Opinions on Bay City

Just wanted opinions on the Bay City region. I've been mapping it over the last several days and to be honest it looks like a Ghost town. I'm seeing anything from 5 to 20 people covering 15+ odd sims everytime i map it.

Kind of depressing! Even more depressing for those who invested large amounts for double prim tiny plots. Maybe its early days and hasn't caught on yet.

I was toying with the idea myself of making a bid at the auctions, now i'm very glad i didn't......for less than half that money i recently bought a nice size plot (6k) in the snow regions (old Mainland continent) and opened up several shops there. It's been very profitable from the beginning......i don't think i could have done that in Bay City. Theres hardly any traffic across the board!

LL should help promote this region. I guess they made their money from the auctions and now washed their hands in it! Sad.

I went there when it first opened.. went back a bit later and started seeing out of place builds and half the land up for sale at stupid prices... haven't been back since.

A lost opportunity in my opinion....

I think the infrastructure and early builds looked very good. I made myself at home for a while in a nice furniture shop, although I didn't buy anything. I think Bay City will take time to establish itself as a busy destination.

I think there's some good stuff, but a lot was ruined by opportunists. I know my own place in Imaginario is only doing so so, largely thanks to the land squatter next door and his unfinished megaprim skyscraper - a skyscraper I seem to be stuck with some some time to come, I think.

But there are some parts that are wonderful, like the stuff that Barnesworth has up, or the area around Cubey's store. I like Lexxie's area, too, and so on. While clubs aren't me thing, there's one in Docklands that does pull in a lot of people.

Nevertheless, a lot of potential is just simply lost due to greed.

.....and they want to expand that region.??? I wonder now with hindsight, what the bidding prices will be during the 2nd phase. We clearly have seen that these lands are well overpriced....and theres no natural traffic there at all......well not at the moment!
That region could be anywhere on the grid as there's hardly any activity.
Hell, nearby Miramere Info Hub has far more people than those 15 or so sims put together!

I think LL should at least include this region in "Showcase"Search tab, that's the least they could do for all their investors.

I'm less optimistic that this will happen. I was surprised at how steeply the traffic seemed to fall off in those sims, past the first couple weeks after opening. And with new zoned Mainland and more urban sims on the drawing board (outside Sansara, as I understand it), I'm thinking a lot of latter-day land flippers are gonna get burned badly. I wonder if this time, for once, they'll learn the lesson: If you pay way more than the NPV of all revenues something can ever generate, and hope to sell it to "the greater fool," well... sometimes there just *is* no greater fool.

I think the days of making money on land (flipping/rental) are coming to a close. I can only see well managed Estates succeeding under this climate....places like Caledon, Azures, Fairchang and other community based Estates.

It's had it's day!

After reading Marianne's post I had to go and find the megaprim skyscraper for myself. It was not a thing of great beauty, I agree, though Marianne's shop is light and airy and cheerful. Reminds me a bit of my old Egotherapy centre before it met with its disastrous accidental deletion. [mops tear with handkerchief]

Thankoo!

I've actually been toyin with makin a couple other buildings dat could fit into Bay City, just to see if my neighbors (particularly the big megaprim one) would be interested. It would, I think, liven that area at least a bit.

I recently got curious after the numerous threads about these sims and went for a wander around there. I saw quite a few nice linden and resident builds, the cannals were great.

Yup theres a however comming here....the place was virually deserted, maybe 14 avatars in the whole area, some builds that almost melted my eyeballs, a few of those horrid forsale signs already up, properties with build turned on and the enevatable little piles of newbie junk they accumulate. I decided to ride a tram car at one point and after many tries decided that the actual bench seats were not for passengers as it insisted i sit atop of the side pannels in front of those benches.

Other than the open park areas, trees, roads, cannals and the linden builds, there was really nothing to distinguish it from many other better built mainland sims, other than the price of corse, I was gobsmacked, plots costing more than 10x the price elsewhere.

I hope it takes off and flourishes but for the life of me, i cant see what all the fuss is about.

I have to agree with Marianne. I think it's a good idea that is being ruined by greedy land flippers and a complete lack of any covenant enforcement by the Lindens.

I've gone there several times to use the area as a place to play with vehicles like my hovercraft. The canals make an interesting area to run around in with that silly thing.

I've done a little shopping there, but the high land prices and small parcel sizes meant that most of the business sites there that are serious have just been small "showcase" stores, with a sampling of what they sell at some larger store in a more rationally priced and less laggy sim. There are certainly a few real gems hiding in those sims, and they are somewhat fun to explore, looking for quirky features, like the car wreck on one street corner, or the wading area in Canal Park.

But although several people have tried to build in keeping with the spirit of the region, most of the land is in the hands of would-be land flippers. And I think the majority of those will get burned and end up abandoning that land eventually, as tier keeps eating them alive, and no one else is stupid enough to pay as much for that land as the flippers did.

Lag is pretty bad as well, and I can't say why. It was bad even before the land owners started building. I am wondering if there is something about all those bridges and the canal water ferry and the land trolleys that lags things down far more than they should.

bay city = gom and i hope it fails miserably.

Odd.. I've not had a trouble sitting in the trolley or the water trolley.



Ya, it did't really surprise me, but it did bug me that after ages of being told "no megas on mainland," this guy can sit two unfinished build that are nothing but megas. Then again, it was only me ARing them, and it's quite likely my AR did't make it past the GTeam door.



I often buzz about in my soap box racer.



I have about 80% of my You Know, For Kids Livingtree stock at my Bay City store, and am looking at tweaking stuff a bit more to allow more in. I also have stuff in Bay City that I don't have elsewhere. I'm okay with showcasing... but I also wanted something special there, and am very happy with how my little store came out.



I've talked with a couple of them. One of the early flippers has only one plot left (that he is holding onto) and has done okay, he says. The guy with the megas is not planning on selling his plots yet -- I think he's holding out for a time when Bay City land is scarce. Unfortunately, I think he's shooting himself in the foot, too, because his builds are driving down the value of that immediate area.

Thanks for your support.

Been there several times and must admit I am not keen.Bland is a word that springs to mind also empty,laggy,over hyped,overpriced.Shame but really not my scene.

It’s no surprise the builds don’t fit the theme. Without a covenant or anyone policing the builds, that’s just what’s going to happen.

I think Linden Lab™ probably made quite a bit of money on the sale of this land since it was scooped up at such high prices. That aside, I think it would have been better if the land was sold by lottery. A bunch of people sign-up as being interested in a parcel and a “winner” is chosen at random. That person will then have to pay 20, 30, or whatever lindens per meter. Add another rule that land can only be sold at the set price and you get rid of the land flippers. In their place you have people who actually want to use the land for something and, therefore, end up with a more populated and bustling area.

--Hugsy

It was an ill-conceived notion to begin with. It had nice elements, but it is exemplary of Linden mismanagement of the economy, land or otherwise.

Here's some of the places where I think it works:

http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=283034

http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=286352

http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=289734

http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=276196

http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=287400

And of course...

http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=289292

I've already made it purty clear above that I dun tink it's perfect. At this point, though it is in the hands of its residents. We make it good or bad, make it succeed or fail. I'm gonna stand with the former. Is dat an uphill battle? Ya. But I wanna see Bay City do as well as, oh, Nova Albion or other parts of the mainland over there.

sounds like I better get there and ride me bike before the lag starts

I would like to see it succeed as a lot of work has gone into the original infrastructure and most of the private builds. I feel it needs to offer something extra over and above the normal SL environment in terms of what you can do. But you can already do anything and everything that is physically / electronically possible in SL elsewhere. Possibly a different system of land tenure along with planning controls might have been good - or is that how things are in Bay City already?

I visited Bay City a few weeks ago and I wasn't impressed. Sure, the canals look nice. But the SAME canals over and over again on every freaking Bay City sim?!! After flying over three sims I was bored. The only thing that was nice were the shadows on some floors and roads, incorporated in the textures. That was nicely done.

Well, the canals *are* more of a background, really.

i have neve ryet been to Bay City.

Mari, can you drop LM's to me of all your places? i haven't seen one darn thing of yours yet, and i never was able to find your build in SL5B.

There are a few highlights in Bay City, where people have been creative enough to accept the spirit of the place and expand on it. And Marianne's is the best of the bunch.

The build f'r SL5B will go on Livingtree *hopefully* dis weekend (camp starts dis weekend, so my time is kinda tight). I'll try an 'member to drop LMs your way, though



Aww... thankoo

Mari