Does overselling SL hurt SL?

Well, we know that people came here after CSI, but it was pretty obvious that most of the scenes in that were staged. However, I've just watched the Wonderland video, and the rather heavily staged and built scenes in that. They're really well done, and the artists who did them (Rivers Run Red?) are deserving of much praise - but does presenting an image of SL in this way actually harm it? Do people come into SL expecting gold, and feel disappointed when they get silver, even though the silver would have been great if they'd been told that was what they were getting?

Nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising.

What hurts is that, there is so much land for sale (mainland) and SL keeps adding more driving the values down. I guess the logic is to drive people to buy islands, by keeping mainland overstocked with adfarms and griefers.

"CX" - I am staying on Mainland Anyway

I came here through CSI:NY. Heck, I didn't even visit Second Life.com until someone mentioned the website after I'd been in world for a few days (I signed up via an advertisement seen on CBS.com that had everything needed there - registration and download of viewer).

Based on comments:
1) Expecting more? Well the CSI:NY people end up with a "higher quality" default avatar than people that signed up elsewhere.
2) Learning on the go - through solving crime seemed to "lower" the steep learning curve associated with exploring and enjoying Second Life. (I have no idea how the default works; and I had heard of a "steep learning curve".
3) Solving the first murder I came across in CSI:NY was fun and all, but I immediately left CSI:NY afterwards. I wanted to explore more. That, of course, is where I went from the "adult" world of bloody corpses at CSI:NY to the "adult" world of sex and the like when I entered Second Life. First place I went to off CSI:NY was a freebie place. I walked up to the nearest wall, and saw a bunch of mixed boxes with labels like "31 naked anime pictures" and "sex balls" and the like. And then the majority of the second search (first search was freebie which got me to the freebie place), were gentlemen clubs and adult playrooms (second search was for "conversation"; lead me to the forum hangout, though, 8th on the search list for conversation).

I did not expect, nor was promised "gold." I've since learned that I got "gold" in the form of default avatar when I arrived through CSI:NY. And I kept getting comments on "how well I had done" and/or "how well put together I was" after so little time in Second Life. These comments after roughly 48 hours straight inside Second Life during which I hadn't really done anything yet. So that "default" CSI:NY avatar really must be a big improvement.

My only complaint? I dislike the OnRez viewer, and seem to like the Windlight viewer better than it (ironically, when I downloaded the "official" viewer I downloaded the Windlight viewer - so I have it and OnRez, but not the actual normal regular viewer). Oh, the complaint is two fold: 1) I actually wanted to go back and work on another crime but found I had to be in OnRez to do so; 2) walking around in Windlight and seeing exposed and doublized male attachments everywhere I looked (which is a . . well no not a glitch. I'd been told it was a glitch, but I've read it in the forum threads that it isn't a glitch but intentional).

If they wanted to encourage people to buy private islands then they'd not release more land. Rats like a little space in their cage and LL have just given us a slightly bigger cage.

If LL were to open up ten new continents tomorrow then the desire for private sims would drop dramatically. It's the claustrophobic mainland that often drives people to buy a sim.

I personally wont buy a sim because they're just too expensive. and yet I wont buy land on the mainland because it's overcrowded.

ANd Junked up and Griefter and totaly screw up..........Can you believe some doo doo build a airport in a quite populated area? ANd they are buying up more and more land on it. These crazy people don`t care about he people around them distrubing them with their planes and other flying objects. Talk about no cotrol of building? People like this just have no common sence.This is not a online Sumulator for flying thats made specialy for it. shakeshead people just have no common sence when buying and building suitable in their surroundings...........

Huh?

There are huge tracks of the mainland that look like a ghost town all the time.

Do you go by the "home on the range" definition of crowded?

Maybe if you go teleport there you might see that the land is set for sale at five trillion squillion dollars or the next door neighbors have the artistic taste of a two year old child.

Would you live next door to this guy?:

I just watched "The Office" the other day and Second Life was on that as well.

These are two lessons that LL should take to heart. The default AVs and the items in the Library are OLD, and ought to be updated.

And learning "on the go" is key! Give the newcomer something to DO, and make sure that she learns basic SL skills in doing it. This is how all other video games (online or not) work...they throw you into the sea and let you learn to swim...but the sea is shallow to start with, and gets deeper and stormier as you progress.

I believe there are two mainland sims available for sale right next to me.

No. They would bring down those ridiculous prices is more like it.

Two factors,

One, they sold the Idea of being your own police force by having the ability of locking the greifters in so you can deal with them. They have to log off to get away.

Two, prices are just too high.

That too.

But I suspect one of the reaons sims prices are so high is because LL struggles to meet the demand otherwise.