Mainland Megaprims...

I've always understood LL's policy on them as one of "we'll allow them, as long as they're not misused or they cause region issues"... the same policy they've had on them for ages. Recently, I have heard a few here say they are banned, yet I've been seeing LL ignore them (unless AR'ed for size and/or griefing) for more than a year.

Can someone kindly point me to some kind of recent blog entry, or official statement by LL that says all megaprims are now specifically banned from any useage on the mainland plz?

I'm looking for some evidence to back up what people have said recently and I literally can't find a single thing. Unless I totally missed some huge announcement, I tend to think people are saying that so the not-so-informed types might be discouraged from using/abusing them.

Ive heard the same and also not found any evidence to support it.


I would agree

I believe that was one of those "notecards policies," much like the original sexual ageplay ruling.

Megas - especially the large spheres from the old Gene Replacement set - used to cause some big troubles under Havok1. Dat's why they did't allow them on mainland. They've not shown the same troubles so much on Havok 4. I hope we eventually see at least some sensible larger sizes allowed.

Im not sure what you mean.
Is that something that’s documented that I can read?

About the closest thing to a "policy" statement I can find is here http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/10/12/the-big-prim-problem/

That sort of indicates that they have been going with the "it's ok if it isn't misused" scenario.

I sincerely hope they will stay with that position.

Our build at Lebettu makes extensive use of megaprims. We use them for our skybox club, for roads, and for building foundations.

We've had no complaints, and no Lindens have come around deleting things.

That's what I was referring to... I know many of the old ones caused issues like with offset bounding boxes and stability issues and whatnot, but there's no mention of any precedence-setting ruling or statement that says they're flat out banned instead of each case being handled on an individual impact scenario. So saying they "did't allow them on mainland" is wrong.

EDIT: Thanks Kathy.. the phrase "...IF a nuisance", with no further updates to that is all I was looking for.

Ya, what I meant by "notecard policy" is policies of LL that are not readily slepped out in the TOS: for example, the original shift on policies towards sexual ageplay were spelled out on a notecard and distributed inworld, rathher than mentioned in any public forum. The policies on SA are still outside of the TOS and CS, although there have been clarifying blog entries.

Mega usagwe is much the same. Use em if you wish, but don't be too surprised if a Linden comes by and returns them.

Mari

Probably not the kind of "official" you're looking for, but:

http://www.massively.com/2008/05/15/megaprim-creation-stopped/

Mine have been in place for about 6 months and are a massive prim saver that I would be loath to do without.I noticed that I could not rez objects directly on them but found ways around that with no problem.I would say for the last 6 or 7 weeks ish they behave just like regular prims so maybe the new viewers and fixes have made them a tolerable asset that the firm puts up with.

I've been to tons of places that use megaprims. They're freely available in sets. And... What bounding issue? There are no H1 sims left as far as I know. (o.o)

Now that Havok4 is in place, several builds have shown the potential of megaprims, and what had been made so far has been productive. Bounding works. Newly made megas are WAY more stable. So someone who knows.....

What IS actually wrong with megaprims now?

I mean... You CAN griefbuild without megaprims anywayz. I think more abuse exploits are available with temprez and physics.

Heck... I just found a llCreateObject trick that can drag an entire sim to a crawl this weekend. And I'm the most lam3r scriptor I know. It's not quite grey goo, but close enough to be concerned about. (=_=)

I think this is gonna be the biggest point of any debates on megas with Havok 4 the standard on the grid. I'd be happy with a higher minimum size, no question.

The massively.com article stated that LL "officially" confirmed that the recent ability create megaprims was not an intentional feature. Where did LL officially confirm this?

Then it goes on to say:

"Furthermore, Linden Lab confirmed that account sanctions still apply to users who are using megaprims in mainland simulators, though they are permitted for use in simulators within private estates, except where disallowed by the land covenants or owner."

Is there anything anywhere that backs this statement up? I'm talking responsible, not abusive use here.

Hmmm, perhaps, if you are using these to reduce the number of prims in your build, thus requiring less land to support your build therefore paying less tier, LL considers that abusive to their bank account.

Read message #143 from Prospero Linden

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/05/13/bugfix-121-server-deploy-tue-0513-thu-0515/

That says a lot but also contradicts what LL does with New Features, such as WindLight, Havok 4, Dazzle, etc. - they don't test well enough anyway (well, Havok 4 was tested well, but there were still problems) and when they introduce these new features to the Grid or Viewer, there are all kinds of New Bugs they take forever to fix!

Most people say the new series of megaprims are more stable than the old ones and I don't think there was one problem reported about creating them at all. The reintroduction of megaprims was a complete success - rare for LL.

A complete success... albeit an accidental one.

That said, I have been using them, on the mainland for about a year and a half. So far, no problems. And now that they cut and hollow correctly it is going to be hard to keep people from using them.

So be smart people... do it right and we might sway the Lindens to our way of thinking.

It's true that the hollow and cut bounding works correctly now. What reasons are there left to keep people from using them? (o.o)

And, what does this mean? >>--->"have code support in place to fully deal with them"

What code support or stability issue is left? What is the sim-load difference of a single mega when compared to... Say... the 16 to 40 prims it would be replacing? The dumb side of me thinks it would actually reduce the streaming overhead of a large build and improve loading times. (o.o)

Massively contacted LL directly (or went through LL's PR firm) for a statement, it's not a rehash of something that's posted.

Maybe it is something we haven't tried yet... linking megas and regular prims? I can see this being an issue. How about alpha problems when someone makes a 100m x 100m alpha textured 1 prim building. And I have been warned... don't make megas physical! Not sure of what might happen with any of these possible points if they are used/abused on purpose or by accident. The Lindens might not either.

Remember, if it works one time it might be a fluke. They have to worry about 100,000's of them all happening at the same time.

Havok 4 handles physical megas up to 100m easily. At 100m+ they start to cause a little too much lag for my liking (But still pretty minimal considering the old problems)

I've linked megas and naturals, and have no problem whatsoever, and have done so in commercial builds.

I've also used alpha on a mega, and there is not any more problem than normal prims. Just..well..bigger!

The main issue with megas currently, I believe is that they often extend into other peoples' plots, and people don't like that.

Lindens will essentially ignore reasonable megas use on mainland (Up to about 100m I believe) as long as they are not AR'd. If AR'd, your megas will be returned. Period.

Private sims, I think megas are fine, etc, can't recall.

ETA:
With H4 I have had 6 40m spheres bouncing around in one sim at a time, and then the lag was mainly because of the large draw distance combined with the motion, not because there were 6 megas bouncing. I could bring my draw distance down and be fine.

So it might just come down to what I said before...

"... be smart people... do it right and we might sway the Lindens to our way of thinking."

And get rid of the 65km x 65km sphere in your inventory. It scares them.

Exactly.

Megaprims, due to Havok 4, have now been rendered almost as safe as normal prims, and the differences in issues are very slight.

If we're responsible, we can use them.

If we're responsible, we can get the Lindens to see it's not such a horrid idea after all, maybe.

So be responsible.

Please?

I'll give you a giant cookie...

65km x 65km? Oatmeal with white chocolate chips would be my request.

Done... Happy with the result... Now where's mah cookie!?!?!? (>_<