Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

Hi Phil Trouble is for many that faith has been totally lost in LL now and that is why people are doing it. We dumped our OS ocean and are rethinking our presence in SL now and i think that echoes a lot of peoples thoughts at this time.

Even if they came back now and said OS as we used them for will be 50 USD a month and 3750 prims, i wouldn't even take them up on the offer. They have proved at least to me to be untrustworthy now and no amount of LL spin or back pedaling will change that for me anyway now.

Sorry not good enough. You have to do way way better. in case you haven't noticed people are dropping openspace sims like hotcakes. Come January I'll do the same. No one is going to pay that much for a bunch of pixels. And no one believes LL didn't see this coming. If the aim was to make money it's having the opposite effect. So i suggest LL has a rethink. People are losing thier businesses. I came to SL to have fun, relax and enjoy myself. it's becoming a headache and I don't need more hassles - there's enough of that in rl. Most people feel the same. They are becoming bitter and disillusioned. And no one believes that LL really thought no one would use the Open Space sims as they please - why the increase in prims!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please u r not dealing with fools!

I can understand and appreciate that. I can also see some gnashing of teeth by many people if dumping now turns out to have been too soon. E.g. if they change again and come up with a realistically priced Home sim, which I think is what most people want.

Including the fact that they have no way of validating identities on 3rd party forums. If I say I am Robin Linden on a 3rd party forum is that post suddenly taken as being from her by LL?

People have already started bumping sims.

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TRUST is an extreemly valuable commodity.. once its lost its almost impossable to get back.

Yes I agree with you there also you are dead right.

I think people have to weigh everything up and then make a choice thats right for them and not just go with the crowd, thats not a smart move. I would never advocate giving something up unless its right for that individual and only that person can make that choice. We were lucky as its business expense for here as we write our costs off for SL in the advertising budget and don't pay VAT as we are a RL business but for some they have a big investment with their OS and should consider carefully their next moves

Exactly and i think if people started using places like facebook to voice their displeasure then LL will have to revisit it if the attention becomes great. here in the forums they control everything. I do not tho advocate that people write Bulls**t just keep it to the facts

This is exactly why I use them as a good example of bad customer service. I actually feel for the support staff having said that but perhaps this is just me assuming that they do care and can't really say any more.

I can't comment whether it was justified to close the window without knowing what was said, customers have a tendancy to be ruder than they think (no offence to poster above). However I remember saying about missing things, having been told to submit a ticket for each time I lost stuff that "Spamming will only cause you account problems" and just ... urgh ... some of the responses.

My absolute favourite was asking to have my inventory restarted and being told "we don't do that sort of thing" and having to tell them to read up their own policies and that Sejong had had to do it the day before ...

It's the little things that make you stop being supportive - an aspect or two in isolation, well that's one of those things. Total messes, bad support, decreasing value, lack of care if people are ripped off ...

I agree completely. This OS debacle doesn't directly affect me in the slightest - I am wholly mainland - but it does show me things about LL, and I won't forgot them. In that sense, this debacle will affect my dealings with SL in the future.

I kind of look at it this way. There is a poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller which fits here.

First they came for the Private island owners (Lowered Prices and ruined a market) and I didn't speak up.

Then they came for the Openspace Sim owners (Raised tier by 67%) and I didn't speak up.

And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up. (What is the next hammer to fall, that affects YOU and ME)

I don't personally own an openspace sim. I have rented one, because the sim owner who I rented a few small parcels on couldn't afford a full sim anymore and changed them to open sims to save his investments. I didn't use it for much. I lived on it, and let 2 others live there. I'm sure sometimes script usage was high, but prims never exceeded 2000, because I held 1500 prims for myself, and didn't use it for anything but building.

Who loses here? The Sim owner, my two friends who lived on the open sim within the boundaries of what was provided.

I speak now for everyone in Second Life who loves their time spent here, because I will NOT be the silent majority who this doesn't affect today. I know at some point it will affect me more directly. I can pick up and move. Initial plan was to own a sim in January. I can't justify this because while I can afford $295 a month tier, I can't afford that to jump 67% Don't let any of this fool you. They may not have plans today to raise any more costs to you, but tomorrow?

I urge anyone reading to reply to this and let them know that you have read what they say. You may not be affected by it directly today, but I can only think you will soon.

If enough drop Openspace and full sims, they are going to need to make up revenue somehow.

Please, those that want to argue remember that. Support of each other is important. It's not you and me against them. It's us against them.

Thank you for reading.

I remember the recession of 1980 - 1982. It was bad.
I remember the recession of 1990 - 1991. It was bad.
I remember the recession of 2001 - 2003. It was bad. But I somehow managed to keep a job so I was far better off than most.

This recession will be worse than the last 3. There really is no amount of price raising that will rescue a company. All retailers are showing a total devastation in sales except walmart. Doesn't take a rocket scientist or economist to figure that out.

I would love to hear more from Linden Lab.
Like the 5 year plan they have to have somewhere.

Leaving the customer base in a state of uncertainty is a poor idea.
On the other hand if I were them I would not be wasting time trying to placate vicious rabid people in a blood drunk rage. People need to calm down and engage in useful constructive dialog. If that is not acceptable then they need to cancel their sl accounts and leave so the rest of us can get on with recovery and figure out how to weather the next 3 years of potential 10% unemployment in the USA. It isn't going to be pretty and expensive hobbies will be set aside. If LL is having issues then they need to cut out the expensive salaries and get lean and mean and stay that way.

One thing they could do is cease with this thing about having offices in expensive cost of living areas. Move and consolidate to Florida or somewhere cheap. Plenty of eager intelligent staff resources and incentives from politicians await. Anyone unwilling to move to keep a job is probably a primadonna anyway.

Have they got round to contacting all the OS owners individually yet?

What kind of company annouces/implements such changes with nothing more than a blog entry..... There are still thousands of ppl out there unaware the blog exists never mind check it.

Hmm...Jack, as far as I'm concerned i am living in a City in Germany. I surely don`t live
on a Sim, neither Full Sim nor OS.

Please determine what is "live" in your sight!

1)How long may stand, walk, sit an Avatar on OS? (per day...month?) is 8 Hrs per day living?

2)What textures may i use for Prims? Do i have to use almost transparent textures with pictures of vegetables on it? No brick or concrete textures?

3)How do i have to arrange the Pims? They should look like a boat...not like a house?

4)Whats happen, if i like to stay for weeks at my OS just in a cardbox? Is this a Home?
(oh sorry yes, unfortunately its a Home for many people)

5)In this issue, what is than a Sculpty?

6)Do i have to place a Flag to show "its my home"?

7)Do i really need water on the upcomming OS?

Is crowding allowed? Mummery?

9)About rezzing a Sexbed.....allowed? or not?

10) Are there early warnings about controls, so that we can hide our dishes and toothbrush?


..........

On the positive side, LL has at least realised that there are different classes of users for OpenSpaces, and if the price increase had happened across the board it would have killed off the use of openspaces for filler scenary sims.

However, it does appear that the choice is to stay on the same product but at the increased price or stay on the same price but receive an inferior product.

Worse, when you look closer neither product actually corresponds to the one originally purchased. What people bought with OpenSpaces was a sim which supported 3750 prims but was restricted to 1/4 of the resources of a full sim.

The new 750 prim OpenSpace may only use 1/4 of the resources of a full sim but is a significant reduction in the number of prims (and as people have indicated no of prims alone does not have a major impact on sim performance although may impact viewer performance).

The new homesteads, presumedly given their price, are expected to use 1/2 resource of a full sim. So there is still no option to get what people originally purchased - i.e. a 3750 prim sim which is limited to 1/4 resources of a full sim.

If LL did proper resource control (CPU, Memory, network etc.), then they could continue to offer a 3750 openspace limited/throttled to 1/4 of the resources presumedly at the currently price point.

Some would find that the throttling would mean that the sim no longer performed adequately which may upset them, but they couldn't legitimately complain since it was always advertised that an openspace would only have the performance ability of 1/4 of a full sim. Those whose sims weren't performing well enough could have the choice of scaling down their use, or upgrading to a mid-way product such as an OpenSpace limited to 1/2 of the resources of a full sim.

Matthew

Just making sure: do you get "first month free" on the new full sim? (I suppose not, in which case this is clearly wrong; if so, would there still be a problem? Although, it's all very confusing, with this "average tier date" thing, which I completely don't understand and may or may not even be relevant here.)

There will be something else later on. There's always something and always handled in the same brusque, inept and alienating manner. Having said that, writing off the money should be avoided if possible, why REWARD Linden Lab for this stultifyingly bad practice?

Matthew you are talking sense, that's no use!

If some found that this didn't meet their requirements then they are misusing the sim in the first place, I'd say. Personally 1/8th of the sim resources would have sufficed me for what I did there (mainly standing about talking, just like everywhere else I stand around talking for free).

Yes, well, but in this case, attempts to speak up for the oppressed with anything but incomprehensibly hysterical outrage result in vicious attacks--by the oppressed.

One develops some sympathy for the oppressors.

QFT. I'm not affected in any major way, but that is precisely why I am so appalled on others' behalves.

Just to bump the quoted thread from earlier which I just viewed:

/130/cb/107206/2.html#post1042460/130/cb/107206/2.html#post1042460

Don't blame Jack - he's doing his job.

Same here. I merely add to the frustration that the possibility of owning a 'low prim sim' was only just out of reach, but now it's a long way out of reach.

Thats called the Stockholm syndrome Qie and i see it fast spreading in the forums something LL will have banked on im sure

I don't think that's QUITE the definition of Stockholm Syndrome. They didn't kidnap us, tie us up and gag us. I might not be cross about it if they had.

Loyalty to an abuser in a nutshell and thats what is happening here as LL are abusing us customers imo and i won't comment on the tied and gagged bit, bad girl lol

But not exactly. The Stockholm Syndrome is an effect triggered by the oppressor on the oppressed. What I'm talking about is the problem, raised at various points in this thread, of in-fighting among the oppressed.

The thing is, if there's any hope of salvaging any better situation, residents need to explore together a (more or less) acceptable negotiating position for change. But any suggestion other than the "give us what we paid for" mantra is considered treason. Such slogans are fine for rallying the troops. But at the negotiating table, one may as well just whistle the Internationale.

it seems to me the definition of "live" is quite easy. if you are replicating a rl in sl, you would have a house and furniture, some pose balls various landscaping, maybe rez your car or airship now and then, it all boils down to all those prims and scripts, and maybe the little parties you have at your house. same for building, rezzing, sandbox actions, thats considered living as far as im concerned. it is basically existing in the space and actively using it, active scripts and rezzing. i was never confused about their intentions of "not recommended for living or renting out homes" but it seems to me that over time, as people have been testing the waters and abilities of their openspace, the typical use has evolved from the quite boring idea of open water and trees to forest cabins and more. the definition of openspace has in fact gotten so distorted, i even saw some people in this forum defining these as "light commercial" lol. unfortunately LL didnt try to stop this ages ago, and their actions right now are just motivations to take advantage of the situation to make money, just like there are people taking advantage of a cheap open space to make a little money or cover part of their tier.

what lindens describe in KB and various blogs is that openspace (ive posted the links elsewhere) is openwater for boating, sky for flying, low script stuff, landscaping, general scenery, to travel through, maybe sit and absorb but not create some kind of settlement to "live". the requirement that only sim owners could buy openspace also supports this definition. who would want to buy an open space without an island if all they could do is landscape it. they should live on their island and boat through their openspace.

LL should have put prim and script limits on the openspace to prevent this performance issue they describe and then let people do whatever they want within those limits. but they didnt, what lindens did is so deceptively say "not recommended" rather than saying not allowed because as M says in his last blog or blog before, SL has always been an open creative place etc etc.. yes, we are creatively pushing the limits of the limits and creatively finding a way to fill up a cheap sim and try to use our enterprise skills with our money lindens to find a way to break even or make a few lindens to buy toys. what did LL expect? if they are clueless about that, then i really dont know what those LL employees are doing who are supposed to be in world studying the grid, probably chatting with their friends all day is what.

there is no difference between 3000 1 prim trees and a 3000 prim house (excluding scripts). the big difference though is that philip and M still think people are using linden trees and grass, wheras SL modern trees likely have poses, are sculpted and mega and flexy and high textures. grey areas, no clear limits, no clear rules, and so people pushed the limits and ignored "not recommended" and replaced it with "not illegal" and interpreted "light use" to read "light commercial"

this PR nightmare, technical mess, mismanagement and unethcial business practices and citizens ultimately pay the price, and LL finds a new product to sell. i just dont know how this mess is going to get cleaned up, this is going to divide the society and we will have a bad taste in our mouth for years to come. had i ever considered eating the cost to buy a new sim for my enjoyment, im certainly deterred from it now.