Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

Hi M and Jack,

thanks this reads like a great steap ahead from the original announcement. The diversity of products offered seems to be just what is needed.

There's one glitch though: You still intend to bring the monthly price for Homesteads up to US$125 in July 2009. I think the discussion so far has shown that this is too much. At the initial US$95, I think you have found a very acceptable price point that accurately reflects the usage value of the product you are going to offer (keeping in mind that there apparently will be some restrictions in place that didn't exist up till now).

So my take on this is: Keep the price at US$95, and you have a happy customer in me.

Also, consider making Homesteads available as a standalone product (i. e. without the requirement to own a full sim first).

Because the Lindens didn't know what they were doing at any point in the process. They still don't know what CPU and script limits they need to put down, so they have now announced the price of the 2 new products without specifying exactly what they're offering. Would you buy a box with a "maybe" description of the contents?

One more comment: If you can't purchase a new OS sim, with the new prim and avatars limits, unless you own a full sim, there are still two business model that should be allowed for someone to pay the sim owner for the use of that OS sim.

Terraforming test site:

As a sim designer, I could seriously see being able to own, directly or indirectly, a true OpenSpaces sim, with severe prim and access limits, which I could use to design whole-sim terraforming projects, and for creating and refining .raw files. Ideally, the terraformer would need to be the actual owner, so they can upload and download .raw files. It doesn't need any prims to speak of, though having a few might be nice if you're making sculpty parts to match terrain features. It doesn't need even close to 10 people in the sim. The only scripts would likely be those that run my avatar, and maybe a scripted building tool like a land flattening bulldozer.

Private builder's workshop:

Having a place to build a small structure, or to build and test scripted objects, without fear of some copycat ripping off your design before you even market it, would be of great value to many content creators. Being able to rent an OS sim as a place in which to create products, with no other avatars allowed in the sim except maybe a testing alt, would be of great value. Even with a 750 prim limit, few vehicles, HUD's, avatar prim parts, or other products would come close to even the limits of an OS sim.

Please consider allowing whole-sim rental, or better yet, direct purchase, of a new OpenSpaces sim, provided that it isn't used as a "residence".

lol

750 prims "or less" for $75, that`s over 1000 prims less then the original product
price hike to force every one to a "homestead" even if we have less lag then LL`s private grid

if it wasn`t so sad, i`d be laughing, my money is going to a beta grid where atleast i have some fun for ALOT less

Where does it say that?

Most of these changes were put forward by many folks, which is why we probably got them, rather than other suggested changes.

Um, vehicles have a 31 prim limit.

What are they offering you people. They already told you the majority of you are over using them. Correct or not. They mollify the yells, and then start charging you $125 a month to use the same land and prims. They cut the amount of scripts you can run to nil, and smile and pretend everything is nice.

Those that want to use openspace as originally meant are now forced to do so with only 750 prim and pay $75 for that privilege.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

Pay more, get less.

What this means is no value added. 95% of you will change to the new rate anyway, might have 3750 prim, but will be limited how many can visit you, and how many scripts you can run.

/me nods

Homestead regions are for quiet residential or light commercial use. They are not intended for events, malls, or other high-impact uses. When new changes go into place, they will support 3750 prims and 20 avatars, and will likely also have script limits.

Yet under the spreadsheet, where it says yes or no to classifieds and events, it says YES under Homesteads... so which is it?

Please clarify ASAP as this is my final decision breaker.

Thanks much for getting communication out and trying to reach a middle ground, although i think its still tweaked your way a little. LOL

What if we cant afford to purchase 3 more sims to make a 4 OSS conversion? Nor can I afford to pay 295 a month extra.

I want a credit for the one OSS I have

Wow good compromise....
Not..

Sad day for second life, sad day indeed. The call of the allmighty $ and greed was too great.

I'm not impressed by this.

I think LL has crafted a plan to come back and make themselves look like the good guys.

Water/forest only sims are not worth $75 a month of anybodys money....totally over priced !

'Homesteads', OK we nearly all want some kind of sim we can live on and $95 a month with some limitations/restrictions seems a bearable price to have to swallow.

July 2009, the homestead is going to cost $125 a month and will have limitations/restrictions on it as well, so basically LL proposal is back to where we it started.

Do you want a sim that costs $125 a month? you'll be paying alot more for alot less.
Personally I think $125 is better spend eleswhere and goes along way to buying actual things in RL.

LL is screwing you and you're falling for it because it's marginally better than the first announcement they made about raising tiers on OS.

What about those of us where the only choice that will work--and that we can afford--is to convert our openspaces back to full sims? It would be very considerate if Linden Labs would waive the $100 conversion fee for a limited time, given the circumstances that have brought about this change in policy.

The fact remains that you encouraged the purchase of openspaces by dropping their price, increasing the prim limits, and not enforcing the "abuse policy" for openspaces unitil you had sold thousands of them. If you had a problem with the way openspaces were being used, you should have contacted estate owners early on and let them know rather than allowing them to purchase even more and then only a few months later announce, "Now we are going to charge you more."

There is a lot you could do to generate some good will in this situation, and waiving the conversion fee for a limited time would be much appreciated.

There may also be a time limit on use. Actually, residents are not necessarily persent at the site of their "residence" most of the time, anyway.

Another reason to allow very-low-level full sim rental on Openspaces.

What middle ground? They are still $125/month and now you have extra technical restrictions on top of it. They made the deal worse, not better.

People aren't reading that part, I've been through this with others, people simply don't seem to want to accept that they are also in that bracket. The vast majority of openspaces will still get the 67% price hike.

Damn right it is.

Ok, got it.

Now can a Linden please look at my ticket that I put in a few days ago and tend to my request? What I am asking to be done in my submitted ticket still stands for my sims. None of this news is beneficial to me since I've already made up my mind and don't intend to change it, but I sincerely hope that it is beneficial to others.


Thanks

They did, read the Knowledgebase article.

I agree with this post , Being able to buy a Homestead direct ( cut out the middle man ) from LL would solve a lot of problems , Prim limits is allways a sore subject ...you can never have enough prims...But if LL was to offer a limited avatar 3000+ prims homestead bought direct from LL ... they would sell like hotcakes at $95 a month .

This is tantamount to a confession that Linden Lab sells product that is not intended to be used to it's full capacity- gee we didn't think you would actually use it- that can be said for each and every simulator sold by the lab- god help you if you actually use it anywhere near it's stated capacity. If the true specs were in the description of sale this place would be an empty shell.

Instead of rolling back costs we get smarmy patronizing platitudes-
Keep feeding the competition--

Thanks for the Blog post, I think this a very fair way of handling the issue.

Officially calling them Openspace or Homestead makes it easy to tell at a glance what you are supposed to use them for & people that want parks & oceans can still have them cheaply & those that want private places for their houses and shops now can officially use them for such.

From the view of an Estate owner renting out Private sims, this works very well & allows us to clearly tell potential customers what they are getting and what they can use it for.

The cap on AVs is truly appreciated as we won't need to worry about reminding residents that they can't start a club on their homestead sim.

Hard coded Script time limits will be very good as well, as when we get calls about a sim lagging we usually go there and find someone has some object with a script running 16ms time on it & that is lagging out everyone, we get rid of that, take the sim back to 5 or 6ms script time and all is good again

I am very happy with LL's response to customer concerns and think it will let us move forward helping the SL economy grow.

so let me get this right you are about to charge NEARLY half the price of a full region for a sim with a quater of the prims?

LL have managed to create this fantastic product and then claim its not viable to use this, probably because they never thought of reselling them to everyone themselfs heh?
you have now added a 3rd options that is the original package so what has actually changed here? oh wait let me see NOTHING except limitations that you will be employing.
this is great news for all those that do use their openspace for what you claim as intended which is probably the minority but alas you are still stitching up the rest of the people regardless.
Just because you are the largest and maybe the first does not mean you can happily stitch up your residents in this way, and the day that another grid or another product starts taking all your current subscribers will this be the day that you realise that Second Life is way overpriced and clearly not doing enough?

All i can say is HURRY UP and make the server code open source so that people can start plugging in their own servers to the grid and run them at a fraction of the cost that LL is charging.
I will be ditching all my land and my premium accounts because i would rather save money than waste it with you.

Seriously if you was to offer a sim with half the prims of a full sim and maybe slightly more than half the price instead of this Homstead crap that would be a much better option than this crap seriously $125 for a quartler of a full sim is a tad overkill.

750 prims for 75 US$?
what a deal. this is about 10 well desigend animals, 5 big trees, 10 rocks, 2 benches - one east, one west - to look at that desert during sunrise and sunset and a tent and a bycicle. a well designed boat (wooden, not a yacht) will not fit there. ok, so it's spacy but bit deserted. consequently, it will not attract an average of 10 avatars, hahahahaha, waste land. so this is very attractive for some monks may be.
my world, my imagination, my vision, soon not my money anymore. poor OS owners, I did not realize until today that I living on non LL land can be so much better: 937 prims, 1680/week, 4096m2, very quiet because 9/16 parcels are up for sale and no one buys. no ban lines, perfect views

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417

From the new Knowledge Base article (the asterisks are mine):

What is the policy around migrating from Openspaces to a Full Region?

You may convert your Openspaces to a full Region. Four Openspaces equate to one Region, and *** we are not charging a conversion fee***, at least until the pricing change comes into effect in January 09. If you own less than four Openspaces, you can make up the difference at a cost of USD$250 per Openspace.

For example: If you own 2 Openspaces, you can covert to a full Region at the cost of the two Openspaces + USD$500. The current monthly fee for a Full Region will then apply.
What if I own 7 Openspaces, can I trade up to 2 regions with my 7 Openspaces + $250?

Yes, you may.