Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden

Yes, and it costs $100.
Then after a few months(When LL changes the policies about full sims again) you can convert your full sim to 4 openspace sims for $100.
Then after a few months(When LL changes the policies about openspace sims again) you can convert your 4 openspace sims to a full sim for $100.
...
...

Just adding my signature to the petition.

I must say it takes a great deal of hubris to claim that Open Space sim owners are "abusing" their land. LL, you set the rules for this deal, as well as the pricing, in order to increase land sales. Effectively you killed the land business for full-prim sims, making it possible for every avatar to have an island of their very own. They use the sims under the conditions you made possible -- they can't have more prims than allotted, and you never set any kind of "script limit" on them to begin with.

Now, several months later (but not many), in order to "correct" your oversight, you initiate a series of changes which are incredible overkill. You could have used one or a couple of these changes to fix the real problem, but instead you've:
a) Raised the purchase price of the OS sims to new buyers
b) Raised the tier price of both new AND existing OS sims and
c) Implemented a policy so that these sims can't be sold to 3rd parties, ensuring that those who took advantage of your intentionally marvelous offer are now stuck with the sims or forced to abandon them, because they can't sell them even if they could find someone to take them.

In any other business, you'd likely be sued. What you've essentially done is sold a defective product (either knowingly or unknowingly). You didn't realize that people would use the sims to their fullest abilities, and you didn't think to technologically limit their use from a script viewpoint. OK, so you screwed up. In most cases, though, you'd be required to refund people's money and return the product, at your cost...but I suppose you're relying on the TOS to protect you on that front.

If you really wanted to resolve the issue with some amount of fairness, you might be able to get away with somehow limiting the script load any OS sim is able to bear, as most bought it for the prim limits. This would get rid of OS sims being used for low-cost markets, of which there are a useless glut anyway. You could then raise the purchase price of new OS sims, leaving existing ones grandfathered. Or, you could certainly offer to purchase back any OS sims that people now no longer want to own, since you've changed their usage and pricing terms so significantly. Or, here's an idea, as someone else suggested: Allow for OS sims with full script load but the limited prims for the higher tier, or for true OS sims with limited script loads for the old price -- current owner's choice. And if the owner chooses neither, then they should be allowed to either sell them on the open market, or LL buys them back for their original purchase price.

I'm sorry, LL -- but you made this mess. If you were concerned that your income was going to suffer from the current economic crisis, (which I believe is already the case), just wait til you implement this new policy.

I certainly understand that there is abuse in the use of Open Space Sims, and it maddens me to see mall and club owners building out OS Sims for high use purposes. Furthermore, I have talked to numerous residents who don’t understand the difference between OS and full sims and rent them from unscrupulous estate owners who tell them they are “owning their very own sim”. But really, how does charging more for the OS sims address the problem of abuse?

Yeah, the solution may make it more difficult to for those unscrupulous estate owners to “resell” them. However, those who are using them responsible will be penalized financially while those abusing them for commercial endeavors (particularly mall and club owners) are the most likely users to afford the increase… They will continue to abuse the OS sims while responsible users will abandon them. This hardly solves the abuse problem.

There must be a better solution out there! Surely LL can see there is a demand for both Low use Sims as will as moderate use sims. Either restrict the use of OS sims by placing real use limits on the OS sims or devise a product offering and pricing structure that meets the needs of the residents. This solution just seems lazy attempt on the part of LL to curtail the obvious abuses of OS sims. But think about the solution... where does it actually stop the abuse???

LL might want to consider a one time price discount to estate owners on converting existing OS to regular sim... we have been considering this since OS is very limiting regardless of number of prims.

For education:: LL should re-consider this category and offer some type of incentives for higher education ie universities, etc. To lose the young, creative minds in education would truely be a loss.

This is not about abuse. Abuse can be seen in all aspects of virtual land usage, from mainland parcels to private estates. Please do not use OP sims as a means to wrongly justify an unfair and illegal price hike.

Raising the price of OSR by 2/3 increase with no increase in service, etc. makes one wonder if M or Jack know Jack about the what and the how SL is used by its "residents."

While there are many possible ways for RL people to use SL but there is one very important psychological way to interact and use SL - that is have a 'physical presence' inworld.

Yes, it is possible for a person to simply log on and interact in SL, but it should come as no surprise that pretty soon most users - being actual RL people - find they have a 'need' to have a permanent presence in SL....to have a home.

The psychological need for a home is a very basic human need, and the very foundation of why SL has been successful among the many MMO's (although since SL has no pre-scripted routine, it should not be considered a 'game' as it is sometimes referred to by misinformed writers.)

The important thing in this discussion of OSR is to understand how they, the OSR, have come to be used, precisely because the "use" is fulfilling one of the major attractants of participating (as a resident user of the software) - allowing people to have "private" residence.

To clarify, "residency" is the ability to have a private space on a sim in SL where the resident may alter the environment either through decoration, building, or just plain rezing objects. This ability to have a "home" is extremely important, even if the "home" is not a place the resident normally interacts. Having a "home" ties one emotionally into the use of SL.

As in RL there are basically two ways to have a private 'residence' - either purchase land or by renting from a land owner.

While Mainland residency has its pluses, the actual physical makeup of a lot of ML is not conducive to a 'private' residence where the resident can have more control over the environment (surroundings.)

Thus, the advent of the OSR, when priced and primed as it has been recently, and their popularity, should be of NO surprise to anyone who understands the PSYCHOLOGY of being a SL resident.

OSR do serve well as residential use: privacy, space and generally freedom for a small number of residents to be 'creative' in SL and have a 'home.'

Perhaps the business model of the OSR system needs to be evaluated, but as it now stands, should be further encouraged and refined.

It's obvious that the initial introduction of OSR with a low prim count, and the requirement to have four, was misguided - or a better analysis is the business model developers really did not have a full understanding of the how and why SL is being used.

It is hard to conceive that many regular sim owners would be willing to double their tier for some sailing space. Hence, the original OSR concept was not a good one.

LL management (perhaps M needs to get a better handle on this) needs to further evaluate why the revised OSR parameters were so popular.

Regular sim owners grabbed a few (1, 2, say) OSR to be adjunct to their regular sims, for the SOLE purpose of allowing a few of their more faithful (and intense - read high use) residents a choice of a more expansive and private home in SL.

The use of OSR *is* for residential use - not just additional 'play' space next to a sim. Notice that some OSR are against their main sim, others only touch at the corners - keeping they adjacent but private.

The proposed "Openspace Pricing and Policy Changes" outlined by Jack Linden shows a distinct lack of knowledge of the *reason* for their popularity - its their *use.*

The increase pricing as proposed is antithetical to the goal of increasing the presence and use of SL. This change in policy as stated needs to be aborted.

Technically the structure of OSR in both pricing and prim counts is now reasonable. The only problem identified seemed to be the 'spillover' of over prim use between the group of 16 that one quad server handles. The solution to this should be easily handled by a simple notice to the sim user.

The increase in pricing as proposed for the OSR is extremely programmatic since the burden of the increase price falls most likely on only one or two residents that use the sim.

The guess at this end is the price increase will make the affordability of OSR beyond the economic threshold most renters are willing to pay. This will obviously lead to lack of renters, and lack of users.

OSR are owned by regular sim owners using them to supplement their income, as well as allowing their more intense-use residents a better place to call home in SL.

I would be that there will be thousands upon thousands of residents who will lose their homes should this price fixing come to pass.

I would urge M to become a bit more familiar with how OSR are being used. With his very busy schedule this may not be something that can be accomplished in two months. To give *him* time to have a better understanding of how SL is being used, in particular how OSR now structured are being used, and how that bulsters the presence orf SL in general, he needs to put a halt to the proposed changes to OSR.

In fact, instead, there should be a follow up announcement that the current pricing and prim allowance will continue all through the year 2009. That way, if there are rental agreements, business plans, etc. all can at least make plans to get on with their SL lives.

As it stands, it appears that no one at LL knows jack about the how and why of OSR.

One thing that impresses me about this thread is the number of old users who are first time posters or who have previously posted just a *very* few times. That speaks volumes in itself.

you really think they ever listened to us in the first place.

We are at Linden Estate Services Linden's. Do you feel that we do not deserve an answer?

At Linden Estate Services or in this forum?

Where is your response Jack !!!!

You steal our money and then disappear?????

So what you're actually saying is that you feel no sympathy from him, as his post clearly states he was living on 1/4 of an OS sim, which was split up and rented out to tenants by the estate owner. As you and the other LL champions stated earlier, that is NOT THEIR INTENDED PURPOSE!!!

Ansh...I mean Snowflake, please try a little harder to comprehend what is being said or just go away...

Wow LL you are really stepping in it this time!.... I am out of here..



Thanks for all the fish! And remember, the answer is

42

I'm going to play devil's advocate.

First, I've read the majority of the posts in this topic, and I can't help be amused at how so many begin with "I have an OS that I use for a home" or "Our OS is a store, but..." when right at the land store it specifically states what OS are to be used for. It's difficult to make a case when you yourself were provided OS information prior to your purchase. The largest complaints are from those selling the land for real estate. How is that for irony?

If I tell you not to eat a cookie yet when I walk out of the room you sneak one off the table. When caught, would your argument be you wouldn't have taken one if it wasn't so easily accessible?

On the other side of the coin, I'm not a land baron but anyone who has been in the game longer than a month saw the increase of prims/availability of individual OS option as a wonderful investment to offer 1/4 sim prims on full sim space. Divide that in quarters, you have four 4096 parcels on 1/4 sim space. Who /wouldn't/ want more space for their home? Demand is /always/ there and supply had just became available.

It was a land baron's wet dream come true.

I've always liked the thought of OS, even back before the fee/recurring cost increase, but when OS followed suit it still didn't make it an attractive package. Why would I pay $295 for half the prims and reduced performance? Remember, before the prim increase, LL officially didn't support performance issues on OS. Keeping OS at the 'old' prim count and making the recurring cost the old figures ($1300ish/$195) seemed more than reasonable, and would have made them more attractive for region owners for their intended purpose.

The boom with OS wasn't the cost or even the ability to purchase them individually, it was the increase of prims that made it a hot ticket.

The end result is now residents have used OS in a manner conflicting of LL's published standard, further making that land part of (if not fully) a base of establishment. Of course this isn't done by all of the OS owners, but I'll disagree with those who state it's not the majority of OS owners using the sims in a way they're not supposed to.

A few more points:



I'll agree with this comment, but only to a degree. The price should have dropped/individual OS made available, but without a prim increase.

I'm sure LL ignorantly assumed that the majority would use OS for their intended purpose (since there were those using OS as residential rentals before the prim increase), but at the same time I would argue against a claim of abuse if I use sculptie/prim trees/plants from botanical or heart instead of linden plants to decorate my OS--objects that would negatively impact the performance. The technology is there to use with the only hard restriction being a prim limit. If you don't want people to use scripts in your region you turn the setting off right?. Well, here is LL's opportunity to close the window some because of the unique state of OS sims. If too many user agents/scripts are hurting performance, then you throttle/restrict usage. In the end, it saves time and money.



The "don't blame us" is LL's addition to the viewer telling you what type of sim you're landing on. This tells me that LL has been getting more than usual complaints about performance issues on OS (which isn't shocking with the amount of them that have been created). So after the update, you'll now know that you landed on a OS sim and you can expect the performance to be .. I want to say degraded, but crap comes to mind.

Increasing the cost could solve the problem, but it's not the best avenue to take since everyone is being punished for those who abuse it. Would you spank all 4 of your children if only one was throwing food across the table? Proactively pursue those who are using OS that aren't in conjunction with the guidelines set. You will have a better leg to stand on facing those who violate your guidance than losing faith of your resident base that sees your current decision as care-free with their investment.

Look at the users LL. They've invested hundreds (some thousands) of dollars that now have very little to zero return if you follow through with this. Financially, you have more to gain in the long run with keeping the status quo with rates than you do with the perceived quick buck. This is the impression your residents have. Instead of land scams and copybots taking their money, they see you as the one.

Using money as a tool to ensure compliance does more damage than good overall, especially with well established areas like the sailing groups who contribute positively to the virtual world. I know you still think about those who have been here the longest or have helped build the world to where it is now, keeping guaranteed land as well as not raising tier for grandfathered sims for as long as you have reflects that. Banning casinos, banks, etc, sure we know why and even though some hated it we at least understood why.

And I truly want to understand why the use of funds is being used as the "police" when it was already stated that Lindens would be more active in correcting this problem anyway.

They rarely or never listen to the users. That's one thing that annoys me in many of their posts - "we hear you", "we have listened to you", etc. when they never have any intention of hearing anyone except the odd few who agree with them.

As usual, you guys at at LL have found a way to screw up a big part of SL economy.
I'm renting an openism since some month, running a small shop and an art gallery, what i earn goes to the land lord for the tier, now i'm going to shut down everyting because i cannot afford paying double the price.
What worries me, and forgive me if i havent read all the posts because perhaps someone would have vented this before me, is that the person i'm renting the opensim from will end up having an empty place noone will be willing to rent.
Thumbs high! Thats ridiculous!
Try looking left or right, away from your bank account web page, and you'll see that we're the ones who allow you to pay your home mortages or your expensive car.

I feel very proud of fellow SL residents in standing up against this greed induced social tyranny.
I repeat myself from earlier.
Good Luck with this one Linden Lab.

This is ridiculous. If this goes through as it looks, I may as well transfer grids or just leave Second Life all together. Instead of Linden Labs telling us how much stuff we are doing in void sims, tell us how we are all supposed to afford full sims. This will cause a large portion of people to leave. No one wants to pay more money, it's just stupid.

-Roo Tenk

I have been in SecondLife now for almost two years and this is the first time I have been so angry I have to post a reply. I love to create beautiful environments within SL. Five parcels of land on I now own an Open Space Sim which has at last allowed me to create and environment that both I and my friends and group like to enjoy without the hideous intrusions that we sometimes have to suffer on smaller parcels.

I for one, and I cannot imagine I am the only one, keep within the convenant of use even though I was told that I could do anything with the land within reason. However, having suffered lag, noise, chat and various other annoyances within SecondLife I am now glad to be in an environment that I enjoy. Ok, fine the abusers, monitor them and warn them that if they do not comply they will be removed from their area until they do but do not penalise those of us that are trying to create nice places to be and are not forcing up our traffic with camping, concerts, strip clubs etc, confine those activities to the full prim sims that can cope and allow those of us that do not want this side of SL thrust in our faces on a daily basis keep the calm and peaceful life in SL we sought at a price that we thought we could afford.

In the present world economic crisis this is going to force so many people to give up something they enjoy and it is going to push hundreds of people out of business. Come on Lindens THINK don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg for a few thoughtless mindless people that could not care less, there has to be another way.

"They rarely or never listen to the users. That's one thing that annoys me in many of their posts - 'we hear you', 'we have listened to you', etc. when they never have any intention of hearing anyone except the odd few who agree with them."

Follow the Money. If listenening can help their bottom line and achieve more profit, then they will listen. If listening will hurt their balance sheet, then it's a deaf ear. It's true all businesses have to make a margin of profit, it's also true that they have to have good customer service and attention to the market . . or there can be no profit.

Despite all the complaints, not that much of the load that affects OpenSpace sims is really due to scripts. That's far from intuitive because it is script performance that suffers first. The reason is that (on all sims, not just OpenSpaces), scripts get lowest priority--essentially, they get whatever time remains of the frame after all the timeslices devoted to physics, network, agents, etc. So, even if an OpenSpace had no scripts running on it at all, a heavy load of avatars (for example) on all four CPU-sharing OpenSpaces simultaneously will push the whole mess into deep lag. Of course, if there are any scripts, their execution will lag much sooner.

Not that having a forced Mono recompile for no-mod scripts would necessarily be a bad thing. In practice, some stuff would break when recompiled, but realistically, all content is always just one server upgrade from being trashed anyway.

The actual solution here is some less primitive means of timesharing that CPU between its OpenSpaces to guarantee some minimum service time.

lmao, way to go. I had thought Lindenlabs management had improved a bit lately, but this just shows me it hasn't. At all. Like you didn't see this comming.
stop thinking like engineers, geez.

and that justifies a 66% price increase?

Linden made available the OS to gain revenue thinking it woudl be merely use as water...but people moved their instead of to the mainland. So now an exorbitant fee increase to force abandonment.


THere is the nake truth!

if the latest update hasn't stuffed us all around with the sudden crashing and oh wait when taking close up photos prims go missing off people
you the decide to put prices up only upsetting those that put money in your pockets
will be sad to see you loose so much business

ohhhh ! a 66% price increase? I will drop my two OS till Jan 2009.

Can someone tell me if there is a LL response amongst this writhing sea of anger. I don't have time to read it all. Thanks