Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

So many do not even read the blog.. imagine the shock for them. Hopefully LL will send out mass email death messages to us because that's exactly what this is. They are destroying the dreams for so many.. how do you send someone back to live in the slums once that they have tasted white wine, fresh bread and fish?

I propose that we start an inworld petitiion and have a lawyer send it directly to the Linden Lab corporate office via Fed Ex in sunny California..

Don't forget Mr Linden , that it is we the users of SL who pay for your bills at the end of the day. Never underestimate the power of the people, even in virtual worlds.



More on the AntiTrust law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust

I wont flame you on the load argument.. Because many of us run Debian servers in OpenSim and know what are loads and what is Jack's smoke and mirrors.

I will remind you that once OpenSim and it's derivatives are fully operational your policy will haunt you as Janitor Linden wanders an empty grid. People do have characteristics called loyalty and memory, which LL obviously doesn't share.

"Mos Ainsley" sim. Owned by Lindens. An OpenSpace Sim





Other Images of Sim itself:
http://i33.tinypic.com/28ldmb7.png
http://i36.tinypic.com/2vngg89.png
http://i34.tinypic.com/168ebll.png

Are you telling me this sim is "light usage" according to your definition?

Well said!

Go after the problem, making everyone suffer is hardly going to make our experience any better. How is paying more going to change anything without any improvement ? so you are charging for the excess usage that these sims have created, well, that's not what everyone does. Are they all clubs? Do they all have excessive scripts?

Between the whole group of lindens you could not come up with a better solution than punishing everyone because some people use the sims "too much"?

Now admittingly I dont know much about Sl code... But I do own 5 web servers...

Am I the only one who really dont believe that one estate takes up a whole server?

I mean my servers are 60 Gigs, Duel Xeon (Im sure large enough to hold the graphics of 50 to 100 sims with all the objects on them... and at least the bandwith of 20 to 30 avatars... (I mean the objects arent even hosted on the sim server, they are on the asset server, right)?

Am I wrong?

Its not the heavy users and abusers there will be hit by this,
They allready know how to make linden, no matter the cost.
Them there will suffer bad under this is them wiht great
beaty and creative sims. Great areas for sea batling, romance,
dance, walks.. Nature exsperiment, Sailing ares and flying,
Lots of this great places must close down.
I dont see we cant afford this insane price raising, and I will
how ever not think its okay pay so much for a empty water
sim, to not much good use.

We have 3 Open Space, I dont think we use them hard, but
yes they are full used, and we get a lots of good respons for
our Baron's Bay, the nature, the animals and the atmospher
here. Its sad if we must close some down, but as Linden
maybe think, the money dont grow on tree for us, its our
own money we use to try create a greate area for all to
explore and enjoy. And we have so far not filled it wiht
malls, exploders and add signs... But maybe thats what
Linden dream of we all do to get enouf Linden to there
allready high prices. And remember.. Europeans have up
to extra 25% VAT on the tier.
I most sad for the creative places and the people behind
them, May they all find new risonable ways to exspress
there great skills on.

Bertram Merlin

I agree with this comment ..... I see this "Misuse " as an excuse thats been drummed up as a smokescreen to get people back to the mainland ...Sure some are taking advantage of the OS and misuseing them ..... but really ...that can be delt with by other means than putting up everyones prices ..... Putting up prices will not stop the abusers in any way shape or form ....they will keep on truckin... while the rest of us burn for it .



This is a way to ether tip the balance back... or at least make a few more buck's from the people who have invested in OS and would rather stump up the cash than throw in the towle

But i think this will backfire in an epic way if LL don't have a rethink .

It's clear that this has a bigger effect than just putting people out of pocket .... I read a lot of upset people here tonight ... Decent people who have played by the rules who stand to loose what they have built built up ..... LL blame it on abuse of the system to deflect the anger towards a few people.... but bottom line it is just a few and it could be delt with without it having to impact on the decent people .



I have been a long time supporter of LL's harsh moves to make a better experience for all and not just a few ..... But this move is a no no ...Its ether not been thought out and will need to be looked at again to save a huge backlash .....Or it has been thought out ...and LL don't care what we think and stand to make money in some way .

Bottom line ... In my opinion this comes down to money and has nothing to do with any abuse on the OS's....and if im right and the backlash is bigger than LL expected ..... They stand to loose bigger than they first thought .... not only finacialy .... But any trust that the decent people had in LL will be gone .

Not sure if it was just me .... but the actual blog it's self come across as harsh in tone .....Only a little thing ..... But to me the tone was over the top ...Jack ,Not sure who writes your blog's for you..... but whoever it is they made you sound like a heartless uncearing and unsympathetic guy ....I do hope i was wrong .

A company changes product pricing or features, attracting customers to an unsustainable product, then later backs out on the deal. It isn't quite Bait and Switch because they really do have the product and will sell it, and Loss Leaders are not illegal in the US. Still, this is just WRONG. How could anyone reasonably be expected NOT to use the prim allotment they have paid for in good faith?

It would appear that a company whose business depends on creative users is asking those same users to pay dearly to create parks and ponds, devoid of avatars and decorated mainly with Linden trees and plants.

The openspace parcel my partner and I call home performs just fine, except for scripts, which run slow as sin. We have used many techniques to give us what we want, well within what we understood to be the limits.

We have been visited any number of times by our "landlord". For the past few months, Linden measurement bots have been frequent visitors. I have no reason to suspect we have done something "wrong", but if we did, how would we know, and why haven't we been told? There has been more than ample opportunity.

In my opinion, this entire process is backwards. Step ONE (not the FINAL step) should be to contact and negotiate with what you consider to be the "problem" users. One would think that arrangements could be worked out in many cases, avoiding the need to pull the rug from under the majority.

I welcome personal contact from Linden Labs. If I am a "problem", I want to fix it. If I'm not a problem, this announcement makes me an innocent bystander. What happened to the rest of the Bell Curve? At just ONE Standard Deviation, you are impacting 84% of this population for the actions of about 1 in 6. That is not good business.

Thank you.

Hi,

First of all, I'm a tenant who own (basically, rent) an OS. Last week I found a better offer, pushed the montly tier from 33k lindens down to $100 USD. We ordered the new sim just 3 days ago. And now the news pushed into my face, the fees will go up, not to the $125 we started from, but $150! That's 50% raise. Safe to say I'm seriously pissed off.

Look... Only an estate owner who has a normal sim already, can order an openspace. Means he doesn't need it for their own, mostly they rent it out - but they will not be able to give the ownership. And I, the "end user" can't buy an OS myself since I have no normal sims. Where's the point in this?

I suppose, those who grat LL for this move never had a sim to live their lives there, at a quiet, self-made environment they enjoy being at, without to have to watch the neighbours or have strangers walked in to their living room. I don't have a club here, just 3 residential houses for me and friends, but usually no more than 2...4 avatars are at the sim the same time. I spent plenty of money and effort to build my little virtual world, but with the raised tier I think I'm going to give it up.

Right now I'm at the point of giving the estate owner the $250 he paid for the new OS then abandon it, and wish LL good luck to the business in the future. Maybe I turn at an open source world where they not going to rip me off.

Sorry, I cant read all prepostings, but just to let you know.

I consider this a major violation of trust and therefor cancel my premium account to the next period.

LL introduced the OS sims and I finally had a reason to own my own island. I cant see what traffic I should cause with 300 prims used. Some scripted doors, waves that washes on the shores????

And me being there maybe 3 hours a week?

Sorry, folks, you have gone completely nuts. Instead of instructing people who missuse the OS sims, which could not be that tricky, all owners are to be punished.

I will sell the sim straightaway for 1 LS, I guess the new policy will cause a price slump anyway.

Can't believe you do that.

Never cut the branch you sit on...ever thought of that.

I am so angry. I just cant believe it.

Why are people talking about prims? The issue of performance is mostly to do with scripts and number of avi's (eg clubs being a no no). 3000 odd prims doesnt compare to 30 avis with 200 prim hair never mind the rest of the attachments some people wear.

Why not limit such sims to 10 people? why not put some proper load balancing in ?
there are plenty of options to control this so its not about that. They saw a cash cow and they are cashing in.

and please dont tell me class 5 server costs are so much higher ..let me see....

16 OS per server, a monthly increase of 50usd, thats 800 USD extra a month, so for a year that makes em $$9600 extra profit minus the actual cost. I assume maintenance etc would be the same.

SO if we sold a 1000 of them, this will bring us an extra 9,600,000 USD , yes 9 million bucks..............

Come on guys, i have 4 open spaces to be the sea round my full sim. They cost me $352 a month (including VAT).

Your price rise means I will now have to pay $587 a month - over twice what it cost me when I first got them.

I am a very light user of these sims. Why should I be penalised because other people have been heavy users of theirs?

Obviously, and also, I cannot afford this and will give up these sims. As no doubt will lots of other people. How to destroy a business - put your prices up by 66% in the middle of a world recession.

Mad.

Why did Linden lab not give any Friendly advice via blog on how best to use openspace sims and keep abusive use low?? Torley gives helpful videos on EVERything else, why not this? i Bet some of the apparent ABUSIVE users did not even know they were being abusive.

Trying to make a usefull responce...

Ok I understand some people use openspace for a different usage that what they were designed. Informing residents if they are on an openspace or full sim is a great idea, informing if the sim is hosted by LL (mainland) or not (private island) is also a great idea.

But changing the prices may not be the rigth idea. Why don't you limit CPU/memory/bandwith usage per sim ? It's easy, openspace that exceed the normal usage will become super laggy and will be abandonned, normal openspace will not be affected anymore.

I think the may idea of LL is to drive out private land owner to drive more resident to the mainland because they earn more money on it.

"We’re delighted that so many of you have found them to be a useful addition to your estates."
I guess we were delighted of cashing in on selling them.

Nobody can tell me that this whole action is not scamming the customers into it on purpose. First the primload on these sims was doubled to make them attractive. Then the price was lowered to make them even more attractive. When a sufficient amount of flies went into the spider web, this comes.

I've put up with a lot of crap here in the last years but now the barrel is full.

Not quite true, they dont earn as much from mainland, but they have full control of it.

After staying up all night worrying about this, I think the reason this was done is a precursor to raising all private sim prices.
Because private sims are so much more attractive than mainland, less lag, full owner rights, landscaping, access etc, LL think that people will still want to buy sims, but the profit margins will be gone, so it will go back to LL original model of single owners or groups buying a sim. and individuals staying on the new mainland.
The way it is being done is what is wrong. If LL come straight out and admit to this, then we know where we stand, I can sell my sims to the tenants who live on them, and have done long term, and give back the low prim sims.

LL however thrive on keeping us in the dark, we can only guess at what they plan, so I will do as always, wait and see.

To those of you who say that those who have developed the open sims are abusers and violators of the original intent of the the open space concept, I would remind you that the open space permits 3,750prims per "void". This means that the Lindens SHOULD have foreseen that the areas would be used for other than open water or wasteland. If the lindens initially really thought that the space would be so used, the prim limit would have been severely curtailled.

With regular island prices so ridiculously priced given the current economy and the mainland disaterously laggy, open spaces provide estate owners the ability to add additional area without additional HUGE cost. Of course, and especially because of the economy, most will want that land to be productive - revenue producing. How many of us can really afford to pay 75$ for empty water! Would the Lindens lease offfice space in Rl just to leave it empty and not revenue producing? Probably not, so why should estate owners in-world do so?

My prediciton is that the Lindens will see a flood of returned open space land and a further deterioration of the SL economy.

IE i own nothing but like seeing people get ripped off and charges twice as much per prim as mainland sims are charged..


WHY does an open space sim.... that 4 are ran per server costs twice what a mainland sim does to run .... thats the real bother

Why do 4 open space sims cost 205 USD per month more to run then a normal private sim.


The ONLY real abuse here is the rate increase. LL was trying to get more buck for the for the bang with open sims. Using less resources to make more money. And now they want to drive people out of them again.

LL should change SL's tagline...

"Your world, our way of stabbing you in the back"

*laugh* Guess, some people need to get their feet back to the ground. We are talking about rented web space, not about real estate. There is no matter, if they name it "land" measured in "sqm". They could come out with any "size" of "parcels" for what prize per month ever. You should get rid of that "Second RL View" and just face the economic and technical reality. In a nutshell: The business.

No more argues from my side, as all facts are anyway mentioned in this thread. Only a few comments:

There are ppls who agree and are happy with the cost increase? Great! Hope you support the car industry or the financial the same way. It would be totally understandable for you, if your next new car with same performance, but some more usage limitations would cost 66% more? Yesss...

My personal reaction to this step of "business development" by LL will be for sure first to reduce the number of private sims I've rented to less then a half. Second I'll switch from "open to all residents" style of usage to a "group only" access. For that amount of money I'm not willing to let anymore anyone use my expensive LL webspace, who does not either share cost or provides a similar offer.

There should be really made a full stop by all private estate owners, to let each and every resident use their webspace for free. That is, what mainland was made for... or did I miss something? Who is running a business, fine. But stop supporting that lie of an international social community.

Let's support the obvious LL spirit and strategy. So give those sozialism driven ideas of a worldwide free, social and peaceful community a kick in the ... it's all and only about business here.

Balt

YES exactly

I thought if i kept under the limits it would be ok but according to the blog its not
OK i see this is also going to create a market for Open grid -
so LL win a few more ways - and more private servers will be supplying the overall grid

Its a stroke of sheer brilliance actually, although not a lot of fun for the customers

Because it's an excellent opportunity to get more money from those who aren't abusing it. See my post: #546

Okay, I don't own openspaces or estates, but I'll comment anyway just because of the fairness issue. I think it's great that you're enforcing the "light use" intention of openspaces with policy and land settings changes. I'm glad you're addressing a problem that results in poor performance for residents.

But then you're also raising prices and switching to class 5 to account for a heavier load than intended?

Well, which is it? Do you want openspaces to remain light use or not? Why punish the owners who are using them properly by an across-the-board price increase?

In the interest of fairness, you might want to reconsider a bit...

Thanks.

Well if they raise standard island prices then I can faithfully say LL is all done.

What's the definition of "overloaded Openspaces"? I've still about 1.500 of my 3.750 prims left, I've a traffic of far below 50 and I never see more then 5 avatars at the same time on my SIM. Okay, I've some scripts running - it's no stone age themed SIM!