Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

M said in the blog today: "One thing I learned and others were reminded about in this process is that we have a very connected, passionate Resident base and we need to bring you into the dialog earlier, before putting forward these decisions. "

major DUH moment on your part M. Phillip, didnt you teach him anything? oh i forgot, Phillip you were the same way.

this just PROVES that LL has been acting this way all along, regarding Immersive workspaces business partnership. you make policies without talking to the community, but you put up a front of "we are improving our communications with the community" and shortly thereafter just abandon using the blog.

Jack did this too, made policies without talking to residents.

1) trying to encourage ARs against 64m2 plot owners. any unwanted prim or any sale of a 64m2 plot was considered harassment, a policy decided before talking to the community before fully understanding the impact on the casual user finding an opportunity to make a few lindens, or to put up a billboard because LL is trying to encourage business here. (rl has billboards too, but i dont see so many people complaining about them)

2) you ALMOST banned megaprims but i think you were looking more for technical advice on this, had it not been for the outcry in the blog comments, it probably would have happened and lol probably some of the major universities and corporations would have lost their builds, perhaps this is why you finally didnt do it.

3) bringing in a turnkey office/convention environment Immersive workspaces without talking to solution provider about the possible impact on their business

4) banning casinos shortly after offering cheaper grandfathered class4s for sale. people jump into paying a bill for an island and then a few months later, find their planned sorce of income is totally dead.

5) reducing the price of a new class5 sim without asking first...leaving all those real estate agents left with devalued inventory

in the meantime you let lots of press releases out about how ansche chung is a millionaire because she is a real estate agent, and how the linden is actually exchangeable for cash, this then encourages more real estatte agents to go into business more people quitting their day job, encourages banks and stock markets to develop, and then the rug is pulled from under.

we need more than 3 months notice!!!

you know i see a major pattern here. what is given can then be taken away. in every case of your policy changes, you do something and then try to undo it because of money. why not do it right in the first place?


lol your like a bull in a china shop!

From the Blog of Secondlife.com July 8th, 2008:
"Linden Lab is pleased to announce results for Second Life the second Quarter.
Land mass grew over 44%. The total number of regions owned by residents increased 44.2% over Q1 to just over 1.5 billion square meters. Our growth was due to the popularity of our newly launched “Openspace” land product along with a change in pricing to make the purchase of land more accessible to first time buyers......
...Because land represents nearly 8x more revenue to us than premium accounts, our focus has been on the launching of new land products rather than on enhancing the premium subscription."

Well.

It took almost 4 months before the same Linden Lab found out most of this landmass is being "abused".
But the "8x more revenue" was the main force steering Linden Lab to keep on selling open space sims untill last week... 8x more lag was not apparent between 31th of March, 2008 (when the open space sims got a doubling of prims from 1875 to 3750, and later during spring 2008 the initial price went down from $ 495 to $ 250) and now??????

I have been thinking long and hard if I should buy a few open space sims to make my little paradise a bit more fun. Finally I decided to buy 3, and got some friends who like my place a lot to support this by "renting" some of the space.

Then just a few weeks later: Linden Lab turned this kind of use into abuse... but is it because of technical problems? Or is it because the mainland and the new Nautilus region (wow even with lots of empty space I could barely fly over it because of the lag I experienced) are not what most Second Life residents want to pay for, and now the financial balance is turning against the hobby of some Linden Lab managers?

This is only info I can find in in the blog, up to August making me happy and finally making me decide to buy 3 open spaces. Now I feel stupid about it...

mead paravane says, and this is the first response to your blog in this forum, and very fitting too: "First and, by far, foremost, is why LL didn't do a "hey, people are abusing the openspace product. stop it or we'll have to crank up the prices" blog when you saw that it was becoming a problem? That could have avoided tons & tons of drama. LL lost many points with many residents over this. How could you guys NOT see this coming?"

DUH M

DUH!

get back up in that boardroom of yours and get yurself focused

RESIDENTS BUILT THIS PLACE and they WILL leave and build another if it gets any worse. they already are starting to.

for many of us, we work in rl and when we come home or have some free time we want to play on the computer and whats better than having a second life? if second life gets too much of a drag like first life, what is our motivation for keeping it in our budget as much as a car payment or house payment?

Nice... 45.000 prims with the same texture.

Now do the same with 45.000 prims and 45.000 different textures and at least 30.000 with 1024x1024 pixel and 2.5Mb - that the way how SL Residents uses textures, oversized, non optimized. And then add 20.000 (or more) bots to osgrid.

osgrid is not even more then alpha stage and not a equal alternate to Second Life. Compare things only they are equal. You can always find things who are better in other 3D environments, like real working mirrors in twinity or servercrossing without stuttering like entropia universe.

But what are you using at osgrid? The same server code like Second Life, without havok4, lsl, mono, currency exchange and many more things.

If you find osgrid is such a success, why you post here and complain? Simple leave Second Life and have a happy third live at osgrid.

You missed a bit Amelie. You missed how gambling in SL was ENCOURAGED DIRECTLY (I know a former Casino owner who was massively burned) which should not have been the case as the Linden Dollar is exchangeable for cash which makes it a cash currency. All the gambling was illegal and there was no way to avoid gambling being pulled.

Then of course there was no recompense to those people. Same as with the banks (mad as people were to use banks with something that can be bought, it made sense to an in-game currency = try playing Mob Wars on Facebook without banking your cash!).

Everything ... and I do mean everything - is done the same way. It's just getting more and more impossible to defend on any level in terms of how to present your business positively.

:: steps on soapbox :: but without a microphone, if it matters. Just some thoughts that may or may not have been posted here, but the quantity has prevented me from being able to verify before posting. I will try to keep my thoughts to one post so as to not inundate the thread with many smaller thoughts.


1. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.
Was there not anyone at all within the Linden Labs team who projected these results? I would be interested to see the "inside" and take a look at the business records and accounting. Assuming the audit team would have a ball with it, only because the way this situation has been handled on the exterior is only a reflection of how it's being handled on the inside as well, without professionalism, and without any direction, organization, or open minds.


Businesses cannot survive in this economy, RL or SL without listening to what your customers desire, and then doing everything in your power, and within your business plan (which I think you/LL may not have at all), to accommodate them. I encourage you to speak with any one of my more than 75 residents, and ask them, what do you think of your land owner and her business policies/practices. See it's when you are not fearful of their response, all the while earning income as the business plan you created before creating the business itself projected, that you have been successful.





While I can appreciate a positive outlook on most things, I wonder, why do you think your favorite places of all time for visiting and sailing will remain on the map? I think quite to the contrary, for our favorite places on the map to remain after this ridiculous excuse for business management and professionalism is executed, would be a very big surprise.

How unfortunate for so many whose RL financial situation may not be at it's greatest, but still have invested their time, their trust, and their hard earned dollars (myself included!) to this "company" that instead appears to be a handful of inexperienced people handling hundreds of thousands of dollars without any real direction, purpose or plan.

Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Was there not anyone at all within the Linden Labs team who projected these results? I would be interested to see the "inside" and take a look at the business records and accounting. Assuming the audit team would have a ball with it, only because the way this situation has been handled on the exterior is only a reflection of how it's being handled on the inside as well, without professionalism, and without any direction, organization, or open minds.

Businesses cannot survive in this economy, RL or SL without listening to what your customers desire, and then doing everything in your power, and within your business plan (which I think you may not have at all), to accommodate them. I encourage you to speak with any one of my more than 75 residents, and ask them, what do you think of your land owner and her business policies/practices. See it's when you are not fearful of their response, all the while earning income as the business plan you created before creating the business itself projected, that you have been successful.

i really dont care about all this mombo jombo... all i know is my Ls are not enough to suport land. but alot of products are. issue is geting them on land and getting them to stay (unlike rental shops where they can kick you at any given time when a bigger ofer arises and you lack the chance to fight back. wait isnt that what is happening right now? lawl nevermind..)

How could you not see this coming period. you give 3750 prim for light use trees and water well if someone loaded up 3750 trees wow that's an over load right? or if they had their residence running out and buying high prim boats so they could use the "water" space wow! more problems there. this was an excuse so that you could take the land owners out of the picture and make the money directly on both parts. there is no bloody way i would pay 125 to you and then the fee the land owner will charge me i am more then happy to give my 75$ per month to OpenLife and have my own sim with 45000 prim it gets a bit better every day and NO LAG! i hope every land owner you have dumps the open spaces just to protest the greed of this company.

My husband and i own an island and an OS sim, and we have kept our prim levels at 75% of what is allowed, We do not lag, and the sim is for very light use. Following the rule of 75% and no lag with the current suggested prim level of 750 which would, following the low lag rule, allow 560 prims on the sim. For the builds and activitys that happen on our island, this is just not realistic , even with the use of Rez boxes to pull the area out when it is to be used.

Being lumped into the same group as the rentals and the clubs is not realistic as the problem does not go away, it just cost more. A better solution would be to target those who have been abusing the system and moving them onto the same server and let them lag eachother.

I would also wish to point out the economic ripple that has begun to happen on SL due to the price increase.

the current RL economy is very bad. when the price of gas went up, it affected many industrys, travel, food prices, new car sales, home sales, stocks, the payroll of many establisments, and while the prime lending rate has dropped, the stock market has not rallyed to the point where it was before, and that may take years. people do not have the flexablity of an additonal 600 to toss your way just because some others are causing problems,. Thats paramount to beating a straight A student because there are jokers in the classroom who have failed.

with the proposed increase, (and while 66 percent may not seem like much to those who run this place, its a weeks grocery for some) People are not spending money in world. Others have given up their sims, and plans to drop more are in the works.
sadly, these are often the sims that have been following the guidelines of the OS sim, and not the laggers.

the lag will not go away under this current plan.

I would ask that ONLY IF you can fix the problem with the current suggested solution should you impliment it, and NOT at the cost of the sims who are not the problem

Kath McGill.

I try to simplify the blog posts to the but it's still unclear to me...

1) Linden Lab: The opensapce are laggy because people make a heavy usage of them. So we will increase the price. (I still don't understand how this will solve the performance issue)
2) Residents: We cannot affort the new price, it's really to expensive, don't blame resident that make a light usage. Please introduce limits instead.
3) Linden Lab: You're rigth we will introduce a new sim type and lots of limits and then... we will increase the price !

At the end:
+ the performance issue may be solved
= the resident making a (very) light use of openspace won't be change more but will have a drastic prims reduction
- majority of openspace will be converted as "homestead" and prices will raise aftor some month
- the new openspace product is totaly uncompetitive

My opinion on the M post:
The first post was a communication mistake and ruined trust in Linden Lab. This one is a little better on the form but still the same on real content.
Please Linden, finish the grid interoperability and let us be able to teleport from a grid to another. By this you will allow every grid operator to enter the land marker and we will see who has overpriced sims and who listen to the residents.

Get a grip!..we were using what we were given and nothing more!

They put up the prim allowance - made the price point attractive and we bit..did you really think that myself and others would put out over three thousand damned trees?? If you did then you have nothing between those ears anyway and this is a waste of time - my trying to explain anything more basic than walking and chewing gum to you.

Make money? Now thats funny and show your ignorance and lack of understanding about how many people here, who are renter, conduct business.

The open sims we have are "addons" to our full sim. Whats on them? two rental lots on each sim the rest?..wilderness, lake you know..the things that DO NOT make money but make one hell of a lot of people happy!!!..

Before you ever again look down your nose at myself or any other land owner that is simply using what they paid for look me up and maybe I'll draw you a picture - that you might just be able to understand - I'm not holding my breath!

LOL well yes I do love how I can buy things, they disappear from being rezzed, restarting the OS doesn't clear it and opening a support ticket usually gets a pat response of "how to clear your cache".

My point was that the competitors used to be able to see exactly how SL itself was developing (as well as griefers).

Me, I'm looking forward to just enjoying the people around me again

If they lower the SIMs to 3 on one core (and I'm sure they do it), it will also increase the performance. The higher prices shall cover the not used 4th SIM on a core - ok, with a profit from 50US$ / core.

Umm .... why would anyone know beyond the person renting to you, contact them. Most likely yes though if their costs are going up.

this main sim i work with is called aquaria. we are mermaids. so everything is underwater, we have about 400-500 prims open low lag and a few shops. we are wroeeid we are going to have to pay out the butt ebcause we have shops to help pay for the already over priced sim just ebcause we have a few shop and buildings.. never mind the rest of the sim is all underwater rocks and plants and fishies....

i think it's goign to be too easy for ls to stpam sims as homesteds

OHH you have mroe then 3 buildings!you are goign to need the new sim and pay us more money!

OHH you have a bueatiful lake and forest here.. BUT WAIT you have 5 marketstands ohhh sorry you'll have to move to a new sim and pay us more money!

What a nice moutain hill~ but look a temple filed with sl monks ohh my too much traffic... Pay us more money!

ohh look your having a fishing contest in this seemingly empty beach sim tahts too much tarrfic pay us more.. -cracks kucks-


you kinda get the picture.

Your really smart. You ever read the kb article about the usage of OS? LL wrote in 2007 that OS are for LIGHT USE only, and NOT for building, living in or business either. LL never changed this intention, and more prims don't mean you can now live in a OS. If you try to start a business on SIMs your never supposed to don't blame LL for that. Blame yourself.

I understand that many OS owners are angry about the upcoming changes and I agree that LL did some thing wrong; lack of communication with the residents, wrong timing and bad posts about the changes etc. But this won't change the misusage of OS from the residents.

SL isn't different from RL, because most ppl don't read contracts and descriptions and in the end they complain and moan and reflect the failures to others. Bad bad way...

YEs it s True you need to introduce a new product more lite than a full sim i think Zack84 has a good idea

Yeah but this one you are shuvving upon us without dialog.
So what does this sentence mean?
Are you saying, nexttime you will first dialog and then decide?
Sure, I believe you right away.

Mephistopheles McMinnar: That's not quite true. LL was well aware people were building on OSs before they lowered the prices originally. They even said that while it wasn't recommended to do much on them they didn't limit use. Someone posted the quote on the last thread:

"While they can and have been used in other ways, they are not recommended for any other purpose."

That means there were no rules or conditions set on use. Period. Punitive acts now are simply an excuse to switch the original deal that was baited in March, in my opinion.

LL lowered the price and doubled the prims on a service, then redefined it after they sold thousands of them, accepting non-refundable setup fees. They not only raised the price, but they changed the terms that dictate how they can be transferred, and the technical uses of the service.

This is not ethical or, in my opinion, legal bahavior. You simply cannot advertise a service, and then weeks after someone buys it tell them you are giving them something totally different. This must be addressed by LL or nothing they offer in the future can be trusted.

Living on one IS light usage. If I am standing about in IM and changing clothes, on my own, how is this abuse of what the place was intended for?

These statements are deliberately vague, when put in place in the T&Cs.

I found solution for this problem: "ONE SIM ONE PRIM" ...

Now honest .. I did check how much you have to pay for root server ... its around 50$ and you get own computer with harddrive + 2gb ram + traffic...

I will not count how much you get for openspace (as I know there 16! openspace on one computer...), sure its quad and more ram ... still if I check the prices .. its just a joke you dare to complain.

If you really lose money then there something badly wrong you simple burn money somewhere or there bad ppl that cant deal with the problems... for me it seems there managment and tech problems or someone is greedy...

The payments are a way to high for all kinds of sims... and for me nothing changed ... and its simple ... price up me out (with friends)...

that must be one heck of a sculpted mega prim...

This is really all still bull, and I'm surprised so many are happy with this decision.

What LL have done with this, is forced their initial 67% increase down our throats AS WELL AS O/S restrictions ... which many of us recommended as an alternative. So effectively this announcement has in fact made it worse.

1) 750 prims is pretty much nothing, and with all the other restrictions LL could cost at least host 8 of these regions on a server, so they should be priced a LOT less than $75 tier! I have 3 genuine ocean + land OS's at the moment (no houses etc) and they are around 720 prim and still incomplete! (still in build) and need more trees etc. I don't know that I want to cap them at 750 - that will just LOOK CRAP and defeat the point.

Fine to force it at that for a new low-OS for those who really want a VOID without forests, but not at $75! ... make it $40 max! I hope the 750 turns into 1850 as original, or at least 975 (half 1850).

Forests use prims LL ... WAKE UP - or introduce SPEEDTREE which you have had the license for for 4 years!

2) There is still a 67% tier increase for most OS users, so this has done nothing. The $95 is only a transition. Very few will be able to fall into the 750 prim (flatland) category. I don't see mention that the $95 tier will be grandfathered in, so its still going to kill 95% of OS users out there who can't reduce their 3750 prims to 750.

3) With all the restrictions, why stop rentals on low-O/S's ? Surely if the usage is so limited by prims etc theres can only be at most one renter on it (or 2 with no furniture) - which will still be good use of the region, so whats the problem? Its just another way of forcing 'Homesteads' at $125

4) WHY is this 67% tier increase not being absorbed by other sims? If you are restricting usage of O/S's then you've dealt with the misuse issue. You can't do BOTH! Raise all tiers 10% (mainland and full regions too), and O/S's by 20% if you must ... then you will be making the same additional profit and being more fair. It's not our fault you made OS's avail for current use, so sure adopt a strategy for dealing with that, but this is killing current users off.

This is even more disappointing and negative than the initial announcement, and shows that LL did NOT consider the customers voices once again.

I would say this pretty much kills SL for many existing users, and I myself need to rethink whether its worthwhile to continue to throw good money after bad.

Very disappointing.

the only people happy.. are the ones that either

a) does not effect one way or the other
b) mainland land land barrons that sell or rent
c) trolls that inject things to make people more angry.
d) LL's extortionests.

If its on Openspace land, then most likely yes. As there is a rental the owner will have to change to Homestead which is 67% more, so prob need to pass some of that onto his renters.