Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

Actually, don't forget that since you can no longer rent out open simulators, anyone who owns one will need to own a full prim island too. (They've defined it that way too - if you don't own a full prim island, or at least 32768sqm of mainland, you _can't_ "contact concierge".)

HERE HERE
not to mention the fact that if we allow them to get away with this and their "we did not expect you to use it to its fullest" crap how long will they actually place that on full regions?
wait your using the full 15,000 prims of your full region we did not expect you to do so, we are now increasing your tier by a further $100/month.
Oh so many companys with games do this stuff time and time again.
Look at EA they see how much they could make with the Sims franchise and now that model has been adopted for Spore.
Luckily LL have not worked out that breaking it up into expansion packs and selling it that way would make them stacks more money than they already do heh

what happens when a company get to big for its boots? case in hand the people revolt.
I give you this LL you have made people look at other Grids which is your downfall, as those get more popular you will get less popular.
they may not have asset servers yet but they will eventually.

what stumps me in all this is the way they set the whole land pricing structure up, its done for simplicity there i give them it is simple but its also a lot of money its only set up for those who can afford it and that is it, i am sure that if there was a better structure they would have more people renting land from them (sorry land folk you are a pawn in LL's game).
I have always believed that from day one of me joining that land was way overpriced tier wise that was 3 years ago and back then the tier on a full region has gone from $195 to $295 a bit of a hike there on its own and now you want to take an openspace from $75 to $125.
Does LL only work in 50s and 100s? LOL

You people realize that you are quoting what LL is saying Openspaces are used for NOW, right? After the change... not what they were saying when they were actually halving the price, doubling the prims, and accepting millions in setup fees...

As far as I can see from the knowledgebase article there are no real changes and Linden are doing as they originally said. The NEW openspace that remains is a vastly reduced one that does NOT represent 4 islands on 1 sever. What they are giving us is 20% of the resource they originally sold us for an openspace and yet expect us to still pay 100% of the price. Or in other words, openspaces just effectively got 500% more expensive for what you get.

If openspaces truly ARE a 4 to 1 ratio then they should be capped at 25% of the resource available to a full sim. We have been told they are low usage and we understand what lot usage means, we are told that they run 4 to a server and cost 1/4 of the price so we have a reasonable expectation that they will have 20-25% of that available on a full sim. We have NEVER been told otherwise.

$75 for a sim with 750 prims is frankly rediculous and STILL has the problem that those of us that are using the sims in a very lot impact manner (fully consistant with them being 4 to a server) are being punished for Linden's lack of understanding of their markets and lack of clarity for what an Openspace is.

This is a measure designed to look appeasing when really you have done what you intended anyway. You know FULL WELL that the vast majority of openspaces operating in a manner that doesn't impact other sims on the same server DO NOT fit your new definition of an openspace. Therefore you get your stealth price rise as you are forcing the vast majority of us onto a new profuct, one that none of us agreed to contractually. The terms and conditions we agreed to were for an Openspace, not a Homestead. That's like saying "sorry your pickup truck you bought is not suitable therefore we have upgraded you to a ferrari without consulting you and you owe us the price difference".

I entered into an agreement with Linden Labs, I paid $250 and an ongoing cost of $75 a month for a sim with 3750 prims. I understood that there was a 4:1 ratio of sims to server and have set up the sims to suit using the available prims I paid for. Had I been told that would later be changed to 750 prims I would NOT have agreed to it. You can quote your carefully worded terms and conditions all you like, no terms and conditions can override a consumers rights which are based in Law.

Call it whatever you will, from january you will no longer offer the product we signed up for, the product that remains is NOT an openspace, it is just called that to appease us.
You seem to have plenty of options for upgrading and getting more money out of us, but where is our option to get recompense for Linden Labs breaking their agreement with us? The Openspace we all signed up will no longer exist from january, the product we bought is being withdrawn by Linden Labs and another similarly named and massively inferior product is being put in place but it's not one I or anyone else that signed up for when purchasing an openspace. The new openspace is far to disparate from the product we were sold.

soooo just because me and my wife run a wedding sim do 2 weddings a month were gonna get charged an xtra 40 bucks a month wow what a rip hell we only charged 1000 to 2500 L for the use of the sim for a wedding just because its time we dont get to use it that doesnt justify a 40 a month tier raise,time to head over to openlife peace out all....

PS how greedy can ya get...? we'll soon find out


oh and btw didnt LL grandfather thier sims when they changed prices so why are os sims gettin screwed because we arent spending 300 a month for a sim ...your telling me 4 os sims on a server are using more resources than a LL sim with 15,000 prims available cough`s bullshit lets squeeze more money from the poor to pay for the rich hmmm sounds like someones been sittin in congress for to long

as peter griffin would say" And folks thats what grinds my gears" LOL

Argent Stonecutter: I have been trying to be polite about it, but I have to point out that you have been suggesting that they cut into openspaces for a while. You suggested very restrictive avatar caps on openspaces months ago, didn't you?

Now you, personally, can look at this in two ways. You can think to yourself happily that they finally saw reason in what you were suggesting, or that they ignored you long enough to make a ton of money in setup fees and screw a lot of people. Basically funding themselves with your annoyance and lag, and other people's financial losses, for months when YOU were making them well aware of what needed to be done.

You could feel all vindicated now, but in reality your efforts just prove that they've known all along the situation and happily took people's money anyway.

Yes, i thought i remembered it:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2627

So as far back as July people were telling them they needed to revise their service, but they kept right on selling it regardless.

Has anyone actually read this,


How are Homestead Regions and Openspaces different?
Openspaces are intended for very low-impact use only. They share 4 CPUs per server, and support a limited number of objects. When the new changes go into place, they will support 750 prims and only 10 avatars, and will likely place limits on scripts running in the Region, as well as being unable to use event postings and classifieds.

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.


They share 4 CPUs per server?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You mean each open sim gets its own CPU? why is that unbelievable

if that where true each full Island would have its own server complete with a set of 4 quad core CPU's, hard drives and memory etc etc etc... and everything in second life would run like a dream

You realize that changing your mind when faced with new information is a sign of normal, healthy, and sane reasoning and not "lying", right?

Before: "hey, cool, we can run OpenSpaces with 1/4 prims instead of 1/8th prims, and nothing breaks".

After: "oh, excrement, it broke. We better stop doing that"

New York threatened to sue all the cable companies over their super secret usage limits, saying you cannot have an unpublished limit on service. LL has these secret terms, as well as bait and switch tactics to squeeze more money out of people who don't wish to lose their nonrefundable setup charges.

http://www.naag.org/attorneys_general.php

And before anyone says anything, Bragg vs. Linden Labs said that the TOS was a contract of adhesion and thus non enforceable. So no, the TOS does not trump commercial business laws just because they say it does.

Oh Noes! Someone at Linden Labs made a typo!

Here is what I don't understand. An openspace sim before the new price hike is basically the same price as 1/4 of a mainland sim, $75.00 USD per month. On mainland you have limited terraforming, no estate controls, no privacy, and limited space.

Why the hell should you expect to pay the same when you get added value with the openspace? You get the terraforming, the estate controls, the privacy, a whole sim worth of space.

Sorry if your landlord is marking up the price but openspaces DO have added value over mainland and SHOULD cost more.

Of course the alternative for them could have been to lower mainland tier to bring the value aspect of the openspaces into line.

Linden Labs has changed the limits, they haven't left them unpublished. They have said they will change the limits again in the near future, and publish the limits when they change them. Where are the "unpublished limits"?

I'd like that! And I want a pony, too.

You know selling someone something then changing your mind and giving them something else isn't sane reasoning, right? it's more like fraud.

My attorney has already contacted the AG of NY. I suggest ALL SL NYers that are angered by this decision also contact Mr. Cuomo. He has already gone after Facebook, cable companies and Time Warner newsgroup listings. The more the merrier.

Sure you can. If you don't sign a term contract, and you're on month to month, you can change the contract on no more than a billing period's notice. They're giving you two billing periods, and they're now staging the change over 6 months beyond that two month notice.
I'm not telling you it's "acceptable", I'm telling you "it's not lying".

Je suis sur sl depuis septembre 2007, ou j’ai pris beaucoup de plaisir.

On ma arnaquer d’ou j’ai perdu la sim 15000 Prims que je loué et même avec les preuves linden na riens fait pour me faire justice .

Je ne suis pas riche et je ne peux pas m’acheter ma sim et l’affaire des openspace vas me ruiner
En effet j’essayer de remonter mes finances avec une openspace, que je vais devoir quitter et tous recommencer encore une fois .
Je ces que linden se moque de ma situation mes je tenez a dire mon avis vue tous l’argent que jais mis dans se jeux
Salutation a tous

Paulie and Amilie.

May I suggest looking at Openlife Grid (www.openlifegrid.com) While it is not as advanced as Second Life it, it is much cheaper to own land there. There is a growing and caring community who are taking it on themselves to help everyone feel welcome. Sakai is going through inhuman feats to make sure people are experiencing the best service he can provide.

You will find that there isn't as much social events at this point. The stability is improving every day. Some wonderful things are happening. When I first joined I was thrilled to see that I could make prims up to 100m. To show you how receptive they are to ideas, I asked if the new version of the viewer could do small prims. I read a comment this morning that the developer tested and verified that prims as small as .0001 worked!

Today this won't be for everyone. But if you like the feeling of community. Like helping others, and receiving help. Don't mind being a noob again for the most part.. (Duck walk and all!) then please check us out. It's been a complete joy to be part of this. I can't wait to see what the future holds!

In reading through 85 pages of posts this morning one thought became apparent to me. What do any of these posts matter? Linden Labs is no longer in touch with it's user base and really (unless they cause bad press) do they care what we think?

We began with a world that allowed many cultures to meet and grow and it was a damn good concept. But, then somewhere along the lines you lost your way. Selective enforcement of some rules, 3rd party release of privacy data, VAT, Gambling bans, each step of the way the rules became more and more selective until it wasn't about our world any more. It was about your bottom line.

Freeform is a wonderful concept except you forced changes on us that we didn't want and didn't need. You lied time after time and your business practices are no longer cute and inept, they are predatory. Your reputation is now flawed and unless one is trying to curry favor (which does seem to work here), I can't understand your supporters.

One of the posts said it best. This is a rental company. We rented server space from you and are subject to any and all whims you make. What they forgot was that you have taken the content of those servers and marketed it - - often without permission through the flimsy sheet of your TOS.

You counted on us just dropping money here forever and now the money well is going dry. No one wants to invest here anymore because quite frankly you pricing doesn't make sense any more. I've spent almost two years waiting and paying for an unstable product and now that it is "stable" the price is getting jacked up, because anyone who thinks the full sims won't see a price hike is kidding themselves.

Over the last few days since your announcement I've tried 3 different products similar to yours. No surprise they are not quite as good. But they are not half bad. So for not half bad, and 1/4 the cost how long do you think you will survive once we find a way to migrate?

CompuServe was great in its day. So was AOL. Not surprisingly they have been replaced by others. Congratulations you have just become the Beta to the rest of the nets VHS. Your better, but rapidly becoming not worth it. I watched a new product gain thousands of your users in just the last few days. Now it just remains for this carcass to be plucked apart by scavengers.

Someone in a post here mentioned Mitch Kapor. It's funny I remember Mitch when he complained that people had started to copy Lotus 1-2-3. Instead of improving the product they started blaming others and launching "look and feel" lawsuits. They won almost all of the lawsuits and alienated their customers in the process.

The result...they lost the company and product..........guess some people still ignore history

You are talking to those that have not the ability to listen nor to understand.

You and I and many many more realize that they have changed the information, and will no doubt do so again as they squirm and worm around trying to come up with their next big announcement - where they will again look forward to hearing from us and then do something as totally BS as they have over the past couple of weeks.

Peope are making statements that have little if any basis in fact at the time that many of us purchased the OS - they don't know the facts - they are not landowners - they are at best just consumers - which is a contribution to SL - of sorts - but until they have the headaches and heartaches of being a "landlord" their opinions are to me - pissing in the wind.

So, what you are saying, let me get this perfectly clear...

...is that NOTHING THAT LL SELLS CAN BE TRUSTED MORE THAN ONE MONTH PAST THE SALE.

If that is what you are saying, I would totally agree with it. The difference is you won't recognize that there are laws against this practice. You, like many, think that you could put anything in the terms and protect yoruself from the law.

We've seen that isn't true with gambling, and with banks, and the DMCA, and now i think we'll see that you most certainly can't market 3750 prims at $75 in October, and having taken a non-refundable setup fee force a totally different service on the buyer a short time later.

They originally offered 1825, then increased it to 3750 when they didn't notice any load from 1875. Then they realized that they were getting massive load, and looked at what people were using it for, and decided to get all anal-retentive about the letter of the original announcement to justify increasing the price to cover the increased costs.

I think that was a big mistake, because there's too many examples of things they've published in the interim that led people to believe they weren't going to do that. People who are more familiar with Linden Labs stayed clear of the whole OpenSpace thing, because they know LL has a habit of getting excited about cool shiny stuff and then only later realizing it's got a cost.

"Now you know the rest of the story."

It was obviously not a mistake in terms of earnings, because they sold a lot of service that they will neer deliver. Kudos. It's rare to have a business where you can advertise a service, take people's money, and then jsut decide you don't want to give them what they paid for,