Bay City - Is it a FAIL?

Lots of replies. I agree about land prices and that there's no real sense of community there. At least, you can't sense it as a visitor.

But what I don't read is comments about the total basic design of the area, which isn't too inviting as far as I'm concerned. I mean: the buildings are mostly very well made, and even the roads, canals and boats are basically built and textured pretty good. But what puts me off is that it's all the same. I was taking the boat tour for a while, but got bored because of the repeating textures everywhere. Very gray and sort of depressing, I think. Even a creative building next to a road or canal loses it's creativity because of the prominent gray surroundings.

It's a matter of personal taste of course. But for me it is just too much. Together with the lack of people, it makes Bay City not a fun place to be.

When you have a mismatch of buildings bunched together then it can look awful. This is why the mainland will always look terrible. and I don't think this is a personal preference type thing either. Some designs are widely accepted as being aesthetically pleasing to the eye. and a bunch of buildings using a similar style is one of those things.

For example - a tudor cottage next door to a modern glass building is a big "NO!!". While a bunch of tudor cottages together is a fat "YES!".

So this explains why Bay City uses a similar style. and I personally thought it looked quite nice when it first opened.

I do see where you're coming from though. Variety is the spice of life and all that. But only when that variety is nicely spaced out. Like you don't want to watch 'Deep Throat" and 'The sound of music' at the same time.

Then again...

mmm

This gives me an idea for an "egalitarian tuner" that would be a pretty simple script, owned by the parcel owner. Someone tells the script of a proposed new stream. The script scans for avatars on the parcel*, and if the proposer is the only agent present, it just sets the proposed stream. If there are multiple agents, it tells the proposer that the proposal needs to be "seconded", listing the other agents. If somebody else seconds the proposal, it then IMs the proposal to everybody else on the parcel and when/if a majority vote in favor, it sets the proposed stream.

Even requiring a second, I guess it would be possible for somebody and their alt to spam requests for a change, so maybe some built-in delays would be needed, or some other scheme. And it would be possible for a conspiracy of alts to vote in a bad stream; I can't guess if this would actually happen.

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* It should make sure the proposing agent is actually on the parcel. Also, if it gets the maximum of 16 results it may have to rescan with a narrower arc to make sure it finds everybody, and of course range is limited to a 96m radius unless it rezzes a droid, but such complexity would almost never be needed and probably could be ignored.

Why u gonna make the things such complicate, when you can set individual streams per avatar?

This seems the way to go to me. Have a box that people click on that sets their audio stream. Would be a very small script. Only trick now is getting it rezzed out and functioning on all that Maintenance land.

I do't think your cheap

I looked at bay city and nautilus to and set a price I was prepared to pay, the auctions went far in excess of those prices for both areas.

Now the plots remain empty mainly and up for sale at the same hugely over inflated prices.

People can hold on to them for ever and a day as the tier for a 1024sqm is so low.

So its more a question of how much you want what bay city or nautilus offer, personally it is not that much, if the community were thriving then the answer may be different.

I had a handful of parcels in Bay City and actually enjoyed it, was bitten by the theme and the potential there. I was expanding my store and thought it would be a great way to gain some exposure by having a presence in some premium real estate.

When I first bought there I had great visions for it, and still do, but when I realized that the busy metro environment like Mari has talked about wasn't going to be happening any time soon, it lost alot of its shiny and I shifted my focus to buying and developing the mainland sim where I am now.

From a business perspective I couldn't develop it as much as I wanted and ended up selling for a (very) small profit mainly because i needed the tier, not because I wanted out.

For me it wasn't about the investment but just the time and distraction factor. I would really love to see Bay City flourish, I would even consider re investing there even at some of the outrageous prices.

I think the main FAIL that is brought to light by BC and NC is that obviously people are willing to pay for mainland that is more developed and themed than what LL currently releases as mainland.

The idea of having a giant virtual continent is great, but it needs some kind of continuity to keep it from becoming such a mess and to help suspend peoples disbelief more, allowing them to immerse more fully into the virtual environment.

There is so much open public land on the mainland that is basically filler space, roads with a few bushes popped in here or there, water ways that are cut off from the rest because of bad continent building by LL originally. Granted some improvements have been happening and kudos to the lindens for that..

My point here is why isn't all mainland like Bay City or Nautilus? The epic fail is that these places are touted as being special, when its only because the rest of the mainland is so chaotic/messy or bland. (except my sim lol)

If they start auctioning full sims with some limited LL/Mole development to tie the regions together it would make sense to me. Right now buying most mainland sims is not much different than buying and private island, its a blank slate devoid of any character or unifying theme, this should not be, otherwise its just like buying a cheaper island that I don't have as much control over.

Providing a sense of history or theme/story line with some complimenting builds here and there would go a long way to giving people a reason to be on the mainland other than a need for stability. The roadways are a good start, but LL if they want to be anything other than a glorified web host should take an active role to build some interest into the mainland.

As much as people seem to have negative things to say about the mainland it is a truly unique and innovative concept in games/VW's and I feel is an integral asset to SL's future success. With the emergence of many walled garden grids and other platforms that emulate the private island approach, I cannot see any of them being able to maintain the sheer scale and diversity of the SL mainland.

-why

If you're going to set a stream just for yourself, why don't you just fire up iTunes or WinAmp? The whole point of parcel audio is to share the music.

Uh that would work fine too. Everyone will be sharing the same stream there'll just be a small manual step to get connected. Do you have a better plan? And not one that involves begging Linden Lab for mercy everytime some tiny thing needs to be done?

AFAIK that only works for llParcelMediaCommandList(), and although that can be an audio stream, it's not the parcel audio that everyone expects to use.

Even if parcel Media is acceptable, the problem remains of which stream(s) should be propagated to agents on the parcel. Sure, people could just type their own URLs into chat or something, but that's inconvenient enough that it's just not going to get a bunch of people listening to a shared event narrative, which I take to be the point of doing this as part of Bay City "community building."

Otherwise, whether the script is per-parcel or per-agent is an implementation detail. If there's some mechanism for arriving at agreement for a shared stream that the script would push to agents, that same mechanism could be used for setting it parcel-wide, either as Media or Audio.

If you have individual streams for each avatar, they're not all sharing the same stream. No?
I have no plan, just a question. I'm easily confused.

Well, I don't know that this warrants all this back and forth but my plan was to have a box that the owner/dj loads an audio url into then people can click the box and it will set their media to listen to it. It can also chat the url so they can load it up in iTunes like you mentioned. This way everyone who enters the area can be instructed to click the box and bish bosh you've got a shared audio stream and a party on a parcel that you don't even own.

Assuming the scripting works and you can rez the box somewhere close I guess. I suppose you could rez it out and then sit on it so it doesn't get auto returned <G>.

I know. I thought I had a simple suggestion, but the road to hell, etc...The complication is that the thing that sets the stream--whether per-parcel or per-agent--has to be owned by the same entity that owns the parcel.* It would be possible for a DJ-owned box to talk to a parcel-owner-owned box, like a kind of remote control, but one would have to know which DJ boxes to trust, which seems equivalent to adding the DJ to some authorization list--which is pretty much where we started.

Anyway, sorry I even raised the topic.

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*Just FYI: If per-agent, the parcel has to be in the same sim as that agent--hence all those 16s for SLiPOD "antennas".

It has to do with history. The mainland expanded crazily during some incredible cycles of hype, and that expansion was done with an eye toward all anybody understood at the time: the grid of 2004.

In fact, until the southern mainland was completed each section was pretty special. I remember bidding upon land around the original volcanic areas of Sansara, losing my bids and having to consider buying a jacked up parcel from (what I thought at the time) someone who was a 'major' land baron.

Later the snow lands came in, and initially were a big hit. Then the pretty waterway regions; Anshe at this time was becoming a pretty significant force during that time. It was all snapped up. Somewhere about that time, there was the idea of a 'private region' that wasn't mainland ~ what a concept!

By 2005 small, individual themed areas were shaping up and the big land barons started making their minicontinents, usually an echo of the mainland with somewhat better zoning and customer service. This was the era when a guy with a single region could actually make a go of it, get noticed and maybe stand out.

By late 2007 that was over. It became nearly impossible to get noticed with a single region any more, there were so many of them. The bar had been raised.

Now in 2009 it's going to be a pretty tough road for someone to randomly come out with a (vampire / elven / gorean / furry / steampunk / younameit ) region. There are dozens upon dozens of them, all of which have to survive in a world competing against deeply experienced, well known land barons.

Tier is sky high now; 195/month left some room for mistakes but at nearly 1000 bucks a business quarter per region you darn well better know what you are doing, or be insanely good, or insanely rich. Or keep it just for yourself and friends and just not care.

And now there's 1/4 billion square meters of mainland that is optimal for... the late 2006 land rush. It's almost impossible to do any project of scale there; a tiny parcel holder can keep a doughnut~hole of a parcel in the middle of anyone's grandiose plans.

So the mainland is doomed to projects of a few regions at most in any one cluster, and not much in the way of tools. If you have a neighbour next door learning what prims are, there's nothing you can do if his baby~blocks loom over the trees and buildings of your magical paradise.

A few people like say Elanthius might be able to make a serious dent in this, but there aren't too many Elanthiuses.

Thanks Desmond, as always your insight into these kinds of things is very much appreciated The quote here is the crux of the problem, and where LL should really try to improve things IMO. They are missing a big opportunity to make something great out of the landmass, but need to get involved on a per region basis. It's something that seems daunting and near impossible, or is it? In the light of the recent adult continent announcement it seems they may have a precedent for these kind of sweeping changes. Also possible is when all the adult stuff is gone, its going to leave some big holes in the mainland landscape, LL should decide to steer the 're-population' better than just throwing it all up for auction.

-why

At least one Linden likes the idea of more city areas such as Bay City but it is problematic as land is already owned and purchased by residents who certainly aren't going to want to be forcibily evicted to make way for such ventures.

These areas are always doomed from the start due to land speculation, a dearth of original creators and Linden Lab's unwillingness & inability to enforce a theme.

I purchased a lovely plot in Bay City Tanelorn with the idea of making it a consulate for our isles. In the end i decided to use it as a display space for my home and garden items. I have been able to sell a few houses from there and get lots of tps to the main store, so in that respect it is worth it. I would not call it a fail at all...but i do believe that the empty plots with the astronomical prices are what has held the sims back.

From what I understand, the completion and development of Bay City was slowed by the change in management (and thus in priorities) at Linden Labs. The Info Hub has not been built. Streets and canals end abruptly.

But we are encouraged about the future! The citizens of Bay City have formed a community which gathers every two weeks with a representative of Linden Labs (thank you, Blondin). People have different talents and interests, not to mention different time zones. Linden Labs is more responsive than ever (thank you, Keira). We are encouraged that the LDPW will install an Info Hub and complete the city perimeter in due time.

Most of us are happy with no centralized government, but we value communication among the citizens. Because almost all of us have other property in SL, the streets are not as buzzing as we'd like. But I'm positive about the future of Bay City.

We invite you to visit any time and to look for announcements about future activities there! It is an open community and all are invited.

Bay City was fail once 512's started going for 20k+ lol
Its a lost cause now.

For LL? No.

For residents? Yes.

Bay City is a fail becouse there are no covenants. You buy a 100k l$ plot and the day after a newbie rent the plot in front of you and rez a 50x50 huge prim untextured wall.

Nautilus is the same thing but cheaper.

Bay City and Nautilus both have community groups that are very interested in making those cities vibrant communities like say, Nova Albion and Caledon. We in Bay City are actually working on the relationship with our sister city NA, and the Hallowe'en parade mentioned in a previous post also included the next lil community over, Shermerville.

History even here in Second Life does not happen instantaneously. It must be built up from something, and we in Bay City are trying to do just that.

If you happen to spot a familiar name near you, come over and say hi to us!

For LL, no, not fail.

For residents, yes, fail, but they can change that.

I wonder...

Bay City.
Right now when I pull up the Bay City map, I see that most plots are sold. There is still a sizable amount of yellow, but not out of size for the average mainland plots. A week ago, two L$65k plots sold within days of being listed, and a better located 1024m went for around L$90k. The latter seems to be the common low-end for Bay City plots, with many in the L$100-125k range. There is a current lack of events, but some are in process. There is at least one location in the city doing regular, well-populated fishing tournaments. There is a parade being planned for the first anniversary in May. A concert series is also being planned. There is a lack of distinct shopping destinations, but that seems to be changing right now. Barnesworth Anubis is building a major store next to Rebel Hope in the middle of Argos. Designs of Darkness is building a larger main store in Imaginario.

That may not be all that much a fail.

Nautilus City plots are averaging less L$ than Bay City. There appears to be more sims available per sim than Bay City, and of course, a larger land space.

Nova Albion has a handful of plots for sale, though there are also a number of locations in the city that are undeveloped or have "placeholders" on them. The plots that are in Nova Albion are well within the six-digit range. These sims are usually packed due to the infohub which is both a boon and blessing to Nova Albion.

Shermerville/Blumfield/etc. has a small amount of land for sale - the lowest amount I've seen in a while. the cheapest 512ms there are still in the L$30k range.

The Snowlands -- which are not a city -- are covered with yellow. Heck, large chunks of the mainland are.

So is Bay City a fail? It still seems to be commanding a good price, if not the amusingly high price of its early speculators. It is filling in well, even though it still has it's troubles. IMO, it is as much a "Fail" as the rest of the mainland, or of many other estates.