Point to Point Teleporting

Hehe me too dont worry its coming tuesday, so everyone can teleport direct to their local *preen* store

It is -- what you see on the preview grid is what you can expect when 1.8 releases.

And it totally rocks on the preview grid... Happy Day.

damm, lol i think i should cancel my account now, another fuck up by Lindens,

Please do!

No, really. People keep complaining about things and keep on paying their monthly fees. I don't dislike Linden Lab or the way they're doing things on the whole - quite the opposite. But I wish those that do would learn to vote with their wallets - it gets the message across quite well and doesn't clutter up the forum so much.

yes but fix bugs before making new bugs?

The development team working on bug fixes have managed to do some work, see the list of some of the fixes included at the bottom of the releases notes.

We want to understand better what impact the telehubs actually have had on creating higher economic value in a region, so we took a look at the average value of transactions taking place over a week in mid-November (before the P2P announcement), and again last week, and compared them for islands, mainland sims with telehubs, and mainland sims without.

Average Transactions per Sim - week ending 11/17
In November, islands and mainland sims with telehubs averaged about equal transactional value. Non-telehub sims, at least in mid-November, had a higher transaction value on average than either islands or telehub sims, with telehub sims actually 16% below non-telehub mainland sims.

Island total transactions L$ 46,542,987
Num Islands 367
avg/island L$ 126,820

mainland TH total transactions L$ 8,800,266
num sims 70
avg/sim L$ 125,718

mainland no TH total transactions L$ 127,274,911
num sims 850
avg/sim L$ 149,735

TH economic factor 0.84

Average Transactions per Sim - week ending 12/08
Looking at the same data for the week ending 12/08 shows that islands have slightly more transactional value than non-telehub sims. In this case telehub sims show 29% more value on average, possible tied to an increased number of land sales.

Island total transactions L$ 57,576,420
Num Islands 411
avg/island L$ 140,089

mainland TH total transactions L$ 12,197,286
num sims 70
avg/sim L$ 174,247

mainland no TH total transactions L$ 125,658,524
num sims 927
avg/sim L$ 135,554

TH economic factor 1.29

Did you pull out gaming related transactions?

Blackjack / tringo skew the results immensely.

I'd be more interested in object sales than transactions. Object sales are juicy, bj/tringo transactions are very low margin. ie: 50 L$ object sale is worth about 1000 L$ in bj transactions.

While it won't show the same magnitude, obviously, it should give us relative numbers.

Also, what about traffic? Was traffic greater in telehub sims? By how much?

In the end, if we are to debate intrinsic value, then I think a lot of things are going to start falling down. Perceived value should be respected.

Ie: If people paid more for telehub, then telehub was worth more. Trying to second guess that value by digging in a database is a tad dangerous.

Sure, telehubs may not have been valuable to you (or me either, I never understood the attraction), but then a lot of people would say that about virtual land or golf pants.

Robin,

I just wanted to point out that (in my case anyway) of the 4 stores my partner and I own, 3 of them are in the sim next to the telehub with 2 of those within eye shot of the hub. I also have a number of shops/booths that I pay rent on in eye shot of the telehub but in the adjacient sim. There are many other stores/shops in the same situation so I'm sure that your stats have misallocated at least those transactions. Those numbers are not likely to be trivial.

P.S.

The biggest drop in sales over the past couple months have been due to the poor performance of SL with time dialation and rendering textures. People don't shop at your store if they can't get there and don't buy what they can't see. There was a definite shift in my sales away from the telehub stores/shops to island shops since the release of 1.7. Which was, by the way, at the beginning of November.

LL can close their eyes to what this move to p2p is doing to (going to do to) many merchants, but make no mistake, p2p will not help me or the many many shop owners/renters like me.

IMO to try to implement p2p and the other "new features" before fixing basic functional problems is frivolous and irresponsible on the part of LL.

Kitty, I quite agree with you. My partner and I also rent near a telehub and wonder what this will do to sales and traffic. And I suspect that the drop in sales is due to all the problems with 1.7 as well. I also think that all resources should be devoted to FIXING the bugs and problems now, not trying to impliment more features.

Some have said that "P2P Rocks" meaning they have been to the preview grid and tried it. That may be their impression, but it is not mine. I have also been to the preview grid and I find P2P SLOWER in general. The reason is, if I try to teleport to a location that does not allow it (aka no landing point) and does not have a teleport/landing point near by, then you just get a message "Can not teleport" or something to that effect. And this after you spend about 10-20 seconds (or more) in the "attempting to teleport" black screen with the progress bar.

To get to the location you want, you have to keep selecting areas around the one you want to ultimately get to, keep trying till you can finally something closer to your ultimate destination and will let you teleport. So one spends more time in the "attempting to teleport" screen. And when you finally get there it is necessary to reposition your beacon to fly to your final destination. This makes it slower than if you went to a telehub and just flew directly to your destination. Granted the stores will have landing points, but I suspect most houses and private lands won't so people can't just pop in.

Don't take this the wrong way, I think P2P would be a good addition if done CORRECTLY. But with all the concerns and potential problems I think this should be tested more throughly. this one feature could up end the entire system (economy, games, etc). And to deploy it so quickly I think is a mistake.

It SHOULD be if you can't teleport directly to a location, it routes you to the nearest hub automatically. This would serve two purposes. First it helps keep the land around hubs more active to some extent, and for those that enable P2P on their lands (probably mostly stores) it will be a valued addition for customers as well a shop owners. And this would be much better than giving a "can't teleport" message. After all the big reason for this addition was so not to confuse newbies, and I tend to think a "can't teleport message" will confuse them a WHOLE lot more than the old teleport-to-hub-then-fly-to-beacon system.

-DB

I'm not sure where you tried in preview, perhaps it was one of the down sims that isnt showing up on the map, but if people have the land set to block you wont see can't teleport after the attachments are saved, you'll be placed closest to the spot in the same sim

So once again, I make this simple suggestion.

Make P2P possible FROM the telehub. Everyone teleports to the hub, then out. Eveyone get P2P. The telehub still remains the transportation hub.

Nathan, I tried several areas several areas all over Preview on several days. And I was not trying to teleport to a sim that was down as I was using the map, not just trying Landmarks as I know most of those sims are not on the preview grid. And I get the "can't teleport" message a lot.

We're continuing to look at the data, cutting it into different slices to get a better understanding for the dynamics of location and sales. I'll post more as we get other pictures. For example, the data I posted include land sales which should come out. We're also looking at the transaction types to see if that might be an influencing factor.

I too looked at the 1.8 preview grid, albeit briefly. The problem is, even if p2p "Rawks" on in the preview grid, it's not a true comparision to what will be the case on the main grid. I think 1.7 and it's preview grid showed us that all too dramatically. There have been very few good things to say about the release and implementation of 1.7.


I suggested something very similar to this on page 1 of this thread. There are ways that p2p and telehubs can co-exist and maybe even work well, but not with unlimited p2p. Unlimited p2p has the power to redefine how we percieve SL. p2p should be a convienence, not something that defines the world in which we have all come together in.

IMO, the idea of unlimited p2p, however "kewl" it may seem, undermines the idea that SL is a "country". We already have the internet and other worlds have "server space based" builds that one can pop in and out of like one jumps from page to page on the internet. It give you no sense "space" or land between one point and another, no sense that there's a connection between one sim and another. Just random points in nothingness.

One of the real beauties of SL is the "connectedness" you get by experiencing the "space/land" between one point and another. Not just the knowledge but the experience that my home is in Dari and that there's a lake to my south, across the lake is where so-n-so lives, two sims over is Nuba,... It gives you a sense of space and community that SL will loose if unlimited p2p is provided and the hubs are removed.

Goodbye Telehubs and good riddance. Dont let the door hit you on the way out.

We absolutely positively do not need telehubs, it is one of the most hated things about SL according to most of the former SL players I have talked to.

The only people that want telehubs are those land owners who purchased land near a telehub at a premium. I bet every person who is against P2P is one of these land owners.

Well I hate going to a friends house through telehubs, because these land owners have a habit of building huge structures that take forever to load and have to be flown through because they are taller than the 75m flight limit.

The idea of teleporting to a hub first then P2P from there is completely unworkable, each teleport takes a good 20 seconds if you have attachments on when you teleport, and this hub first idea would double that.

And the "community hub" geography argument does not hold water either. Communities are better if they form naturally. From an aestetic point of view, some of the ugliest lots are around the telehubs. From a technical point of view, servers with telehubs are some of the laggiest in the game. SL does not need the "crutch" of artificial hubs for community formation anymore.

But it absolutely needs P2P to compete. There has had P2P since it began, and it has not hurt community formation or geographic exploration at all. On the contrary, it will be much easier to find friends and go as a group from place to place.

Goodbye to group channel "TP Please?" spam. Goodbye to unnecessary flying. P2P is nothing but a positive to the long term success of SL.

My 2 cents is I DO NOT look at ads or anything else around telehubs. My goal is to get out as quickly as possible to my destination. Every player I ask about this says they do the same thing. So if these land owners are profiting from telehubs I'd like to no how? It must just be from taking advantage of newbies who have no idea where or why they just landed at one!

I hate those boxed in hubs as well. I can't imagine why people build their stores the way that they do.

I won't be sorry to see the telehubs go. I bought fairly near one so that it would be convenient for people to come to my place, but the telehub near me is not overly developed. I tried a lot near another hub and sold it after a week, the lag was so bad.

At any rate, with P2P, maybe I can afford to buy some green land more to my liking somewhere less laggy. I do feel sorry for people who overpaid for telehub land, and I know why they are upset. I wish there were more commercial zones with higher prim limits etc. so that cities would develop, but the problem with that notion is that people do want to build what they want to build, not what fits in with the surroundings.

At any rate, now I'm sure that people will proceed to overpay for something else, like waterfronts.

By the way, what has hurt sales is the drop in stipends, the texture problems (can't buy what you can't see), and the fact that everyone is sitting in money chairs to try to get cash. I hope that pretty soon people figure out that no one will be able to visit their sims to buy things if the sim is already full of AFK people.

When I first started SL, there were very few texture problems. What happend with that?

These figures are intentionally misleading and 100% useless. Firstly, land in telehub sims change hand much less frequently than land in normal sims, because established businesses tend hold it to rather rent out than sell. Secondly, telehub sims are not known for the fake transactions like money chair payouts, event prices and all that.

What make telehub land valuable is that people come shop without bribes. You don't need pay newbie 100 L$ so they shop for 110 L$. You don't need pay the event hosts 24/7. You don't need feed the money balls. You also don't need the famous brand that people already know in order to get the sales.

Many clubs have much higher transactions and even more sales than my malls at the telehubs. But they loose money because the owners must spend heavily on events and payouts to draw the people. Not to mention time and effort of the owners to draw the people. Telehub malls in contrast have been profitable. Maybe less total transaction than the big club sim, but also less expenses! Retailers made profit and renewed rent because they sold more than they had to pay rent. Telehub land owners earned the interest on their land because they received more rent than they had the expenses there.

Please stop calling hundreds of retailers who kept renting shops at telehubs stupid. We also don't need the Linden Lab propaganda of selective publishing of totally meaningless figures. How about instead you tell us: Why did you keep add new telehub land and sell it on auction for weeks and months, while your programmers already worked on P2P? Why you take 100000 US$ in full knowledge that people tried buy into the telehub traffic, then destroy the main function of the land they invested in and now even have the nerve to keep that money? And then you add insult to injury putting up Governor Linden owned terminals that list none of my malls, sims or attractions in the normal categories, but prominently feature my Warmouth mall under "Most Ugly Places in SL"?

Do you still feel proud do this job? Are you happy?

I will quote one of your 10 largest investors:



This person netted you 20000+ US$. And he regrets it.

The figures were not intentionally misleading. They were the first pass in an analysis of transactions and an attempt to quantify the relative values of different types of land. Unfortunately we can't differentiate among resident transactions (take out camp chairs for example), but we can pull out land transactions. I'll have that data for you a little later today. Even then, I can't do the analysis specifically relative to telehubs, just sim by sim. Those sims that are next to a telehub but where one isn't located, show up as a no-telehub sim. I expect that those sims, when looked at individually, would show a higher than average transactional value -- the aggregation obscures that variation. I'll add medians to add a little more clarity.

The P2P programming has been done since we made the announcement, and didn't take months to implement. There were 4 telehub sims put up for auction in the two months leading up to the decision to implement P2P, and none since. Those 4 sims were put up for auction at the same minimum bid price as all other sims.

I don't dispute that the commercial areas around telehubs have higher value sales. The reason we're not just selling off the land but adding other ways to sustain traffic is to lessen the negative impact resulting from the change.

Robin, I love you
It's great to see such an intelligent and quantitative approach in Linden decision-making. Quantitative analysis is definitely the way to go for any company who wants to leverage the "wisdom of the crowd"... the raw numbers don't have a hidden agenda

Even if you publish transaction data listed by the different categories it is still 100% meaningless. What make the telehub land valuable for my business is that it has sales without events and without bribes. Shoppers and visitors have come there without me having to pay them.

In addition to the sales on spot, the ad impressions are also very significant. Many shoppers find one retailer first at the telehub, maybe buy one or two items, then become the happy customer visiting his/her main store elsewhere. Telehubs have been very valuable for known and unknown retailers to get first time customers. Nothing of this is in your statistic. However, they show in my statistic of long time happy customers among the retailers.

The past 7 days we did one experiment and put up visitor counters. Those reported 13000 unique avatars (not visits, but really different accounts) at 5 mainland telehub locations combined. We then made one crosscheck and found that 95% of our Web customers were passing by those 5 telehubs within just one week. This means, with just 5 ad banners at 5 telehubs we were able to reach almost the entire active SL users.

Certainly. And I am still one virgin.



We will see who is still renting in telehub malls in 3 months. We will also see what land in those places will sell for by then.

Btw, how are your currency sales at LindeX? I guess they are doing well since you removed all the competing currency exchanges from the SL client and take buyers who click "Purchase L$" directly to LindeX... You got the power, congratulation!

hmmm eons ago I was here as a beta tester I believe there were 50 of us and 3 or 4 Sim's. We didn't had to earn money but we were deducted lindens for teleporting from one hub to another. So most of us flew around then I found out that if you were requested to teleport by invitation I had to pay to so I left. This was in autum 2002 I believe or maybe beginning 2003. Anyway inspite of me sitting around most of the time I would leave this game again but this time never to come back if we had to pay for tping again