls. Perhaps further special classes of larger but functionally limited prims could be introduced for sky domes, for example. Allowing much larger sculpties, which of course are relatively simple spheres without dimpling/cutting shouldn't be too much of a problem either.

One thing however that does really bug me about the current SL primset is the issue of curves. It's a peculiar limitation that the current primset discourages certain architectural options, and gentle curves are one of those. How do you make a wall with a curvature of 20* of a circle for example? With current prims, such a curved wall can have a circumference barely better than 1.5 meters, which is pretty useless. You can finesse such structures with overlapping near curves, but the results are imperfect and it's hard to do. Alternatively you can create curves from multiple planar tangents but this makes for prim-heavy walls, and with prim count being the basic currency of builders that discourages complex curvature in builds. Alternatively to get that 20 degree curved wall at just 10m you need to profile cut a hollowed megaprim cylinder of around 60m diameter. Perhaps if those "wall prims" could be given a radius of curvature property?

I've seen a lot of good suggestions, like only allowing megaprims on owned land, which I think is a great idea.

I agree with everyone else, they should not be banned, in fact, I hope it will be made possible to create new ones! How often did you encounter a situation where a megaprim would be perfect for the job, but sadly the right size isn't available? Perhaps an option to enable in the debug menu, with a warning message that megaprims don't work like normal ones? That should keep questions from beginners at bay.

Also, about the overhang problems, I suggest treating objects overhanging as if they were on both parcels at once. This way, if the owner of the other parcel has a problem with the object, it can simply be deleted just like all other people's objects on your land. Perhaps a land option to not allow them, so neighbors can make deals about what to allow and what not to.

As for size limits, why not simply limit the size to the parcel size they are on? Or perhaps let size be limited by overhang settings only, as said in the last paragraph. In stride with one of the earlier replies, perhaps size should be limited to contents. 10x10x10 = 1000 cubic meters. So why not allow prims with a maximum content of 1000 cubic meters? For example 1x20x20 would be possible then, and widely used.

One last thing: getting the physics engine to properly handle hollow megaprims would be awesome. Think of the possibilities! Houses made out of only a few prims would be possible! Swimming pools made out of 2 prims!

Are you referring to the 256sqm megaprim? or the 65535sqm megaprim?

There's no legitimate reason for any prim to be larger than 2048sqm. Anything larger is pure waste.

Draw distance maxes out at 512. The moment you're close enough to see the edge of a 2048sqm prim, you're too far from the center to still see the prim anymore.

Not that anyone should ever need a prim large enough to cover 8x8 regions, much less something that would cover 256x256 regions (like the 65535sqm prim would, if it could).

Well, after skimming the various results, let me give this example:

*pulls out .40cal pistol and lays it next to keyboard*

I regularly carry a firearm, much for the same reason I wear a seatbelt... not because I expect to get in a life threatening situation, but because I want to survive one. Yet, people kill with guns. Many argue that just because guns can be abused, they must be entirely outlawed... and people would just start using knives, or strangling each other with seatbelts if you prefer something more ironic. If people want to kill each other, rocks and sharp sticks suited our ancestors just fine. Getting rid of firearms will not end murder.

How does this relate to SL? Well, I keep seeing over and over on the blog (and various other blogs) that people think their potential for abuse is so bad that they should be removed altogether. Well, isn't that sorta throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Removing huge prims will not stop griefers. If anything, they'll get more creative and make something that is a LOT harder to deal with. Let's face it, 10m just isn't enough sometimes, and there are a lot of creative builds that use a huge prim now and then to create effects that are either impossible with standard prims, or would leave little left after stringing enough normal prims together to do something similar.

I've even heard people say that they need to be eliminated because of "terrorism"...

It's sad enough that the real world has been conditioned to throw out all sanity and freely hand over their rights over fear of terrorism, but to extend that nonsense into a virtual world is nothing short of pathetic. I pity anyone who doesn't have a spare synapse to think for themselves these days.

The solution is pretty simple though. Actually enforce the rules! If someone's griefing all the time, ban them, ban their machine hash if need be. There, simple isn't it? Much like the real world, enforcing existing rules works a lot better than making up a whole lot of new ones that do nothing to prevent the problem in the first place. New gun laws don't curb murder, and eliminating useful prims which should arguably have been a feature of the engine to begin with will do nothing to curb griefers. To remove grief, remove griefers. Sounds simple enough to me.

Well I'm a builder too and on land where we don't have enough prims (low prim land from anshe chung it is great to build with these babys. keep the lower one's (max. 256x256sqm ) in and get the bigger out, or,

LL give us more prims !

(Is'nt it the old havok that gives us the prim-boder about 512 sqm = 117 prims ? An update to Havok4 could mean more prims
take care and
HAVE FUN
Cypher Black