Feedback on the Mainland

Great news Linden Labs!

Now that you are going to take an active role in making Mainland more attractive and remove unwanted ads I hope you're also going to allow us to make prims bigger than 10x10x10. Either that or double prims limits (or both)

I hate Ban Lines as well. Security Orbs are much better, but I wish the scanning limit of 96 metres and 16 avatars could be raised.

P.S. I never shop at a place that has advertised through an ad farm.

Instead of just broad-brush residential/commercial area can we also have some mixed where, say, commercial is restricted to retail only and above ground?

This would allow residents with small commercial interests to keep their businesses on the same plots as their residences, without impacting the look of a predominantly residential area.

I am not to say removing banish. Is that anyway to tell resident about forbidden area. Red line already degrade my living quality of my land.

... And dont let them extort money by selling full land around a 16m and counting on them buying the last piece (I hope Montelli Vantelli doesn't mind that I post his image) for a sick price:
http://i334.photobucket.com/albums/m411/NeverSleepGroup/SecondLife/AustinH.jpg



I have that sort of now myself in Nautilus. I have a rectangle of 2048, and to the north of the eastern half is a 512 with a plaza for my art gallery. It's not distracting with big ugly signs or anything. It's built as part of the property and IMHO it works quite well. The majority of the display is 400 up from there via teleport. My mainland place is for friends to come and hang out, or anyone who likes fishing in orange soda It's PG and I have absolutely no problem with people wandering in and exploring - except I don't have the prims to put much furniture in the cottage yet. My tier costs are prohibitive for someone who has a token gallery but does not expect to make big bucks in SL. I make a little back in spending money here and there (I've sold two pools in two months), and the most I make is from Linden every Tuesday.

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r136/holodocdr/SL/stonecottage.jpg
(yes it takes a few prims to make nice groundcover - about 15ish)

To shield from the porn site up the hill and the tacky "businesses" to the west, I've put up a holodeck grid image in the back yard - which by the way is clear on their side so the tiered view of the land and water are unobstructed.

Personally I love to build, and I don't think I'm bad at it even if I can't script (I have a kickass flyer I designed which I can't fly), and to be called on to design an area for Linden and build up more places for hanging out etc, or add to and enhance my place with sculptures... well, I can't do that. It would mean paying thousands of dollars as a hobby per year to make a sim or buy more land on my tier level (if I had for tier what most of my friends who came here in 2004-2005 have, I'd have bought the large land south of me instead of seeing it go to a "gaming" place).

Some of us aren't rich or market savvy. We just like to create. I know that doesn't sound very profitable for LL to consider the residents - the people and not the bots of mainland - but it would be a more welcome place (to the dismay of estate owners). I know for those who make a living here (power to you) this all sounds la dee da noob, and maybe that's why those people who bought around my first property worked to crowd me out and squash me like the dirty little homesteading bug I was to them, but you know for a lot of people, SL is for downtime and enjoying a place we can never have in the real world.



Shame on them for using those ad towers to advertise.

Yes, it's time for a change or should I call it a revolution? But I see a little problem with land that has an infrastructire on it. For example: There is land with a big, well going, business on. Let's think about you (LL) decide, from now on this is residential area. This would be a shock for the businessowner. Moving a large mainshop is like killing it! So you should really well think on the decisions you make.
But as I said, the whole thing seems to be a revolution! And if that helps to clean the view from scenic pollution (adfarms for example) its a good thing!
So go on, I count on you LL!

to residents in order to rejoin them at very little (L$ 1) or no cost to larger sized adjacent land.

http://arbor.npl.com/

If you have any problems with Arbor Project land or are interested in joining Arbor Project Land to your land please IM Xerses Goff or Timo Daehlie.


Our group cares about the Grid ..

Yay, thank goodness! I've often considered buying a plot on the mainland, but can never find anywhere as nice as estate land. Bay City was a nice idea but when I flew over it after I had been outbid and the auctions had ended, I was pretty disgusted with the amount of land barons with ads and horrid wee houses who had bought plots to resell. I think you need land police who's job it is to explore mainland on a regular basis and give warnings to offenders. Some basic rules are needed, as what some people class as an eyesore, others consider 'art' so you need to make sure there are some groundrules in place. I'd love to see the mainland become the kind of place I'd like to live.

Glad this move is being put in place. It'll be a long haul, but Team Linden can do it!

The little parcels of 16 or 32 sqm for ad.

Within my land there is one and it is not very pleasant.

You know we count too, we make a little money here and their. I hope more when I have more content but we count too. All the camper's non premium accounts, I would imagine account for most of the money flow of all inworld transactions. For every big spender there are millions of little spenders, and small parcel owners and most of us are getting fed up. Whats the point of the new rules, even now, I don't want to lose my account and all I have done and bought but whats the point. If its not fun anymore all these rules are just going to help the big owners and not us small peeps. Big or small we should all count, we should all have a voice. I just want a metaverse to live in play in, work, and real friends to count on and that count on me is that to much to ask for
5 good friends of mine have left SL even the owner of Privateer space her name is on my friends list but does not show up in her groups or search. Love could be lost for the metaverse but not by be me. I will try not to be offended by LL or what they do i wont leave or stop mentoring all i can do is have hope...

Not sure why I'm posting here exactly. Perhaps I'm an SL masochist. Perhaps its that I care about Luskwood because I consider eltee and Michi good friends through discussion on this forum. Perhaps its the four years of watching the world evolve, with the previous two from a 'stood back' perspective as I have so much going on in RL (including good things with my health/body as well as things picking up socially). Perhaps its because I'm still banned from commenting on the weblog (which does not matter anyway since it gets full up by the time I wander over there!).

Whatever. Regardless, my few comments (as opposed to the two honkin' huge posts regarding this forum itself):

Jack, I also remember the discussion about getting mainland owners access to estate tools (in particular if they own all of it, or enough of it that it does not matter). You've got to get M to add that to his much-anticipated timeline; LL seriously dropped the ball here, and its not going to be as disruptive as one would think. Maybe a dozen or two would get that access anyway...

Also, I (for the most part) agree with eltee and Michi regarding their postings here. Lusk is really down there in the trenches for this, they have the experience, and created a gorgeous experience even for us 'normal' avatars. I regularly give MOUL migrants a note to go there as an example of what good can be done within SL's mainland, in particular with large projects and long-time community.

Jack, you definitely have a long road ahead here (no pun intended) and obviously many have vested interest in it (as mentioned by the number of first-time posters this round). Best of luck to you, and I'll be keeping my eyes out...

/salute
--A_K

Not sure to which bots you refer, but ban lines are completely irrelevant to landbots. Searchers never touch another party's land, and buying bots do not need to be on the land (or even in the sim) to buy land.

I'd assume the point to camping bots is putting them on your own land. Not sure anyone sends out armies of camping bots to small parcels they don't own. Heh. I guess that would be a sight for a new advert campaign: a tower of bots who talk to you about a product when you approach. Perhaps they could spin around in an ice skater's spin to draw attention. At least it would be more novel than spinning boxes.

Back to your post: perhaps you are referring to another type of bot. I'm not sure. But, for the types I am familar with, ban lines are 100% irrelevant in all cases.

Sim resources are limited, both in prims and in power for scripts. I have no particular issue with whats built - my idea of an eyesore is often not the same as others - and variety is what its all about. Zoning would be good, but that's going to take a while and whilst I am in full support of banning or at least making ads reasonable, and clearing up the stupid 16m plots, there seems to be no mention of the fact that building has a 'up' dimension.

We can now build up to 4000m so how about a lower limit to building in the air of 600m. That would make any sky builds invisible from the ground for the majority of people. It works on island estates.

Have a public campaign to clear the prim junk that's just left floating in space - cages, planes, the odd house/car/rocket. If all the Mainland owners just looked up for 30 mins and deleted what wasn't needed the improvement would be immense, and I suspect it would all run a bit quicker too and they would have more prims for their tier. Then switch auto return on and clear others junk.

Its so very simple. But it don't happen. I have a nice mainland plot overlooking the sea. Or it would overlook the sea if the jetplane , cages, and several large boxes stuck on the 512 free land plot in front of me, that is owned by a user who hasn't logged in for over 18 months didn't block my view.

The Dept of Public Works could de-litter the mainland very quick given a few people assigned to that job.

I'd do it for free and I'm sure many others would too.

http://www.d-zyn.nl/ZapCannon.jpg

Why doesnt LLC creates & places billboards/places with billboards like each 256 meter one, so we all can hire impressions from them ? Just a suggestion..

I never go no longer to Mainland. And won't buy any mainland parcel no more either.

- No harmony in terraforming accross parcels - and no terraforming in fact.
- Ban lines all along your roads and all along neighbours parcels
- Ugly builds of any kind
- Pollution of so-called "sky boxes" starting at 100m high up to....
- Ads at each smallest spot
- Lag on all bits of places due to small parcels fed-up with stupid scripts or useless particle effects
- Deserted places over miles and miles
- The list could be two pages...

Why should I go there, that so very realistic snapshot of RL ghettos ?

Also...



We do NOT need any ads of any sort. If i wish to look at ads of some kind I just switch on my RL TV or go down into any RL street. Your conception of SL is simply a poor representation and remake of the worst real world possible. SL Mainland is an hideous RL cartoon.

Linden Lab: Their World, their lack of imagination. Their total abense of urbanizing a "game". Their infinite reproduction of a same void "world", aka the LL tautology. Mainland is not playful, not welcoming, aggressive. And dirty.

Clean it up all, cancel the accounts of some that own a 512 or 1024 since years and that are now simply trash as they've not logged-in since months and months. We can discuss " zoning, flowers and shinies" later only.

My compliments for this initiative.
During my land reseller days I already tried to manager it the way you do.
This was possible by extended research during land acquirements and knowing the neibors and community very well, and it worked.
Very good !!
The other side of the good news might be that LL is going to flood the grid again
with new mainland... And the prices have already crashed so hard...
So hard that making a positive cashflow ( minus cost of tier ) has become almost impossible. It's the reason I quit.
However I do hope tat land resellers do get chances again...
Spewing out massively will kill the land business... I hope that LL will take their time... and spread it over 1 years or so.
But... I'm affraid that this won't happen as the new mainland will be worth much more than the older continents, so... this means fast high cash for LL while producing that new mainland. Bay City scenario probably in terms of speed, and on large scale. Probably LL will take the quick cash and not resellers... that is if the new mainland is going to be produced fast... For which I hope they won't do that, but since LL is a commercial business setting their rules and strategy... they probably will...

So... how fast will the new mainland be build Jack ??

Well, I've read a lot of the postings here now, and have some additional comments based on those:

1. I'm concerned about the comments saying that LL won't do anything about existing mainland. I hope they're wrong. LL, please consider the average user, who may not be willing or able to pay Bay City prices to move to new zoned sims, plus possible higher tier if you decide to raise tier rates.

2. If staffing is the main factor in implementing better policies to improve mainland living conditions, please consider the experienced residents here who are willing to help you in your efforts. (Hell, I'd even volunteer some of my time to help clean up ad farms and ban lines - they're damaging my experience of SL -- oops, did I really type that!?! Yup, I did!)

3. If you're not willing or able to deal with problems on the existing mainland (and in a timely manner - apparently these issues have been building up for years before my SL birth), then PLEASE consider adding a visual mute feature so that those of us who consider ad farms and ban lines detrimental to our SL experience don't have to look at them!!!!!

Okay, thanks. Glad for the opportunity to express my views on this forum. Hope Jack and the rest of LL are really listening and ready to take action.

'nuff said from me...

Jack: "We intend to provide more choice in the kinds of new Mainland continents that we make available"....

Oh, good. We all need our assets further diluted, thanks. Haven't you caused enough trouble in the real estate market. I know that you guys live in the People's Republik of San Francisco, out there, but Five Year plans really do not work, Kommisar.

Lets not forget the main issue here is not just adds its the unusable cuts of land that are in circulation because people are chopping usable 512 1024s ect into 16s only way to counter act this is by the TOS. But quite frankly how this will be enforced is the sticking point there is simply no easy fix regaurding the current land i can think of hundreds of ideas but they all have a floors or huge inpact so i hope LL can find a solution..


Jack very glad to here you will be trying to communicate with us about what your plans are for land prices and how you plan to manage the land market this is what we all need so we can plan our investments more smoothly and this will take out alot of guess work on land prices from month to month.

so, now you can laugh or not^^
But Im since over a year in SL now and have no good idea about Mainland?! Where is it?
How big is it? *lol* What is it?
What shall I do there? *giggles*

Guess the term "Mainland" is not sooo good explained^^

Greetings Maxine

Adfarmers will be able to keep up, they make vast profits extorting huge sums for their 16sqm plots.
Protected bordering land sells at a premium because it is percieved as being more desirable than other areas of the mainland.
due to having atleast one open outlook, and access point even if all the other neighbours have banlines up.

Zoned land for the future will be very good and should have plenty of linden roads,tracks whatever breaking it all up, I have never visited bay city as the prices are just beyond what i consider is sensible to splash out, but i would assume that is the type of land LL are pushing as zoned, as more of it becomes available prices will begin to lower and I would be interested at that point.

For the time being I will remain on the protected water, which has cost alot for my group to make adfree.

Still we are plagued by extortionists, a sensible approach by Linden Labs to eridicate these scumbags is required, they are destroying the mainland for all users, something I am sure you can see, we your paying customers are very pissed off about, by the 21 pages of posts in less than 24hours.

At the moment Linden Labs has a monopoly in this unique market, once Open Sims catch up and can offer their land at better prices, where will this leave Linden Labs? My guess is a vast mainland infrastucture already in place would be their saving grace, as long as its an area people want to use, right now, with the amount of yellow on the grid, we can all see it isnt.

Jack if you really want to clear up the mainland it is simple, confiscate the thousands of 16sqm plots littered accross the entire existing mainland currently not being used for any real purpose other than extortion.
Freeze all accounts associated with such plots, preventing them from cashing out.

I like SL but dislike the Abuse report system, if I file a report I want to know what has been done about it, even if its nothing.
The AR system needs to be looked at as currently it is woefully inadequate.

A good customer service is another thing that makes a business competitive, don't throw away the advantage Linden Labs currently has by being complacent.

This forum shows as a company you know the mainlands problems, so now its time to act on them.

The abuse report system is ludicrous because the person who is being accused does not know who is doing the accusing or what the accusation is. It seems also clear from that some people seem able, through whatever reason (or who they know, or how much they spend in sl) to dodge the various rules Lindens set up.

What's the point of an abuse reporting system when you are not notified on the result of a complaint you make.

And if you want to improve sl how about a little more variety in its environs...

fiords, white cliffs, more rivers, valleys....

and we know from videos of early sl that native fauna is available in sl too so how about some animal life, birds, tropical fish...

to me it seems that all this change is about imposing more restrictions on people and while that may get rid of ad farms althought theyre so widespread I see it taking quite some time to achieve...I can see people straying into regions and getting into trouble for masses of rules they didnt know about set up in even more 'covenants'

and while everyone whines about ad farms to me a far more irritating annoyance are those unsightly red ban lines chopping up land, hindering exploration and sl sight seers. How many of those whining about ad farms throw up there ghastly barriers to the detriment of other sl users and neighbours... ?

More feedback from me to you..

First, I'd like to respond on some of the wider themes coming out in the comments..

This is a fundamental shift in the way that we manage the Mainland experience and I would expect that you'll start to see the effects in areas like advertising quite soon, but obviously it's a very large job. I see that some of you are understandably skeptical about whether we can achieve all that is needed. We believe we can, we think it's extremely important and of course you guys can be the judge of that when we talk again in 3 or 6 months time.

Avion, we won't leave existing owners behind at all, the improvements we plan will involve all of the Mainland, old and new. The aim is to offer more choice, not to create a new vs old divide.

Good question, and yes this is something that concerns us. We actually do take action where a single landowner unfairly abuses the simulator resources but we should look at this issue again to see what more we can do.

Giving estate style ground texturing controls to Mainland residents is tricky, you can imagine how a region would look if every parcel on there had a different ground texture. Not pretty. But yes, providing more variety in the terrains that we put out is definitely something we want to do. As a resident I've long wanted to live in a desert area, but I might be alone on that one hehe.

Alexandra, this was just a first post (albeit a significant one) and certainly we need to follow up with greater detail. I think this forum format has worked well, so perhaps we'll do several more like this on more detailed posts.

There are no deals of any kind with TAG or any advertising groups (or anti-advertising groups for that matter). We've spoken to a lot of people on both sides of that issue because we wanted as much feedback as possible.

No, we have no plans to change Mainland tier fees.

Good point 3Ring, and I tend to agree. Those situations where large walls go up in an attempt to hide or preserve a view are always difficult to deal with, but I'd certainly like to look again at that problem. Of course it may take us to be more subjective than previously to fix them but that shouldn't stop us.

We've hired very strongly through 2008 and I don't see that slowing down. Enforcement is going to be key for zoning, and yes that will take resource. At least initially we will probably need residents to report zoning infringement, but we will also look at how we make sure that potential buyers are very clear about what they are buying before they purchase which should help.

I'm glad you've brought this one up Spirit because I would be interested in any feedback you folks have on this. So, where we have a resident who owns land but is essentially absent for a very long time, and their land has litter or is empty or a work in progress in a way that impacts their neighbours - should Linden Lab be able to do anything about that? Would setting autoreturn be as far as we go? How about planting trees? Let me know what you think.

There's probably a balance there between very minor changes like adding trees or a bench, and larger additions like small builds or bridges. Where we do anything sizeable, it would be good to consult neighbours, but of course that can greatly slow down our ability to improve areas quickly and not all neighbours will agree.

I think with Gov Linden land especially any content added would be more subtle and understated although some of it will be a judgement call. Of course if a change we make proves unpopular then we can undo it.


Jack

I think that LL started the mainland with the presumption that we would for little self-governing communities just by virtue of being in proximity to each other. This didn't pan out. But I don't disagree with the idea.

You see, even though it is possible to set up a town hall meeting in a given area, the decisions/ordinances made in the town hall meetings cannot be enforced without estate-level tools. The only one with these tools is Governor Linden. So what is the point?

Here is a suggestion. Perhaps you can set something up where if enough people get together in a region they can decide to INCORPORATE with the mainland government. Then, they will get some more powerful tools to control the region.

My point is, either model it after the way real world communities and municipalities are formed and maintained, FOR BETTER OR WORSE, or don't do it at all. There is no point in only going half-way with this concept, as you have done so far. Imagine a wild-west town without the possibility of a mayor or town council. Thats what you have now. Its pointless chaos.

Zone? Rules? on the mainland?
Theres more then enough land on islands that have all the rules we need.
The mainland well I agree that a lot of the advertisements can be a bit much But it was my choice to live here or open a store here.

As far as an unstable land market from what ive seen and hear in SL in my travels its coming from Linden Labs. With all the new land they are adding and such high tier fees.

My partner and I have just started here in SL not to long ago. So we don't know how it used to be. This is our SL from the day we where born here till now is all we know.

The recycling of land faster sounds like a good idea and well maybe what could be done to help the mainland would be for SL as land is abandoned is to set it apart and use it for SL national parks form groups that will allow for new people to learn how to build and landscape them. or build a highway that crosses the mainland where we can drive our cars from one end to the other without ban lines.

I don't like the fact that next door the building is so close that its hard to walk between the buildings. But I understood that when i did my build. If I cant live with that fact I have options
(1) but them out
(2) sell out myself

Theres no way to please everyone thats a fact. So I say if things must change do it on your new Land If you change the old mainland do it at your expense Mr LInden. foot the bill for parks reward the People who are working to Make this a Better place to be. If a Public Highway is put in Public parks scattered about it I think land would value would only go up. Thats city planning

Theres a lot that can be done to improve the mainland but putting rules on how I use my land I paid for and pay tiers on should not be one of them

This will be the statement I will be judging LL's efforts by in three months' time. That's a big cleanup/policing job. I hope you have the manpower to back up this statement.The cynical side of me says that's too big a cleanup project to undertake and the only areas that will be policed will be the ad farms around Bay City since they destroy LL's vision for this pet project.

I look forward to seeing how you plan to deal with all the ad farms and sliced and diced land across 5000 sims. That's why I like the idea of a feature that visually mutes objects. If a resident can remove an ad farm from his vision, it doesn't actually have to be removed from the Grid. I also vote for a blanket removal of visual ban lines.

Estate owners won't love hearing it, but that is a very smart move. Good luck with everything moving forward.