Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

What is the price difference in purchasing homesteads & Open Space, is this still going up?

I am frankly wondering if it is even legal, ToS irrespective. But their legal department has likely been working overtime on this.

I don't think LL has the resources to support this idea. That is why they are passed to estate owners as They(i could say WE but...) provide the support.

Stay with 95 $ - no further increase come July!

I believe I can forward the 95$ increase as a corresponding tier raise to the 4 residents on each of my 2 open-spaces; but a tier raise corresponding to 125 $ - sorry no.
I shall still have to abandon my open-spaces come July.
As a Danish citizen I have to pay extra 25% VAT, that is respectively 118.75 $ and 156.25 $ so there is no way I can compete, even though my quality is higher than most, and that will break my back.

Legal departments aren't infallable... Scientology is famed for its litigacious nature, and even that has lost several high profile cases lately - and they probably have a lot more available to them than LL has.

Hey there Mark, Katt and Jack,
First of all thinks for reconsidering your first blog. Here are my thoughts on this as a successful RL business owner. SL can only grow if the economy makes sense, that is, if the merchants and land owners can either cover over-head or make a profit each month. The Open-space as you propose is a no-go financially. There is no way for us to cover the monthly tier on these spaces as proposed. It's a dead-end and a monthly financial loss. The Homesteads could work but not with so few prims and/or the tier at $125.00 month. It would have to be more prims or maybe a $100.00 per month tier. I have no problem with script limits on these regions.
Overall, what we need is a way to start that is not so overhead heavy. I would propose full regions with 7500 prims at $200.00 per month tier so people could start businesses at an intermediate rate that is affordable and has potential for profit. The way it is now, especially in this economy, there is no margin for profit and the financial risk is very high for us. Even though this is a virtual world it is after all, real money. SkyeRyder Varriale

Would love to listen in as Jack explains to the board how he managed to ruin there bussines and take the product from the no1 leader to a loss,

But maybe a blessing in disguise, When all the greedy corporate money men realise we are not the mugs they thought and leave then it may go back to been run by enthusiasts again,

to all you fools who think this is a good thing and have changed your mind from the last post ARE YOU ALL STUPID or what seriously the only difference is they have worded this better than the last time but they are actually stitching you up more.
you are still going to pay $125/month so what you now have a few month leverage than before WOW.
there is NO prim increase they may run it 3 per CPU wow thats a big difference NOT
oh and they have now limited you to only 20 people on the sim and WILL be implimenting a script limit so er yeah seriously how do you fegure this is better even the more basic package is worse than the previous one HEH

LL really do need to come up with much better package options than this, of course all you fanboys can continue to vote with the Lab and the rest of us will probably go join other virtual worlds that are up and comming and in 2 years when LL fail and fall to their feet especially going down this path where will you all go.

Jack and M who is the puppet and who is the puppeteer seriously who is pulling whos strings or are you the same person?

come on you can do so much better than this.
i have seen cheaper dedicated servers at a 3rd of what you are charging and its yours not shared with others bla bla bla bla

why not just offer a half the prims package and a quater prims package like your full servers? obviously limit script use and you can then double up on how a regular full sim works on each or is that just logical?
or of course you can just carry on this way loose lord knows how many of your customers up the price of somthing else loose yet more customers and generally screw over your customer base every time and close the company down in 2 years time.
because that is all i am giving you at this rate.

I completely understand this point and the complaints. They've changed this product a few times.

However, I'm not a lawyer so I can't comment on whether this is bait and switch or not.

Firelight

Lemme see...
more options, better.
longer lead time on the big price increase, better.
actually saying what some of the new limitations were going to be, better.

Oh wait, the price is *still* going up when all server prices were outrageously high to begin with, and *still* geared toward supporting predatory landlords rather than regular residents.

Nevermind, still a big fail. *goes back to sleep*

Thank you.[/QUOTEIts fair to say prices have to go up and i understand your problems but why the H--L did you not work out these proposals first in stead of letting us all have heart attacks ..[/QUOTE]


Simple! Because they wanted US to write their business proposal. LOL!

No but i can bet Linden Lags think we are.

FWIW I'm pretty unhappy with this result even though I have no investment in OS sims. It still feels like LL is stiffing a bunch of it's customers and I wonder what's coming next that will affect me.

I'm not sure what the problem is between LL and its customers, but over the years I've been in SL that relationship certainly has gone downhill. Maybe our expectations are too high, but from outside LL the impression is one of a company that's largely contemptuous of its customers.

Every few months it seems something like this comes up and LL generally behaves as if it couldn't care less if the customers stay or go. Again, from the outside it seems like a pretty hostile corporate culture and certainly isn't conducive to putting a lot of effort and investment into SL.

The issue with that is that they still have the same amount of hardware and the same number of sims but they're getting a third less tier/month on those regions

Not that I'd object to it - I just don't see them doing it.

...the same folks who didn't read the original descriptions of how OS regions were intended to be used are still a bit challenged when it comes to reading the new KB FAQ article describing the terms and limits.

Considering some of the raw utter flameage flung around by the residents, I don't think an apology from Linden Research is really in order. Because to be fair, if LL should apologize, some of the trolls should have their mouths washed out with prussic acid.

So be grateful.

But the way I see it: the resource issues get addressed, the educational and sailing folks don't get screwed, the exploiters get curbed (and if you don't know who you are, you should), and everybody gets a chance to adjust to the new pricing, which is more than you'd get in RL,

What's not to like?

Bravo M.

Bravo Lindens.

This latest policy regarding OS is LL's attempt at giving the market a chance to absorb the price changes. It also gives them time to get some of that surplus of land that they have been holding onto, back into the market. This is their attempt at achieving some sort of balance between mainland and OS sims.

What "can" happen during this six month transition period:

Some estate will proceed with closing their OS sim (now homestead) part of their business. This will allow LL to introduce some of that abandoned land back into the market, thereby providing some balance to their bottom line.

Current OS sim owners or renters have time to see if they can absorb the new rising cost of OS sims. During that time period, some OS sim owners and renters of let's say, rp sims and parks and other "creative" endeavors will attempt to get people to "ante up" a bit with donations, tier paying co-ops etc. Personally, I have no problem with this. There are far too many people that come to SL to play on RP sims and go to clubs, etc and pay nothing. Fun has a cost. The OS sim owner or renter is already paying the bulk of the money. You can shell out a bit for your fun. Hell, back in the day, even Pac Man cost 25 cents per game.

As far as the decrease in prims of the newly proposed openspace sims to 750 prims. Ahhh...I think that is a bit unfair, but I must admit, if you are using these sims as they are supposedly intented to be used, 750 prims is more than ample for scenery. Sorry, but it is. You wanna use it for more, pay what I'm gonna have to pay.

I think this is about as good as it's gonna get folks. You can cry and bit*ch if ya want for the next 3000 plus post or so, but you are wasting your time. This is it. Take it or leave it.

Tony Upshaw
Upshaw Island Management

Thank you for this! Boy, Linden labs are good, aren't they? They listened to us all right, and they reconfigured the plan. They reconfigured it to get the same amount of money, later rather then sooner. In the mean time though, we will be getting much less for more. Less Avatars, scripting and prims. And paying a whopping load more for it. And we are congratulating them for compromise? You must be kidding? They still get their money and took all the suggested restrictions and added those as well. Wow! But we aren't angry anymore because it doesn't happen till July? They are banking on that. Lindens get more then they asked for and we get the shaft, and take it quietly because we have till July to adjust to it. Looking at this new plan, I preferred the old one, yes we were paying 65% more for nothing, but at least there were not restrictions. LOL, now you'll be paying 65% more for the joy of living with less avatars, scripts and prims. At least the last plan was only thinly coated greed. This one has a whole lot more horse manure covering it. The person who came up with this plan should run for office. He ia a born politician.
Oh, and those of you with those lovely open sims full of trees and water? Say goodbye to the birds, animals, waterfalls, sounds and movement. All the things they make it look so beautiful and real. You won't have the scripting for them. What's next? Sculptie trees? They drag down a sim too. Bye Bye trees!

In some countries you can call McDiddies and they will bring you a replacement bigmac set, an apology and coupons for a free cheezeburger..
you also get to keep the happy set..

only here you cannot haz cheezeburger.. you cannot pass begin nor can you collect your 250USD

forget the drivethru.. wheres the driveby...?

At first we were told:

(What kind of logic is that?)

Now we are told:



And that is an improvement, how?

If the problem is performance, then cap performance, but leave the damn pricing alone!

Yes Nodster - I think many of us realise that; but negotiatiation and compromise is still the way forward in the real and less than ideal world.

I just hate to turn in my one OSS to LL and them just turn around and sell it for 250 or the new price. They have said I cannot get a credit and if I sell it to someone else the 100 transfer still applies. So if I cant find someone to buy it ( make me an offer lol) I will give it to a non-profit organization if they will pay the 100 transfer fee.

Afterall I am not in LL to make a profit and if some non-profit can benefit from my loss it would make me feel a little better.

So contact me if you are a non-profit and interested.

But I must say again that LL has lost my trust and if they intend on raising full sims soon I will dump it too as well as my premium account.

I would have thought they would have at least offerred those of us with less than 4 sims a prorated credit.

Nothing new here, its only postponed 6 months. And on top of that we are limited to 20 peeps and scripts. Bye bye OS/Homestead.
Back to mainland...

And another question Nib...
and the money is for what?

hard... but maybe i can understand if they charge us more cause they are giving us more. But... i take things from you and i charge you more?

This is a really new way to make business...

....

I prefer to work in LL than where i work now... they get paid for (bad) name changing.

I'll leave it

My money is not going to the beta Grid .. thats for sure .. i think i fly around more in your World but dont have a need to buy things anymore .. and explore other worlds out there .. i mean there are some (even if they are buggy or whatever) worlds out there with 40.000 +prims for the cost of an 750 Prim empty Void .. i hope some Artists and Pionnering builders and content creators go there as well .. not only because i need a decent skin and a set of hair there ... but also because basic scripts as well as particles are possible..

Sorry M, Mission not accomplished and i personally think you LL did not really understood what the people wanted. 750 prims for 75 US$? come on .. that less than before and with restrictions and you can now not say which restrictions .. Restrictions on the number of Scripts ?? ... and in the end you get a TBD restricted sim for 125 $ ..

.. this is not going to work (for me) and i think a lot more OS Owners or renters .. Thats sounds like a No Solution .. .. i am really really really really disappointed ..


May i add this to my email signature ?


I am really really really disappointed .. like as you wrote it in the Blog Announcement......

Substantially. PERIOD !!!!