COMMENT IN THE BLOGS If you have had an Openspace region DOES ANYONE FEEL MY PAIN?

Well, all I can say is good. After being ripped off by a land baron for 800 USD reclaiming his sim space purchased by myself (1/4 sim), throwing me and everyone else on the sim off that had PURCHASED the sim, this is the only form of relief I've been able to witness. If a devaluation of his 100 sims is what it takes, then super. Now he can lower his tiers to the point of barely making it or selling them off at discount rates just to keep afloat.

Good time to buy from Linden. Which is what I'll be looking to do shortly. And for the all teaching land baron rip off artists.. Shalom. What goes around will eventually come around. Try leasing your sims for 40 percent less and see where you come out all while the renters becoming sim leasers from Linden directly. It's high time for a jolt to boost the SL economy. If you believe Linden can do any worse than greenspan or bernanske, get a grip.

Linden never had a business model. It's obvious. How they could allow what they have in SL to get to this point is beyond me. CTO gone, CEO taking a back seat, and the platform still not worthy of any serious developer. In my opinion, it's high time Linden get off their collective behinds and quit rewarding only those that contribute nothing to SL besides splitting up server space.

Fraud prevailed in SL. Tons of it. And it HAS been looked at by investigators. So called Banks GONE, GONE are the all polluting casino scam operations... Now, the illegally operating scamming virtual land barons.

That's right.. more money for Linden and less for the con artists. Sounds good to me. Linden allowed all the scams and bullshit, but by gosh they are starting to clean it up.

I think Linden should lower the island fees to 195 per month right along with the decrease in setup fees so more can afford to participate in SL. If not, OpenSim or something of this nature will eventually take over the market as the educated start running their own linux server space. People who know how to produce quality content and put two prims together are often the ones whom can least afford to do so. Many of those I've met in SL that have good or excellent skills could not afford to participate in the way they would have liked.

I've been in SL for over two years with two accounts. I've been here long enough to know what it's about and what exists within it. I believe Linden is making the right choices in the long run for those that actually have skills to offer.

Linden keeps up cleaning up the servers, removing the fraud, and actually listens to the devs in here complaining about the stability of the platform, if they actually do something about it. I'll even purchase directly from them and so would many more.

I've witnessed quite a bit in SL and how Linden has failed to provide what the intended service was to be. The rewards went to the scammers and profiteers instead of their pockets for providing the service. Greed begets greed. If they would open up to more than a corporate sponsorship or partnership, and become a company that partners with the people paying their bills, they would achieve and prosper. Lowering the associated setup costs is just a start. Making the service available and more cost effective to the masses is how large businesses prosper.

To those doing a legitimate lease business in SL, for helping those of us that have lost our money to scammers and/or couldn't afford a sim to work on, those that provided good service and friendship, thank you. Your investment into SL was worthwhile and has been a great contribution.

Go OpenSim. Linden, please get us a hookup to the grid. We will operate our own servers. That or lower the costs so more can afford to participate.

If not, I will eventually purchase anyhow when island sims lower to 195 or less per month. If this never happens, I'll do as many others and continue to work within SL and on OpenSim until the point of a worthwhile investment. In the mean time, enjoy SL, a world with no people. A huge amount of space with very few taking part. Empty sims will be be what most witness when first logging into SL. Value people, you have people. Value ignorance and you will see what you do today in SL. A lot of trash, rental signs, and empty servers posing as a huge success with 400 bots parked at 750.

Far too many children and con artists in SL. Far too many.
Too bad Cerze and Surbus. Try selling now scammers.

Tracy Welles
Welles Designs

however when you buy a car you actually own the car

we all know that when you "buy" a sim you are actually only renting it
and the fees you pay each month are maintenance fees, much like one would have to pay oh I dunno... for gas, upkeep, insurance etc for a car....

so yes, if one buys a car, even if paying in cash, they still can expect monthly costs, unless they just let the car sit and not get used...

your analogy did not quite fit this situation.

I have been a proud small size land baron for 2 about years now, I charge twice the land actually costs and still barely make it even. Over the past, I put all the money I made back into buying land, buying community items, only a few left for myself for SL cloths and skins.
I have 7000 prims reserved for sandbox for our residents, a few thousands for the sandbox cafe, I have newbie land next to the sandbox where new players come and rent for free and practice there creation in the sandbox, I always try and look for SL games which we could enjoy for a small fee (cuz without betting games are bore) for my residents.
And all these I do it almost like a volunteer, because I love it here.
I try my best to let the newbies have best of SL, want to share the same moment I experienced back when I was a newbie.

It doesn't really affect my land in a short run, no, because the price of the tier is same.
And new land renters won't be as good minded as some of us are.
But this land price change will bring many more scammers / newb owners/ I-don't-know-whats-going-ons.
(there will be a lot of scammers out there, much worse than now.)
And this will disappoint another loads of new SL players, will drive them out of SL, and in a long run, eventually, nobody except the old and knows will be here playing this.

This is what scares me.
We will have to share and split up even the smaller number of new players among loads of new scammers with monster look on their face trying to collect every pennies from the rare renters, and the so-called "communities" will be further split up into clusters of family factions who all fails in the end.
But as far as the price change, its ok, I was expecting it would happen sooner of later anyway, I really wanted to have a BETTER SIM PERFORMANCE than paying less, but OK.

Where I am most disappointed by LL as company than lab with bunch of tech nerds, is how they handled the announcement and how they treated their customers.

I wouldn't, I WOULDN'T treate one customer better while another customer bad in front of each other just because the second one paid less at one moment!
In my community, land owning is like a ticket to the inner circle in my all-welcoming small group, and I RESPECT all and every members who put trust and expectations in me, and I treat all and every members who rent land by me with the same amount of base courtesy!!
(I give more respect to who does more contributions, yes, but I respect all nonetheless.)

I see no courtesy given by LL to their long term clients, for long time, and for so many time we put trust and expectation for LL and put our money, put our residents' money into there, and we are treated like shit now and then.
There is no courtesy by them except when we show them our money...

Web2.0 my ass... X(

The point here is Linden is working on cleaning up the sims and service. It's a good move and far over due. Trust me, with a bit of education you can do far better than splitting up a managed server. You don't even manage the server. Linden does. As other more open ways of accomplishing a virtual world become a realization, and it's well on it's way, you'll see your sims even more empty if it be at all possible. The only recourse is to lower the prices and allow more people to work or build in SL. SL was not created for people who wanted to split up a managed server. SL was created in purpose to produce a 3D building environment.

So no matter the opinions, the inevitable is here. Virtual land ownership will not be the business to be in. Losses will be every increasingly staggering. Period. What you have now will soon vanish as other options open up to those with the education and experience to make it happen. It's not too awful far off and the progress is fascinating.

The sims are far too expensive. And the market will not carry it in this stagnant economy. People have homes, automobiles, business, etc.. that have to come first. Make it so that people can use the tools within SL at a reasonable price, and you'll see a better SL. Until then, and as mentioned, you can enjoy those looking good and prosperous with 400 bots at 750M.

I've never looked at SL as a "game". I don't "play" SL. I just enjoy the troubled building platform.

Tracy

Eheh.. probably you don't know that more than 80% of LL income is generated by private island owners fees.



I'm a creator (builder and scripter) in first place, but im also a (very small) land owner (i do not sell lands, i do my things on em), you have to know (as i know) that without ppl that are paying those private island fees (including me) you (us) wouldn't have a "troubled building platform", you (us) would have no creations, you (us) wouldn't have Second Life at all. We are paying the entiere grid with our money, i love the concept of an autonomous system that survives exclusively by the users effort (no money from outside) but i'm realist, and anyway it wouldn't be Second Life (you should look elsewhere).
We're again OT.

Give it a couple years and we will discuss it. It's done nothing but go downhill for the last two.



I was mostly discussing land barons. Not those purchasing sims for their own work. I've discussed fraud. If you enjoy SL as I do, good for you. But what I wrote will happen. Give it another couple years. We'll see where it stands then. And no, if it had to boil down too it, I don't need a re-seller virtual space. Most, if they really wanted to, and believed it was a wise decision, could and would invest. I'm telling you that the investment is not going to be a long term wise decision. Especially for those looking to turn a profit from a business venture. It's one thing to work at SL because you like it, it's another to be in SL to turn a profit. No one owns virtual land in SL. No one can even access their own created content. That will be a thing of the past in the future. You'll be able to access and backup your own work, you'll be able to import and export without losing your inventory.

This is not off topic. We have too many children and whiners in SL who believe that linden should protect their individual investments over the linden bottom line. People who believe that "owning" something that is impossible to "own" should have rights to keep virtual space so expensive that most cannot afford to participate. The results are obvious.

Tracy Welles
Welles Designs

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If SL is just a building platform for builders, creators, to "show off" what they have jacked off, then SL wouldn't have attracted so many players in the past few years.
I can't explain how I enjoy SL, its too long to write here, but since the first 3 months has passed, I have always been looking to understand the other points of SL that attracts me.
I've seen many creators whose mind was all about showing off and make names, but they eventually got what they deserved. (reputition wise)

I can create/script easy stuff, but none of them alone can attract us. I was mesmerize by the idea of meeting completely different bunch of people in a crowded SIM when I first arrived here, and what you are saying is that it will vanish soon?

A crowded SL when you arrived? Are you talking about Linden's entry islands? Happy that impressed you. But I suppose you didn't realize that the linden servers hold enough virtual land to supply 1 million concurrent connections with plenty of virtual land left over to power small countries with the electric that could be saved.

As far as I'm concerned, I've been all over SL and never been on a sim that had excess of 20 or so. Not with any enjoyment anyhow. The sims fail miserably at 50. And most, 95 percent of SL or so, has just a few or less avatars on them at any given time. So I'm not sure what crowd your speaking of. Maybe the 400 bots at 750. Freebie Island? Wellfare Island? HippiePay?

I'm not saying it will vanish soon, I'm telling you it never existed in the first place because mysql cannot handle the concurrent connections. That and, there are not enough people logging into SL in the first place. I started when only 10,000 to 12,000 people logged in on a good day with my first account. Sure it has grown. But if you believe that a mere 50,000 people logged in at once will populate the ever increasing amount of virtual land space in SL, you're highly mistaken.

The only, and I mean only way for SL to grow is to get rid of the fraud, get some decent management, lower the costs so the tools in SL are available to far more people, and start supporting those that produce in SL. They also need to get the children off the servers. They can do this easily by charging a mere 10 or 20 bucks to a credit card a month and implementing a decent adult verification process. So far, they have failed at that as well.


Tracy Welles
Welles Designs
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By crowded SIM I mean, a rental land with full rented status, I was starting from Togenkyo, a Japanese sanctuary by AC which was run over and collapsed by the arrival of Japanese corporations investing into SL (they invested 100,000 USD into it in 2 months and now more haha too bad they suffer now XD).
Ever since the collapse I've been trying to recreate that kind of atmosphere.

I also rented a first land when LL had it, it was crowded with lot of new residents, and I made a lot of long term important friends there. That and this is at the risk of vanishing now if your wording is correct.


About the fraud and management of new rental owners, do you really think the lowering of the land price will increase the number of good minded owners? I think the majority of the owners from now on will be an even stupidier ones than I have seen in the past year because the tier fee is same, and they have to somehow come up with it.
(and you know how stupid and ill-minded those current biz owners are.)

Some of the most successful land rentals in SL flatten the land, chop it up and leave it alone, Takes about 10 minutes. Put rental boxes on them, and let people do what they want with it. People are there to build, buy, set up their own thing. Not buy someone else's ideas. Not that I've not designed a couple sims, I have. But for the most part, the best land rental is just a flat 1/4 sim with nothing done to it. Terraform enabled, not a ton of regulations. Keep it simple. Keep sky boxes above 500. No hanging prims. Pay your tier. About it.

Not everyone wants an Anshe Chung space. In fact, most don't. They prefer a prim bonus.

Spend your money advertising space with little regulation and a prim bonus. You'll have it leased out in no time. Keep the lots in standard 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4. and full sim lots with a mere 16m for your rental box.

Tracy Welles
Welles Designs
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Those kind of business is not necessory in SL, as LL does it in whats called "mainland".
We are different.


Togenkyo was given their own management by SLJ (Second Life Japan group), and had a peaceful moment at times.
Its not at all run by AC.

By the way, sorry I went off topic, this is about openspace, yeah?

Its amazing that someone told me this thread is just a waste of time and they will not post here again, and the next day i see them commenting posting yet again on this thread. More than 7 times. Ok but nevertheless, Thank you all for your input, whether good or bad, there seems to be an interest about this thread. And I believe some of you do agree that canceling open sim to only have them put back up is ridiculous! Once again thank you all

Yes, that is right, I am actually happy about SIM price going down because there will be a lot more stupid owners, the more stupid people around me, the more my land will stand out.

What I didn't like, and didn't at all expect, was they only allow 1 week for the change to be taking place, and yet giving us who ordered the Openspace in the period no compensations.
And it is ridiculous for us to cancel and wait another month when we already waited enough for it to be delivered, and it is ridiculous for them to turn off and on just to put them back up.

If it was 1 month or 2 months notice, for price change, I d say too bad but my client want it now so we will be purchasing it now.
But 1 week....and no compensation? Lindens, take a cup of coffee and wake up!!!



Today, I have lost my last bit of hope against Linden Lab and the future of Second Life.
I won't be placing my serious money into this one in the future...

Hiroaki, some people choose to live in quiet places, but leave their homes and go out to socialize. It's called the 'burbs. Cities haven't died because of them.

No when you buy a sim youre paying for set-up costs. The monthly fees are like rent.

Its the set up costs that have been reduced due to the new automated land store.

What people are aggrieved about ...and I have full sympathy with them for what is tantamount to sharp business practices by LL..........LL announced Open Sims would be sold in singles for $400 set up fee on March 7th. This was obviously going to be very popular for estate owners. Many estate owners ordered sims at the full price then. At this point in time they must also have known they would be making changes to the land store which would result in lower set up costs.

Why, when that had all this information didnt they wait until the new land store was set up and then announce the sale of single open space sims which would have been fairer all round.

This is why people are annoyed.

source: http://goldengate.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=99&bbb=1116&firm=57373

"Based on BBB files, this company has an *unsatisfactory records* with the BBB due to unanswered complaints."

In the past 36 months, complaints have been filed (with the Better Business Bureau) against Linden Lab in the following 8 areas of business practice:

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Advertising Issues - Claims alleging print or electronic media advertised claims or practices misrepresent the service or product offer.

Contract Issues - Claim of alleged failure to honor contract or agreement, work performed without authorization, or invalid contract.

Billing or Collection Issues - Claim alleging billing errors, unauthorized charges, or questionable collection practices.

Sales Practice Issues - Claims of alleged sales presentations made in person or by telephone that contain misrepresentations of the product or service, high pressure sales practices, failure to disclose key conditions of the offer, and verbal representations not consistent with written contractual terms or agreements.

Delivery Issues - Claims alleging delayed delivery of ordered merchandise.

Service Issues - Claims of alleged delay in completing service, failure to provide promised service, inferior quality of provided service, or damaged merchandise as a result of delivery service.

Customer Service Issues - Claims alleging unsatisfactory customer service, including personnel's failure to provide assistance in a timely manner, failure to address or respond to customer dissatisfaction, unavailability for customer support, and/or inappropriate behavior or attitude exhibited by company staff.

Refund or Exchange Issues - Claim of alleged failure to honor company policy or verbal commitment to provide refunds, exchanges, or credit for products or services.

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I'd encourage folks to share their grievances with the Better Business Bureau.
You can file a complaint, here: https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx

Complaints are sent to the company within 2 business days. They are typically 'resolved' within 30.

Be heard.

It is certainly a waste of time and effort for everyone: residents, sim owners/managers, LL employees.

Someone earlier in the thread said that LL is counting on people not wanting to rebuild, so LL can keep the money. Wow! Great customer service...NOT! Make it a pain in the neck so you can keep the money! That's is such an unethical way of doing business!