Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

Someone somewhere is scamming us surely?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/VintFalken/~3/436294436/

Images showing that the Lindens themselves are using the void sims for 2000+ prim builds - these ones are the 4 Raymond sims but i guess they'll be more scattered across the grid.

One suggestion for you. Come clean whats the real reason for this.

What causes the real lag? Prims, AVies or Scripts? work out which harms the network most and set the parameters for the void sims accordingly.

My understanding is that prims (relatively) dont cause that much lag, avies and scripts can be as bad as each other (eg ARC & Script times).

So adjust the simulator code to allow variable throttling of prims, avies and script time. Then release this as a server upgrade and explain to people the new throttles. Maybe sim owners could argue for changes to these throttles on a case by case basis?

Perhaps the limits mean void sims only allow 10 agents at one time or that script time is capped at 5ms and all script commands are queued as required until the processor can get round to processing the queue.

Dont just whack the price up and cause all this grief.

When you signed up to SL and you buye some land you agreed in the TOS. So LL can at any time set any price in tiers..land..or any thay want..thay can set a Full sim or OS to 1500 USD in tier..thay can charge you 20.000 USD for a SIM of thay want and then its your choice to buye or ceep it.... The markerd winningness to pay are there limit.. and the reason we all think that the tier raise from 195$ to 295$ Last yare and this time 74$ to 125$ on OS are that the MARKED RL are down big time...and the marked in SL are also down.. we se that in the drop on sim sales and closing of sims and malls and ppl dont spend in SL as thay use to.... we all know markerds are up and down.. it will be down some time,, but we also know it wil be up again. Just how it is and will be

Jack, in your chat to the Concierge people, you mentioned that an Openspace is effectively using 1/2 CPU resources rather than the 1/4 CPU resources estimated.

I (we) would like a technical explanation as to why that is happening. Is it the number of prims, is it the scripts, or is it the number of avatars?

Before you say all of the above, can there be some kind of compromise? For US$125 could the prim limit be raised to 7500 without adversely affecting the CPU resources? If so that would be a great incentive to some of us to keep the Openspace at the new price. You could even limit the number of avatars to less than what it is now.

You could also then offer a product with a lower prim and agent limit for the current US$75 (or less) for those that just want a waterspace or field with trees.

God this irks me. I am what Kirstyn would call a "Land Baron" and I resent her unfounded allegations that I am a greedy bastard.

For your information Kirstyn, like many other sim owners, I did not want my tenants moving to open sims. But they came to me and wanted them and made it clear if I did not offer them then they would go elsewhere. I insisted they read the page in the SL site about the limitations and made sure they understood them.

I have never run my sims for profit. Like most sim owners my hope is to just break even...and that hardly ever happens.

I provide a beautiful environment and a great community and I fund it out of my own pocket to the tune of US$150 per month and take all of the risk and for that I get abused by the ill-informed. Thanks a million Kirstyn.

Oh and you might read these forums and see how LL was using the OS's...if you are actually interested in facts and not just your overblown opinion of yourself.

i was planing to get a regular sim with openspace, but not for long.
I'm from europe so that means i need to pay VATs
Premium account VATs
Land VATs
and + you planing to high up tier -_-

NO WAY. to expensive hobby...
I will search other virtual worlds then...

i feel angry

On the Full Prim SIM "Twisted Turtle" we have build a Commercial Town, so Club, Shops and some things for a Roleplay .... the LowPrim SIM " Twisted Tortoise" is just a Space to give this town a view of Landscape ... and we will not be agree to pay no more for a space which is only for a nice looke to a small island .... we will give it up.

Why you can charge more for people how use more ? I mean with a total frame Time of just 2ms i would say its under this waht you understand as LIGHT USE !!



Just Kick Peoples how missuse it !!! But not these how really use it only for decoraions or workspace !!

Does anyone recall a company name Control Data (CDC)? It was founded in 1957 and was recognized as one of the pioneers in the area of supercomputers, and for most of the 1960s it built the fastest computers in the world by far. The CEO from its inception was a guy named William Norris. It chief designer was, a guy many have heard of, Seymour Cray. Unfortunately, under the Norris decision making model CDC got a moniker assigned to it that was known throughout the business world as 'Ready, Fire, Aim.'

The point here is that Norris lost touch with the marketplace CDC served. Through his acquisition strategies, and his refusal to listen to both internal and marketplace feedback Norris led CDC into ruin. By 1972, Cray had left CDC and started Cray Research, in 1974 another lead designer, Jim Thorton, left CDC and founded Network Systems. As you can guess CDCs sales plummeted. By 1982 Norris recognized CDC and become moribund and set up a spinoff, ETA Systems, to develop a computer able to compete with those of Cray Research. In the mid-1980s the Japanese entered the field and by 1989 ETA ceased operations. In 1986, CDC, to raise operation capital for the ETA venture sold its commercial credit subsidiary which went on to become Citigroup.

Also in the mid-1980s CDC, through its Magnetic Peripherals unit co-developed the ATA interface with Compaq and Western Digital. However, CDC misread the market again and spun off the Magnetic Peripherals unit in 1988, which Seagate Technology bought one later. In 1992 CDC spun off and sold its services business which became known as Ceridian Corporation, effectively ending CDCs existence.

The point here it that a pioneer and major venture with unlimited potential to dominate both in the supercomputer and personal computer markets managed to destroy itself with short-sighted and unwise business choices. It was so erratic through its behaviors internally, and in the marketplace, that it managed to lose both its customers and its investors.

If one looks closely at LL you can see the same erratic behaviors coming from the LL Ivory Tower. They create something good, they don't consistently stick with any strategy for more than 6 to 9 months, they don't fix the inherent flaws in their product, they have pricing strategies that are seemingly developed on a whim and that go up and down like a yo-yo. They seem totally blind to the fact that both the small customers and the large investors can see their erratic behaviors, and that one day soon a competitor will enter the market. This competitor will have a stable product, and they will be selling their product to a marketplace that LL has managed to alienate through inconsistent product delivery and pricing. In effect LL will have educated this competitor on how not to run a business, and that competitor's success will be built upon LL mistakes.

Is the change in Open Space pricing a smart one? I think not. SL is a wonderful and novel idea, but it is not real life nor can it ever present the myriad of options that RL has to offer. It is a two dimensional world. You can interface TO AN EXTENT with other people, you can view neat graphical creations, you can shop for items you cannot really use, some people do make money in SL, you can pretend go to school and maybe actually learn something, you can pretend build, you can pretend going to a 'live' concert, you can pretend dance, you can pretend having a real relationship, you can pretend having sex, you can pretend doing a lot of things. You can do very little for real in SL as much as LL might like us to think we can.

Here is what LL is missing. The fun wears thin after while. Most land owners, whether private estates or mainland, barely break even, or lose money every month. A handful of merchants make money, but will no longer once the supporting structure breaks down around them. Just what is the supporting structure in SL? It is the break even and money losing operations that helped to create the SL that exists today. What happens if this large group of SL 'investors' give up and leave SL? The infrastructure begins to shrink and SL becomes smaller and less attractive. It is happening right now. Land owners, club operators, and other are ceasing to do business as they have in the past because they are tired of losing money in SL. Sadly, this makes SL less enjoyable, and a less attractive to visit.

The biggest thing SL is missing is that people that get fed-up and leave SL talk to other potential SL users. They write in blogs and books, they spread the word on the difficulties in dealing with buggy viewers, and they will talk about all the inconsistencies in the management of SL. Alienated users will also spread the word on how unstable the corporate leadership is behind LL. Users in SL that are trying to make a profit need consistency in order to develop their own long-term business models and to implement them. In this regard, LL has failed almost completely. The Open Space pricing change is just the latest example of LL erratic behaviors that will have a significant impact on the user base they rely upon to build the same product that LL sells. This is flat our short sighted and, frankly, quite stupid.

Has LL noticed that there is a global recession underway in RL? Has LL noticed that there are fewer live concerts in SL because most venue operators cannot possibly make any money holding live music events? Does LL know that a year ago we had lag problems crossing sim boundaries and now we have lag crossing LOT boundaries on the same sim? The technical problems are all tied to SL functionality. The profitability issues are tied to the price of land, tier, and maintenance fees. Both of these apply equally to private regions and mainland. Has LL noticed that there needs to be a third class of membership that recognizes the value that private region owners contribute to SL. Has LL noticed that the conflict between mainland land owners and private region owners has been created by LL in its neglect to govern and balance land supplies in SL?

As to Open Space sims, LL has cited that the 'unexpected' use of Open Space sims has required more resources. How is that? They state in the Open Space sim agreement that they will not support any problems arising on Open Space sims used for anything but water or forests. With four Open Space sims to a server, there are still only 15,000 prims per server. So just how are there more resources being used?

Land pricing in general should be going down, not up, to reflect what is happening in RL. Get with it LL, don't be another CDC, be proactive and open your eyes and minds. SL is not a real world. We do not have to be here. We don't have to pay for this if we want to quit. Again, it is not like RL where a person has no choice but to survive. What most of us spend here is disposable income, and in the present state of the world economy, HELLO, there isn't as much disposable income as there was just 12 months ago.

If any of LL actions appeared rational up to this point, then one might think the change in Open Space pricing was to control the supply of land in SL. However, one would also expect that we all would have been told that this was the reason. If this change had not been implemented on the 'ready, fire, aim' approach that killed CDC, one also could expect that the pricing change would have been conducted in a rational manner that might include a grandfathering of pricing for existing Open Space sims versus newly ordered ones come January, 2009. Instead we get insulted by Jack Linden trying to sell us some story about server usage. Please, 3750 prims of asset server usage is the same regardless of where those prims are put into use. If this is true, once again it only demonstrates the deficiencies in LL management putting a product into the marketplace and not planning properly for its use. READY, FIRE, AIM!

If LL wants to reverse course on the CDC model, I see a few things they need to do:

1. Fix the platform on which SL operates. This means no more bells and whistles until you fix what you already have in operation.

2. Quit making new land until the value of existing land increases.

3. Quit changing the rules and pricing every 6 to 9 months so users can plan for their own growth and profitability.

4. When a change in pricing is made grandfather it in.

5. Equalize mainland and private region pricing.

6. Understand that of the 60,000 users on-line at any given time, only a relative handful are large corporate clients and profitable SL endeavors. The vast majority of users are the little people that create all the eye candy that attracts and keeps people in SL, and that the majority of these people are barely hanging on in SL financially.

This reminds me of one last CDC story. In 1985 CDC started a venture called Rural Ventures Growth. The concept behind this company was to sell high priced software to farmers that would help them manage and operate their family farms more efficiently and profitably. The sales model was to be multi-level marketing. The idea behind software support was that the farmers that used the software, and became involved in the sales of the software, and any other user that figured out how the software worked, would provide product support to all the other farmers. In other words there was no effective plan to teach farmers how to use the software, or to solve their problems once they arose. To add to the brilliance of this plan, CDC seemed to miss the fact that in 1985 rural communities were faced with a major farm crisis where family farms were being foreclosed upon on a daily basis. One final thing, the software had so many bugs in it, no one could use it.

You how this story ended for CDC? Does this all sound vaguely familiar LL?

The disengenius part about this is that LL themselves changed the way openspaces were used in the changes they made in March. As mentioned above back in March they removed the requirement for an openspace to be anchored to another sim. What use would anyone have for "space, empty areas of ocean or forest" in the middle of nowhere disconnected from any other sim?

I was quite clear by the changes LL made, and by comments made by LL at the time (including ones that that article about openspaces was out of date, that havok 4 made it possible to do more on openspaces etc.) that LL expected this change of use to happen.

As LL knew full well how these openspaces would be used why did they not price them at $125 per month from the outset?

Matthew

There were no instructions, but recommendations. LL also made very clear what would happen if we did ignore their recommendations. Quote from the knowledge base article on OS sims:

"As a stretch of open water for boating or a scenic wooded area they are fine, but we do not advise more serious use than this and will not respond to performance issues reported should you not use them in this way."

In short, if we use them for anything else but open water / scenery, we do this at our own risk, performance might suck hairy bottoms and LL won't give a flying fart about our lag woes. Read, agreed upon and bought anyway, we (OS sim owners) don't care about lag as long as the sims are cheap. So where's the problem all of a sudden?

Aside from that: A "scenic wooden area" using up to 3750 prims, with bird sounds scripted into the trees and whatnot, uses just as many resources as an island with a mostly empty beach and a house. "Open water for boating" - a scripted boat with 2 passengers creates just as much lag as 2 happily humping people in a sex bed. That's what the vast majority of OS sim owners and renters use their sims for, a house and some sex toys. I don't see any difference between that and a prim-heavy forest or a sailing regatta.

Shhhss..............still reading post 2614 ......^5's

anyone remember infopop? remember ubb? remember when they were the forum to own? remember how they constantly ignored customer feedback? recall how they refused to implement a php/mysql ubb? recall the ubb forum hacker called 'john' that made his own port of ubb? remember what he called it? vbulletin, thats what.
ll is heading down the infopop route, and i cant wait to see how it ends for them

There was no mention of all this stress on the core in this blog post...its positively gleeful and ecstatic about the growth thanks mostly to purchases of open space sims.



http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/07/08/second-life-virtual-world-expands-35-in-q2/


Theres also the confusing decision to make the 'new' open sims stand alone. This sort of contrdicts the 'its only for joining full sims with water and shouldnt be lived on' arguement.


People had open spaces with 1875 for a long time with one house on, a couple of avatars living there and had no problems whatsoever. I know because I had one. It was mostly water and some land with about 1200 prims. There were many of these and they all functioned perfectly well as single residences. No complaints from LL.

Some suggestions in this thread sound realistic to me. It's fairly clear from the latest blog post and the log of earlier in-world meeting with Jack that there's some room for compromise. It might be time to outline and refine a clear plan that LL and most OpenSpace owners can live with. I'll try to outline something, stealing liberally from the many good suggestions, in this thread. If this misses the mark somewhere, I'm sure I'll hear about it.*

Two classes of OpenSpace sims. There is demand for the "original" OpenSpace "void sim" application: lower primcount, very few scripts, very few avatars--just very light load, and only in areas surrounding other, full-primmed sims. There is also a clear demand for heavier use OpenSpaces--still much lower density than full-primmed sims, but posing much more demand on the backend services than does the "void sim" application. These need to be separated into two distinct products with different fee schedules; let's call them "Void" and "Low-Density" sims.

The details of what's a "Void" and what's "Low-Density" should be worked out in consultation with LL Development and Operations, but I'd suggest that "Voids" could continue to run 4 per CPU and Low-Densities perhaps 3, and that new Voids would have to be attached to full-primmed sims and only available in groups of 4. For both sim classes, Development must devise ways to throttle inter-sim demands *and* demands on back-end central services and networks to keep the products viable.

Conversion without penalty. Like it or not, the "unbelievably good deal" of $75/mo OpenSpaces was a product marketing mistake. Such things happen all the time with new products, and LL really should step up and admit that this was their f*-up, not the fault of an evil empire of abusing buyers. Or don't admit it, but act responsibly anyway: That $250 set-up fee should be credited toward whatever product to which the buyer chooses to transition now. Four OpenSpaces to one full-primmed sim: Free; any fewer: $250 credit per OpenSpace. Also free: choosing "Void" or "Low-Density" for existing OpenSpaces.

Temporary Partial Grandfathering. Everybody has to expect pricing fluctuations for new products, but nobody can plan for a 67% increase--that really is punitive, and a business breaker. So, instead: on 1/1/09, Low-Density sims ordered before 11/1/08 will be charged $100/month until 6/1/2009, when the rate will go to $125/month; new Low-Density sims ordered after 11/1/08 will go to $125 on 1/1/09 without grandfathering. Maybe fees for Voids could even nominally decrease on 1/1/09.

"Hardwired" Estate sim clustering. The idea that an Estate owner can manage their OpenSpaces as a group, so they share CPUs only with each other, has some real merit. It's understood that inter-sim resource demands are only part of the problem: what load they pose on backend central services still has to be addressed, but LL Development and Operations need to come up with a way for Estate owners to choose CPU sharing for their OpenSpaces. Indeed, it has emerged that full-primmed sims can affect others that share their server box, even though running on a separate core, so a generalization of this could be of value to Estates who have no OpenSpaces at all.

_______
* One poster tore me a new one after my preceding post, apparently thinking I was arguing for LL's "side." Let me be clear: I have no dog in this fight. I'm just trying to find a clear path where both "sides" can meet their most crucial objectives. So, I completely welcome criticism of anything I propose, and of course it's fine to just ignore me. But if you want to accuse me of being some LL stooge, please shove that up a convenient orifice, kthnxbai.

That's exactly what LL, namely Jack Linden, has been trying to achieve: That we all happily blame each other for supposeldy forcing LL to raise their prices. Some of us can clearly see that the only greedy bastards in this case are LL.

You bought sims that were specified for 3750 prims and max. 100 concurrent avatars. There were no conditions as for what you may do or not do with your sim (aside from the TOS/community standards), only recommendations for their possible use. No one can blame you or any other OS sim owner for using a product within its specifications and possibilities. LL is to be blamed for the price hike, and for setting us on each other's throats hoping we'd forget who really is to blame.

For the trolls in here who gleefully laugh at others misfortunes, all you do is show that those with os sims who were actually manipulated into this situation either cynically by LL or by their lack of understanding, that the only braincell you ever use is the one that drives your pathetic joy that makes your sad existence bearable, so why not take a hike.

I am not a landbaron who converted their full sims to OS sims but I did buy two OS sims at the new price to form part of an rp system I wanted to develop, with a limit of 15 avatars and no ranged weapons firing temporay rezzed bullets, and a couple of buildings on the beautifully designed sims. They were complimented by a third full sim that allowed full rp usage of ranged weapons and full avatar usage. However for various reasons this didn't take off and we now use the full sim for our own building pleasure and the two open space sims as one for me to live on and one for my manager to live on.

I do have a further 7 full sims that are just about paying for themselves with the residents on them. The only reason they are doing so is because I have been consolidating down and either selling full sims, as I emptied and relocated residents, when I could still get a little for them, or in the case of the last 2 switched them off. The last one being the very first sim I bought nearly 2 years ago, that bought some tears from me, (there you are trolls something else you can laugh at).



The reason for my downturn in business is clearly a great number of residents have left to go to these open space sims and use them for their residences and businesses, so I should I suppose be glad that sl are proposing to callously disposses many of their dreams. But that isnt the only reason I have lost so many residents. The other being the way in spring 2007 and again in February on 2008 Linden Labs constantly dumped thousands of islands on the land market as they built their new continents, having no regard for the quality of the new people joining sl and created gluts that led to the OS fiasco we are now experiencing. So please Jack Linden do not say how mainland is only a drop in the ocean of new land, it may be in the last few months but if you go back to January 2007 you started this rot your selves with your own thousands of sims since then. As an aside to show LL cynicsim, I too have recently visited your own overbuilt, overused showcase OS, one with a shop and club on, oh yes which has now magically overnight become a full sim since this blew up, so LL themselves are the abusers as well as Ansche with her class 3 and class 4 open sims sold for residential use long before this present OS LL inspred debacle.

But I am not happy to see what LL are proposing to do even if it means an upturn in my own business on my full sims. I missed the boat on that one as I was busy elsewhere. In all honesty though had I not been distracted I would possibly have been one of the first to convert my full sims, as business was already getting worse thanks to the original land dumping policy of LL. Looking back I see why other sim owners took that route, and I reiterate here it is my belief this OS issue was started because of LL initial greediness in printing lots more money through their own massive land dumping since February 2007. This policy has led to my own dreams of having a steadily growing business and many happy residents, some who have become close personal friends, being shattered in the same way LL are trying to shatter others dreams with their continued greed in this policy.
I also voiced three days ago what I see others starting to say now, This paves the way for another hike on private full sims being pushed to 500US$ per month tier, plus VAT of course, if you are in the EEC countries.

I have watched a huge influx of new faces coming onto another grid where I have started to own sims. One where open means open, and advanced warnings are given before major changes that affect people are discussed and talked about long before implimentation.

The timing of this OS fiasco is also rather cynical too in the same way they tried to instantly push the 295US$ tier fee down our throats late october 2006, when the accusations on these boards led to cries of insider trading against LL and the biggest estate owner in SL, and a furious back pedalling by LL that led to the grandfathering of new class 5 servers. Do they do this at this time of the year because Christmas is nearing and they think we will all be so distracted we will not notice until the spring.

As you gathered from my post I am very disillusioned with SL, this is not because of the trolls here of course. I mean you get 1 brain celled amoebas on any message boards. No it is because I see the awful drama and pain of ordinary folk loosing their dreams, be they small to medium even larger estate owners, or renters of OS sims who like me and my manager with our own OS each for living on, see the greedy talons of LL once again ripping their hearts out.

I feel sorry for those Lindens who like most of us are just ordinary folk doing a job and trying to make a difference and having to face the wrath of the sl population, I don't feel sorry for Jack Linden and the upper echelons who either through cynicism, or total ignorance which I find impossible to believe, have once again put on their size 20 hobnail boots and crushed our dreams.

Happy Christmas all, except the Lindens responsible. I hope yours is as miserable as you are making others.

It is amazing how many ppl have mentioned having houses or living on Openspace Sims. Always seemed pretty clear to me that was Not ever the intention of offering them.

"... an Openspace is a type of private island made available for light use countryside or ocean. ... if Governor Linden can have ocean and green spaces, let private estate owners do the same."

What is unclear about that?

Yes a shame all have to be punished for the greed of some. Apparently here as in the real world though there are many who assume that rules/guidelines apply to everybody else...not them, and that nobody will suffer if they bend the rules/guidelines just a bit. Pfft.

Well after reading again this thread, all I can say, is that if Linden Labs refuses to negociate on new reasonable solutions and products, I will personnaly have no other choice than quitting the grid.

I just repost here my proposal , that seems to me common sense...
I have invested a lot in SL, I'll quit with some bitterness..

It was a nice adventure while it lasted. Could have been the future of the internet.. Will only be another bankrupt society soon...
Too bad...
C'est la vie...

Dear Jack,

this update is as useless and senseless as the pricing change announcement before. Your general intentions about openspaces (you are already referring to a knowledge base article *LOL*) do not count in any case for this ridiculous step to lure our money into your pockets.

If you buy a house, furniture or a whole sim design from me and decide to stuff it up your ass, do you think that would put me into the position to charge you more because of misusing my products?

You sell openspaces and those are misused by your own colleagues and you want to blame the paying residents who actually pay your ass and all the other asses (including the rest of their bodies) sitting there in LindenLab Offices, for misusing openspaces? Look in the mirror, man. You sell a product! If you want to prevent what happened, change TOS on that but do not play sandbox games. It is a huge Loler to refer to actually "help"pages to justify a rape of residents purses!

You specifically adress the usage change in your "update" then hell dammit adress the residents who changed the usage on that and not just all of us...

No, of course you would not do that, since you want the money, not the switch back to the pretty water to pay 75usd for. All this stuff you are trying to present us as changes on the openspaces for me turn out to be huge and or small lies, since they are nothing else than the plan to wring out the residents even more than before.

I am actually glad I sold all my mainland already, I will go on suggesting my friends to drop openspaces, void, water sims if possible since you only seem to react when it hurts... sad but true...

Hopefully the asskicks are hard enough to reach your brains.

LL certainly did not follow the "rules" with OS. And, as so many other posters have said, what sense does a OS under those guidlines make when they can exist detached!!!!

Please get a grip!

From the forums, the original demand came from customers, the land barons just responded to that demand.

I still believe that removing the requirement for an openspace to be anchored to a full sim was a major contributor to this. Suddenly an openspace could be placed anywhere, and people saw them as an opportunity to get their own private island.

Had openspaces remained attached to full sims, I suspect there would not have been such a high customer demand for them, moreover, given that you would need at least one full sim for every eight openspaces, I suspect sim owners would have been less likely to respond to that customer demand just to the extra cost of running an additional full sim for every 8 openspaces.

Matthew

After 1½ year here and several hit from Linden Lab
effecting my SL, I can belive all about them and there
methods.

I think they make a lucretive offer on Open Space so a lot payed them.
what it realy was ,, was to pay for Open Space sims on Mainland.
Each of mine 3 Open space share server wiht a Mainland Open Space
sim. So each sold and payed Private Open Space, 1 mainland Open Space.
I think Linden farvorite mainland most and will do it more, now
they also found the lucretive million thing called Bay City and Nautilus.

Its sad.,.. but for me the biggest change in SL og the inviorment here
seem to be financial for me. Linden Lab more and more feels bussiness
and not so much creation and imagination. People are lost in favorite
of money.

And in top of price hick.. 50US Dollar remember somme will have it like
62.5 US Dollar wiht VAT.. My last Open Space sim is called "Gleam of Paradise"
and that all it was.. just a gleam.... Thanks Linden Lab..

Bertram Merlin
Deeply disapointed.

I have hope that they are reading this stuff over at Google or some place else. Some place where the people value there customers and know how to run a business. Just imagine if Google or some other company led by intelligent people were to get into this business. There would be a mass exit from Second Life!!

I maintain that after offering blowing there horn about having 10 million accounts LL has shown how poorly they run their business. Consider that there are only 60-70 thousand users on at the same time and most of them are bots and WoW which you have to pay for and you can't really make money has 11 million paying customers.

So 10 million accounts and maybe what 20 or 25 thousand live users online at anytime because most are bots? Does not sound like LL is really attracting and holding people. In fact the way they run their business they have probably been losing people faster than any other virtual world.

Bravo LL

With reguar sims, LL earns a monthly $1180 per server. OS sim servers: $2000 monthly, at the new price. And nobody will dare to complain about lag, because everybody knows that OS sims are bound to be laggy! On the contrary, people will have a bad conscience for supposedly "abusing" their sims and eagerly try to make do with less prims and scripts. What more could LL possibly want? They don't care about the load. They're delighted about all the new purposes we find for their popular product.

i) as pointed out, why removed the anchoring restriction if LL didn't intend this to be the case.
ii) there is and was never any rule prohibiting houses or living on openspaces just an advisory KB that people might find their performance disappointing if they did this.
iii) there were comments by LL that the extra performance of the new havok4 engine meant that advisory notice was in need of being updated

Matthew

I was a little sad at the news of the pricing and reorganization announcements regarding OpenSpaces.

Also disappointed that what was hoped to be a self-regulatory scheme is being abused by some residents ... but isn't it Moore's Law that says something about humans filling it the space available ... even in the real world.

I have two education Sims in S.L. (International Schools Island) and was about to apply for an OpenSpace with education discount .... unfortunately with the proposed price changes the cost becomes prohibitive.

I've just read the "Update regarding the Openspaces announcement" at http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/10/29/update-regarding-the-openspaces-announcement/

Am encouraged that LL is being responsive to the comments.

It takes a lot of courage and maturity to be able step back from a decision already made, re-evaluate and then modify a decision in response to feedback from the community even though the company is, in reality, empowered to take unilateral actions.

So I'm encouraged by the response ... and hopeful that we can go back to the former pricing (at least for education .. but don't want to appear selfish) .... and maybe implement some technical solutions to moderate the land use if possible ... I appreciate that 'human policing' would be an expensive option.

Fingers cross ......

Shamblesguru Voom (Thailand)