Bay City - Is it a FAIL?

I seldom go out in SL, way too busy building stuff. But yesterday I visited Bay City again, just to see how it has evolved over time.

What I saw were pretty much empty sims (no people), nice buildings but in a gray depressing environment with lots of canals, and canals, and canals.... and canals.

Bay City was a prestigious and heavily organized and promoted project for LL. Did it work? Or has the project failed?

I went to visit bay city the other night and found it to be almost empty to.
Lots of empty plots for sale to, not as popular and bustling with life as I was expecting.

But does that make it a fail?

No not in my opinion Linden Labs sold the plots there for unbelievable prices so it certainly didn't fail them!

On the other hand for people who invested in bay city, then it would appear to have been a poor decision, but really only they know.

One thing Bay City is a very small area, well known due to the way Linden Labs pushed it, so for businesses in SL it does offer an easily findable map location, which could be helpfull.

I say its a fail. what is the sense if there are nopeople around to socialise with?

Hehe, yes true. But I wonder WHY it is a fail (if at all). Is it too organized, too much visually directed by the Lindens? Too much of the same: textures, canals, boats? Ans what does it say about these kind of 'organized' projects.

I'm really curious about the Bay City residents opinions.

there are bay city residents?
i always thought bay city plots were all owned by, ands swapped and traded between, land speculators...

It's been my experience as well, on my handful of visits to BC, that it's usually fairly empty. You would think that the residents would organize community events on a routine basis. Does that happen?

Maybe it's too spread out with too few residents? Anyway, what is there to do in Bay City on a regular basis? I found it interesting to explore at first but got bored of it after awhile. There was no incentive for me to keep returning.

Would say the same for Nautilus Island.

Went there the other day and basicly found nothing but empty sims full of empty buidings. at least half to two thirds of the lots were for sale at very high prices (like 60K for a 1024 lot).

There were a few green dots on the map but only one sim had more than 2 people in it... and that one had 5.

There are actual residents -- but I'd say you're right on the *majority* of plots.

My main store (or one of them, cuz my Livingtree store is also a "main store" is in Bay City. We're a rare bunch, but we do exist.



The city can be strange. There are a handful of us who are trying to keep events going (our first anniversary is in may) there, and otherwise keep the place working as a whole.

One of the biggest issues with the city, IMO, has been one of greed. When the plots were initially auctioned, the prices went simply too high. Land flipping further increased the price. Much like what we've seen in the RL, people speculated much higher than was wise, and some are now stuck with very expensive plots that they will *never* get their purchase price out of. I mean, even at double prims, who's going to buy a 1024m for L$125k?

I feel another issue comes from the stores themselves. While there are a few of us, many of the plots are either empty and unused, are "satellite stores" of other businesses (and for which most would simply go to their main store), or are otherwise not attracting people specifically for their goods. There are some bright spots, but they are somewhat few and far between.



There have been those who have been trying for some months to keep events working in the city, that said since about November, the city has been rife with drama from a couple people that has all but stopped a lot of productive work on same. We *are* working towards a number of interesting initiatives, including events and other things in the parks and other Mole-built areas.

To answer the OP: Is it a fail? Not for me. But it depends on what you were expecting. It's mainland. Sure, mainland with a theme and double rims -- but still mainland. May as well as if the Snowlands are a fail, or Corsica, or whatever.

I don't think Bay City failed per se, I think it's more a matter of not living up to potential.

Financially it's doing great ~ tier is being paid! And resident churn rate is probably high enough that people with big dreams will keep trying to get in, not realising how intractable the problems are. Tier paid in full, the problem will perpetuate without much incentive to change things.



This is a major point. It was all about the $L for many. But even from a greed standpoint it is now a failure, unless $L 100k+ for a few hundred prims sounds good.

Bay City doesn't have a theme covenant, and even if it did, there was no effort to hire anyone to watch Bay City exclusively and enforce it.

Instead, it was just supposed to just sorta happen all by itself, which would send any private estate manager into fits of laughter just contemplating. Some of us really liked the concept even though it's "competition" and made a few suggestions, but none were taken. Basically mainland themed areas *will not work* to their full potential unless there's someone watching the place and a social group that everyone is in, to go with it.

I was thinking of setting up a Caledon Embassy there once, to sort of play along... but it would be pointless to set up an embassy to... what? Land speculators who are off playing World of Warcraft? If anything, Caledon's presence would bring far more life to Bay City than the other way around. This might be sad for the people who really are trying to make a difference in Bay City, but right now I feel I should put the best of myself toward those who made my estate a success.

If Bay City ever did become a hub of commerce and activity, I'd be in.

I think Des has nailed it - Bay City has no distinctive community identity, and thus is exactly like any other decently built estate - pretty but empty. I would bet that LL got here by giving us exactly what many residents asked for - areas of mainland that are nice-looking, fairly calm, and "not bizarre".

So, they inadvertantly recreated suburbia.

I think SL does best when it is, at least slightly, bizarre. Most people's first life is dull enough, without SL being dull. But I have trouble seeing LL creating any sort of even slightly bizarre themed community. They could facilitate such, I suppose, but I don't ever see them creating one themselves - it really has to be up to the residents.

Which is where this discussion dovetails with the "Adult" discussion. Say what you will, there are thriving and cohesive BDSM/Gorean/etc. "Adult" communities in SL, some with a strong emphasis on safety. I don't see a lot of sensitivity being demonstrated by LL toward preserving such communities AS communities.
.

I'd leave the word "mainland" out of that. It applies to all themed areas, I think.

Using random population surveys can not determine if a place is a fail...
As even successful places like Caledon are ghost towns most of the time..

IMO what determines success of a space is the community.

There is a small and growing community in Bay City. If you are interested, please join the Bay City Alliance and attend some meeting and presentations. As a group, we have had many fun events and would love the help in planning more.

The problem for Bay City and Nautilus is that there is an entry barrier. The more expensive the plots, the less the number of creatives who will be in a position to do the "your world, your imagination" thing there.
Fitting into a city theme, whether ancient or modern, could create a challenge that could generate some wonderful things.
Unfortunately, the overpowering theme of both places is land flipping.

No, that's northeast of Bay City.

Hmmm, thinking about it, let me suggest a light RP theme for Bay City. It has a bowling alley and movie theater, does it not? So, 1945s/50s postwar. Hold Elvis impersonator contests. Commission new swing dances. Have marching band contests. Have photo contests, seeing who can make the best times-square style postwar parade picture. Car shows featuring flying vehicles ala Back to the Future.

The Fonz, Marilyn Monroe, Mister Ed ... lots of opportunity for SL hijinks.

Edit: plus, somebody gets to build the castle from Edward Scissorhands!
.

Bingo!

I'd love to own a plot in Bay City. But I can't afford the inflated prices.

I wanted to bid on a plot in Nautilus, but 20K was as high as I was willing to go for it.

Yes...I'm cheap.

We have had many events as a group. Mari organized a most awesome Halloween parade. We have also had hunts, parties, etc.

You do make a good point though, and fuel my idea of a bi-weekly "concert in the park" series. Ive found, and as you point out, repeating events draw people back on a regular basis.

Can I go out on a limb and derail this thread...?
What would *you* do to make Bay City not appear as a fail, from the outside?

Carthage... I mean Nautilus City... certainly counts as slightly bizarre. Quirky at least.

Unfortunately Alisha, I think the biggest problem is what Sling mentioned: The barrier to entry. Land prices are just too high to bring in new blood.

I've flown over looking at the yellow once a month since December. I still boggle at the same plots still for sale, at such high prices.

It seems like the community there is fairly small to begin with. Growing it either requires new owners, or turning it into a more popular place for visitors. Events like the parade are nice, but irregular. Weekly events that might attract people, and that could become someone's regular "Tuesday night thing" would do a better job of breathing life into it.

I think that in many regards, Bay City and Nautilus are both epic fails. While there are some brave individuals who truly are trying to make the theme work, most of the land is held by greedy land speculators, asking insane prices that no one who actualy intends to USE the land would ever pay, unless desperate. The only winner in both areas was Linden Lab, who was happy to accept insane auction prices from the speculators, and who continues to rake in tier payments from people who bought land that they can't hope to sell for what they paid for it. They are like the monkey with their fist trapped in a pottery jar by the apple they refuse to let go of. Their greed won't allow them to abandon the land or reduce the price to sane levels. With the possible exception of a few individuals who were fortunate enough to obtain a nice parcel at a not terribly insane price, I seriously wonder if ANY merchant in either area is actually clearing a profit yet. Do any of them really make enough sales there to recover the initial investment cost, let alone their monthly overhead fees?

I do ocasionally visit Bay City, mostly because I have a friend who has a store there. But the conceptual layout, restricting it to a bunch of tiny no-teraform plots that can't be joined, and cut up with a random array of roads and canals, makes it impossible for a large merchant to do more than a token sattelite store there. For example, Textures-R-Us has a tiny store there, in a lovely location next to a park-like canal boat landing, and not terribly far from a road and from a harbor landing area. But its so limited in size that they can only display about 100 or fewer texture bundles. Compare that to their main store, which takes a whole sim and has something like 7,000 or more texture bundles for sale. And even if TRU wanted to, they could never buy a sim's worth of parcels there and form a decent-sized store there. The land limitations limit any business venture to little boutiques.

I have never seen ANYONE who actually "lives in Bay City" or "Lives in Nautilus". Who could afford that land, just as a place to live, and not as a place to run a business? I have seen "homes" there, yes. Mostly empty - no furniture, no signs of someone living there. Maybe a forlorn rental box. The few furnisthed places never had anyone in them, but rather looked more like someone threw a few items out to make it look more welcoming, for anyone fool enough to pay the price they were asking - because yes, that land was for sale, at an insane price.

I enjoy running a boat around the canals there, on occasion. Hardly ever encounter anyone else there. When I do see others, they are always flying around, sightseeig. Virtually never in any of the buildings.

Well, never mind "creatives": in Bay City, the vacant parcels--and there are lots of them--are priced well out of range for any commercial endeavor to ever clear enough extra profit to cover the price premium over most any alternative.

It's a weird kind of super slow-motion land flipping, waiting around for that greater fool to happen along, which apparently occurs once in a blue moon, and the buyer soon leaves again, realizing it was all just a big mistake.

(That this is recurring in Nautilus shouldn't be a surprise, but admittedly it was, to me. I thought it would discourage the slo-mo flippers that there is just so damned *much* Nautilus, and all in this very specialized fantasy theme. It's just so obvious that it will take years to actually move parcels at prices much above, say, double Mainland average. But this thread isn't about Nautilus.)

Events are nice and all, and might make some difference, but as long as more than maybe 20% of the parcels are vacant, it's never going to be a very vital chunk of Mainland.

These zoned, double-primmed Mainland regions are weird ducks anyway, so what if there were a very different means of selling them? One approach would be that the land could only transfer at auction--after resident auctions are possible, and with some means of preventing purchase by alts or setting of unrealistic minimum bids.

Another, more radical idea would be to require that listing zoned Mainland for sale in Search would require the seller to put in escrow the entire asking price. That amount is forfeited and the land goes off the market if it doesn't sell in 30 days (and not to an alt or "business associate" of the seller--however that could be enforced).

So first a disclaimer, I'm basically one of those people you're all complaining about. I never bought into Bay City but I do have a couple of Nautilus parcels. I bought them late in the auction process and they were relatively quite cheap. I've been half heartedly trying to rent them out but they're really so small and the tier is so cheap I've never felt compelled to put much effort into it.

This might be the key problem for these areas. It really costs approximately nothing to own 1024sqm in these places. There's no possibility of anyone who owns one "choking on their tier" because the costs are utterly minuscule. So I keep them and ignore it because I always have bigger things to deal with.

It's all very sad I guess.

On the other hand, I still say Bay City was not a failure. LL made a massive amount of money from the auctions and the grid gets a beautiful place to explore for free. Both great things.

As for it being empty, I have 150 renters or some crazy thing on our estate and it's still empty most of the time. All of SL is empty of people mostly, no matter if a place is WIN or FAIL.

I'm intrigued by the idea of organising concerts in Bay City I wonder if it's even possible without massive intervention from Linden Lab. I don't think so to be honest unless you had the audio stream totally outside of SL or ran it over voice maybe I guess.

Be fair. Most houses are empty most of the time. Even in sims with large and active groups like Sunweavers, because, well, in SL you don't need to "live" anywhere. Having a house in SL is itself a kind of role play, and it's a game that's played more by building it than spending time in it.

If you didn't need to sleep or wash or eat or keep closets full of stuff... and you could change your clothes by wishing and teleport anywhere in the world in a flash like Barbara Eden... how many of you would spend time in an actual house?

I've been trying to think of how I wanted to respond in this thread for awhile now, but Elanthius came along and covered a lot of what I wanted to say far more succinctly than I would have.


I feel like Bay City and Nautilus have giant targets on their back. There are a lot of people who commingle their ill feelings toward LL with their feelings about those areas and so nothing that happens there could ever be enough to deem them a "success". If they are quiet they are a flop, and if they get a lot of attention (and people are spending money to be there) they are unfair competition with private estates.

re: land prices...

Yup; its insane. I don't even own land there anymore. I am hoping an expansion comes along and more land will equal lower prices...

That said I am still part of the community there as are many other who do not actively own land. So come join the fun! No entry cost to come play.





In the last month or so LL has taken an interest in Bay City Alliances(and Nautilus groups) meeting and other events. Blondin Linden has been offering help and assisting with things like parcel controls and media. We certainly have the opportunity to use the community land if and when we like.