Bay City: A Slap in the Face

I never have used these forums to complain, but the Bay City development enrages me.

For years I have paid tier (a lot), now Linden Labs has decided that new comers can have twice the amount of prims for the same amount of tier, and no danger of having your lot wiped out by land-cutting ad farmers. I realize that the prim limit for the sim is the same, but this does little to make me less angry.

Linden Labs has turned their back on existing (and very stable) customers by offering what amounts to a (perpetual) 50% off deal for new customers -- with a better environment also.

Of course, I could sell my land and buy in the new Bay City area, but let's face facts: older land owners are going to get screwed, after all why would anyone pay essentially twice the amount of monthly fee for the same (actually worse) service?

Damn, damn, damn. For years you support a community and patronize a company, and this is the reward. I don't believe it. I am stunned.

The old city sims have double prims too.

Here's the rub though - double prim real estate is enormously expensive.

I'm not sure if you've ever taken a look at prices in the old city sims, but we are talking 100s pf 1000s of L$ for a wee little parcel.

You also can't terraform or join/divide in Bay City, which is a drawback for many people. It's just a differnt type of land, and yes, they will be extremely expensive upfront, I imagine, since they will be going to auction.

The original Bay City whineathon thread (still on the first page!) just wasn't strong enough to contain your outrage, eh OP?

Wow it's almost like having zoning laws in place as if the Lindens want some kind of dense urban design. They even give you textures.

I noticed that. I am really curious to see how the area will develop, and how many residents will really build in theme there.

I havent been there...but my first gut reaction to this was...do we need 20 more regions? I thought there was a land glut. I understand LL wanting to make something nice for residents...but it seems to me that adding more land for sale or rent in a huge area is not contributing to the overall good of the market. Also, isnt this in direct competition with all the folks who have made similar areas and activities?

I'd rather have seen something like the showcase or some sort of registry developed so folks could find the existing mazes and assylums etc. Maybe im missing the point...but it would make more sense to me if they were offering something that no one else offers in SL. I agree that the area for using vehicles is needed since there is no large area for this. But the rest to me is a bit of a slap in the face to those who have created great spaces without the sponsorhsip of LL.

I'd say if you like the activities in Bay City...be sure to look up those same things in search and visit the areas others have created as well. Kinda spread the love LOL.

Bay City is nothing more than a fancy Linden-controlled world to show off to potential corporate clients they are trying to hook. The days of the little guy are over, folks. Cash out, and move on. Bay City is one big fancy ad campaign, to hook the likes of IBM and others. It's a car showroom, that's all. Sanitized.

Why do you think the land market has tanked? Those of us who see what is happening are unloading and cashing out as fast as possible. Although there will still be a place in SL for the rest of you, especially if you buy up our land, which is being sold for bargain basement prices at the moment. I've never seen land prices so low in the year and I half I've been here.

Princess Ivory

It's a prim bonus, and is much the same as similar places form some time back, jes like others on dis thread said. It is not anything new.

Never mind dat some people will not like bay city cuz of the fixed parcel sizes and a lot of other things -- it will be spendy to live there. Look at the cost of some parcels in Nova Albion!



Kinda reminds me of Boardman in that way, with its required buildings. I dunno if that still applies there.

Mari

Yeah the upfront costs are going to be staggering in these new city regions but Linden Lab also take a hit on tier in these regions too, the potential tier earnings are vastly reduced.

I have to say I think Bay City is what LL should have been doing for some time. As someone who is fed-up of renting in sims where the owner is just too happy to take your money but never really does anything, or on the mainland where ad-farms, sex-shops and aggresive neighbours make your life a misery, I think the idea of a regulated neighbourhood with a similar architectural style is a good idea. Over the timeI have been in SL it has become increasingly a mess. I miss the early structured sims where you could walk or drive around. Now you just TP from one site to another relying on the search feature which is totally distorted by campers and just takes you to the most commercial of placees making it difficult to find really valuable or useful venues/events. 20 sims of land-space is hardly going to crash the land-market and I suspect that land will be ridiculously expensive there, certainly at first. I certainly think it is nice for once to see LL doing something that might improve the experience of residents! I just wish there was a little more detail out there, particularly in the Bay City sims themselves about what was going to be happening and what the 'concept' is.

I've seen Bay City and I think it rocks. Getting angry at LL for what they're doing is like getting angry at Ford for having one of those "Employee-discount for everyone" sales because you bought your car at full price a year ago. Companies have sales, deals, and specials all the time.

Yup. An ya, like I said above, dis is not unprecedented.

Mari

I'm interested in this "How dare they cater to new people" thing. I myself am VERY disinterested in buying land so far. I'm not creative enough to make something for sale. And, there is plenty of open sandbox land around for me to play in when I'm not chatting with my friends. (^_^)

But... Bay City is very interesting to me. The land is being offered with limitations and perks at the same time. I don't know how regulated the builds will be. But to have a fixed parcel with an expected theme and a large amount of walkable space makes for a much more attractive place to wander around in. I'm finding much of mainland to be distasteful junk-on-junk builds that you can only TP-in TP-out to visit and it's just jarring. (>_<

I enjoy the idea of walking down a virtual sidewalk from store to store, meeting the other people that are doing so, and really carrying a suspension of disbelief while roaming in a nice little virtual city. (^_^)

I've even noticed it in the places I prefer to hang out. Most of them are either street-side or campus style builds. When I happen to land in "regular" mainland builds, I pretty much just go 'meh' and move on. (=_=)y

Is there really anything wrong with LL trying to "hook" corporate clients with fancy builds? Take into consideration that free accounts more than outnumber premium accounts, which most likely outnumber residents who own one or more sims. Add in all the alts, bots and zombies, and one can see that the grid is really getting stressed, and needs constant improvements. Put simply, LL can't possibly stay afloat on only us little guys. They need the corporations to pour money into SL.



Publicity is not a bad thing for SL. Keep in mind that SL has a lot of competition from other MMOGs as well as xBox Live and whatever Sony is calling their online gaming portal at the moment. It is an uphill battle for LL because the consoles are much more stable online than SL.

SL does need its "car showrooms" I find it interesting that Bay City is just a short flight from the Ahern Welcome Area. Newbies were meant to find it after they get dumped in Ahern. Its really a clever way for LL to hook newbies into staying in SL. I like to hang out in Ahern, and newbies always ask me where are the cities, or if cities exist in SL. I guess a few Lindens get asked the same questions.



The land market tanking probably is related to a perceived land surplus, but I suspect that its more likely due to the RL economy. People tend to shift priorities when their RL cars cost more to refuel, their RL food costs more and their RL ARM mortgages are kicking in. LL dumping 20 new themed sims onto the grid will probably have no more effect on the land market than five land barons opening 20 new sims between them.

In my opinion, Bay City seems to have been created to boost customer retention by giving newbies a big city to explore that is easy for them to find. Visit any Welcome Area and you will find newbies asking "what next?" The ones who see SL as a 3D chatroom and little else tend to leave. And if a few corporate types decide to throw cash at LL after seeing an impressive build, it (potentially) benefits us all. Just my opinion.

I think it's cool.

OK, so, you come to SL to escape from RL for a while only to find a build that looks just like that RL city you wanted to escape from in the first place. Meh.

The ultimate lesson of Bay City is that any landowner could have offered controlled land before this. Some certainly have, and met with even Caledon-level success. The double prim at Bay City was supposedly achieved by the reduced prim counts of the roads, canals, public lands, and open water. Well, guess what? It didn't take LL to do that.

The "rent and do what you like!" attitude has led to the chaos of the mainland and on many estates. Anyone who's seen Southern California can see the difference. Los Angeles is mostly a design free-for-all, which has resulted in one of the ugliest cities on planet Earth. Santa Barbara is strictly regulated for all design and building issues (if you're a bank with an ATM outside, it must have a wood frame around it; metal is not allowed!). As a result, Santa Barbara is famed for its beauty.

I am hopeful that LL will get more serious about the ad farm crackdown. I don't see why they can't set a couple of interns to travel the grid and zap these eyesores back to their owners. I am also encouraged by the expansion of the road project. More open water throughout the Grid would be another big step in the right direction. Killing the ridiculous banlines, or converting them to a ban-box of limited height, would be another giant step in the right direction.

At the end of the day, I really hope that Bay City-- and Caledon and the other design-controlled sims-- stand as inspirations to other estate owners, and to LL.

I think the whole "Bay City is to lure Corporations" line of thinking is a complete red herring. I'm fairly deeply interested in the role RL corporations play in SL, and I totally fail to see any connection at ALL between Bay City and LL's strategy for corporate customers (or lack thereof). Frankly my dear, corporations don't give a damn about LL's real estate market. What they DO care about is retention, and Bay City seems to be another of LL's experiments to see how to make new residents happier.

Bay City seems to me a straightforward response by LL to the continual outcry about the ugliness and unregulated nature of mainland property. So, they made an area which is pretty, where the residents don't have to deal with land administration/terraforming, and which looks like the real world (so is easily understood by non-gamers). When Robin Linden took the temperature of folks in her office hours about this idea early on, it was raised in the context of current residents' discontent with mainland. The most obvious answer is usually the right one.
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All the benefits of being a Bay City resident are canceled out by the mandatory dress code.

OMG. You found the photosource for Ruth.

OMG.... the person in the white: male or female?

I agree, Nika.

But it's just not in some people's best interest (filthy land barons).

The hair and shoes for each should be worth at least 2200 in avatar rendering cost alone.

Ya, I agree with ya.

I look at Bay City as one of any number of options. There are already a bajillion sims where you can build however, whatever. There are plenty of private estates where the landowner can play god. So this (much like some of the other city-type sims, etc.) gives another option to those who want it.

If ya like Bay City, buy land there -- I know I sure want a little plot there. If not, buy land in Gaeta, or rent, or heck, don't even bother with owning land.

Mari