Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

I agree this is the plan, but its nothing that many of us havent already realized, some faster than others. The downside, and unforseeable reaction that LL didnt expect was, the sheer volume of the negative reaction and the repercussions that are still yet to be felt.

During this time of turmoil, many people have thought with a unified mind, albeit disorganized. Still great ideas have came such as raising prices of mainland tier fees 33% to compete with fair tier payment on estates, which LL not giving any good reason why not, this is soon to become a thorn in thier side. Crunching the LL disclosed numbers on mainland sims at 5000, the absolute minimum they could yield from the change is $500,000 USD a month, that is more than enough to cover expenses.

But, now that these numbers are floating out there and so many people have thought so hardily about the situation LL is now faced with an even greater problem....thier creditbility as a business, both in the eyes of the residents and in the eyes of other business's considering doing business with them. Let alone the undoubted miriad of legal battles that will soon come to light, inwhich LL knows that the ToS will not protect them from litigation.

I am in no way in this post rallying any type of repercussion to LL either legally or personally. Just merely trying to express to LL how deep this problem is getting. Before all is said and done we could see the unraveling of Second life as we know it

True, it is a good way to sell a second hand car, but profesional companies with a middle long and long term view usually look a bit further then just the one deal. SL will die with this way of doing right at the moment a good alternative rizes. LL has proven too often with this and other methods that they are not reliable and do not care for there existing customers. They gamble on a constant flow of new comers spending monney and after spending leave SL again. A tactic that will work for a while because they are the only one.

I think Jack is saying the OS sims are hurting the whole grid, or the central stuff at least.

Which I call foul on, as the new viewer essentially has a DDOS attack built into it. I can be inside a prim build looking at literally 2 textures and get constant re-downloading of every texture within draw distance.

Until this is optimized how can they even find the source of the overload?


Your suggestion is still an excellent idea for load balancing within each server or even each rack, heck the whole grid.

For me, it isn't that I have to have a whole openspace sim, although I can certainly see the attraction of owning a region for less cost. The attraction for me is that because there are fewer prims per sq meter in an openspace sim, things look more spacious. As I noted in one post, A larger full sim, larger than 256x256, say 512x512, would serve much the same purpose. Many full sims now just look too crowded. And the continuing decline in texture load performance makes full sims even more uninteresting.

All of that being said, I think the idea of the current openspace sim is still a good one as long as it is proportionately price. Raisng the current monthly cost by 67% isn't proportional. And at that rate, it is hard to see why anyone would continue to buy them.

The sad thing is that so many land owners have built and planned a business assuming that current costs don't change that much. This makes twice this year that LL has done something that creates undue stress for current land owners. In the first quarter, without notice, they decreased the price of full sims by 1/3rd. Great for people wanting a new sim, but bad for the poor people that had recently bought one. Now this.

I don't own regions so I'm not directly affected like a region owner would be. But, in the past I've thought about whether or not I wanted to take that leap and become an 'estate owner'. Well, I'm not wondering any longer. No way.

What would be even better although I don't think it is implemented in Linux yet, would be a WLM or Workload Manager facility that can allow performance goals to be set then assist the workload in meeting those goals. It would accomplish the same thing as round robin type scheduling except that it is more encompassing. IBM's AIX and other vendor's propritary Unix distributions are including this facility to one extent or the another. IBM's AIX can manage disk I/O, memory, network access and CPU to goals preveventing one workload from hogging resources.

Might as well Enjoy My Land while I still have time...Gonna Party Like it's 1999...well 2009

But the advantage of the land barons is that they can set covenants and enforce a type of zoning. Most private estates do not allow ban lines for instance. That is a big plus for private estates. Most private estates also do not allow flashing and rotating signs.

Since LL began to clean up the ad farms, the mainland looks much better than it used to. However, you still can't travel very far on the mainland without running in to a ban line.

So, private estates serve a definite purpose. And LL still makes their money from them. And, LL doesn't want to give you the personal service that most private estate owners will. They don't want to spend the support resources on it.

One answer to Qie's quoted statement above. (Sorry, couldn't find the original post.)

With an entire sim, you can terraform. And, if it's separated, then you can have privacy.

These are 2 important things to some of the people I've talked to.

More space is also a reason, but someone else said that.

Firelight

I mean terraform drastically. Not just minor changes.

Please do not use the forums to attack others.

Particularly please do not attack others by name.

I'd rather spend time reading and responding to this thread, instead of moderating.

Again: Personal attacks are not appropriate in the forums. Flaming, ...[is] strongly discouraged."- Please don't attack others by name in the forums.

Thank you,
-- Katt Linden

We'd really welcome some responses from you Katt or any other Linden. Call us all silly but most of us were under the impression that this was going to be a discussion thread with Jack. Maybe if you get time you could change the thread title to reflect your new position on just you reading and moderating. It would show a bit more respect towards our feelings and thoughts. Thanks

Show me the statistics on the agent average dwell-time on Openspace compared to regular sim in private island and mainland. If it is Openspace abuse is the problem, then the statistics will be a taleteller.

But the fact is, if you look at the number of simultaneous users at any given time this year compare to last year, you will find roughly 60,000 users this year compared to 30,000 this year. So where do these people go hang out? Do you think they all go to Openspace sims?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how those 60,000 avatars could overload the servers whether you have Openspace or not, if Linden never upgrade/increase their equipment.

Let's say the Linden had their way jacking up the price on tier, do you really think it solved the overloading problem if they never upgrade/increase their equipment after they pocketed the money?

Do you really think that we are so naive to believe that Linden is going to buy more equipment to fix the overload problem in January? Think again.

Some observations on the announced price increase for Openspace sims:
1. Thread Popularity – It is observed that the popularity of this thread, while dwindling as would be expected with any public form for a community<see below> the sheer number of posts and observations must say that this particular subject – fees for OS – shows just how popular OS have become. Few other subjects have generated such a response. The term “touched a nerve” comes to mind. This is something most companies try to avoid affecting their customer base whenever if possible. By piecing together the nuances in the Announcements, it can be fair to deduce that LL determined that the pricing of the OS allowed estate owners to purchase OS and then turn around and rent them out – hence the charge of more use than expected.
2. Price as a throttle – While the Announcement cited various affects the popularity and use of OS are causing on the entire SL system backbone, the only potential ‘solution’ to the increase load from the popular OS is to use pricing as a control method. While there may be technological ways to throttle, control, limit and enhance the use and experience and impact OS have on the overall SL experience, the use of price is an effective across the board way of cutting back the impact of OS by limiting their numbers. Since it is fairly obvious that OS are * not * being used to enhance an existing sim ((although the requirement of owning a regular sim is mandatory – to the contrary story of many in this forum - many are not used adjunct. While the actual percentage of those adjunct is only know by LL, it can be fair to deduce from their stated observation that OS use is greater than expected )) The increase of the ‘price point’ <see below> is a definite deciscion to decrease the number of OS. While the increase price point for OS would give LL additional income to increase the SL backbone – the major affect of the price increase will be to make OS not as popular as sub-rentals. The required markup will put the ‘retail’ <see below> price beyond the point of popularity they now enjoy.
3. Real versus Virtual Community - While the tag “virtual” community is used quite frequently, the fact is the many individual SL residents are a community, they only reside in a ‘virtual environment.” This is readily discernable by the interactions between residents. Just like in any neighborhood, in any RL city, residents will not know each other until they ‘bump into each other at the market, walking the sidewalk, or attending a function. Same in SL. Now the business plan for SL by LL includes the use by businesses for their own (f2f) purposes. But many of the basic requirements that residents seek – privacy, a “home” (or “office”), some environment to hang out at (home, office, meeting/gathering hall) are really all the same.
4. Interacting with a community – The same tools needed to work/interact with a RL community are needed to work/interact the SL community. This is particularly true with proposing changes to the communities environment (or neighborhood.) In the RL this could be the building or demolishing of a neighborhood building, or making some physical or political or other change. In SL, the Announcement of raising the costs of OS quite substantially has definitely sparked a response from those in SL who are using OS. One common technique used in RL communities with introducing some ‘change’ – is to hold an “open-mike” forum where local concerned residents are allowed to speak their concerns – the audience being representatives of those proposing changes. Typically these open-mike gatherings are not to be decision makers, but “information gatherers.” The underling purpose of the open-mike forums is to allow people to ‘vent’ the emotions they feel – and quite often personal opinions are vividly expressed. The This forum – regarding the changes in OS policy – is allowing the SL community the same ‘blowing off steam’ opportunity. And, yes, just as in the RL, all statements will be duly noted and acknowledged as being heard (read). And, just as in RL, whether the opinions expressed by the community will have any affect on the proposal before them will be decided by the proposed in their own time, on their own way, for their own reasons. Basically, the behavior and actions in SL are identical as what would happen in the RL.
5. Backbone impact of OS on SL – On first observation - using a “back of a business card analysis” - it is generally assumed that four OS equal one regular sim. They are one-fourth the monthly tier ($75 vs $295.) And where a regular region gets its own processor, four OS have to share one (which one, well that is not know.) While the prim and price ratios seem equal, having one processor now have to deal with four sim is additional load. The *real * increase in load, particularly on SL backbone, comes more from the fact that the prims used require more intense attention because each OS is for a single residence. While the population of a regular sim may be similar to the total found on the four OS, each OS is more likely a separate residence hence more duplicate scripted prims. There is also a general ratio of actual prims used per resident. On a regular sim with, say, an target occupancy of 20 residents, that would lead to a business model of 12,000/20 or 600 prims per resident (taking that a sims 15,000 allotment are not entirely use of course.) Well, on OS may only have – as well testified – one or two residents – but an average of 3-4 say. With usage of 3000 prims/3 = 1000 prims per resident. So, yes, from a resident’s viewpoint, they are “staying” within the limits of the OS. But from SL viewpoint, residents on OS have a much higher impact on the system as a whole. {And this analogy ignores the potential use of OS by clubs and such. The overall prim count of the processor is still limited to 15,000. So it is not so much the fact the prims are allocated, it is more they are *used * that impacts the backbone.}
6. Impact on Ownership and renters – only a premium account may own land, and only a premium account that already has invested in a regular/normal sim may purchase a Openspace (OS) sim. In all cases where someone ‘owns’ only a OS, that is actually a rental, not ownership. So while there are two audiences here: the estate owner who actually paid funds to purchase a OS, and the resident who is actually using the OS [renting it} - the increase in price point will more often not put the OS beyond what the individual use can afford.
a. The impact on estate owners is they will lose a source of SL income. This may not have much impact on their presence in SL, after all they already own a regular sim and mostly the loss of their (rental) OS will not mean they have to give up that regular sim. Their SL income will be reduced, the amount depending on how much renting OS is in their SL business plan. The SL “experience” will not be diminished by much.
b. OS users – the residents who may have ‘purchased’ the OS – but who nonetheless are not estate owners, will see their SL “experience” impacted by quite a bit. The loss of being able to have for their own anywhere from a ¼ of a sim to a whole sim may affect
7. “Price point” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_point) – I would hazard to guess that actually all those OS are not being used directly by the owners, but by renters. Now most residents using/renting OS are not paying the $75 but an increased amount. The price of $75 is actually the ‘wholesale’ price, with the many renters paying an up charge which could be called the ‘retail.’ Such retail prices ranged from $29 for a ¼ sim (which equates to $120 income for one OS) to about $100 for the entire sim. Those retail prices then mean a gross profit for the Estate owner could range from maybe 33% for the whole sim to upwards of 66% for renting the OS in quarters (not taking into account vacancies of course.) A few observations on this
a. The cost of renting a quarter to a whole sim for *personal* found a very willing market.
b. The price structure of OS by LL – while seemingly based on a one-to-one ration of prim count of OS to regular sims (meaning: OS with 1 / 4 the prim count had a monthly tier equal to 1 / 4 of a regular sim, the LL tier of an OS [$75] is about 1 /4 of a regular sim [$295], hence 1:1 ration) LL might have look at the retail prices and deduced it was missing out on some of the ‘action’ – since their ‘wholesale’ price might be considered quite below what the ‘retail’ market was willing to pay.
c. As an investment, with the change of not having to purchase OS in groups of four, Estate owners could invest in one or two and found they could ‘rent’ out a OS to one or two, or four tenants at reasonable and what turned out to be popular (reasonable?) prices.
d. By the use of the term “perk for estate owners” it would appear that LL looks upon the profits made by estate owners as possibly underserved. As originally conceieve, OS were to be enhancements to an estate, not a ‘profit center.’
e. oint – even with the mark-up by Estate owners from the LL price may see
f.
8. “Sweet Spot” [this term mentioned a bit before] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_spot) or the “Perfect Storm” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_storm) could both be used to describe the combination that LL hit on with the OS. The popularity of this product shows it has what may be the perfect combination for a multitude of SL users for their ‘personal’ use. There are several qualities the consumer is balancing, pricing is most like the most sensitive. Although some of the discussion in this forum regards estate owners, the real focus needs to be on the “final user” of the OS – the resident. Typically it will be found that it’s the individual resident use that is most likely driving the popularity.
9. Sharing a processor (and prims?) – While the Announcement of the price increase cited poor performance, the overall tone of the discussion does not indicate that that is an issue with most residents using OS. It seems it is understood by most that four OS share a common processor, and that the processor has the same total prim limitation of 15,000 of a regular sim. To be fair, each OS is to only use its ‘share’ – one fourth or 3750 of the full. Experience showed that this OS limit was not ‘hard’ and in fact some OS use more than their limit. Now a regular sim will experience more lag as the limit of 15k prims is reached. Because of the change that individual OS could be purchased by estate owners, (and while there is no known policy that if even four are owned they would all reside on the same processor ,) there was no telling which OS were on the same processor.
10. Use of a OS vs. a regular sim - The cost, expense, initial as well as monthly tier of a sim may be reasonable and work out in a general SL business plan by LL, the fact is the recent OS popularity shows that OS may – even for business, educational and other organizations - be the ‘model for the future.’
11. Change of Mind – LL is a private corporation. While the announced change in price structure for OS has touched a nerve <see #1 above>, even private corporations must maintain a modicum of momentum with decisions made. While a the final closing of the door on this announced decision seemed a bit ambiguous in both the initial announcement, and in the follow-up announce; those bits of ambiguity are more likely stall tactics that actual potential re-decision possibilities. It has already been cataloged in this forum by M’s statement that the decision is final. That that pronouncement came with the views to this in the forum topped over 125,000 in two days speaks of where this decision was made – at the top.
12. Understanding a popular product - The worlds of MUVE are still in their infancy. The original parameters of a sim having 15,000 prims is arbitrary. The cost factor for profitability vs use is also an experiment. The recent OS story shows several ways very popular with users that are not overtly recognized in the Announcement: that residents desire
a. Private space – OS offer complete privacy
b. Sufficient prim – typically in a SL a personal need of 500 prims is enough to create a personal environment include a building (house), furniture, etc, with some additional for landscaping prims.
c. Freedom of expression – having the ability to alter the sim [terraforming] and build with no restriction of design
d. Reasonable price point – The cost of participating
13. Paid users vs Users – It was recently reported that SL has about 500,000 users with about 80-90,000 active paid users.
14. ]“Sweet spot” – The changes to OS made in last spring by LL really did hit a ‘sweet spot’ with residents. The changes
15. Technological restrictions
16. RL Marketing Strategies – LL could take a lesson from the recent experience of OS on SL in marketing. The popularity of OS among the “hoi poli” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoi_polloi) should show the amount of space am prims and price point users find attractive in the MUVE experience. LL is pursuing several avenues of expanding SL. Besides the business (which includes the educational) market, but there is the personal market. LL should observe that the rise in popularity of OS coincided *directly * with the rise in RL oil – hence the cost of moving people about. It should come as no surprise that with DSL common to many homes, SL used as a form of personal communication among friends and (distant) family should be explored. The popularity of OS and the factors that made them so popular – and well used – include the privacy, price point, prim count. The lack of personal service that a regular sim receives seemed not a deterrent. The original models for backbone load may have to be revised if the personal usage is targeted.
17. Strategies – Possible strategies for OS might include:
a. Boost backbone capacity - Altering the backbone algorithm for more OS usage. The initial setup may need to be increased to supplement an increase in backbone capacity.
b. Promoting the Greening of SL – Utilize a wider range of promotional techniques for SL. In a time of increasing costs to move people about for f2f meetings, promote the economy of instead using SL. Such promotions may include:
i. Connecting with family members located in different cities.
ii. More educational use for remote gatherings
iii. Connecting military personnel with home and friends
iv. Promoting
c. Global Time zone computation distribution – Recognize that SL is a global phenomena, and its users are not all in one time zone. Distribute the load of a OS on a processor by limiting the number of OS in any one time zone on a processor. In other words, one OS processor may serve its four Os, each in a different GMT by an factor of 2-3 hours. For example, one processor may handle OS with its residents in GMT 1, 6, 9, and 15. This does not reduce the overall load on the backbone, but does provide possible better service to individual OS because they are not necessarly having to share
d. Acknowledge the potential target RL budget dollars for each potential SL user:
i. Business entity
ii. Political / organization entity
iii. Educational – Campus
iv. Educational – Individual course/teacher
v. Individual / personal

i second this...
seems to me theres moderation, some censorship and no discussion.

As much as you and Jack say you value our input.. so would we value a little more than the usual stone cold silence.

Linden Lab made this decision very easy. They can play any negotiation game they want it now will not affect us. OS released back to my estate today to most likely convert into a REAL Island. We did this with a bit of pain as it was a nice landscape of mountains and rivers. It is just too bad that Linden Lab continues to lack the prescience to manage their game well. I will believe the improved performance when I see it. If it does not develop it will just be more smoke and mirrors. No matter what they do though I still enjoy this game and will now re-double my/our efforts to create more items for our public. It is too bad that they have to decided to crush many dreams with this program. One might think it was planned from the beginning, suck them in then abuse them. Long ago I decided to sell my 5 Islands and become a rental customer, face it we are all lease holders no matter what the payment method as all they have is server space and an application that uses that space.

Oh one last point none of the OS ever performed with any quality ours had a frame time of less than 1ms and script times of .3ms but let one av set foot on the Island and the conover dropped from 2500+- to 1000 when the second av showed up down to 800. This was not performance again more smoke and Mirrors. I have been on OS that ran at 60 conover making them unusable. These all seemed to be detached Islands something that it seems LL encouraged knowing full well what would happen.

So where does the blame fall, I will leave that for you to decide but if it walks like a duck ))

Hello Jack,

I want to make my comments about this issue.

Presently, I rent an open space sim for L$33,000 and was informed that my rent will increase to L$40,000. By the way, I treat this as an open space sim with mostly water, and am using just about 2/3 of the prims that I am allowed.

This increase is enough to cause me to stop renting, and creating a situation whereby the owner of the sim will have to seek another renter, or lose the land.

Since you are able to determine that there is abuse with the open space sims, why not target those perpetrators, increase their charge and let the others who follow all the rules continue as they are.

Thank you,

- Karista Aker -

As expected, the initial 'energy' and concern on this subject is declining. This is neither 'good' nor 'bad' - merely to be expected as any subject that is upsetting and causes grief becomes known. with over 3000 posts, more than 600,000 words have been written! Quite an out pouring of thoughts and emotions.

Clearly "a nerve has been struck." And, since many of the posters can compute that the new proposed changes to OS policy will most likely adversely affect them, many of the stages of grief are shown: anger, bargaining, depression.

While this discussion does continue, as mentioned elsewhere in regards to a policy statement by M that the decision is "final" - the interaction by the community and energy input is dwindling.

As can be seen, the initial impact on Monday was almost a post a minute (1481 posts in 24 hours) while it dropped to about 40/hour the next day, and yesterday and today down to about 16.

What is interesting is that over 150,000 view on this forum have occurred in just four days. Not all residents want to or are willing to post a comment. Also, it should be noted that while some residents may make repeated posts, the top 20 posters are responsible for less than 700 posts.

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Total posts 1481 2403 2895 3263
Posts per day 1481 922 492 368
per hour 62 38 21 16

The bottom line here is to acknowledge that while some look upon SL as some 'game', it's not, it actually is 'quite real.' It is a world that does existing - after ll it comes to us through the same eyeballs we use for the RL. The fact is SL is a very powerful medium. As such, those in control hopefully will understand its power, its power to empower, its power to create emotions just as real as those RL can. Understanding the power of SL may guide those in charge of charting its course.

Very simple, even with mono there are scripts in use that use an in-ordinate amount of the resources. We test every script that we generate to insure that they are very quiet.

I have seen worn product that generates over 2 ms of script time per item.

That's 10% of a Sims overhead for one avatar. Now imagine 5 or 10 on a Sim all wearing that great piece using all of the overhead.

The Sim then goes into a defensive mode and the lag commences.

Also the failure to reset mainland Sims on a regular schedule adds to this problem.

Case in point, yesterday I submitted a ticket to reset Pak it had a frame time of 30 to 80ms
most of the time being used in the catch all Other. Script times were running at 5.5ms held down by the incorrect protocol of allowing other to take priority. After the reset things slowly returned to normal with other running .3 to .8 ms and allowing the scripts to use the 17.5 ms they require for operation. So the reason given for the OS load while most likely is partially correct does not compare to the load created by poorly managed company Sims on the mainland or some of the poorly written scripts that seem to never die.

Adding my voice, as a long time content creator and holder of a lot of land. A few of the Lindens will recognize my name, a couple have bought my products even...And they should know I'm not one to mess with.

The price hike itself is not what concerns me, although it is out of my reach. What bothers me is that it is an increase in price with no point - raising prices will only keep small scale land developers like me away, the large scale clubs and stores will keep their overloaded OS sims because of the revenue they get from them. People like me getting OS sims for just a handful of people to use like any small residential plot will be more likely to release their OS sims because they can't afford to hold low resource land at that price. I take control of an OS sim tomorrow, to be used as a residential plot. Its usage will be roughly equivalent to a 4096spm plot on a full sim, which is well within the LL defined parameter of use. How long I keep it will depend on LL. If I release it, the estate owner will likely drop it too.

I hope you folks at LL will see your mistake before you lose too many of the creators you depend on. I will stick around as a creator regardless, because that's just how I am...how much money you get to make off of me, however, remains to be seen.

Something is missing here.

For $195, Linden is not complaining about overloading the system with 15,000 prims in the mainland.

For $125, you only have 3750 prims, and you are overloading the system in OS.

Wait...
before the price increase, it costs $75 for 1/4 sim for OS, so Linden got $300 for 4 OS.

Even if no one abused the OS, Linden still pocketed $100 more with the same CPU as mainland sim.

With the price increase, Linden will pocket 4x$125 = $500 for the same CPU as mainland.

$500 vs $195, that is 256% increase in tier price. Nice job...

But this is not the "plan". The upheaval and disorientation we are seeing is not part of a negotiation tactic. It is simply a consequence of an uncaring company doing what it thinks it needs to do to boost its bottom line. If there is any backpedaling on the stated terms the recourse will be so minimal as to barely impact the original goal. Of course they will position this as what is necessary and best for everyone, but it will generate a massive amount of fees, and that is the only goal.

They dont care if we panic and leave, the price they quoted is designed to kill any legitimate use of it in any case, so the faster the better. And on the price they will likely not quibble much.

What will likely be left is a higher priced product that can only be used by commercially profitable projects.

I expect they may then re-instate the old limits and re-release a landscaping only version at the current price. (more fees)

Either that, or they just want the landlords gone, and their tenants to migrate to linden held land. (more fees)

The Estate owners of all Mainland estates should know something about the result of Low regulation(No Covenent), high load sims since 95% of all mainland sims you can't hardly move on. Just goes to show you De-regulation doesn't work. Wonder when mainland prices will go up if the lag continues?

Duke

If a Linden ACTUALLY responded Katt then perhaps the frustrations being expressed here may decline. A radical concept I know , answering questions, communicating etc. perhaps Lindens should try it? Just a thought.

QFT.

Even comparing private full sims, it's $500 vs $295. Newer mainland sims use the same type of hardware as islands.

Mainland may still be cheaper, but I'm not going. Even if it means I won't have land for my store, I'm not going to the mainland. There's not enough control there. I'll only hold land in places where *someone* has estate management tools, and I can terraform to any height, and I can use megaprims for special effects. Three strikes against the mainland, sorry, no Dragon Keep for you.

I would advise anyone considering dumping their sims to take a deep breath and wait twenty days. That will still give you time to get out of dodge sensibly but also gives you the chance to see if Linden Lab see sense.

If they don't see sense the trust and confidence in all their products will be shattered, i really don't think they are that naive.

I've weighed in 3 times on this issue - and already decided I will be reducing my Sim rentals back to a single Sim come the end of Dec if not sooner.

What I want to add is that many of us were stretching our resources to build a dream, and something like this not only deflates that dream but reminds us we were pushing our resource limits anyway. A business like SL has to realize that most customers get into this becasue it's fun - and the nature of the beast is such that we spend more than we should.

The worse thing SL can do is remind us of that, and push us into seeing how else we can spend that money.

My remaining sim will keep me in the picture, but my grand plans to become a land baron have pretty much dissolved. I, too, will investigate what else is out there - helpt one of those groups build over time, and drop back here now and then to remind myself what could have been. And... if the other world I help build ever gets anywhere close - and treats it's customers better - I can see the day I might leave SL for good.

Dam shame, isn't it?

BC