The best that Second Life has to offer...

If someone was to say to you, "here's a region, money and time is no object, build me the best that Second Life has to offer, as something to encourage people to want to stay around" .... what would you do?

This isn't an offer... of course, I'd love some land ... but just curious how people would respond to such a question.

What do you think best shows off SL's potential? I'm not thinking of a club or a mall... something different.

Something along the same lines as some other sims already out there..

Black Swan shows off some simply amazing sculpts, and a cool environment, the Inspire Space Park shows some brilliant design, lovely work in general, the SL Botanical Gardens show off some 'natural' beauty, Greenies shows some awesome creativity and design, Paradise Falls shows a beautiful super-natural area (It's more brightly coloured than reality, but still amazingly pretty imho) there's just so much done already..

I think for me personally it'd be something natural, along the lines of Paradise Falls or the Botanical Gardens, but I'd design everything with Windlight and Havok4 in mind, doing the best I can with both of those, as well as sculpties.

Though to be honest, a single sim would probably not be enough for me =P

I would put in Plenty of Stuff to Do.

I'd have to put on my thinking cap a bit about that, but definitely - stuff to do, not just stuff to look at.

coco

While there is lot of beautiful and clever things I have seen in SL.
I like to be able to see more stable enviroments that can allow more options for game interactions.
At this point even if I had the know how and the land to do some of my ideas like my idea for a Word Pirate Combat game the lag would be so severe it would be impossible to play.

Giant toilets!

i actually have an offer like that right now to design a sim..i'm just debating on wether to do it or not..but the theme is a secrete at the moment hehehe

am doing it already

Absolutely. Not only do they need stuff to do, but goals to accomplish and rewards for doing them. (Just like in RL)

It's one of the major reasons, IMHO, we have such an astondingly low retention rate. People join up, buy a little land or a closet full of clothes, put up a house, fill it with furniture and then don't have a clue what to do next. So they bolt.

Had I not realized I had the ability to make all kinds of stuff and make money off it, I would have left years ago. However, not everyone is a creative type. We need activities for everyone, right from the start. Simple, sociable and fun goals: Challenge Torley Linden to Battle Bumper Boats and win a prize. Make five friends in fifteen minutes and win a prize. Take part in a group scavenger hunt. Take a tour of the joint with Torley. Find someone from your home state/country and win a prize. Play any number of games, whether it's 'Shrooms or a shoot 'em up.

I don't think we have to fully script everyone's initial experience here, but (optional) goals here and there can only help. BTW, I really enjoyed the rating system for AVs back in the day...

I would create 'LagWorld'.

On teleporting into the sim the collision with the teleport hub floor would trigger a script that offered to animate your avatar. On accepting, you would walk, or fly, ever so slooowwlly, sometimes not moving at all, then suddenly projecting you several tens of metres forwards, as if you 'had' moved. Also, randomly, I would disable all brakes, so that any walking or flying would not stop when you stopped pressing a cursor arrow key, so you experience that wonderful feeling of walking right through buildings, or the ground in front of you would miraculously appear to be sloped down, and you would slowly appear to sink into the earth as you walked on. All attempts to fly upwards, would result in automatic orbitting, with keys disabled to ensure your flight into the unknown. Then suddenly, without warning, you would be sat, in total blackness, at the strange coordinates of 0,0,0.

A butt plug would then be offered to you, with a title 'wear me', but this would be no ordinary butt plug, it would be in the shape of of a pair of shoes, or a hairstyle, or both, the very latest in SL fashion accessories.

I would also incorporate scripts that advise you to only chat on channel 2, then script delays into this channel so that your chat appears on the screen a few seconds AFTER someone has responded to you. I would also make the last thing you typed appear BEFORE the next to last thing you typed, randomly, for maximum confusion effect.

I would also script new teleporters, so that any teleporting within the sim would (again randomly, for maximum frustration) would sometimes result in you landing, but within a few seconds you would be magiclly transported again, but to an unknown (even to the scripter) destination, to which you never actually seem to arrive.

Mmmm, what other useful features could I incorporate? Just let me log into SL for a few minutes, and I am sure I will have plenty of other excellent ideas.

Rock

Sell it and buy clothes

NTN Trivia maybe (or something similar)

Plus, random odd questions. Something like the Truth or Dare machine or "Would You Rather" questions. Pick a random AV and ask a question. You could pay them 5 L$ for an answer (very close to camping) but the main thing is to be throwing out conversation starters every so often.

But if you want the very best SL has to offer, you have got to have Keira Wells. She is the reason LLab made Second Life to begin with. Her very pressence is enough to assure that your sim is head and shoulders above all other as the place you should be.

Can't be done.

The best Second Life has to encourage people to want to stay around is... other people. The objects, builds, gadgets, geegaws, etc., are all meaningless without the presence of the population as a whole.

Surround the entire place with ban lines?

I'd rebuild downtown Pittsburgh.

With all the whining & bitching on the forums about LL & SL, you'll fit right in with people whining & bitching about Pittsburgh (even tho we have it better than 'some' places)

I'd even build a Primanti's!!!

See Yinz at th' bar for an ice cold ahrn city & mebe we kin go shoppin' dahntahn N'at after.