Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

I know a few that did use conceirge support. Some times they had to b/c I couldnt fix the problem. As payor I don't have any land abilities on a sim with a designated owner.


I personally don't think that the loss of conceirge would affect their experience other than for those that like to upload and download raws themselves. For me that's a small if not 0% of my des owners.

And to correct Snowy, no ones name is on a sim as payor. If are saying that people ASSUME the estate owner is the payor another situation of people not knowing. That I can understand b/c many estate owners didnt know des owner existed either.

In my opinion the problem many of you have with the des owner is that some gamed it. In that case, and a case that is important to LL who could get sued for not protecting their customers, make it hard to game. Put a listing on the estate menu that lists payor and EO (estate owner). I've had many people over my years here buy a sim of mine or a large parcel from a renter and was told that the tier was free or some other nonsense. At some point it is hard to protect everyone especially if people just pay w/o educating themselves. We as honest land owners try to work with them but in some cases they had to suck up the loss of what they paid some bad guy and leave the land.

I go out of my way to explain things to people and I know others dont but doesnt that word DESIGNATED in the des owner sentence give you the idea that you arent straight owner? These people buying os from a site and thinking they actually own it - yeah i guess that guy knows nothing about SL and doesnt look or learn or talk to one person in SL. Still no excuse for them to get scammed. I've been scammed in SL and in other open sim grids. It sucks..but ultimately it was because I assumed much and protected myself little. I would presume those same people that searched and found that website found others that explained it all...including LLs.

I'm not going to add the obvious frustration level by dragging on about how poor of a decision this is other then to say it is one that will greatly effect how YOUR customers view you and your ethics. However... with that said let me remind you that you have a collection of highly intelligent and capable IT people at your disposal who can come up with a better solution then just making everyone take a hit. Why not impose some restrictions on Openspace sims such as the number of scripts allowed and/or the number of avatars allowed on the parcel at the same time. obviously if 4 openspace sims on the servor each have 40 avatars then that is a whopping 160 on one servor. the lag from avatar volume alone would kill the performance. Maybe placing a ceiling limitation on the number of avies and scripts would solve the problem. Honestly you can't expect people to want too pay good money for a sim full of trees or water. But a nice home and personal possessions with a modest amount of scripts is a reasonable solution. Will people still complain? Most assuredly they will. But you won't be alienating practically everyone across the board by doing so. As you have already been reminded time and time again $50 US dollars is a 67% increase. Imagine anything that you use on a daily basis as a consumer were to go up drastically by 67% all at one time. Some of those things like food, and gasoline and medical expenses you would have no choice but to caugh it up. But on luxury items, like servor space in a virtual game for example... You would be saying to yourself is this something I really need or not? I guarantee that is going to be the question many many many people are going to be asking in regards to renting servor space from you in January when you do this. This is a luxury not a need and therefore it is expendable. Good day.

Im not attacking. Like you I have an opinion. It happens to differ with the opinion you have of yourself. Me thinking you a tool is similar yet more straight forward to you wishing me the "happiness I deserve." I have come to the conclusion here that there is no reason for you and I to discuss anything. You opinion is yours and mine mine. OK NOW I'll allow your next post back to me to by the last word. I'm odd like that. I can allow you to continue talking at me w/o responding. Go for it.

HOLY CRAP we had no idea there was such a huge market for detached 256 by 256 m sims with 3750 prim allowance, estate manager tools, and access to concierge level support.

Now we need to see if people will pay a more appropriate price for OSs, and also we'd like to get rid of the middle men who are charging more than $75 per month for them anyhow, and take in that profit ourselves, given that we are already providing all the support for them.

I would only point out to you the other obvious point where they first sold something until its demand was depleted and then generated additional income by adjusting the price... oh, that was when they lowered the pricing on these OS sims in the first place, after first selling them for a couple months at nearly double the price.

The way this works is..

First they spot a revenue oppoortunity.

"Hrm, people are renting our OS sims with 1875 prims. We could create a market out of that by increasing demand (doubling the prims, breaking up the 4pack requirement, letting you drop them anywhere on the grid)"

So having created the high demand product they simply pump it out until it isnt high demand anymore, for as much as they can. Then they look around and say... whats next?

So they they do the obvious...

"Well if they liked em at the high price they are gunna love em at a lower price!"

So they pump them out again, while demand lasts, dealing with whatever issues they cause because, well, theres a revenue stream being generated. Until the demand dries up.

So then they look around and say... whats next?

"Well we cant sell anymore land, the infrastructure is overloaded and theres too much land for the number of people that can connect"

So whats the fix? hrm...

"hey we can take care of all of those problems in one stroke... Raise the price, that will create revenue from increased fees and where it doesnt it will be because people are bandoning them, and that will lessen the load on the grid while at the same time shrinking the land supply, and all those people on the abandoned islands have to go somewhere so, we can take care of all those parcels for sale on mainland... brill!"

They dont have to be evil geniouses, It doesnt require alot of planning, they just have to be opportunistic, a bit uncaring, and under orders to grow the bottom line at all costs.

I dont care that they are opportunistic, I care that they manage it so badly by leaving the people they should be carrying with them behind at every step. I care that there is a lack of honesty.

A good business supports its resellers and its customers by providing good value and letting their resellers earn a living by also providing good value. LL does neither. That puts them in a class with... enron.

I'd love to see the numbers that are actually in designated owner status. I bet its a small percentage.

I actually think LL should sell them themselves if that suits them. They are a company that should reap the reward of their product. I don't begrudge them that actually. What my statement was at the time all this start months ago was to just DEFINE what they want and go for it.

that is exactly my point. Linden in stead of going the way they are going why not turn this in to a positive manuever for them and us.

Um, because it says so in the blog announcing the new pricing structure last March?



Now I accept that a standalone openspace in the middle of nowhere that just contains countryside or water is of very little use, but it is clear that that was what they were intended for. So if you bought one and used it differently you were not using it for its stated purpose. The fact that that purpose was of little commercial value does not change anything. If people took the view that its stated purpose was pointless and therefore it could not be intended for its stated purpose that's up to them.

I say thanks for many good hours and exspiriens on Open Space sims around
SL on Private hands. And feel sad and near tears knowing how much there
now will be gone or beuatyfull, creative places created wiht heart and passions
and dreams. Sadly that it not seems some of Linden Labs understand or can
live in this part of virtual life. Its not so much about economy and cool cash
for many there all ready have stretch there economy and saved on other
parts of life for being in SL and create and share there dreams come trues
wiht others. Our place wiht 3 Open Space was non profit and many have been
there and say its there favorite place in SL, we among lots othere now only
have the options to close them.

Part of us there use the most of our time and efforts in SL can say to be addicted
to SL and all the friendships, love and creativity we found here. Its even harder
again to most face a high raise, last time that happened was VAT, there hits us
wiht 25% extra in tier, wiht out any help from Linden Lab to make it more equal
for all, try run a business where you most make 25% extra than your naboers
wiht same items and service just to pay for rent or tier. Not fair at all.

I hope this blows and total unprosionel hard hearted cold acttions from Linden
Lab and there total lack of communications skill and ability to understand virtual
life will bring otheres to start create new worlds, like openlife.com so there comes
better and better worlds... Support them and have paciens wiht them in the start
they deserve any chance that Linden Lab have missed take.

Bertram Merlin
Virtual and alive

Damn... nice to see that somebody gets it. This whole big tier increase on OS sims is nothing but a diversion from the real issue.. the glut of mainland.

We've devoted enough time and venting at this price increase issue. If this thread is to continue, I wish people just started asking LL one question:

"What happened to that big surplus of abandoned land you were keeping from coming back into the market?"

Don't give us any metrics about what the price per sqm of mainland has risen to over the last couple of months. Just answer the damn question.

this seems to suggest that the concierge services are the big part of the problem, which is so easily taken care of by denying concierge services to non-payors. No, its much more then that. Its about where the next dollar will come from.

There's a difference between stated purpose and intention and a quick look at the comments in that blog entry identifies very quickly how they were going to be used.

Many would have took light use to mean just that, indeed they did.

whatever the reason was, they sold like crazy, and wrecked the land market in SL. I am sure that from the point of view of the concierge staff, who were suddenly being asked to support "designated owners" of detached OSs, it seemed like a problem. But for now, I feel sure that LL is trying to see how good a product they really are, and whether people will pay an appropriate price for them.

I can see now that OSs are more than simply 1/4 of a full sim, and should cost more to buy and to run. The question now is whether or not they will sell at the higher price.

Light use such as countryside or ocean doesn't mean "you can't live there". It doesn't even mean "you can't have a house there".

My "home" on Second Life is... well, one build is a countryside (abandoned farm in a swamp) and the other is almost entirely water, with a couple strings of land around the edge.

Some pretty big landowners were featuring it on their webpage as part of the pitch. You yourself at one time offered to give designated owner status for an additional fee.

Just sayin...

They know it now, did they know it then? Or did they assume that people who wanted residential space would do what I did, look at the cheap option of an openspace, weigh up the implied limitations against the cheapness and decide it wasn't for them? I thought about an openspace back in March but couldn't see it offered me a better deal than my current rental because of the limits on what it could be used for. When my landlord told me she was considering converting the sim I live in to 4 openspaces and offered me one, I thought about it again but had to tell her that if she did I'd look for somewhere else to live, again because of the limitations of openspaces. I understand that other tenants in the sim told her the same, and in the end she didn't convert the sim we're in.

My reading of the announcement is that they didn't see this coming, they thought the prim limits would be enough to limit use and only found that the load from openspaces was too much when there were already loads of them out there. That of course assumes that the announcement is basically telling the truth, but I have no evidence to make me think otherwise.

Maybe they could have given clearer guidelines about what constituted light use (although I appear to have understood them and so do others), they could have handled the announcement better, and certainly some sort of compensation for people who bought recently is in order, but there's nothing to support some of the wild accusations of deliberate fraud that are flying around in this and other threads.

Agreed, but as soon as soon as you divide the sim in 4 and rent it to 4 tenants you're not talking about "a house" anymore.

And the Knowledge Base does say



"not for building, living, renting as homes" is pretty explicit.

In fact it's a damn sight clearer than I remember it being last time I looked. Have they just changed it? Or am I getting paranoid too?

Another diversion.

Question: "So Tony, how do you know this is an example of diversionary tactics?"

Answer: Well, because the solutions to the supposed problem is relatively simple and has been outlined in many ways from decreasing the amount of OS sims on CPUs to basically converting the OS sims to half sims at a monthly tier price of 125 to 150 usd.
Neither of those solutions do a thing as far as decreasing OS sims as a competitor to mainland.

I don't blame LL from trying to get back in the game. Hell, they are a business and their bottom line is not growing in the ways they want it to grow, nor is it growing fast enough. I just think they could have done it in a way more thought out and with as much patience as we have had to have holding onto our own gluts of property, waiting for the market to turn. Some semblance of balance could have been achieved, but it would have required work from all of us, including LL.

They don't want to do the hard work to clean up and regulate the mainland. They have a faulty product. They cannot attract substantial corporate interests because of lack of stability of the platform in general. So, we pay. Well... so they think. Basically, if they do this, it is the start of their "dead cat dance".

I'm of the opinion now that its time to get rid of the land barons totally.. OMG yes I said it, cut out the middle man Lindens and let us buy the types of products from you that you are selling. Don't make us go into huge debt every month just to get a sim. If you sold the sims yourself to us for a purchase price and a monthly fee billed directly to you. ALOT OF this mess could of been avoided. Simply put, restructure your tiers and offer a new form of sim for medium sized users that allows them to purchase it themselves, and cut the land baron out of the middle.

They already knew how they would be used, just read the blog where they made the announcement, or remomber the ads that filled the land sales for os sims before they did it, of course they knew. and of course they wont sell at the higher price, they dont sell at the current price

I was just informed by another Estate owner that got it from a Linden, that there will only be free conversions back to full regions for the ones that has has gotten OS in the 2 weeks PRIOR to the price increese announcement!!

Can any confirm this and if it is true that ISNT acceptable at all .. there are thousands of OS out there that NO one will rent or use for anything .. all this will accomplise is ppl dumping their OS sims.

I feel that quality of SL rises. It became very
comfortable in one year.I say thank you.

It may be a careful thing, but cannot do it?

The number of the simultaneous access of Opespace will be good
at the upper limit with 25 people. A number can return. Please fix it.

250 may be enough for the number of the scripts, but the limit of the number
of many scripts will not have the effect.

Please gather up a server holding more than 8Openspaces.
Nobody wants to trouble another person.
Even if You feel difficult, there is the responsibility in Linden Lab.

Please do not display a heavy environmental place by a search. Going is useless.
Or please exclude Openspace from a search and map.
If your claim is the sea and a forest, I think not necessary.

The sea will be destroyed by Linden Lab. Please make original environment space.Is it Oceanspace?1000prims 100 scripts usable.
Four combined sales. A division is impossible. Impossible of a owner change.
It`s like a Mainland Linden public ocean.And low price.

[Other]

Group Bot is high addition. Please make structure letting
you enter the group with prohibition to a native.

Prohibition of the high-resolution tex tea. Thorough exclusion of Huge Prim.
LindenLab is too vague about Huge prim in particular.
The inhabitants of Openspace will do diverseness in future.
It is hard for an designer. Include me. A step like Openspace is necessary.


Please prohibit camping and gaming(Ex:Zyngo) of Openspace as morals.
With that alone there is not enough waste. It is prohibition in my Openspace land.

Please make an index where the high addition is from. I suffer from judgment.
It is a problem that your talk troubled with does not have grounds and persuasive power.

At first it is improved.KAIZEN.The Japanese has so it. We try correspondence calmly.
At first please give an improvement demand. It is from it.
Nobody wants to smash the in-world.

SLZIN HLDGS.Japan AKko Yoshikawa

The problem is when they raised the prim limits. That came later, after they had a chance to see people using OpenSpaces for more than just scenery. That was clearly a response to people using them for more than just scenery, because you don't need 3000+ prims for scenery, and there's no reason to raise the limits other than to allow heavier use... and their own OpenSpace builds supported that.

Except that they raised the prim limits at the same time as they cut the price and let them be standalone.

Odd, given that you can apparently cancel your purchase within 30 days.

If that's the case, people who bought OpenSpaces in the past 30 days but not the past 3 weeks might want to cancel them now.