Goodbye Beek Haven

I witnessed the death of a sim today. One minute it was a beautiful pirate harbour, the next a flat green square.

My profound sympathies to everyone who used the place. I'd only just started going there and I was begining to fall in love with it.

This has brought home to me the harsh reality of SL. It is not a game, it is a machine for making money.

I agree it is a rude awakening to this..It is like Neo pulled all the plugs and said look i saved you..No hook me back up i was doing just fine..I wouldn't mind being hooked back up myself..


..and it is sad when things we love go away like that in the blink of an eye

Like the Acropolis sim

So what happened?

Or VSN.

It's sad. I had a shop there for a while but the place just got less and less traffic. I suspect it was the same for the estate, in the end there was just not enough interest and money coming in for the owners to pay LL's tier.

I don't think that Beek Haven was about making money though. I believe it was a labor of love for Dutch and Ten who ran it very well. But LL demands their pound of flesh whether you're getting yours or not. If you're paying in every month it's just not sustainable.

Yes, a labour of love. It was a fun place to visit, and the waters were great for sailing my Tako. A lot of poeple will miss it.



I guess the money ran out. Dutch had sold it and was acting as estate manager, and then it got sold on to a real eastate business that went to work on it straight away.

I guess we should remeber to be more generous with our tips at places we like.

It is a shame when a favorite place disappears......I was totally beyond bummed when my favorite hang out went away....October Country. I had grown so fond of that place, and of the people. It sucked, it really did.

But.....it hit home to me the other day when I was talking to my sister about some new discoveries I'd made in SL......and she said to me "It's really just a big playground isn't it"

Now she has seen my island and gallery....and I've shared enough with her that she totally 'gets' the potential of SL and the fascination factor. But....her comment was rather loaded because the more I thought about it.....the more I realized that's exactly what SL is. It's a playground....we get to go in and totally do our own thing. We're not accountable to anyone.....it's a community, yes, and it's meant to be smething to explore and even exploit, in terms on money. But.....that still doesn't mean that anyone who has their own sim is in any way accountable.

There's nothing we do,in the way of entertainment, that doesn't cost us. And I've brought this up before.......and getting involved in SL is no different. Comes a point tho, where ya have to weigh the personal value against the investment. For some, the personal gain is worth it.....and for others, it gets to be too much.

I was really bummed to see the OC go away.....but the owner was in no way obligated to ME to keep his sim afloat. He had other stuff going in in his life.....other priorities that made it impossible for him to maintain the OC. He knew what he was getting into tho.....and he got to come to the playground and do something really cool for a while. I don't see a problem with that. The opportunity is there for everyone. And yeah....it aint cheap if we want to do something really grand..... but it aint cheap to get season tickets to *insert fave sport team here*.....or to dine in fine restaurants.....or whatever.

My point is.....it's easy to spend money on the things we enjoy.....but start factoring in the potentail to make money back.....and suddenly people get this entitlement thing going on where they just 'expect' it to work or be easier, or cheaper. It's not...but at least we get to enjoy the creativity of others for a while....at least we get to share it.....we get such an amazing opportunity in SL.....unlike anything else.... And as sad as it is to see one place disappear......there's always 50 new ones being built as we speak. To me...that's the excitement of it.....that's what SL is all about....Playground.

I compare SL to a beach

many folks milling around doing their own thing, hanging out in groups, some want and like to be alone

some decide they want to build sandcastles, which end up eventually disappearing as the tide comes in, others set up the refreshment and souvenir stands...

SL is just one.... big... beach

The problem here is that everything in SL costs money. Absolutely none of this is free. Not a bit of it.

Somebody has to pay for this stuff. If not yourself, somebody else.

When the time comes that it's not worth the money being thrown at it anymore, it goes away.

The solution to keep things from going away is to claim ownership over it. No that doesn't mean that you buy the island sim from the person who's running it by force. It means you own it in the same way that Cliff, Norm, and the other regulars at Cheers, were in a position where Cheers was THEIR bar.

You show your loyalty to it. You take care of it. You support it. Supporting it meaning that you actually throw money their way. Like all the time Cliff and Norm spent keeping the barstools occupied at Cheers, they actually bought beer. They were entitled to be there by virtue of it being a public place, but they also understood the responsibility of paying for that privilege lest the bar go away.

Time for the people of Second Life to learn this lesson as well. You are entitled to go places in Second Life. With such privilege comes the responsibility to provide for the financial support of your favorite venues. Fail to learn this lesson and more threads like this will be started as more people's favorites go away.

So if they ever do come out with SL:2 would it then be a son of a beach?

Prolly not a bad idea. I've been mostly home (in SL) lately not venturing around as much but I'll keep that in mind as well.

It seems like it won't add up but now that I own some lots too I know that every bit's appreciated. I find it hard justifying shopping now with tier to pay, and hey that 350 tip is a new pair of shoes. Lol (Not asking for tips on my land it is still empty lol)

I don't know if I ever saw this sim but too bad it's gone.

I do hate to see a nice piece of land chopped up. It wouldn't be as bad if there were zoning or any type of laws in SL about putting up big spinny neon monstrosities.

ROFL
ok that works for me

With apologies to the current owner, every time I go back to Liome, I want to cry.

It's akin to The Matrix: One day I woke up and realized I was just being used for my outrageously high tier. I did all the work and all the cash was sucked out of me. I sold the sim the following month.

I run a residential estate. I had a great Tavern and hosted parties with live acts. But I ended up paying for all of it. I had parties with 40+ people and great live acts and only got about L300 in tips. After a while there were very few residents coming and mostly band groupies who tipped their fav band generously but not my venue.

I opened it up to the tenants and told them to go ahead and host their own parties in there if they liked, many said they were interested, none did.

I recently removed the tavern. Now people complain *sigh*

Speaking of places disappearing, does anyone know what happened to the Mill Pond and the Open Latte (I think that was the name) within it? I was only there a few times but it was a restful as well as interesting place.

I tried to go there the other day and kept getting odd messages like "Not permitted on the land" and such.

At last I have an answer to the mystery of what happened to the 500L I recently paid to Dutch to rent a place on the sim, and why I heard nothing more, including no replies to my IMs ....

Guess I'll never see it again will I? It was my first 500 too, as a newbie ...

Apologies to the previous owner, but Liome's rental board is nearly full as an urban center. Tropical paradises are very hard to sell in 2009, because every new landlord on the grid thinks sandy beaches are the best and most unique idea in the world. Customers look at 500 of those and then rent from me. Frankly, I loved the way you had it set up too, but the new way is simply good business.

I think it's time you got your own sim again, Raymond! I can tell you're itching for it. I've been thinking about tiering down a little because I'm just too busy in RL. I'd almost rather die than sell Devolin Mal, since it fronts the Blake sea now, but if it's going to a trusted new owner I might think about it. IM me.

--Avion

I think there is a definite moral here - places cost money to have in SecondLife. If you really like a place and want it to stick around, help them do that.

That means putting stuff in the tip jars, if they are there, yes, but it also means supporting the businesses there too - if businesses can make money then they will stay and pay rent to the owners.

It also means telling others about it too - the absolute best way for a place to be supported is by word-of-mouth. If people don't know about a place, they aren't going to find it (unless they get really lucky in Search). Blog about it, tell your friends. Not only that but maybe invite them over to the place to hang out for a while, so they get to see it - maybe show them around.

There's nothing more disheartening for a sim owner than seeing his or her creation totally empty for days on end.

Reading this thread has given me an idea.

LL should take an option to adopt the best sims that are getting ready to poof for use as public
land playgrounds and use them for welcome areas. Not only as a sort of historical preservation
program but also to help create a positive first impression for new people coming in.

Ah but...who would get selected? And the inevitable charges of favoritism you say?

People planning to leave or others knowledgeable of the impending leave could nominate sims
they wish to see preserved then at the end of a certain chunk of time 6 months a year perhaps.
Residents could vote for the one they wish to see preserved the most as a sort of world public
park land.

Naturally the votes could be influenced by popular av's but... that is just part of the imperfect
system of such things as it has always been that way.

At least it would be one solution to preserving the best built sims that have existed here in SL.

That's exactly what I said. If you like the place, prove it. Treat it with the sense of ownership people feel in RL when they like a place. Your favorite places to go in Second Life are yours. Treat them right. Support the people making the financial commitment to make them available to you. It's our responsibility as the people coming to those venues just as much as it is the responsibility of the people who bought the properties from Linden Lab.

Let's step up to the plate and prevent more of these cases from happening!

Yeah sandy beaches have always been a dime a dozen due to estates, but mainland sims that nice were rare. Basically, I kept it a tropical paradise because that's the type of land I enjoyed myself.

No argument with your business model. I'm not surprised you're a better, more successful landlord than I was. It's just Liome has such lovely natural terra and it's obscured by the cityscape, as cool as it may be.

As for jumping back in again, I'm done. Too much time has already been spent on this "hobby". But thanks for thinking of me and for not reacting to my comment on lovely Liome.

Check the group notices for the Pirate's Keep group for a little more information on that situation.

Thanks for that ....it's given me a lead to go on!