Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

Jack Linden wrote:



What additional costs are you incurring from this 'change of use' you seem so surprised about'?

Right now I think all we see is that you found they have more value and that is what you want to cash in on.


I am also having a hard time understanding your surprise in their new found use and ultimately, abuse. I think perhaps thats a large part of this bitter pill.

The inevitability of overloaded Openspace sims sucking the performance of others sharing the resources was raised repeatedly in the forums when LL opened the gates.

Like it or not, there is a goodly section of the population who are unaware and/or stupid and/or greedy and/or out-and-out muppets.

It's a no-brainer. People will use Openspace sims simply as cheap sims.
What do you do if you run short of prims? Temp-rezzers!! Ta da!

I've not been through all the postings here, but I've noticed a few making the same sorts of comment that I notice on threads to do with Search-gaming, Land-botting, Micro-parcel cutting and Ad Farming. = "We are not abusing anything. We are simply using the tools given to us by LL"
Giving tools to certain types of people without limiting and enforcing sensible use is simply asking for trouble.

I remember that shortly after I joined SL, the searches in Land Sales were throttled by avatar in an attempt to limit the excessive resource consumption by landbots.
The result was that everybody but the bot-runners got the hit. The bot-runners responded by running more bots.
A far better solution would have been to profile avatars by activity and resource consumption.


Increasing the costs for people who ran Openspace sims responsibly is an unbelievably ham-fisted way of dealing with the problem.

How about profiling resource consumption by sim?
How about banning temp-rezzers that are clearly used to achieve the appearance of permanance? Do this one grid-wide.
How about throttling an individual Openspace sim as it begins to approach a measure of resource consumption? Give the people in the sim some automated negative feedback.

I didn't realise that this was once a requirement ... would add my vote to OS only being made available if anchored to a full sim ... it seems highly sensible considering the original intended purposes of OS

After this, I will not trust Linden Labs in a money arrangement. I am making money in SL and I was going to get sims. Now I wait for some kind of open grid, or leave SL when I outgrow parcel renting and there is nowhere to go.

They broke trust. They might be legally OK within their TOS. That is not the point. There is tacit understanding of fairness when you make a deal. But now I think LL are not fair and cannot be trusted to deal well with their residents when they create problems.

So now I won't deal with LL in this kind of arrangement unless they are legally bound by service level contracts controlling the money. They have shown they are not to be trusted otherwise.

Change of management, statement of policy regarding pricing, or long period of stability might convince me otherwise.

I do not make this post out of anger, but result of thinking about the resident-relations situation and discussing with people. LL do not _seem_ to realise the damage they do to trust. So I try to let them know with this post. I am not alone in this kind of opinion.

One more thing… I am disinclined to create things in a world in which the gods are capricious and may destroy me at any point. The real world is currently suffering from loss of confidence in the future. LL do not build confidence by this kind of behaviour.

Good, now we can move to opensim... http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

Okies, so further to Jack's recent blog entry

'Openspaces were intended for space, empty areas of ocean or forest.'

If you want openspaces and areas of ocean, WHY ARE WE PAYING FOR IT!!!!!!!

This is madness personified!!!!

Companies make mistakes ... which translates to "people' in companies make mistakes ... it's only human.

The maturity of the company, and the ability to trust them, will come (for me) by how the company learns and responds to those mistakes once identified.

These are 1024 double prim parcels that Linden Labs is now selling themselves. It is ony the first page of the list.

Nautilus - Baal (116,71) Mature 102... L$5,800.00 2 10/31/2008 1:00 PM
Nautilus - Baal (150,109) Mature 10... L$5,790.00 2 10/31/2008 1:00 PM
Nautilus - Baal (18,192) Mature 102... L$7,010.00 3 10/31/2008 1:00 PM
Nautilus - Baal (186,107) Mature 10... L$2,000.00 1 10/31/2008 1:00 PM
Nautilus - Baal (20,161) Mature 102... L$5,010.00 2 10/31/2008 1:00 PM
Nautilus - Baal (27,111) Mature 102... L$2,010.00 2 10/31/2008 1:00 PM
Nautilus - Baal (27,81) Mature 1024... L$2,000.00 1 10/31/2008 1:00 PM
Nautilus - Baal (83,87) Mature 1024... L$10,210.00 2 10/31/2008 1:00 PM
Nautilus - Eshmun (239,172) Mature ... L$60,010.00 5 10/30/2008 12:00 PM
Nautilus - Hanno (110,187) Mature 1... L$2,000.00 1 10/31/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hanno (111,217) Mature 1... L$45,010.00 7 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hanno (127,53) Mature 10... L$5,060.00 3 10/31/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hanno (141,220) Mature 1... L$32,230.00 5 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hanno (145,189) Mature 1... L$22,510.00 3 10/31/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hanno (197,227) Mature 1... L$50,020.00 4 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hanno (228,196) Mature 1... L$51,140.00 8 10/30/2008 12:00 PM
Nautilus - Hanno (228,226) Mature 1... L$44,010.00 4 10/30/2008 12:00 PM
Nautilus - Hanno (25,20 Mature 10... L$33,010.00 5 10/30/2008 12:00 PM
Nautilus - Hanno (28,17 Mature 10... L$45,570.00 6 10/30/2008 12:00 PM
Nautilus - Hanno (58,179) Mature 10... L$31,020.00 4 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hanno (63,213) Mature 10... L$31,290.00 8 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hanno (96,52) Mature 102... L$5,060.00 3 10/31/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hanno (97,19) Mature 102... L$47,510.00 33 10/30/2008 12:00 PM
Nautilus - Hasdrubal (117,114) Matu... L$98,660.00 34 10/30/2008 10:00 AM
Nautilus - Hasdrubal (117,83) Matur... L$45,010.00 16 10/30/2008 10:00 AM
Nautilus - Hasdrubal (148,117) Matu... L$90,010.00 13 10/30/2008 10:00 AM
Nautilus - Hasdrubal (150,83) Matur... L$46,010.00 7 10/30/2008 10:00 AM
Nautilus - Hasdrubal (196,116) Matu... L$72,100.00 4 10/30/2008 10:00 AM
Nautilus - Hasdrubal (74,12 Matur... L$96,740.00 65 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Hasdrubal (75,94) Mature... L$45,560.00 22 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (116,26) Mature 1... L$75,290.00 8 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (148,79) Mature 1... L$31,020.00 4 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (149,109) Mature ... L$31,020.00 4 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (149,25) Mature 1... L$75,290.00 8 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (176,76) Mature 1... L$4,510.00 3 10/31/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (180,107) Mature ... L$22,510.00 3 10/31/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (181,27) Mature 1... L$50,130.00 5 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (223,167) Mature ... L$2,010.00 2 10/31/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (223,200) Mature ... L$5,120.00 4 10/31/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (237,115) Mature ... L$10,210.00 2 10/31/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Kothar (72,3 Mature 10... L$44,450.00 7 10/30/2008 11:00 AM
Nautilus - Magon (103,84) Mature 10... L$55,630.00 12 10/30/2008 10:00 AM
Nautilus - Magon (26,115) Mature 10... L$81,010.00 12 10/30/2008 10:00 AM
Nautilus - Magon (26,40) Mature 102... L$31,260.00 5 10/30/2008 11:00 AM

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1. Offer a product that is so tempting people rush to buy it paying 250 dollars setup a portion of which offsets the cost of servers I would suspect.

2. Up the prims on the open space regions so that people can use them for more than just water and an island with a few trees.

3. Allow people to buy thousands of these things.

4. Jack up the price so you make more money offering 2 on a server than you did with three. - 3 X 75 = 225 where as 2 X 125 = 250.

5. Count on lots of people abandoning their open space regions which will free up server resources for Linden Labs to expand there own land sales business on servers that thousands help pay for with the suck them in Open Space deal.

Am I missing anything?

Taking a line out of context is pretty lame. He followed that with saying that he wouldn't call what has been done "abuse" but unexpected usage. Which does make sense since a great many of the original "void" sims were used in the expected way.

So, now that Jack isn't calling it abuse and is not trying to point fingers, can we have these posts drop that argument and quit looking for someone to blame? How about offering CONSTRUCTIVE comments, aiming to reduce the strain on the budgets this change would make?

Nah - that wouldn't work. Go back to your usual sniping. It's totally useless, but since you are having so much fun with it, I wouldn't want to interfere.

Then Lissa read his words properly, he has frequently used the words abuse, so perhaps you should not take things out of context and follow your own ill spoken statement.

I went looking for a region on the mainland to buy for my own use, outside a city area. Discovered there are NO full regions available, only pieces. All pieces available are in areas that are either city or will be soon. The mainland doesn't have anything for people who don't want to run a business. That was my reason for buying an opensim. I wanted to have a forest that would stay forest and would not be surrounded by a city.

Hi Jack,

I'm really scared about the new price of openspace. If the price rise so much lots of sims will close, especialy on large RP regions, and if they close I will stop SL.

The new price will also make LOTS of people loose their home in SL. I thinks lots of people will do the same and Jan 2009 may be the biggest crisis ever in SL.

Please consider another solution like limiting the number of avatar in openspace.

Emeline

Thank you for proving my point.

they have responded, and i think it was that or reduce the full sims tier and mainland tier, they chose to increase the OS tier, but it could not stay the same OS was killing the full sims and the mainland, they got it wrong first time round, not this time.

Their is no strain on their budget, it is on our budgets where the strain is and people have the right to vent without being trolled.

Jack,

I'm a little confused. Today, I went to your FAQs, located at https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=5198

Here is the exact text as copied:

What is an Openspace?
Openspaces are a 16-acre piece of standalone virtual land. Openspaces run 4 regions to a single CPU, and support 3750 primitives. Openspaces are available to Residents who already own Private Regions.
Openspaces are offered to allow Estate owners to create open ocean or land in and around their Regions in the same way that the Linden mainland does. They are intended for "light use" rather than Residential areas with large amounts of content or scripts. While they can and have been used in other ways, they are not recommended for any other purpose.


First, let me state that I am not objecting to an increase in tier fees that is related to what it costs to maintain high-quality service. I do object, however, to being told after the fact that I might not be able to use my private region, openspace sims as I was told I would when I purchased them through Fantasyland Estates (without covenant and as commercial/residential zoning). The last sentence in the FAQ response clearly states that openspaces "can and have been used in other ways", and there is merely a "not recommended for any other purpose" statement following that disclosure, not a "forbidden for any other purpose" statement. Certainly, since I purchased the land and spent a fortune in Lindens to improve it and make it what it is today (one sim that I live on and another that hosts roleplay with a small commercial area), Linden Labs has been happy to take my money without reservations or restrictions of any kind. To say that this possible change could be devasting, both personally and financially, is an understatement. I cannot object strongly enough to this sudden switch, particularly given the conflicting information that Linden Labs has posted in various places on its Web site.

I appreciate the opportunity to express my opinion in this forum, and I hope that Linden Labs will consider other options for managing the server lag issues. In my first life, I'm a business owner, and I'd say that the amount of feedback in this thread alone should be a clear signal to Linden Labs that a great deal of customers will consider taking their business elsewhere if this proposed change goes through as originally announced.

A few thoughts on this....

While I understand the frustration of those with many OS sims, I am extremely satisfied with the new policies LL has planned. The mistake is not the new policy, but the change that was made months ago. When OS sims were offered at such a low price, with extra prims, and disconnected from an estate, I immediately investigated the use of them....read the KB, tested on my own, and visited other sims. Anyone buying land in this world needs to do the homework. Anyone who bought many OS sims should have known from the beginning the intended use of them. I have always said, and will continue to say, do the research and think of the future.

Think of this as well.....
When the OS sims became more desirable, those of us in the land business and who did the research were definitely hurt by those buying them up and using them inappropriately. I followed the guidelines, turned customers wanting "a piece" of an OS sim away, and had land on my full prim sims sitting there empty. I never caved in to the OS sim craze. Honestly, if you are going to build a business around land, wouldn't you do your research and see this coming months ago?

I am very sorry for those who have or will lose with the policy changes, but please do not forget those who lost on their full prim sims (paying 1000USD for a purchase and 295USD/mth). I will pay the extra tier on the few OS sims I own to restore order to the grid, even if I did not contribute to the problem.

Final thought....
If LL gives in to the pressure of those opposing the changes, I hope they also take into consideration those who have used them properly, waited out the OS sim craze, and even lost customers so as not to overload the servers and follow the guidelines.

It's about time and hang tough, LL.

In his newest blog post, he doesn't accuse anybody of abuse anymore (which was just a try to set the SL community upon each other anyway), but instead says, quote:

"[...] the large majority of Openspaces have more going on than was the original intent. We are not suggesting this is a bad thing, and of course we’re delighted that people have found them to be so useful. And we’re not saying that everyone is abusing resources. We are saying that the use has changed, and continues to do so as people find more creative ways to use them. So the revised pricing is about recognising that change of use and the additional costs and value associated with it."

In short: "It's not a bad thing. We are delighted. No abuse. Just us wanting more cash". Exactly what most of us have been saying yesterday already. The majority of OS sim owners saw through the lies, so we now get something closer to the truth.

It was this great satisfaction that i read the post about CDC, having been once of their employees, until facing redundancy.

The maths behind This decision do not add up as many have already stated.

You keep changing the goalposts.
OS sims had 1875 prims till you doubled them, why double them if you dont want them used, unless you wanted them used to have a pretence later to jack the price up, so was this a baiting exersize?

As much as you wish to see this as a Virtual Business model, you know full well that for 95% of the population this is a game!! and if the Sopy Playstation or Nitendo Wii etc etc came out with such a significantly bug ridden flawed product, the competitors would wipe the floor with them.

Please explain why you are so intent on continuing down this path of Self destruction.

Prior to the second world war, a loaf of bread in Germany cost about 10 billion Marks. The MArk had reduced in value so much because the government was flooding the market with notes, just as you are doing with land. The rate that you make it available is devaluing it at such a rate that it, like the pre war german mark, is worthless.

If you want this GAME to last them be responsible.

1) Stop the flood of land, if nessecary CLose the land store, stop all creation of new sims. This will recreate a market place for land. Once the market is boyant again, you can make land available in resticted ammount, this will keep the market stimulated , and allow you to forcast your business hardwarecosts more accurately, preventing the financial issues that i am assuming you are experiencing now.

2) Fix the bugs. You cannot underestimate the importance of this. Either you are ignoring surveys or asking the wrong questions, but your product has huge bugs. Stop hiding them with pretty feature, stop changing the look of the interface or adding things, just fix what we have first.

3) Price rises are fair, but make them honest and reasonable. Inflation based rises with adequate notice is acceptable.

Secondlife is a game, but Linden Labs is a business, so run it responsibly or you WILL end up as the next CDC.

I'm sure they'll think of you. Perhaps they'll even pay you 30 pieces of silver.

Dear Lindens, SIm Owners and SL residents,

this just to add the view of one of your not so wealthy residents. Looking at the different groups

Linden Labs:
Saying that the problem is with overused openspace sims. Sorry, how stupid do you think all of us are. If sims are overused and thus laggy, noone loves to spend their time there. Your point may be that this affects "neighbouring" OS sims too, but wouldn't the correct solution then be a technical one, stopping single OS regions from using up resources that were meant for other OS sims on the same CPU? Or at least make sure that owners of multiple OS sims end up on the same CPU, thus digging in their own resources. And we certainly not talking about prim usage, ther is no way to overuse that.

Full SIM Owners:
I grant you you are having an investment. And certainly you don't like the idea that for the same amount of money ppl liek me have a chance to get a 65k sqm island, with no convenant restricting me and the whole thing at a price that you will have to charge me for a tiny piece of land with (potentially) annoying neighbours around. But please don't point at me, saying I am misusing a OS sim, when I am living there, possibly having a few friends around and occasionally writing my odd script. And just complaining because using an OS region this way might not be 100% according to the writing for permitted use, doesn't make your or LL's arguments more credible.

OS SIM Owners:
Seems to me some are really streching the guidelines. But then some LL created OS sims are too as I have learned in the discussions here, so of course they have been given hints that this is ok. I wish ppl would have been more considerated, as it might have avoided for this very annoying change of policy to come up. But then how bad is the situation actually? There certainly are some black sheep, but for how much of all OS sim users do they account for?

Simple SL residents (like me):
My SL certainly does not depend on owning an OS sim. Actually I find even those almost too expensive to have. However if it comes to building my world here OS sims are a dream of a concept. So yes LL, your change in policy tells me you are NOT interested in me beyond my money. Don't construct a problem where I do NOT have had a problem, and even claim you are acting in my interest - that is really hypocrit behaviour. And even if I can't own an OS sim because I don't have the cash for it. Some of the SIMs I love to spend my time in depend on it. And these even fit those OS sim guidelines fully. Yet they will have to close with this change. So yes I am annoyed, I do feel like someone gave me a kick in the butt and don't tell me you didn't know you were going create collateral damage like this. Where that puts you - dear Lindens - on my scale of amiable persons I don't think I have to mention.


Regards Desh

This increase is HUGE and have talked to many about it on SL. It seems it will end up costing LL more in the long run because people just won't be able to afford it. We'll see many sims simply shut down and others consolidate to share the expense. We're going to lose many bright and beautiful places that make SL the adventure it is.

Thank you Ishtara but his words:

"[...] the large majority of Openspaces have more going on than was the original intent. We are not suggesting this is a bad thing, and of course we’re delighted that people have found them to be so useful. And we’re not saying that everyone is abusing resources. We are saying that the use has changed, and continues to do so as people find more creative ways to use them. So the revised pricing is about recognising that change of use and the additional costs and value associated with it."

"And we’re not saying that everyone is abusing resources."

clearly impies some are abusing resources, so dressing it up a little has not changed his view that some OS users are abusers.

The point still remains that LL disconnected the OS islands from needing to be anchored to a full sim, and increasing their prim limit, and making them available singly, thereby implying their use could be interpreted in a new way to the outdated wording of the original void between islands. They compounded this further by over building and scripting on their own showcase OS, which have now magically become full sims.

how can you honestly lie like that?

even katt's comment states she edited out the personal attacks....

When a company offers a product to people and then decides they made a mistake, which they may have they have a number of choices. Raising the price unilaterally is not a reputable way for a company to correct it's mistakes. Not while they will be hurting those that are using the product as LL claims they imagined or intended it would be used.

Imagine building an apartment building and charging tenants x amount of dollars to move in and x amount a month for rent. Then some tenants setup business in there units and you did not plan on them doing so. Or they invite all their friends and relatives to move in thus using more resources. Your solution instead of telling those that are using the units as you did not intend to stop or they will be penalized you just raise everyones rent. No restriction on those that are running businesses or overpopulating the units from creating excessive wear and tear on the property.

Some will say hey for a few more bucks I can run a business in my unit good deal. Other's that can not afford to pay more will lose there units. Still you do not solve the wear and tear problem you most likely just increase it.

I am convinced this is nothing more than a money grab and if there is any abuse here it is Linden Labs abusing those that are paying for what you refer to as a mistake.