Second life d day.
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Firelight Simca
Registered User
Join date: 22 Aug 2006
Posts: 156
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11-05-2008 09:28
From: Briana Dawson Not naive. I just have a long memory of slights against the community by LL.
How do you think i felt when LL told me in 2003 that I would have to pay $195 usd for every 65,000m2 i owned when i owned 200,000m2?
How about when they told us that we could pay tier with Linden, and then priced a 1024m2 monthly tier fee at $50,000L And a full sim tier fee of around a million linden - and this was when the linden became exchangeable for USD.
Before SL v1.2 land was free, we paid a low tax, but there was no tier. And lots of us, owned massive tracts of land only to be told we would have to drop it all, move our builds, shut down our businesses, etc. to make ready for 1.2. And you know what people did? They said they were leaving, they said they were losing everything, they said their community project could no longer be funded, people were sad, angry, and in general upset. And in the end, they rallied together and bought land as groups using our free 4096m2 tier (Lifetime account holder benefit) to eat up a full mainland sim for free whenever possible.
I can go on with more examples.
Nothing naive about referring to history for an idea of what will happen in the future.
What you do not understand is that the very day the first OS sims go on sale with the $125/mo tier, they will be bought by users who never knew that the OS sims once cost $75/mo., and they will be bought everyday.
Time will roll on and this will fade into the history annals of SL. And then 1-2 years later some other crisis will occur and someone just born a year ago before the new crisis will say how they know this is the end of SL without knowing the history or number of LL induced crisis's we have had and survived in the past. There is one big difference. In 2003, RL was in much better shape financially then it is now. So, whether enough new people can afford it is an issue. Just something to consider. And I should add that I don't think the sky is falling, but it's certainly changing. Firelight |
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Leo Mill
Registered User
Join date: 7 May 2006
Posts: 14
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11-05-2008 09:40
From: Briana Dawson Not naive. I just have a long memory of slights against the community by LL.
How do you think i felt when LL told me in 2003 that I would have to pay $195 usd for every 65,000m2 i owned when i owned 200,000m2?
How about when they told us that we could pay tier with Linden, and then priced a 1024m2 monthly tier fee at $50,000L And a full sim tier fee of around a million linden - and this was when the linden became exchangeable for USD.
Before SL v1.2 land was free, we paid a low tax, but there was no tier. And lots of us, owned massive tracts of land only to be told we would have to drop it all, move our builds, shut down our businesses, etc. to make ready for 1.2. And you know what people did? They said they were leaving, they said they were losing everything, they said their community project could no longer be funded, people were sad, angry, and in general upset. And in the end, they rallied together and bought land as groups using our free 4096m2 tier (Lifetime account holder benefit) to eat up a full mainland sim for free whenever possible.
I can go on with more examples.
Nothing naive about referring to history for an idea of what will happen in the future.
What you do not understand is that the very day the first OS sims go on sale with the $125/mo tier, they will be bought by users who never knew that the OS sims once cost $75/mo., and they will be bought everyday.
Time will roll on and this will fade into the history annals of SL. And then 1-2 years later some other crisis will occur and someone just born a year ago before the new crisis will say how they know this is the end of SL without knowing the history or number of LL induced crisis's we have had and survived in the past. 3 years ago SL was basicly new ground. Flooded with creative minds and ideas. In 03.. how many people where there several thousand? maybe? It was not filled with 10's of thousands of bots.. hogging all the bandwidth and it did not have 1/10'th of the active actual playing members it does now. It was young advertised and growing, there was a lot of buzz around it. SL today has been stagnent as far as actual new players. more bots and alts are created then actual new players there has not been a buzz about SL in a long long time those that are here are here , those that are not .....will likely never hear of it. what ever happens will happen but using the History of a game to try to predict its future is silly. Its a game ... not reality and as such, people get tired of spending the money to get it in the end. |
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Briana Dawson
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Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 5,855
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11-05-2008 09:54
From: Leo Mill
what ever happens will happen but using the History of a game to try to predict its future is silly. Its a game ... not reality and as such, people get tired of spending the money to get it in the end.
I am not using the history of a game. I am using the history of LL actions in this virtual world. In 03, it was several hundred, not thousand. And when they had the smallest population ever, they made the biggest most impacting decision, and very few left. Each year SL hits a peak and LL does something ugly after which people leave. Do enough leave to make a difference? No. Will enough leave now? No. So I see nothing silly in looking at LL's past actions and the reaction of the community to gain an idea of how the community will react to recent actions, which shocked the user base as they did in the past. Nothing silly at all. Silly is not looking to your history to examine it for a modicum of what the future could bring. |
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Shockwave Yareach
Registered User
Join date: 4 Oct 2006
Posts: 370
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11-05-2008 10:03
From: Briana Dawson
Silly is not looking to your history to examine it for a modicum of what the future could bring.
Past history is no guarantee of future results. And considering the number of people jettisoning sims and quitting already, 2 months ahead of Dday, I'd say that the dollar figure LL stands to lose is substantial. |
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Yumi Murakami
DoIt!AttachTheEarOfACat!
Join date: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 6,860
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11-05-2008 10:04
I think there is a significance between this and the tier introduction, though. Namely: pre-tier, since you couldn't cash out L$, nobody was running a real business in SL. Everybody _expected_ to pay a monthly US$ subscription fee (well, except the lifetime members), no matter how much work they did creating things.
Since then, that attitude has changed, and many creators now expect not to pay in any US$ at all, and consider it a failure if they do. This change can makes the difference between paying and not paying for a number of people.
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Leo Mill
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Join date: 7 May 2006
Posts: 14
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11-05-2008 10:08
From: Briana Dawson
Silly is not looking to your history to examine it for a modicum of what the future could bring.
Silly is looking at some of history and not all of history. LL is one company. out of many that have repeatadly screwed over their player base.. thing about it is the bigger that player base gets the bigger the impact becomes. You cant seriously expect to be able to screw over 15000+ people and expect to come out smelling like roses, bad word of mouth and loss of player base and loss of income. its bound to happen. the bigger the screwing the bigger the loss and loss of potential future bussiness from bad press and bad word of mouth about the product. |
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Briana Dawson
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Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 5,855
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11-05-2008 10:09
From: Yumi Murakami I think there is a significance between this and the tier introduction, though. The introduction of tier was far more dramatic and shocking for the user base than a 67% increase of a sim that can be replaced with a mainland alternative. |
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Leo Mill
Registered User
Join date: 7 May 2006
Posts: 14
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11-05-2008 10:11
From: Briana Dawson The introduction of tier was far more dramatic and shocking for the user base than a 67% increase of a sim that can be replaced with a mainland alternative. Inroduction of tier did not effect $3,750,000 in paid for assets... If they are offering a full refund for all openspace sims maybe.. but basicly they have you against the ropes. pay up or loose your investment. |
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Briana Dawson
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Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 5,855
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11-05-2008 10:15
From: Leo Mill Silly is looking at some of history and not all of history. LL is one company. out of many that have repeatadly screwed over their player base.. thing about it is the bigger that player base gets the bigger the impact becomes.
You cant seriously expect to be able to screw over 15000+ people and expect to come out smelling like roses, bad word of mouth and loss of player base and loss of income. its bound to happen. the bigger the screwing the bigger the loss and loss of potential future bussiness from bad press and bad word of mouth about the product. 15,000 Open Space sims purchased is not 15,000 users. And I am looking at the history of SL/LL, not uh...All 'games'. |
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Yumi Murakami
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Join date: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 6,860
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11-05-2008 10:24
From: Briana Dawson The introduction of tier was far more dramatic and shocking for the user base than a 67% increase of a sim that can be replaced with a mainland alternative. Yes. I've actually read the forum thread where it was introduced. Although I should note that trading of L$ for US$ still didn't exist even AFTER tier was implemented, and it seemed to be that the majority of the shock expressed on the forum was not about having to give up large land areas, but about the idea that the maximum amount of land you owned would be determined by your willingness to pay US$, not by your content creation. But, as I said, this is a different situation. Many of those OS sims were bought purely as business instruments, to make a profit. A controversial point is that many land dealers were forced to switch to OS to compete, and now are being forced to switch back. Those circumstances couldn't have happened back in v1.1, because _nobody_ was earning US$. For sims of this kind there is no question of "we can switch our house back to mainland" - they're not people's houses, they're business instruments and if they aren't making money there is no reason to retain them. |
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Leo Mill
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Join date: 7 May 2006
Posts: 14
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11-05-2008 10:28
From: Briana Dawson 15,000 Open Space sims purchased is not 15,000 users. And I am looking at the history of SL/LL, not uh...All 'games'. 15,000 sims will effect far more then just the owners. |
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Briana Dawson
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Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 5,855
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11-05-2008 10:30
From: Yumi Murakami Yes. I've actually read the forum thread where it was introduced. Although I should note that trading of L$ for US$ still didn't exist even AFTER tier was implemented... Then when do you think it occured? It was not a few months but weeks.. Irregardless, the contention that people will leave in droves, i challenge and say that it is false and i stand by that based entirely on SL's history as i know and witnessed. 1 month from now LL will not even feel the ripple of this decision. |
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Sonja Felisimo
Registered User
Join date: 6 Nov 2007
Posts: 45
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11-05-2008 10:32
Briana throughout this openspace issue you have made some very interesting and knowledgable posts..........but in this thread I have to disagree with you and ask a simple question based on simple facts:
Why did people want OS sims (leave out the land barons)........answer:
1. they were affordable with decent size prim count
2. They had control over what they did on them and what they looked like.......unlike mainland.
If these people who own OS sims never bought mainland before they had an OS because.....to exspensive and to ugly.
Then my question................how do you come to the conclusion that people will automatically move to mainland ?
Or have I understood your post wrong ?
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Yumi Murakami
DoIt!AttachTheEarOfACat!
Join date: 27 Sep 2005
Posts: 6,860
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11-05-2008 10:32
From: Briana Dawson
1 month from now LL will not even feel the ripple of this decision.
So what are we supposed to do? Brace ourselves for US$300 full sims the month after? |
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Darkness Anubis
Registered User
Join date: 14 Jun 2004
Posts: 1,628
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11-05-2008 10:34
Actually when I started in mid 2004 you could exchange L$ for US$ through a third party company called GOM. Now I don't know when GOM started but it was well established and trusted by the time I arrived on the scene.
Lindex was LL's answer to GOM and effectively put them out of business. Hence you hear the term on the forums when LL takes an idea from a user (putting them out of business) that that user has been GOMed.
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Raiff Ragu
Registered User
Join date: 7 Aug 2008
Posts: 1
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D-Day for sure!
11-05-2008 10:35
I am living on an open space and really love it. Far from the crowds, no lag, and I have much more space for the money. If Linden decides to follow through with the 67% increase, I will give up owning any land at all. This is a horrible policy change and will put many developers out of business, including my developer. This is a huge mistake on the part of Linden Labs, and I hope they reconsider.
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Briana Dawson
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Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 5,855
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11-05-2008 10:42
From: Sonja Felisimo
If these people who own OS sims never bought mainland before they had an OS because.....to exspensive and to ugly.
Then my question................how do you come to the conclusion that people will automatically move to mainland ?
Because people want a place of of their own, a home, a place that reflects those things that make them feel good. People want a place to create. People want a place to have a virtual business. People want a second life. I've lived on Island Estates since 2004 save for a few short months here and there, and yet I find myself marching straight to mainland to maintain the status quo of my SL. So will the majority of other people. If not to mainland, then to some SL real estate co for land on a full sim Estate if they do not want to pay the increased OS tier fee. I would say that most people who own land own it for a number of reasons, most of which can be satisfied on the mainland. This whole argument about mainland clutter, ban lines, etc, is just nonsensical when we can build to 4000m now. We have decided to forgo a new full sim project on an island and instead will be building on the mainland at 2500m. No biggie. I still get my dreams as will everyone else who has them in SL, one way or another. |
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Kalderi Tomsen
Nomad Extraordinaire!
Join date: 10 May 2007
Posts: 888
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11-05-2008 10:50
The way I see it, LL are doing fine-tuning around the OpenSpace concept. First, they introduced them, and then they upped the prims and now they want to up the cost. For one reason or another (others have debated elsewhere) LL consider them under-priced from both a purchase and a maintenance aspect.
We're seeing the usual outcry that comes up in SL every time LL do something that changes the cost of being in SL. Every time we get those making proclamations about how there is a large-scale uprising and how masses will be leaving LL. If they do, they are more than made up for by those who come in.
Now, I think the timing for this frankly sucks - we're into the biggest recession since before the internet and they are putting out a massive price hike. People that are either struggling to make ends meet or realising that they need to be careful with their discretionary spending are going to be questioning whether they still want an OS.
But was SL unworkable BEFORE the advent of OS? No, of course it wasn't - we had lots of residents and they spent money. So if you don't like how LL do OS, then just ignore them.
In brief: The sky is not falling, despite posts to the contrary.
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Briana Dawson
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Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 5,855
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11-05-2008 10:51
From: Yumi Murakami So what are we supposed to do? Brace ourselves for US$300 full sims the month after? Expect an increase in Full Island Sim tiers within 3-6 months. |
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Leo Mill
Registered User
Join date: 7 May 2006
Posts: 14
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11-05-2008 10:54
From: Briana Dawson Because people want a place of of their own, a home, a place that reflects those things that make them feel good. People want a place to create. People want a place to have a virtual business. People want a second life.
I've lived on Island Estates since 2004 save for a few short months here and there, and yet I find myself marching straight to mainland to maintain the status quo of my SL. So will the majority of other people. If not to mainland, then to some SL real estate co for land on a full sim Estate if they do not want to pay the increased OS tier fee.
I would say that most people who own land own it for a number of reasons, most of which can be satisfied on the mainland.
This whole argument about mainland clutter, ban lines, etc, is just nonsensical when we can build to 4000m now.
We have decided to forgo a new full sim project on an island and instead will be building on the mainland at 2500m. No biggie. I still get my dreams as will everyone else who has them in SL, one way or another. See but you.. are the exception... not the rule. Me personally I don't make $1000's of dollars the SL community.. and if i just paid 250 USD for an OS and now I am forced to pay twice the cost of mainland tier for 1/4 of the service or just give it up and moved to mainland.. well...... in my opinion they stole from me to the sum of 250 USD So since they already screwed me out of 250 bucks.... I am not going to happily hand them more money. They would just loose me as a land owner period. |
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Sonja Felisimo
Registered User
Join date: 6 Nov 2007
Posts: 45
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11-05-2008 10:56
From: Briana Dawson Because people want a place of of their own, a home, a place that reflects those things that make them feel good. People want a place to create. People want a place to have a virtual business. People want a second life.
I've lived on Island Estates since 2004 save for a few short months here and there, and yet I find myself marching straight to mainland to maintain the status quo of my SL. So will the majority of other people. If not to mainland, then to some SL real estate co for land on a full sim Estate if they do not want to pay the increased OS tier fee.
I would say that most people who own land own it for a number of reasons, most of which can be satisfied on the mainland.
This whole argument about mainland clutter, ban lines, etc, is just nonsensical when we can build to 4000m now.
We have decided to forgo a new full sim project on an island and instead will be building on the mainland at 2500m. No biggie. I still get my dreams as will everyone else who has them in SL, one way or another. I see your point.........I too live on a large piece of estate land...........have a business on estate land...........have an OS to LOL but hey I could pay the 125 for it if I wanted to......but won't out of principal............ok I am in the position to be able to afford it.....I pay alot more each month. However many people (my guess the majority of OS renters/owners)........except the land barons........are not in the same position as you or me and can say WHAT THE HELL.........upsticks and move......invest more money they'll probably lose. This is where I think your wrong to think they can auotmatically move somewhere else, even if they do have the dream to create........express themselves etc etc. This dream was the reason why they bought/rented OS.....THE DREAM WAS AFFORDABLE  Lets face it thats what SL is about for most people.........THE DREAM.......and this has been shattered and trodden on by LL........hmm actually many estates have something to answer for to but thats another story. P.S I personnaly would never move my business let alone my home to mainland.......been there done that.....no thx  |
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Shockwave Yareach
Registered User
Join date: 4 Oct 2006
Posts: 370
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11-05-2008 11:09
From: Briana Dawson
This whole argument about mainland clutter, ban lines, etc, is just nonsensical when we can build to 4000m now.
Not quite. Sure, I and my pack know how to make skyboxes. We aren't the ones cluttering up the place with Banlines, though. The banlines come from all the other people who a) don't know how to build, or b) don't want anyone on their land and don't give a hoot what anyone else thinks. I used to enjoy wandering and looking at what people built. Now, it's all prefab and forbidden to approach. No matter how you look at Mainland, it's a sea of banlines and it is far from a fun place to be. So we have parcels outside where we control the comings and goings in the private islands, and build ourselves into a blissful stupor in the public islands. And we do it all without banlines. |
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Lanie Lunasea
Registered User
Join date: 6 Aug 2008
Posts: 15
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11-05-2008 18:16
From: Lostmedia Ares Without a doubt the timeframe here is allmost sure to be something to do with the elections .
Could it allso be that Obama stated that he would be taxing companies that make more than 3/4 mill per year ....Are LL trying to get us to foot the bill for an expected price rise in TAX for them ?
Hmmmm most likely true, is this the change people want? |
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Vivito Volare
meddler
Join date: 10 Nov 2006
Posts: 41
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11-05-2008 21:19
I agree with much of the original post. Well said.
Brenda, I agree: the number that leave will be far smaller than the number threatening to. Though comparing LL to the other MMO companies is valid, not in the nature of the product, but in the management of the services and customer relations.
LL's track record for trustworthiness has been spotty at best. I knew that coming in. But after a year in SecondLife, for a time, LL was doing so well...the 1.20 viewer, with its long development cycle fixed problems for so many users. In the forums, and during office hours, and in the JIRA, there was a growing sense of transparency and treating customers as just that: Customers. There was a growing sense of enthusiasm. Then everything changed around the first quarter of 2008. Since then, more and more people I talk with feel LL holds contempt for its customers, which certainly fails to encourage growth.
Unless some site like Boing-Boing or Slashdot pick up on this, and examine this situation (especially the similarities to the failings of SOE, Funcom, and MS in the early MMO days), this will remain a relatively private matter, and isn't likely to have as huge of an effect as many are expecting.
That said, if I were one of these corporate customers SL courts, I would certainly be thinking twice about entering into a business relationship with them.
To the LL executive board, I would simply say: This is shoddy business practice. You cannot grow a brand by abusing your customer base. Unfortunately, history suggests this as the the Linden modus operandi.
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