Bay City: A Slap in the Face

Nah, I come for the freakshow and stay for the drama.

Don't forget the prim bell-bottomed pants!

Shang-a-lang!

ROLFMAO!! I was just watching old clips of their Saturday Morning show on YouTube. Now I remember why it didnt last long!!

I had a look at Bay City and it looks very attractive. There might not be many buildings there yet, but the ones that are, and the infrastructure are to a very high quality.

It's not something to get enraged about! People might get extra prims but presumably there are going to be strict controls on what they can build there.

Incidentally, I noticed that Open Life and Central Grid have 45,000 pims per sim now - which is a bit academic, as most of the sims are virtualy empty, from what I've seen!

Actually the clothes those men are wearing look very SL! SL newbie, even!!!

From everything I've read it sounds like the Lindens are encouraging Bay City residents to build in theme, but won't be strictly enforcing that:

"The style is the American urban experience, between 1940 and 1965, perhaps best typified by Chicago circa 1950 and marked by a distinct deco influence. Most parcels will be around 1024 square meters and “join and divide parcels” will be turned off at the estate level. Residents can still build across parcel boundaries if they own, or have permission to build on, adjacent parcels; but by not allowing parcels to be joined or divided, we hope to influence the “scale” of builds in Bay City."

From the Linden Blog Post:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/02/22/linden-department-of-public-works-update/

They are providing themed textures to help encourage that further. The parcel restrictions they are imposing are more strict than those in neighboring Nova Albion (where you can subdivide and join parcels you own).

I see this area as developing very similarly to Nova Albion, with one exception. The parcels in Nova Albion were first auctioned to residents long before land speculation became popular. Everyone who won auctioned parcels in Barcola, Miramare, Grignano and Sistiana in 2004 did so with the intent of contributing directly to the development of an urban area in a personal way. Many of the original residents are still landowners in those four regions. It may not go that way with Bay City. It is very possible that land speculators with buy up the parcels and try to sell them for a profit, especially as there is little precedent (except for Nova Albion) as to the perceived value of a more controlled urban environment on the Mainland.

Those first buyers may be seeing dollars signs instead of signs of a community.

p.s. Here is some recent info on what someone was willing to pay for land in Nova Albion:

One of the original residents of Grignano, Nova Albion (Silent Lament) released his land to the Governor (or was reclaimed as he no longer shows up on inworld Search) at the start of 2008. It was a 1216 sq. m. parcel in the northeastern corner of the Grignano neighborhood. That parcel sold in the Linden auctions for $255,010 or $209.71 per sq. m. (approx. US$962.00). It was then set to sell for L$486,400. This occurred, I believe, before the Bay City regions were announced.

Recently it was divided into two parcels and now both are owned by one person. I don't know what the final sales price was. The land was on the market for about three months or so.

I wouldn't think that Bay City parcels would go as high as there will be more of them. But we'll see what the demand is. If land speculators do win most or all of the Bay City auctions and put them up for sale immediately, we'll see how long they sit on them if no one is willing to pay their asking price.

What, u mean like Caledon?


I keep hearin' similar complaints (I THINK), if I understand u...but I seriously doubt they are gonna be able to get the Residents to make a "Lindenworld Bay Area" to resemble the one in Cali.

I dunno how many SL Residents live in Cali, but still. It almost sounds to me like they are tryna be kind of like The Crack Den, as far as having a THEMED Bay City, but I just can't see enough ppl buying that Land, and going along w/ that. I don't really think Bay City WILL be competition for other..."similar", places, because I don't think Residents want to build that. Folks buy Land cause they want the freedom 2 make it thiers, kinda like we do with avatars.

Thats just my opinion, & I'm off my meds, so take it or leave it, lol.

I believe this was designed around a more east coasterly, loosely defined "bay city" in look and feel. It's definitely not California.



The plus to this, IMO, is that it discourages ad lots. Could still happen, sure -- but you're not going to find any 16m lots in Bay City.



I *really* hope it isn't gonna be dat bad. I've eyed some of the yellow land in Nova Albion, an found it to be way past my price range. But some of dat's been there f'r a bit, too.



I will *not* be buying in Bay City after the initial auctions, at least for some time -- and just because of that. I don't want to pay an overinflated price in the post-auction rush, for someting dat'll be nothing more than a small, simple store.

Mari

Nothing wrong with zoning. As long as your freedom of expression isnt totally zoned out. "Sorry you cant build a giant purple particle box nightclub here, but have double prims instead. You may build your giant purple particle club on the mainland somewhere."
Would be nice if such things as this new concept were affordable to the common person and not priced out the ass. I drove a convertible across Bay City a few nights back. Had the same problems inherent in driving a vehicle anywhere else in SL. Flew a hot air balloon back across the town at about 40 meters, with five passengers. Lost three passengers at a border crossing so had to adjust speed down to a crawl. Saw Marianne McCann down there on a streetcorner, not sure if she was selling drugs or scalping trolley tickets, but looked like she had an entourage I enjoyed the asylum, reminded be of something out of SILENT HILL. I whipped out my flamethrower just in case but the damned place wouldnt let me rez any FIRE!! I'm eager to see what develops. Slap in the face? I dont know wtf your talking about.

Not having looked into it, I never thought of the Bay sims to be for sale,
it kinda makes me sad, where else is there that is a "vast", showing off the current offerings of it's own product that isn't a WA, RP, mad mall monster?
SL needs such places of it's own and not public/private LL homestead ...offices.

Offering zoned sims is a good idea, although if they're putting in build quality rules it'll very probably scare off newbies (who won't want to risk buying the land, paying the tier, and then being told "you're not good enough to build here, use a prefab or scram".

Saying that "any landowner could have done it" isn't quite true - a landowner takes a much bigger risk if the theme idea turns out not to be popular, and it also ignores the trust advantage that LL get from being able to sell their land from within the tier system. It would be fascinating if LL had implemented some kind of system for resolving that (ie, allowing a resident to transfer their tier to a private island, where it translates into a scaled discount or even profit for the island's Estate owner).