My Private Islands just got moved :( Is Sim location overrated?

I liked the grid locations my Islands where located in very much. Was near a hot spot of some very popular sims, and was semi close to mainland.

I just gave a good friend permission to have one of her sims connected to mine, which was done so today, however, since there was no room (due to a reservation) in the location she asked for, LL just moved my sims somewhere esle, and connected my friend to mine.

I need advise. Is grid location really all that important? Am I overrating it? Does it matter if I am located out in virtual Mars somewhere, as opposed to where i was.

I need to make a decision fast on where I want my sims (back to where they where - or out in the virtual boonies).

I for one never fly from one sim to another that is disconnected at all.. and when I do explore (Not often) its usually mainland or just in a sim I find attractive... Sim location might be important for some things, but all in all I don't think it'd matter much.. maybe I'm wrong though, I don't spend too much time on islands...

In one girl's opinion, no, grid location doesn't matter. We can't travel across the mandatory voids anyway, so it's not like you're getting any flyby guests. The only way they can get there is by TP, or by flying from your friend's connected sim, so location on the grid is completely immaterial (to me, anyway.)

From a technical point of view, sim location is fairly meaningless IMHO.

Teleportation is the only way to get to and from an estate, unless you're physically connected to it. Being in a 'busy' spot on the grid seems fairly meaningless if there's no way to get from A to B without teleporting, and with teleporting there's no difference between getting from A to B as there is going from A to Z.

The only possible slight difference would be, if people are on your sim and open the map, if other islands are near enough, they will see (and therefore maybe visit) those other regions, and vice versa. If you have a bunch of high traffic places one or two spaces away, there is a small possibility of people on those regions opening their map, seeing your region(s) nearby and popping over for a look. That's pretty hard to track or evaluate though.

For what it's worth, when I got my first island, it was a few days after LL expanded the available grid and mine was one of the first islands way off in the far west area. I picked my grid coordinates because I liked the numbers (An emotional response) and for that reason I would be upset if my island was moved to different numbers (another emotional response). Logically though I know my traffic would remain the same.

Landmarks are based on region name, so classifieds, picks, and old LMs out there will all follow you to the new location. (Very old LMs used to be based on grid coordinates, I don't know when that was depreciated... new ones for some time now have all been name-based.)

Bottom line, I think logically there should be no difference, but if you were comfortable with your old location and prefered being there, then the logic is irrelevant.

-Atashi

If you were not geographically connected, edge to edge, with other sims, then it makes no difference where you are in the grid, because anyone coming to your small cluster of sims must teleport to get there anyway.

The only time it usually matters is when other people's sims are right beside yours, and therefore people might have been able to fly directly from those sims to yours. For example, if I owned a furry-themed sim, and was directly adjacent to other furry themed sims where I had friends, then getting moved would be a problem.

The only significance of grid location, as far as I'm concerned, is how many open spaces there are around you, for purposes of expansion. I am so glad they canceled the 'reservation' system, because most of those spots will NEVER BE FILLED, and LOTS of room will open up on the grid as a result. I also can't wait until the current reservations start expiring.

Grid location is a major, major issue. Especially if you were in a classy area, and like visitors.

And yes, if you were relocated out past Mars, that makes one hell of a difference.

It may not sound like much, but when you move a good number of people will think you are gone. I know, I know, easy to find. Many will still find you. But the majority don't try too hard.

I know this may be a 'dissenting' opinion, but let me put it this way.

I'm near:

- Crucial Estates
- Winterfell
- IBM

...with other smaller, classy neighbours like Brightfield.

Would I want my Caledon stuck out in the boonies? No way.

I get people asking to link up with Caledon, or even just be near, constantly. You can bet your bottom dollar that gridspace isn't equal value.

Location, location, location.

This is the one thing that I don't actually understand -- how do people not find you?

The way I understand it, LMs, Picks and Classifieds all should still work. If people just plug the region name into the map, that should work. So this is the part I don't get -- how will they know you've moved, think you're gone, and fail to find you?

-Atashi

I have moved a few islands around. Landmarks and Classifieds appear to work after a couple of days, but Picks seem to break. There is an initial period where nothing other than logging directly into or sliding in from an adjacent sim will work.

Also the world map updates can take up to a week.

A lot of ways. People assume things like crazy.

Move a sim and people used to seeing it on the map where it was will think 'gone' rather than moved, unless they actively search for it. I moved Caledon once about 18 months ago, and people simply saw it 'vanish' from where it was - "Are you still around?" they would ask months later.

There's spillover - people visit adjacent areas, and then see the Caledon cluster on the map - the little towns and roads seem to draw them in, especially to the cities.

All of that would go away if we were waaay off in the hinterlands - last I checked, we were running something like 14,000 visits a week (see Tateru Nino's blog for stats). I don't know what kind of hit we'd take, but 10-20% of all visits wouldn't surprise me if we moved. Which is why Caledon isn't going anywhere.

I know that IBM and Caledon get a lot of 'crossover' explorers from people checking out one of us and then going to look at the other. Same with Winterfell. It's all good.

For something with a major footprint like Caledon next to a high profile sim like IBM I'll concede there's probably some synergy there. But for Random Unremarkable Island X (which probably hasn't changed much from the default island terraform it was delivered with) moving from Random Unremarkable Neighborhood Y to Z is basically meaningless- unless you're joining or leaving an adjacent island/cluster. A handful of people like to discover sims by worldmap hopping (I'm one of them, when I'm bored), but the great majority of visits are through other means.

I only discovered that Picks break after island moves when one of my islands shifted one grid space over and I started getting IMs from people unable to teleport there. This didn't make sense at first, since the landmarks and classified for the island still worked, but I eventually discerned that every person who'd contacted me routinely got to my island by looking up my profile and using my Picks! (Seems like a lot more work than just keeping a landmark.) Picks had always been an afterthought of mine until then.

I guess I haven't really considered the grid / map location to be that important, because in my case, with my islands way out in the middle of nowhere, you can't actually see anything else on the map -- by the time you zoom out enough to see any neighbors, you're already zoomed out enough that you can't even see me.

I did figure there'd be some visitors who simply see you on the map if they're in a nearby sim, and pop over for a look ( I do that myself sometimes) but without some kind of survey or empirical evidence of moving, I figure it's hard to know exactly what amount of traffic that would be.

Didn't know about the Picks breaking, but with SL being what it is, I'm not surprised... there's frequently a big difference between what you expect to happen and what does happen

-Atashi

I wouldn't worry about it.

I sometimes "map hop", where location does matter. But I doubt many people do much of this. And, I did it a lot more as a newbie, now relying more on Search and word-of-mouth. (It's a BIG world, with lots of crap!)

Also, as mentioned above, some folks (a minority) use the map and get used to your location and might notice its absense.

But, most folks use LMs and TPs and your location makes no difference. Enjoy your new neighbor and forget it.

It also depends on why you placed your island where you placed your island. I am in the middle of an island tranfer right now, but my island is named (or will soon be renamed) The North Pole (it's a Holiday Season Theme Rental Island). As a result, I've attempted to place it as afar North and Center as I could. Having The North Pole at the Southeast corner of the grid might look odd.

Well I decided to make the move to mars to accommodate my friend's current sim and to allow for us both to stretch out and expand a bit in the future.

I really do hope they do away or make changes to the reserve thing soon. I was very happy where i was, but was blocked by reserved spots that surely will never be used...

Well, there is always the chance that today's Mars will be tomorrow's Knightsbridge.

So you didn't realize that connecting your friends island would get you moved?

Because a friend connected another sim to the island and there were no space.

I think it doesn't matter much, except if you are a landlord since having commercial sims around is a good point. But you can then argue that you'll have less lag now which is probably true.

No. I didn't know the consequences of that spot not being available would be the movement of my sims. I would have thought that my friend would have been notified that the spot wasn't available.

I didn't request for her sim to be placed next to mine, I simply authorized it.

News to me as well. Definately one of those things you learn about by it happening to someone else. Thanks, and sorry Jake, but hopefully it shouldn't pose any problems for either one of you.

I think the request to you should have indicated a notice informing you that if you conform, you also agree that your sim would be moved to the SL equivalent of Outer Mongolia.

Wishful thinking, I know.

*sigh*
wish I had a sim of my own, that could be moved, and I could worry about if the move was good or bad



heck just having the ability to own a sim is a good thing in my book.

as for location, I don't see it being an issue

I for one, never look to see what is around the sim I am on, nor do I check it's location on the map

That's a shame Rhaorth. I've found all manner of nuggets nestling away in the dark and dusty corners of the world. Last night I spent a very entertaining hour wandering some Linden roads. I think I found the SS Galaxy from seeing it on the map. Might have been the Titanic.