Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

Again, thank the unscrupulous landlords for gaming the system. A lot of estate managers are upset too because it means they actually have to do some work for the money they receive instead of pawning it off on the Concierge teams.

I disagree designated owner status is an exploited. I wouldn't doubt it's been been scammed just like parcels on private estates have been scammed. By your definition prims are an exploit too when one puts and invisible one over an SLX ATM.

Also how is it an exploit when it is a tool freely given by LL for years, brought up in a discussion BY Jack Linden and I'm sure others to explain HOW exactly to give ownership rights to people (in my case this was the answer to my specific question how do I give ownership rights to my friends who don't want to pay VAT).


I understand your frustration but many of use designated ownership rights fairly, ethically and productively. Because others scammed it doesn't make it an exploit. Now- having said that if LL feels they want to change their minds and not allow it's legit use that's their prerogative. But do we have to burn down the whole town with torches to wipe out anything related to the problem. And honestly I'm still not sure what the problem is. Is it lag? Is it a miscalculation of value where they now see they can get more money for it? I sure as hell don't think the problem is they want to improve our experience or tamp down on scams.

And for the record I would venture to say that the designated ownership tool is used by a minority. Many estate owners (as you have all seen in conceirge chat) dont even know what prim bonus is or how to manage estates. Another product of selling them cheaper was in ainflux in people that don't really know how to use estate tools. Not saying it's an majority just that it is significant. How has that dragged down the cogs of the support wheel? I'm sure a bit.

If this is about lag than mainland price should be increased. If this is about providing better function then a new product should be introduced and priced accordingly. Problem is there are as many tags on the problem here as there are Lindens.


A PS here is for the record many using these designated owner rights didnt mark up sim cost or tier. In my case I often gave these rights to people that paid less than 250 usd for a sim in cases where i could buy them cheaper on the market or who will straight renters.

I am just baffled by the argument this is gaming or exploitive. How is using a tool that was suggested to me by LL themselves gaming the system? This is how a discussion turns unproductive. When statements such as these and others are made it smacks more of uneducated gripe and opinion. And Snowflake I'll just imagine your retort about speaking your opinion and going against the majority. Sincerely I understand your point.

I cannot believe LL would deliberately have pushed the sale of open spaces just so they could up the prices as a trick, so complete mismanagement must be the answer.

If the open spaces are not proving to be profitable for LL with their increased loading then why was the cost not increased when the prims were doubled? at least the island owners would have known what they were letting themselves in for prior to purchasing OS sims.

Putting up prices on Open spaces will possibly make them unviable, for the obvious –cough ‘abuse of usage they were purchased for’

Ask yourselves why were Open spaces so popular, Jack or any other Lindens involved in this decision making.
They provide a cheap alternative to full Island rental with a limited number of prims, that is the only reason for the OS explosion.
My wife rents one, the ground in the centre was shrunk to become a mini island, she put out a castle and used it to create her own environment to enjoy with her friends.

You must have all seen this was going to become a typical use of these OS sims, the price increase doesn’t concern me, as we can just walk away from the island, but as a reasonable person I must say, I do have concerns for the estate owner who purchased the island on my wife’s behalf.
They will most likely be left with an empty un-rentable space just two months after purchasing it.

This is just one instance of a user choosing not to rent an openspace, at a cost of over 125usd/month remember the estate owner has to make some on top of LL’s tier, our decision is based on value for money, nothing else we never experienced any issues on the OS sim.
I am obviously assuming my wife and I will not be the only ones unprepared to continue renting at the increased prices, I expect this will hurt even the larger estate businesses and drive many smaller ones completely out of business.

In turn as these estates disappear, estates which make up the vast majority of the virtual land in SL the likelihood is that their associated users will to, putting strain on content creators as sales drop etc.

The fall out obviously depends on the full impact to estate businesses, which only the owners will be able to access fully, but if responses from them in the forums previously are to be believed, many are already close to making losses and this could just have been the final straw.

SL’s success relies upon most of it’s inhabitants, these inhabitants range from the standard mainstream non premium account user to the largest of tier paying estate owners.
The mainstream non tier paying users are probably the most important, without them everything falls apart, they may not pay tier directly to LL but still put in the cash to spend L$ inworld, the Estate owners and established content creators stay to earn from these users.

The mainstream users stay because they love SL, SL to them is the friends they have made, the content they have purchased and last but not least the clubs and places they visit or live inworld.

If you destroy estate businesses ability to generate an income they will have no choice but to leave SL, in turn many of their customers will leave, as their homes, favourite clubs and places to visit disappear, some of the best places in SL are located on private islands.
Content creators will also struggle to make any profit as their customers disappear, which begins to create a vicious circle, Second Life is only enjoyable because of the people who choose to invest their time and money here, no content no fun.

It seems as an observer, LL via this price increase are actually attempting to engineer their own virtual recession, which could prove to be disastrous.

Perhaps, but at least I am mature enough to keep my emotions in check.

I do understand why people are so upset about this though.

Isn't this thread entitled "conversation with Jack Linden" ?
mmmmm...

Was just wondering: where is Jack ??? lol

The more he waits to answer, the angrier people get...
That is definitely a second big mistake.
If I were him, I wouldn't postpone too much my answer.
It makes the situation worse...

Talking spacificly about stadiums is a whole nother ugly monster LOL . Statiums are build from our tax money, and by the time they are finnally finished being paid off.... its time to build another. The cities that build them never see a penny back from the investment directly. Only from other taxes and increased tourism.

But hey my Phillies won so who cares that they spent $346 million to build Citizens Bank Park with the Phillies paying for $172 million and the public tax payers covering the other $174 million.

LOL

We need people to tax thats what we are missing

I have 10 houses to a open Space Sim. All Separate islands. I rent most of my houses for $600 a week and give them 300 Prims There are never more then one or two av at a time. And most of my renters have lived there for months. So they must have a great experience to stay that long. and if they had any lag or problems they would have IM me in a heart beat. So some of this overload and lag conversation and all the techie BS I find very "hot winded" and not reality. And if you do the math, I don't make any money just break even, But at least its a lovely place for people to have a place to call home. I am waiting it out, call me stupid, but I still have faith in Linden that they will grandfather out the Tiers. I am giving them till Dec 1st to do the right thing.

You're so right! Jack must be crazy to think OpenSpaces are being overused with a shining example like you. Heck, 10 houses is practically the same as open water or green space!

I am referring to people who bought and sold scores to hundreds of detached OSs with "designated ownership" touting them as being free of restrictions or covenants and coming with full estate manager rights and concierge level support. You can see ads for them even today in the forums below, and you can find "company" websites still up where this is being done. I know that not all sellers did these things.

LL may or may not view that as an exploit; I can see how it could be viewed as one. But I can also see that LL recognized from all of it that there is a HUGE market for detached OS sims and they clearly intend to get into that market themselves. The obvious next step, to me, is for them to make it so that people don't need a full sim to qualify for owning them -- but I am sure they will wait to see how well the "product" sells at a more appropriate price.

From one adult to another:

If you don't feel you were gaming the system or an unscrupulous landlord, don't take it personally. I have not attacked ANYONE personally OR their business in these forums by name so you don't need to take your little swipes at me, either. If you understand my point about my opinion, no need for me to bring it up again TO YOU, and no need for you to keep bringing it up TO ME. I am more than happy to discuss this matter with people who don't attack me personally.

The fact of the matter is that LL has announced their decision to revoke this tool, so landlords now have to provide this service on their own, instead of just saying "Here's your openspace sim, your name is on it as the payor so LL will take care of all your problems" and then happily collecting tier for doing not much more than submitting a ticket to LL.

Those landlords, they have to work for their money now.

Good luck Barb and I wish you all the happiness you deserve.

Someone needs to start another thread about banning free accounts.

Not sure which bit to quote here, but just to ask an Estate owner who's used designated owner status before: It is really the case that those designated owners routinely get Concierge support? And if so, is that actually an important reason for them to be designated owners? (That is, if it didn't remain, but the other aspects of designated owner were still in place, would that be good enough?)

So what you are saying is that you had no idea what uses the OS sims were being put to? You increased the amount of available prims so that the owners of these OS sims could do what? Place more water on them? On what theory would anyone wish to purchase a purely liquid sim? Who would want to own an uninhabited forest? Why should LL charge anyone for this kind of amenity? If you want to provide environmental ambience as part of the SL experience, by all means, do so. But don't expect any individual to foot the bill for this ambience.
Perhaps you wish to eliminate all commercial activity on the OS sims? You should take yourselves for a sail through the SLNE to see the great uses that the OS sims have been put to. If you persist in your raise, I suspect that SLNE will become a bunch of deserted islands with no features of interest whatsoever.
I know that I will pick up my structures, trees, rocks, buoys and waves, and say so long to SL.
Your choice.

Laird Townsend

And ban lines..

Good luck to you as well snowflake. I wish you all the happiness you deserve as well. What a tool. Consider your next post the last word on the subject with me.

Yea that whole owner/payor thing has me baffled. I have only a couple OS, I made the folks who wanted them managers of the island to allow them to have access to the region tools. But in the end i am still owner of the sim and payor.. how does one become the owner but not the payor?

I guess trying to break the rules never even occured to me but in my opinion LL should not be giving them an option or grandfather on that.. the land owner should be reverted back to the payor reguardless in my opinion.

Well said. I don't own an OS either, although I was getting close to buying one. If I had done so, this latest action by LL would have wiped me out. I empathize strongly with the people who do own OS, knowing that this is probably devastating for many of them, landlords and renters alike. I also know that this is going to hurt the SL economy grid wide. Many people will leave, never to return. Sales were already sluggish and have slowed down more since this announcement. The joy that many people once felt in SL has been eroded away. Every content creator who has invested years of creative effort into SL is having their efforts devalued and diminished by the inane and thoughtless actions of our host.

Go look for your self it is all water with houses. and seeing is believing. Rainforest Isle Estates. And mine were up and rented way before they even posted what they could be used for. And further more, I have chat logs of conversations with the Linden Concierge on what I was doing with the open spaces, They even came to check them out. So don't make stupid comments, with out data.

But your last post said you had 10 houses to an openspace..

/me looks confused.

Sorry you don't want to discuss without attacking.

I understand the need and wish of the LL to make a profit from the growing trend of open space sims being used as more than a waterway and as more than a forest. Why not make a catergory of open space sims. Residential, commercial, and natural (waterways and forest..which is no habitual). I dont know how much the folks at linden labs get out there but there are alot of beautiful sims out there that are open space, and to say it drains resources is that not a fib.

Open space sims are already alloted with in the server space and capacity already and you can not put more on them then what is not allowed. Now there are those of us that enjoy having a openspace sim as a private residence and i am thankful to the individual that i was renting the space from. The logical thing for linden to do is to make the profit in this and cut out the middle man.

I am sorry to the middle men for this statement. But i am now faced with having to move my home because my middle man decided to leave in light of the change in prices. and if it was not for some of the middle men that most of us use, we would not have had the opportunity to even own land in sl.

The prices for aquiring this land from LL is steep and most of us can afford to maintain them but not to set them up. I think it is a real travesty that LL went about this the wrong way. The direction you are heading is to total destruction of a system that many of us have come to enjoy. We have tolerated much and then for the faithful that have not jumped ship and ran to the competitors is something that LL should take into consideration. There is a solution out there that will appease everyone involve or at least the majority.

As for the Grandfathering in of Open Space sims. Why not? they can be the forefathers of what an open space sim can be. Think about it you want sl to grow an it has and it has proven that there are those as myself that have invested time, money and effort into sl. And why should we be subjected to this.

My solution is a simple one:

1. Set up Residential Open Space Sims for premium accounts. This can be at a reasonable price with reasonable prims. (Do a survey to determine what is reasonable). LL will definitely make a profit from this.

2. Set up Commercial Open Space Sims. This can be at a slightly higher tier rate because it is commercial.

3. Set up Natural Open Space Sims. These are what the open spaces was initially set up to be. (in other words Void sims with low prim)


See as I see it this has become an issue because many of us can not afford the Full prim sims not the set up fees nor do we need that much prim or can we afford the Tier. And you can not get an open space with out getting a full prim....ummm a catch 22 for those that have not noticed. Those of us that have premium accounts we have already taken the time to invest in SL why doesnt LL make our investments worth it. I hate to see many of us in sl leave or lose more than we may already have.

This is something for LL to think about and I think this may not be the solution but definitely a start. Many of us choose open space sims to live for the privacy factor being on the main land and having privacy is impossible. and then you get the occasional griefer and on a private open space sim, you dont have that issue. I really hate to have to give up my private open space sim but it seems inlight of current events I have no choice. will i invest more money in to an another place in sl i think not, may be i have an auction of my items and get out while I can. Sincerely hoping linden really look at the big picture and what it will do in the long haul. you need to consider the people who have been with SL and have foregone and sticked with SL through the thick and the thin. Look
at all the down time issues the grid crashes and updates and yet we still keep coming back. Linden Labs needs to really think about this. Why not pose a survey with a place for suggestions before such a drastic change is made. We are the ones that our funds are what helps and even make sl run. As they say dont burn bridges you never know when you may need to cross one.

So we know some abuse the system, why punish all.........

you have the ability to speak to those with manny estates, and those with heavy traffic,
so deal with them. This huge increase I fear will have looking around at other options.

Please deal with those abusing, but not us all, to deal so broadly just makes me feel like cattle, not an individual.

Oh my traffic is roughly 6 a day, so can i have a discount?

Watt

I don't know how they can do this, but I do hope LL can find a way to allow people who purchased full sims before the price decreases last spring, and converted them to OSs after the price decreases, to convert back free of charge.

I don't think they need to allow ALL OSs to be converted to full sims for free (in groups of 4) -- only a reversion of OSs back to the fulls sims they came from. But in thinking about the logistics and mechanics of this, I recognize it would be virtually impossible to impliment.

I would suggest to Linden Labs they host a meeting patrolled by NON gteam lindens with powers, with those that want to tell why forcing the openspaces out of business is bad. as many lindens as are willing to be there would be great. I think the four sim amplitheator would be good to hold it and a godshout. If it gets too big split it off into different groups at different theators. Let us tell you exactly what youre doing to us. then maybe you can ask for suggestions from differant people. maybe have us notecard them or something so they can be shared.

We need a real dialogue not just being told "the forums are being read"