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Openspace Announcement Discussion with Jack Linden |
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Wilson Voight
Registered User
Join date: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 3
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10-29-2008 08:23
It's been 100 pages and 2 days since we've seen or heard from Jack.
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Thasius Vaher
Registered User
Join date: 15 Jun 2008
Posts: 33
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10-29-2008 08:25
*side note- Has anyone considered that LL may want everyone except them out of the land business? Things seem to look that way. Been saying it all along, it's not about money. LL know that this will put OS users out of business. Thus making way for their own new land initiatives. It's nothing but wrong. |
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Chris Norse
Loud Arrogant Redneck
Join date: 1 Oct 2006
Posts: 5,735
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10-29-2008 08:27
It's been 100 pages and 2 days since we've seen or heard from Jack. 28 hours, not two days yet. _____________________
I'm going to pick a fight
William Wallace, Braveheart “Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind” Douglas MacArthur FULL |
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Arnel Choche
Registered User
Join date: 2 Jul 2008
Posts: 3
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LindenLab go crazy ??
10-29-2008 08:28
Hello,
Im from France, so sorry for my english. I rent an OS called "World Wonders". This is a very nice "Museum-sim" dedicated to the 7 wonders of the World, antique and modern. In a great building in the center of the sim (building and sculptures wich costed me 60.000 L$), visitors can learn about how the wonders were built, why, when, etc... in 5 langages. Also it shows miniatures of these wonders and with LM to reproductions si one of theses wonders exist in SL. There are 15-30 visitors each day and people seems to love that place. This is a cultural & unique place, a contribution to arts and culture in SL.... I thought that was never enough  This costs me around 27.000 L$ each month, and I don't make any benefits with it. But there is no way for me to pay 65% more for it. So, unfortunately, this cultural place will not longer exist if the decision of Jack Linden is not cancelled. So the results will be : - one cultural place less in SL - less money to SL - angry user that will leave the game I dont really know who is that heretic Jack but I will never engage him in my company, except if I want to file for bankruptcy ! )For many people, SL is a dope. It costs a lot of money and time each month, with bad consequencies in professional and friendship fields. But these users didn't know how to stop the game. Now we have Jack, the anti-marketing guy ! And Jack is THE solution to stop Second Life. THANK YOU JACK ! Philip Linden, I know many many many people like me who are going to leave that game if the Jack decision will be not cancelled. For 3 main reasons : - for the money, that's incredible to raise +65% on price in this economic period ! - for the bad consideration that suppose Linden have to it's users, most of them are destabilized, cant see future in SL because of that - for this illogical decision : there is not one RL company who can really take a similar decision to it's users : it's an economical nonsense. And, in reality, you should earn really much more by laying off this dangerous guy for you !  |
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Jim Perhaps
Registered User
Join date: 10 Dec 2005
Posts: 65
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Lets get the word out and see what others think
10-29-2008 08:29
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Rik Rasmussen
Registered User
Join date: 20 Mar 2008
Posts: 2
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from a renter
10-29-2008 08:30
explain to me how providing low prim large open space rentals is such a problem...personally i don't want a POS 512, you can't build anything on that! This decision is totally stupid. if people are overloading their openspace, crack down, cut prim limit av's, etc but don't remove our options. If you are trying to drive away users, you seem to have found a winning strategy.
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Alysse Juliesse
Registered User
Join date: 15 Jul 2008
Posts: 1
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10-29-2008 08:31
With the price increase on OS, Many land owners with have to raise their teir fees. They will find themselves losing business as many of those who rent from them will be unable to pay those increased fees in an already harsh economic environment. There are those of us who do abide by the OS rules and run them solely for light use. To punish those who are utilizing these types of sims the correct way is complete unfair and LL has shown complete disregard for the OS sim owners and their renters. If this truely is some bait and switch that you are utilizing to increse your profits, I fear that it will lead to a loss in profits as people will no longer want open space sims. I will have to agree with others on this thread, Congrats LL you have effectively pissed off alot of SL Residents.
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PsychicMediumMeri Indigo
Registered User
Join date: 1 Jul 2008
Posts: 1
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Suggestion for a niche sim product to solve this
10-29-2008 08:34
Thing is, there's room for another "niche" sim product: a "suburban" sim -- half the prims of a regular sim, with two sims to a server at the $125 pricepoint Linden Labs are set on having. Then the openspace sims could be left at the current pricepoint, and educators and true "void" aficionados could continue on as before.
Just speaking as someone who's spent time on several openspace sims, the lag issues make them unacceptable. But with doubled performance, quality would be at least minimally acceptable. And to discuss "bottom line" issues for a moment: for the greater mass of users, spending much more than $25USD per month on an online source of entertainment is really pushing limits -- however, at the current $75 openspace tier rate, three persons could split that cost without overtaxing sim resources beyond what they can support (provided scripts are kept in check). But boosting that charge to $125 per month would require 5 persons in order to break that cost down to $25 each, which would overtax the sim's resources -- thereby doing exactly what LL says they wish to prevent. I hope Linden Labs will take my suggestion of implementing higher performance "suburban" sims with half the number of prims of a full sim and two regions to a server at the $125USD price point. Opening up this new level of service will attract both new users as well as having the potential of attracting current openspace owners who would like their sims upgraded to the higher level of performance and who would find the $125 pricepoint a good value, if they had the increased prims and the performance of just two regions on a server. Thank you for your favorable consideration of this new stream of revenue for Linden Labs. --Meri Educator, Consultant, Researcher, Counselor, Advisor |
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Rosie Barthelmess
Registered User
Join date: 17 May 2007
Posts: 545
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10-29-2008 08:40
In response to all the various postings about attorney generals, many of you may find this interesting as well:
http://homeless.inworld.sl/2008/10/ftc-allegation-of-fraud-a-valid-complaint/ "A trustworthy source who has requested anonymity reports that a call to the Federal Trade Commission has confirmed that, from their review of the Openspace Rate Increase matter, a complaint of suspected fraud [that was filed yesterday with the FTC] was “valid”, that all complaints to the FTC are considered anonymous and that personal information is never released, and that “they’d be looking into it.” In addition, the source was directed to the website fraud.org." |
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Rik Rasmussen
Registered User
Join date: 20 Mar 2008
Posts: 2
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10-29-2008 08:41
Thing is, there's room for another "niche" sim product: a "suburban" sim -- half the prims of a regular sim, with two sims to a server at the $125 pricepoint Linden Labs are set on having. Great idea, many of us hate mainland urban spaces...this should be a no-brainer. |
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Summer Logan
Registered User
Join date: 4 Jan 2006
Posts: 13
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Rough Draft to my True Idea...
10-29-2008 08:45
I wanted to share this idea with LL before I brought it to the residents of SL but I can see that LL is not going to stop and just listen to one person screaming in the middle of a crowed room so to speak. Maybe if I present my idea and other agree to it we can truly make a change in all this maham.
I think I have come up with a solution to help both parties (LL and the Residents of SL) When I heard about the current situations in SL regarding Openspace sims I was of course immediately on my friends end even though I didn't even read over LL side of the story. Now after reading over what LL has to say I understand why certain measures need to be taken though not everyone approves of it. I feel there is a right and a wrong way to everything and in this current situation it seems LL has chosen the wrong way to deal with this matter. You CAN'T punish everyone for someone else’s mistakes. Though we can't let other people take advance of the good things and ruin it for everyone. (didn't your mother teach you these things?) Here is my proposal on this matter. Monthly analysis should be taken on every sim and then at the end of the monthy the owner should be billed on their usage. A-B pays this amount B-C pays this amount cause they used more than the A-B section C-D pays this amount cause they used even more etc. etc. This will tailor the cost to each individual and deters people from over usage and also deters people from completely dumping their sims all together and costing LL more money. example: If I own 5 sims and 3/5 are almost always have a low usage and the other 2 are sandboxes which get a lot more usage...then when my bill comes in I will be paying more for the 2 sims that are sandboxes and they use more usage and the other 3 will be a less amount. I think this plan will calm the people who own openspace sims and don't use them in an extreme manner because they wont be forced to pay a higher price on something they use casually. And the other residents that use their openspace sims for a more robust reason will only be paying higher price for what they use. We all complain about the problems that occur everyday in SL. Server crashing/sim crashing/corrupt files/lost items/LAG etc. etc. Now LL is actually trying to fix and resolve the problem and we all have to bitch about their efforts. Maybe they don't always handle the situation in the right way. But they are trying to improve your SL experience. Seriously how will owning an openspace sim be worth it if all you do is lag lag lag and your the only person there. And your suffering because someone else's openspace on the SAME server is lagging yours...Now THATS something to bitch about. Sometimes we just have to think the situations threw completely before we can run our mouth about things. Try putting yourself in someone else's place...How would you handle this situation. Keep the pricing low and then have everyone and their dog buy a sim just to crash the own entire game with lag and unnecessary usage? Think reasonable though I think LL would love that everyone have their way in an imaginary world, Sometimes its just not possible. |
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Raven Primeau
Expletive Expletive
Join date: 19 Aug 2006
Posts: 26
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10-29-2008 08:46
Hello, Im from France, so sorry for my english. I rent an OS called "World Wonders". This is a very nice "Museum-sim" dedicated to the 7 wonders of the World, antique and modern. In a great building in the center of the sim (building and sculptures wich costed me 60.000 L$), visitors can learn about how the wonders were built, why, when, etc... in 5 langages. Also it shows miniatures of these wonders and with LM to reproductions si one of theses wonders exist in SL. There are 15-30 visitors each day and people seems to love that place. This is a cultural & unique place, a contribution to arts and culture in SL.... I thought that was never enough This costs me around 27.000 L$ each month, and I don't make any benefits with it. But there is no way for me to pay 65% more for it. So, unfortunately, this cultural place will not longer exist if the decision of Jack Linden is not cancelled. Arnel Honey please don't apologise for your English it's fine.. Sadly Your wonderful build like so many others clearly means nothing to Linden Labs. All they see it seems is $$$$$$$ signs There will be a lot of shattered dreams and lost chances blowing in the empty desolation this descision will leave in its wake. LL arent interested...despite what they spout in anything but their own agenda. Jack is just the mouthpiece, it isnt his descision and to some degree a scapegoat while the management devise their next assault on the so called residents. Yours will be high on the list of insane losses caused by this poorly disguised cash grab. we as residents are helpless, boun and seemingly gagged *no one at LL seems bothered to listen after all  (Sympathetically yours Raven |
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Rosie Barthelmess
Registered User
Join date: 17 May 2007
Posts: 545
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10-29-2008 08:48
Thing is, there's room for another "niche" sim product: a "suburban" sim -- half the prims of a regular sim, with two sims to a server at the $125 pricepoint Linden Labs are set on having. Then the openspace sims could be left at the current pricepoint, and educators and true "void" aficionados could continue on as before. r I agree with this 100%, but I think the way they should handle it is: 1) Confirm the guidelines of current Openspaces at 3750 prims, 10-15 avatars (1/4 of a sim) and XXX number of scripts (1/4 of a sim) 2) Create a true VOID SIM classification with low prims, little or no scripting and little or no traffic so people who have these sims with only water or landscaping on them can maintain them and provide beautification in SL at LESS of a price than $75/mo 3) Create an upgraded, "suburban sim" classification at $125-$150/mo with more resources Then, start going around to all the OS's. Have bots do it. Read server logs. Evaluate people's usage and tell them based on current usage what classification they fit in -- if they're over the standard openspace give them time to rectify that or have to upgrade to suburban sim. If they're far under the OS requirements give them the option of downgrading to the void sim. And then actually put their big boy and big girl panties on and *gasp* take some responsibility for dealing with complaints or issues if people are overtaxing whatever kind of sim they have chosen to pay for. But, changing the requirements on a $75/mo OS is unacceptable and quite possibly illegal at this point, and should not be considered. Speaking as a residential resident of an OS that is under the prim limit, has traffic of 1-2 avatars for 2-3 hours a day at most, and scripts under 0.8ms (most in the form of sit poses in furniture or doors on houses), I know I am not overtaxing our openspace. Go after the people who are running malls, sex islands, or openspaces full of 512m2 residential parcels. |
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Zaraton Raymaker
Registered User
Join date: 18 May 2007
Posts: 4
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Terrible Unethical Decision
10-29-2008 08:53
I have 3 OSS's, and spend about 1.5 million Lindens per year. My OSS's are generally for 2 of us. Very seldom do we even have company. You are asking me to pony up $1500 USD per year just to maintain what I already have. I wont do it!! LL will be not be picking my pocket for that much money. NO WAY!! SL does not define me, I can play other VR games for much much cheaper. This arrogant action ranks right up there with OPEC, and the gas and oil companies...doing it because you CAN. The difference here is, we need gas in our cars...we dont need to play SL. I will go back to writing books in my spare time. I sense a big down turn in SL commerce coming....people already have less to spend, LL apparently wishes to exacerbate that condition.
Openspace Announcement Discussion I will be reading all the comments to this thread tomorrow and will reply as best as I can then, as it's very late for me now in the UK. Please be assured that we do read every reply. Jack --- Openspace Pricing and Policy Changes In March of this year, we announced improvements to our light use land product that we call Openspaces. Not long after this, the new Land Store opened allowing estate owners to buy Openspaces and have them delivered almost immediately, an enormous improvement over the old method of ordering them via support tickets. As a result we have seen tremendous demand for Openspaces - with many thousands of them being ordered. We're delighted that so many of you have found them to be a useful addition to your estates. Read on after the cut.. For those that don't know, an Openspace is a type of private island that we made available for light use countryside or ocean. We figured that if Governor Linden can have ocean and green spaces, we should let private estate owners do the same. But Openspaces differ from normal regions in one particularly significant way; unlike normal regions that effectively get a CPU to themselves on the server, there can be up to four Openspaces on a single CPU (so 16 on a quad core machine), sharing the resource (hence them being ‘light use’). So Openspaces have been incredibly popular as a perk for estate owners, but sadly there is a twist. Unfortunately most of the Openspaces are being used for much more than light use. Based on analysis performed in August and September, Openspaces are being used about twice as much as we expected, in other words being loaded with double the content/avatar load than we'd expect for a region that is supposed to be light use. Rather than being employed as open areas like ocean with little or no content and traffic, the majority are being rented out to residents looking for a place to live. Because they were never intended for that level of load this is causing problems. For some people this has meant a less than great experience with performance fluctuations. The overuse of Openspaces has also put additional strain on some of our network and database infrastructure at a much higher ratio than is reflected in the current pricing. So higher traffic to and from the servers along with heavier demands on the asset server, both of which impact the overall experience people have inworld. We need to therefore take some steps to improve their performance and better reflect their actual usage levels in our pricing so that we can maintain the best performance level for everyone. As a result, we will be implementing a pricing change effective January 1st along with some policy changes effective immediately. Beginning 1st January 2009 We will increase the monthly maintenance fee from USD$75 to USD$125 per month. This price increase will apply to all owners of Openspaces on January 1st as well as new purchases after that date. There will be no grandfathering of Openspace maintenance pricing. For anyone owning class 4 Openspaces on January 1st, they will be upgraded to class 5 by end of January, to further improve the experience people have on those regions. At the same time, we will be increasing the upfront fee for brand new Openspaces from USD$250 to USD$375. Effective Immediately We will no longer allow the Owner of an Openspace to be changed to a different resident than the Payor. Initially we will not enforce this change on Openspaces where the Payor and Owner are already different but in those cases the only change allowed will be to set the Owner back to the Payor. This doesn't affect the parcel level rentals, this is just focussed on the whole region rental of Openspaces. We will no longer offer an educational or non-profit discount for new Openspaces. As mentioned earlier, this is due to the increased back end resource required for us to support Openspaces in the way that they are now being used. For the small number of Educators that already have Openspaces, we will be contacting you directly to discuss this change. Next, we will be making changes to the viewer that enable residents to know precisely what type of land or region they are on so that the land market remains as fair and easy to understand as possible. So expect to see changes that much more clearly display to residents whether they are on Linden Mainland or Private Estate, whether it is a Normal region or Openspace and what that means. This will affect various aspects of the Viewer including the inworld Search along with the About Land and Buy Land screens. Making Land easier to understand will benefit everyone, especially new users looking to step onto the property ladder for the first time. Lastly we will begin to proactively discuss overloaded Openspaces with their owners. This is important because as with abuse of region resources, a heavily overloaded Openspace can adversely affect other Openspaces sharing the same machine which is clearly unfair to residents who are using them responsibly. We have listened to your feedback on this, and agree that we need to make changes to better support our Openspace users by actively working to keep the performance levels as high as possible. We will also provide some detailed guidance about what ‘overuse’ looks like and how to prevent it. So to recap: * Openspace prices and fees change on the 1st January with no grandfathering. * Class 4 Openspaces will be upgraded to class 5 in January. * Educator discount is no longer available for Openspaces. * No Owner switching for Openspaces unless it’s a full transfer of Payor. * More proactive education by support staff to prevent unfair resource use by Openspace regions. We’re sure there will be many of you with questions and concerns on the back of this announcement. As previously, there will shortly be a forum created specifically for discussion of these changes so please head over here if you wish to provide feedback. In addition, if you need a more personal dialogue about this post, please contact support as usual. |
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Duke McDonnagh
Registered User
Join date: 12 Aug 2006
Posts: 118
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Nothing to do with Resources everything to do with Greed
10-29-2008 08:54
Over use of Open Space sims have NO Impact on Linden Labs System resources other than they must field a few complaints by residents about lag. Lets face it the decision to raise rates , thus driving the demand for open space sims down, is motivated solely by Linden Labs desire to increase mainland sim sales which have been almost non-existant. The odd thing is this is probably not going to help them that much because now it makes private full prim sims more attactive and its already been proven that Private Island owners far out shine their linden counterparts when it comes to managing and controlling sims. They were wrong when they lowered prices now they are wrong when they raised them. Two wrongs dont make a right
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Caleb Ametza
Registered User
Join date: 5 Sep 2008
Posts: 1
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protests towards this act are happening!
10-29-2008 08:55
There are now infact protests in SL against this act and i any day would follow the protestors, Price Hikes mean purchases go down hill, not as many can afford the new prices.
people are saying your doing this for linden labs sake so you dont go bankrupt and close, if this is the case why lose EVEN MORE money by raising your prices. im going to have to dissagree with this one and join the protest. |
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Zaraton Raymaker
Registered User
Join date: 18 May 2007
Posts: 4
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Terrible Unethical Decision
10-29-2008 08:55
I have 3 OSS's, and spend about 1.5 million Lindens per year. My OSS's are generally for 2 of us. Very seldom do we even have company. You are asking me to pony up $1500 USD per year just to maintain what I already have. I wont do it!! LL will be not be picking my pocket for that much money. NO WAY!! SL does not define me, I can play other VR games for much much cheaper. This arrogant action ranks right up there with OPEC, and the gas and oil companies...doing it because you CAN. The difference here is, we need gas in our cars...we dont need to play SL. I will go back to writing books in my spare time. I sense a big down turn in SL commerce coming....people already have less to spend, LL apparently wishes to exacerbate that condition.
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CS Kappler
Registered User
Join date: 10 May 2007
Posts: 5
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Time since Jack checked back
10-29-2008 08:56
28 hours, not two days yet. It's been over two days... on Jupiter. Shorter period of rotation. Isn't that where Mount Olympus is? Where the gods live? |
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Lorelei Junot
Registered User
Join date: 9 Apr 2006
Posts: 3
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Other virtual environments
10-29-2008 08:56
I will be spending less time in SL and more time looking at what else is out there.
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Jim Perhaps
Registered User
Join date: 10 Dec 2005
Posts: 65
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put some energy here
10-29-2008 08:57
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Rodney Sands
Registered User
Join date: 4 Mar 2007
Posts: 1
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Greedy Lindens
10-29-2008 08:58
Looks like the Lindens are afraid someone might actually break even on SL.
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Chorazin Allen
Registered User
Join date: 17 Feb 2007
Posts: 1
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Some thoughts and numbers
10-29-2008 08:58
I've been watching this thread so far, skimming or reading every message, waiting for the thread to live up to its "discussion with..." headline. After 2000+ posts it's clear for me that LL has realised that the reaction to this is much more extreme than was anticipated and is (I hope) rapidly discussing at the same level the original decision was made what can be said/done to dig themselves out of this ever-deepening hole.
There are two distinct things I've been watching here. One is the original issue itself, the other is the way in which the aftermath is handled. Both could have been handled a lot more sensitively. The problem is that whilst they've stopped digging, they haven't yet done anything to stop the subsidence. Jack's reply yesterday addressed less than half a dozen authors, so the effort needed now to reply individually is huge and isn't likely to happen. Given this, the right answer would be to post a message along the lines of "We hadn't expected this amount of feedback. We're reviewing the decision, putting the implementation on hold, and will communicate further soon. We'll read all your replies but cannot reply individually to forum posts in this thread; raise a support ticket for specific questions needing a one-to-one reply" and close the forum thread to stop the damage increasing. Even better would be a Blog message to basically say "Ooops. We got it wrong. Don't jump yet, we're rethinking it". One thought about the numbers which might be worth keeping in mind. At present 3 openspaces brings in $75*3=$225. Under the announced changes 2 openspaces will bring in $125*2=$250. So, in cold hard math, one in three openspaces can be abandoned and there's no financial loss (and there's the freed-up hardware, power consumption, network bandwidth etc on top of this). Of course there's a massive impact on goodwill as the 2000+ posts here demonstrate. I share many peoples' view that a global price hike was a heavy-handed move. There have been plenty of examples here of people who provide a leisure facility or have just scraped up enough to get off of mainland to an area of "their own". I also see the logic behind saying that the current openspace "product" is unsustainable. Where my thinking diverges is the heavy-handed resolution. A better approach would have been (and could still be, for those who haven't already bailed):- - supply of current spec openspaces stops in 1 month's time; limit the problem by stopping supply sooner rather than later - all new current spec openspaces afterwards will be at new price/new rate (and maybe back to the 4 at once adjacently located rule and force all 4 onto the same core) - a new lightuse openspace product at the original price+rent with 1875 prims and a hard av limit of 10 or so, maybe other throttling limits too - an option for existing openspace owners to transfer for free to the 1875p lightuse openspace product or a grandfathering arrangement where they pay eg $100/month to keep 3750 prims/normal av limits and any transfer revokes its privileged status, forcing it to go down in prims or up in rental - ie the number of 3750 prim islands not being paid for at $125 will reduce over time Those with light prim use can drop down to 1875 (having only had 3750 available for around 6 months maximum) and carry on as now. Those with heavier usage get to pay more for the pleasure but still have a concession compared to those who want to get into what's now clearly a deprecated area. Ok, so script use isn't directly connected to prim use, but it's fair to say the two are usually related. People understand prims much more easily than scripts since this is more clearly presented. |
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Lucinda Bulloch
Registered User
Join date: 2 Nov 2007
Posts: 33
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lessen the impact
10-29-2008 09:00
if you have both full and OS sims you can merge there cost, raise the OS 45% and the full sims 20%, full sims are in short supply now as so many were converted i have done the sums and given all my residents a copy and asked for there thoughts, so far from both full and os sims the response has been good and positive.
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Bonicolli Goode
Labyrinth Designer
Join date: 26 Dec 2007
Posts: 4
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getting even more prohibitive
10-29-2008 09:03
Whereas I considered paying US$ 900 per annum for a completely empty water SIM, (apart from some waves rolling onto the beach), just to be able to enjoy the view from my SL house (located on the bordering full SIM) of an ocean with some waves and a ship passing by at times already a little bit steep (understatement now off), I certainly will not fork out 1500 US$ for that... I think I may find a far better use for this money toward a much needed RL holiday to recover from the RL stress this is all causing me.
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Skyler Laminsk
Registered User
Join date: 3 Mar 2008
Posts: 1
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Meh
10-29-2008 09:03
Seems a hardline approach.
Don't know about anyone else but my tier fees over the last month already went up because of the exchange rates from my currency to USD. This increase on top of that is actually more then 100%. Even so I was looking into investment into LL and build an estate. Prolly at a loss, but whatever.. it would allow me to have some space to create content and maybe even build a small community. I wasn't really looking at openspace sims for more then prettying up the borders. I'm glad this announcement came before I did so as I would have lost a bunch of cash on this platform. It is obvious that an investment into LL does not carry any accountability to the consumer. Bottom line, don't invest in LL |