Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

They are, even by their own terminology, not raising the price on openspaces. They are offering a new, more expensive product with features I am not interested it (homesteads suitable for rental business), while at the same time brutally crippling what I originally signed up to.
And yes, an "investment in my mind" is exactly what bait and switch is about; creating an emotional *or* financial investment in something, only to pull it away and sell a more expensive product, relying on that investment to make the target accept the new product.

Bleh.. that place is a major lag-fest for me. The giant megaprim island backdrops are pretty, but they are disorienting, because you think you can go flying off in some direction, only to hit the sim border (or fall down into the ill-shaped sculpty megaprim bounding boxes and get stuck).

It's a neat idea, but SL doesn't implement well enough for it to work without significant issues.

It's just not going to work for me. I need a quiet place, secluded, to relax and play. I've moved up over time in sizes, and finally went to an OSS. Now the price increase (and it's still the 66% increase eventually) is going to put it out of my reach.

So there's the bottom line for me - back to being a lotus eater.

Now, here's my concerns that are not addressed.

1. You *can* put four OSS back together to create one regular sim. Fine and dandy. You will now have 1/4 of the space, but at least you've preserved something. If you were renting out the OSS space (to people who were not really taxing the servers), are they willing to take less land and move with you?

2. Everyone who has an OSS has sunk costs. The costs to buy the OSS was $295 just *this* year. Suddenly the costs to keep the OSS is going out of their reach, but that $295 for the promised limits is just gone. Poof.

3. OK, yes, there were some people who put too much on an OSS. What percentage was that? What did they actually do? I really doubt most of the private residental folk who just wanted space and nothing around really overdid what was on the OSS. (I didn't even use 1/2 of my prims, usually no one on sim, max of four ever, almost no scripts -- that just can't be overloading anything.)

4. I am not the only one who noted that you waved a OSS sim at really small levels, the current OSS at your originally proposed levels, and then talked about stability on the grid as if this should make the OSS prices all OK now. Sorry, that's just hand waving and smoke and mirrors.

5. Big thing in SL is the ability for people to transform themselves and their environment to something new going forward. Also there is this thought that if you are creative enough you can even run a business in SL. Here's the real kicker - you really can't run a business in SL when you don't have a stable financial environment. With the OSS issue we've seen that "land barons" are walking away from sunk costs. Which means some residents are losing their homes. Which means that some residents may go to other grids/systems other than SL. What of all the money sunk into shopping/creativity other than land? It will either be transferred (if an owner can do so) or will be walked away from also. There is a trickle down (negatively) effect on major financial changes when land is impacted. You can look at the current US economy which had the land bust a year or so ago, and is now seeing many other things go bust.

6. Best idea I heard was a $50USD product with enough prims to build a house, a little landscaping, and to be private. I wouldn't care if you sold it direct to me or to a "land baron" (euphemism for entrepeneur or business person) and I rented from them. Not going to happen I guess.

7. Define how you know someone is renting? Just curious.

OK, enough with the bullet points. I could hope that LL would revisit their decision again, but I could hope to win a lottery too. I'm just getting out my thoughts and deciding what to do from there. I'm so far looking at four other virtual worlds. I may stay in SL as a lotus eater, or I may move to another world. I can't really say. I know my economic impact has dramatically lessened and I'm sure others will start to pull back also. Why buy when you have no place to put it?

Most sincerely

Or I am just not seeing the conspiracy.

Sorry, my math is bad...glad I admitted that....since we both know quarter sim is not 5,000prims and that should have been what I wrote. Fractions anyone? what would that be anyway? Doesn't matter....I simply will not pay 67% more for less then what I am receiving now without some other compensation to make up for what I am losing. Pretty simply in my mind.

And thank you so much Agent Stonecutter for catching that for me. What ever would we do without you?

i loged in on this viewer 20min ago and already found many ppl who is exploring this world and bring their business here. The thing is... Secondlife is what we (the user) made and still make everyday. My friend came here at same time as me and she did already 3 skins XD.

Its a lil bitt diferent but... for what i see its not so different. Sooner or later this is going to be the new place to be, at least i think. Im speaking with ppl here already they arent giving up right now of their business on sl but they are moving slowly them to here, and i think im going to do the same.

Bye Jack the reaper

Sorry, but you don't have to show a conspiracy. You have the facts of the situation and it doesn't matter if they did it by accident or not. They baited people in with double prims and half cost, and are now offering them even less prims, or a higher price. Either way, they accepted the setup fees and changed the service.

This wasn't a standard increase in the price of a service, like, for inflation, or the cost of network cable. This was a 60%+ increase in price, and for some a great deal more than that. Now it has become a redefinition of the serice and 750 prims and god knows whatelse.

Blind yourself to it if you want.

Observations on the latest plan for Open Space Sims.

First I wish to commend Linden Lab for creating something that is a useable plan.
To those who keep demanding an apology how about one from many of you’re
Very inflammatory reply’s used in the previous forum topic, grow up or go to the teen
Grid as this is an adult game.

Now for the structure of the new system, I do find several faults in it.

First an OSS is stacked 16 per server and normal Islands 4 per server.
Using a formula of allowing 40 avatars per server on full Sims there limit should be
10 per OSS. 40 x 4 =160 avatars on the server for normal Sims and 10 x 16 for 160 on the OSS.
This is a balanced load. I also have no idea why the upper limit on full Sims is 100, have you ever
Visited one of those places that have the huge traffic numbers, they do not function and are lag pits.
No one has the need for 100 simultaneous avatars on an island unless it is a special need case, meeting etc. I will not even visit any Sim that has traffic over 15,000 as it is obvious what it is used for.

As far as the multiple use OSS put all the heavy users on the same set of servers and the light use on theirs then the heavy use people can fight among themselves for a share of the memory.

If you do not use the Conover’s gadgets perf meter get one, yes this is a shameless plug, and then you can observe conditions on any Sim you visit.

As far as the original void space Sims working I hate to disagree with this they were a joke. They ran fine When vacant but when more than 2 avatars were on them they fell apart normally impacted by heavy script wearing avatars plus just the time required in sim time other to track them.

Using the Conover’s a new raw Sim will run a time of 5000 to 6000 for a class 5 server. A well built OSS would run at 2000 to 3500 with low frame times. Most OSS I have visited run from 16 to 1000. The 16 reading coming from one of the OSS’s being heavily over used, a club or a large mall. Actually the reading of 1000 is not bad as you can function. The bulk of the OSS that I observed ran between 200 and 400 quite pathetic to be honest.

Any Sim full or OS, if you want it to function well, should not exceed 75% of the available prims. Yes you have 3750 or 15,000 but when you max them out you have no overhead left, just common sense.

The widely used comment that the knowledge base did not clearly spell out the use of open space makes anyone who uses it look the idiot. It was clear what the purpose of these Sims and how they were meant to be used. And the comment if you didn’t want us to use the prims why did you give them to us well this can be better stated as you gave them I am going to use them with no thought of the consequences. Plus, I am going to build a big club from them and have a ton of campers to boost my traffic. They used the word abuse and I re iterate here that’s nothing but inconsiderate abuse of your fellow players.

Now the situation of prims and cost. You can rent or buy 16,384 meters of full island space for the same Price you will pay for an OSS homestead or heavy’s that works out to 3744 prims for use on something that was designed for heavy use without impacting the system. From what I have seen most have no need for the 65k Meters anyway and you would have to have a rather large club to fill 16kM.

I would also suggest that the prim level of the for the lightest use OSS be raised to 950 as this is close to one quarter of the “heavy use OSS” this would also allow some latitude in building and design.

For the lightest use OSS a frame time of less than 2 should be acceptable. For the Homestead OSS a frame time of 5ms or less and the heavy’s a frame time of 12ms or less.

Even the mainland is very acceptable as long as you stay alert to the crap people drop. This week the lab Has responded quite quickly to 3 different clean up tickets and restored the mainland site back to a class 5 server. I was impressed with the timely response. So all of you who say they do not respond learn to use the system as it was designed and perhaps you will have more enlightened view of them

I imported a bunch of my skins in there too some of my clothing too.

Got it in one Paddy. LL you are jacking up the price 66% AND reducing their service to us.

It is completely unacceptable. LL please go back to your drawing board, because you have failed miserably again.

Have we not suffered enough of your antics in 2008??

Jack and M, Why not just put an end to all this and say it how it really is. We have read the 700+ post but honestly just dont care!! This is what it is and you dont have to like it or live with it, either way we just dont care!! Take the change and keep sending your money or go away already, it is what it is... LUMP IT!!!!

SAD SAD DAY!!

Did we get a reply to our buy back question yet?

I did set much hope at Jacks anouncement to work on an solution. But only thing I can see it´s going to get more worse. You did nothing better. From my point of view I fear we will have to give up sooner or later our 9 sims ( 1 full 8 openspace). So I can say congratulations Jack, you do improve the performance at SL, only fault is you do it by chasing away your coustomers.

Still this answer is not good enough. I will be buying no land and setting up no business in SL, I wil not even consider renting now

You assume this wasn't LL's game plan all along - put out a hike of 66% they knew would cause outrage, then come along with a "reasonable" compromise that still effectively left people with "less" than they'd originally been offered, and with NO clear indication of whether the solution would (or how it would, given things are still "TBA" resolve the "technical" issues...



There is more than enough evidence out there, and posted here that LL's charges are WAY above the industry average for hosted services, etc.



Again, LL have been inconsistent in their claims re OpenSpace. Initially, performance degradation was an issue, then it wasn't; usage became the issue in terms of build use. Then the two were linked.,.. then unlinked....



Much of the "R&D" LL has to do is he use of existing technology. http-in doesn't have to be developed per se - it is there; some work needs to be done to enable it on the platform, but this is hardly massively expensive. Similarly, converting texture loading from Udp to http is not rocket science - and as others have pointed out, this would do MORE to stablise grid-wide performance than the current OpenSpace sim "exercise". LL themselves frequently themselves point to the complexity of their environment as a reason for NOT investing in large-scale development (see "Asset Cluster" and "Asset Database"0...so again, your argument is flawed.



Transparency of this need -vis performance and load numbers would go a long way to validating this argument. As it is, we have only LL's say-so and a refusal to back statements with statistics.



The fact remains that LL level OS usage deliberately vague and did little or nothing to dissuade people from "inappropriate" use (i.e. building their home)..indeed, elements such as increasing prim counts could be said to be a tacit acknowledgement that such use was perfectly acceptable.


Actually, this remains to be seen....



The "problems" didn't suddenly appear overnight; by Jack Linden's own admission, they developed over months - yet not once did LL engage with their customers (or even alert us) to the potential for "difficulties" ahead. Rather they allowed the situation to grow and then acted precipitously.

Had they engaged with users, explained the genuine problems, then as other have said, residents themselves would likely have taken steps to help correct matters. Again, if script loadings were an issue, for example, many of us would, if notified, taken steps to address matters - we're not entirely stupid...

As it is, even with this "compromise" LL has failed to address the fundamental issue many of us have with them: that they do not view as as customers or regard our input as genuinely worthwhile. Mark Kingdon himself recently stated as much recently with the words: "Premium subscriptions are immaterial in our overall business." during an interview with Hamle Au. Read into that what you will....



May I remind you of that when "unforeseen" issues with full island sims hit your pocket?

We had 6 parcels in a class 5 region. Our land baron forced us to move to an open sim as the other renters in the region decided to sell badically all at the same time.

We gave up the 6 parcels as down payment for the open sim. It was a bad deal, but again we were not given any other option. Now we have built new structures in the open sim that were not intended to be moved. Our open sim sees 2 avatars and has 1600 prims on it. The current rental of $28K Linden is all I am willing to pay for this game.

Honestly, I am pretty bored with second life. If the Lindens demand more money for two avatars to have residences in SL then they must not have opened a newspaper in the last 12 months. Most people on earth are cutting back on luxury spending. This change is a great way to ensure that most open sims are vacated.

I will be going to a single parcel in January. Linden Labs will lose $21K a month from my pocket due to this unfair change to the product they deployed. Once my treasured structures are gone I cannot promise that my boredom with SL will not increase.

Honestly, SL is a waste of time and increasing the cost when the world is headed for global recession is an astoundingly strange decision. As I was forced to move into an open sim I am deeply resentful of the claim that I am missusing it. I think two avatars and 1600 prims is more than fair for the more than $110 per month it costs.

As the Lindens disagree and are treating me as some sort of crook I feel deeply insulted by this change and wish to state clearly that I will not pay another dime to be in world and once the structures we spent countless hours bulding are lost . . . it might be the last straw for Second Life being part of my real life.

I strongly recommend that the Lindens reconsider this ill timed and rather punitive change. I am strongly considering going back to cable TV.

blame your landlord not lindens.

I wonder if LL has anticipated the effect this announcement will have on full sim purchases? I delayed buying a full sim due to the economic climate. And thank goodness. Shocked that prices can be whacked up by so much so easily, I now wonder when full sim pricing will increase and by how much... it looked pretty expensive to begin with. How many others have delayed buying full sims to watch where this is heading?

I was going to upgrade from renting an open space sim to owning a full sim this month, exploring the use of SL for RL business purposes. But it now looks like too risky an investment. Instead, I will probably keep the open sim until January and then downsize to a small parcel on a full sim, just to keep a presence in SL for fun. I can't afford to deal with suppliers who raise prices by 67%*. Only governments can get away with pulling that sort of stunt, and they usually know better**

**given inflation is still under 5% or there abouts in Europe and the US.
***excluding countries with crazy inflation

OpenLife sims have 45k prims... And LL is having troubles with 3750prims?
With all we pay to them they can fix that?

What a joke!

Jack

You offered Openspaces some months ago. Now you're announcing that using them the way you encouraged is abuse. To further that argument you've offered changing explanations and changing definitions. You've now offered a change to the product name and you're waiting for the trumpets and the cheering.

You cannot possibly imagine that anyone is now going to have any confidence in vague fluff about 'edge cases'.

Writing definitions is not all that difficult. Write a definition of reasonable use and honour it.

Aura,

My land lord could not have anticipated this decision made by Linden Labs.

Everyone loses on January 1. The land lord and Linden Labs. I will not pay another dime and here again I am resentful for being accused of abusing the grid or open space sim.

It does not matter who you blame. This is a price increase in the face of falling demand. I am confident Linden Labs will lose revenue as the price increases go into effect.

I cannot be the only avatar in world that is not willing to move again/will just give up on what has been a collosal waste of time and money.

I do appreciate the 2 month warning. I suppose that is the one thing about this that is not as unfair as it could possibly be.

Thanks!

...and... i am done talking about it.

I will reiterate what I said before. For a while I have been a defender of "virtual" property, land, etc. People in RL would tell me "You're such a sucker, buying stuff that doesn't exist". I had faith that LL would look at the one, hinge element of their business that was necessary, faith in the actuality of the items and services in question, and hold it sacrosanct.

Well, I was wrong. I can no longer in good conscience defend "virtual" land, goods, and services. I thought that in terms of business, there was nothing as important as confidence in the reality of the service. The Land must be Land, or all is lost.

Well, I cannot look at this land and see land anymore. This last week butchered that. Now I see a perpetually shifting image that is the placeholder for a LL asset. Next week, when they decide they need more cash, it might be something entirely different.

As I said before, I am not leaving SL, but I will never again invest in land, nor will I buy Lindens. I will rent from other people willing to risk it when i need to, but I won't be "buying" LL's bridges.

Jack:

quote: Originally Posted by Jack Linden
@Prize and others: We expect to have details of the limitations for scripts before January and will make those public as soon as we can. We're going to be collecting detailed script and memory data for LSL and Mono ahead of that decision so that we fully understand where those limits should be.

We won't be suddenly enforcing scripting limits with no warning, we will give residents plenty of time to adjust their script usage to the right levels, and we'll provide tools to help measure so that there is no confusion.

As for a definition of 'rental' as it relates to the Openspace product, I expect in the large majority of cases it will be very clear whether a region is being used for scenery, for just water and forest, as opposed to it being used to live on. Where there are edge cases, we will need to look more closely.

Many will need this information by the beginning of December in order to make their decisions. Two weeks will not be enough time, please remember that December is a very busy holiday month. I would strongly suggest this information be released end of november or Dec. 1st the very latest so people who chose to remain or still need to make a decision can do so.

NM whats the point?

the Lindens place more importance on the boats and the access needed for them... and just thinking about it, I have maybe seen one boat since my time on SL ... why is boating so important .. do lots of people use boats ?