I would like to say right from the start that I have always had great customer service, and good public relations with LL. When I have had the few problems that I have had I would call the LL folks and get curious, quick, and deceive fixes to any issues I have had from billing to estate issues. For those in the Concierge service department I hope you can all remember and again I say to you, Thanks and fantastic job guys as always.
So with this Open Space problem going on, I offer some simple opinions and want to add to what Qie said about the pricing structure and usage.
What I see as being a problem for LL was not so much the issue of resource abuse or even an elevated usage that was unanticipated. What I see happening is once the OS were opened as they were people beat feet from the mainland and used the OS for the “unbelievably good deal” that they are. This in turn lowered LL's revenue considerably due to the lost of residents on the mainland. My thought... my question for you is why? Yes the price is good but it’s not THAT great 1/4 the prims, 1/4 the usage (or supposed to have been) all the space. Still on mainland there are some even better deals then even that. So why did everyone leave?
Was it the privacy of all that space? Was it the price? I don't think so. I believe it was/is the fact that I as an Estate owner can set more regulations and structure to my Estate then LL has on the Mainland. Of course in the beginning the "you’re free to do as you want, say or think" attitude was fantastic and certainly one of the #1 reason why most of us joined SL to begin with. But in a short time it became over crowed, laggy and excessively abusive by the few that chose to be abusive. LL policy of non-interference turned more in to a policy of if we don't interfere we won't have to deal with the conflict. Where as I as the Governor of my Estate I can settle disputes, and keep peace among my community while balancing the freedom.
In a since you opened the deregulation of LL's and Mainland dominance of Second Life. Obviously with the boom of open spaces demand was there for some kind of structure of control. So what I propose to you is while yes we as a community are all more then willing to assist LL's with this problem of over usage and if its money I am sure the generally most or all of us are willing to help in that fashion. However, you have the opportunity to not increase the price to drive the open spaces away and drive folks back to Mainland... Compete with the private estates, improve the mainland make it a better place to live. Make it so as its not a punishment to live on private land make it a benefit to live on Mainland.
So if it money you need, no problem we are brothers in the Estate market. I would be willing to help you out anyway that I can. Though I think its fair for me to ask, if its money you need what do you plan on doing with the money? Is this your way to balance out the loss of revenue from mainland tier fees? Or do you want to improve what we already have? Did this really blow your minds; are you simply scrambling to keep the system running? (If so tell us... we are not imbeciles tell us what happened... I heard once that you have over 18000 servers, what do you have now? Tell me what the numbers were back in May compared to what they are now.) Share the information with us... as a community you might be surprised as to how much we are willing to help out.
So my challenge to you all at Linden Labs... Can you make a better Estate then I can?
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Below I just wanted to point out some of the better concepts I have seen from other community memeber's for your consideration in my opinion.
Charge your higher tier but provide support and value for it. Leave the REAL usage alone.
Leave people on their own quad. Each pack of four sims will share together. So if one over loads, it over loads ME and not someone else. This puts the policing in Estate Owners (EO) hands and frees you.
Give the techs time to impliment the fiber optiics feed to replace the VPN and see how much that alleviates the load, I think it will be more then you expect.
provide a way for estate owners to manage the load on the server and the network pipe
1) “Full-use” region
Prims: 15000
Script loads: 22ms
Recommended agent limit: 100
Setup fee: $1000 US
Linden Lab’s monthly maintenance fee: $295 US
Placement constraints: as existing for standard sims
Market niche: for those owners who intended to fully utilize sim capacities
2) “Heavy-use” region
Prims: 11250
Script loads: 16ms
Recommended agent limit: 75
Setup fee: $775 US
Linden Lab’s monthly maintenance fee: $225 US
Placement constraints: as existing for standard sims
Market Niche: for those owners who wish to offer similar capacity densities as possible with a full sim, but wish to incorporate a modicum of “open space”
area(s) within the region.
3) “Moderate-use” region
Prims: 7500
Script loads: 12ms
Recommended agent limit: 40
Setup fee: $550 US
Linden Lab’s monthly maintenance fee: $165 US
Placement constraints: as existing for standard sims, plus the same ownership of at least one “Full-use” or “Heavy-use” sim required
Market Niche: for those owners who wish to offer fairly equitable use of capacity and ambiance
4) “Light-use” region
Prims: 3750
Script loads: 8ms
Recommended agent limit: 20
Setup fee: $300 US
Linden Lab’s monthly maintenance fee: $85 US
Placement constraints: as existing for standard sims, plus the ownership of at least one “Full-use” sim required
Market Niche: for those owners who are more concerned with the aesthetics of a region, rather than it’s capacity
5) “Ambient-use” region
Prims: 1875
Script loads: 4ms
Recommended agent limit: 10
Linden Lab’s monthly maintenance fee: $45 US
Setup fee: $175 US
Placement constraints: as existing for standard sims, plus must be placed next to any “up-level” region of the same ownership
Market Niche: strictly to enhance the ambiance of surrounding regions
Solutions to ponder
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I think the ‘behind the scenes’ process of the land store should change and the allocation/placement of regions should change.
Anyone who owns 4 or more regions should have all of them on the same cpu’s. Critics would say well that will just slow down order time when new regions are purchased b/c someone will have to fill an order. Simple fix: New region orders fill as they currently do but locate on a temp server in queue to be moved as time permits by the tech dev.
Simply grouping regions by owner will probably decrease overall load on the grid. Less traffic between multiple servers, less region_handoff errors and most importantly it will force estate owner to police themselves. If they are going to abuse the system resources they will be forced to deal with the drain on their other regions that share that cpu. You will still have a larger percentage of owners that cant/wont fill their own cpu but it would at least help a good portion of the problems we are faced with today.
Introduce a new product and rename the openspace product. Create a low end product with a limitation of 500 prims and a low script/avatar limitation and a requirement to be connected to another region. Solely for open water or forests or connectors between other sims. Treat it as Openspaces are currently meant for but at a lower rate.
Change the openspace product to a mid-sim. Since the current figures and usage seem to take twice as much as originally expected make a mid scale product that offer 3750 prims with a script/avatar limitation. Pack two per cpu and price it accordingly.
The introduction of a truly low use product, now, would take care of all those who currently use their regions as originally intended. It would at least give them a choice to downgrade and not feel like they are being robbed or forced out.
During this change process offer a 45 day grace period on the fees for combinations of four openspaces to one full sim and on openspace moves as long as they are being moved to connect another region.
Like I said, I am sure all these issues have already been mentioned by others and they are worth kicking around the lab. Bottom line, in my opinion, a well informed community is a more understanding community.
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Last but not least I would just like to thank you all once again for the service that you have provided me. We have an over all great community here Jack we have the potential to make it even better in these unsettling RL Economic times.