Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

well i did some math in an ealier post

/356/24/291220/42.html#post2210334

i came up with just profit from buying the servers as around
2,575,000 with an aditional income of 1,125,000 per month from open sims alone.
The price increase comes to a cool 750,000 a month

so if everyone upgrades to homesteds they will be making 1,875,000 per month from 235 servers over 1 years time thats 22,500,000 a year from ONLY openspace sims.

It actually wouldn't matter if their costs were minimal if they wanted to change prices in line with inflation etc. That's what they are entitled to do. Whether this is good commercial sense is a moot point.

Many would say that they have applied reasonable limits by saying only 750 prims and making them landscape only. I actually agree that if that HAD been the deal from day one, or if they had not implied living on OS or renting them out was ok, and had not RAISED THE PRIM LIMIT to 3750 ...

I think this is actually some nifty marketing, unfortunately a lot of their user base are simply too savvy to be lulled into a "thank you LL!" mindset. However - give it six months - time will tell if this is a long term thing or not. In that six months I confidently predict that I will not be back here paying my way. I'll be keeping my money for transcontinental flights, thanks

LOL haven't you read the previous posts? How can what LL is proposing be better when all the plans are a step backwards? A 3000 prim cut for genuine OS users and the price remains the same, the current OS becomes a homestead for $125 a month with restrictions. Please remember LL does not tend to listen to its customers as many have shown over the years, they hear us but they do not listen.

Fatter coffers mean fatter paychecks for the investors not better performance and more services. You will soon come to realize that us customers are LL's cash cow to be milked at will but now the cows kicking back lol

Which is why people should vote with their feet ...

Dear Jack Linden

I have noticed your latest information concerning 'Homestead' pricing and 'New' Open Space ' sims and feel I have to point out a discrepancy , which I would be grateful if you could clarify please.

Existing Open Spaces with 3750 prims will now be called 'Homesteads' and the tier will be increased to $125 in July 2009.

No change there , other than a name !!!

Non profits 'We will offer an educational discount to qualified educators on the new Homestead product. The discount amount will be the same as Private Regions, roughly 30%.'

Actually this is contradictory an inaccurate !

Np's receive a discount of 50% on private regions , including Open Spaces, so is the discount 'the same as private regions' or 30% ?

Non Profit are currently charged US$10.00 per 1000 prims on Open Space sims.

Your new proposals for 'Homestead' sims would mean Non Profits paying US$87.50 (with your 30% discount) , which equates to US$23.33 per 1000 prims an increase of some 133% in tier payments. To say this is prohibitive is an understatement !!!

Regular sim owners are to receive an increase of some 67% in tiers on 'Homestead' sims (formally Open Space) .

Why is the tier increase for Non Profits 'double' that for regular sim owners ??

To remain at the current level of tiers for both Non profits and regular owners, ,LL should be providing additional prims to a level of 8750 per 'Homestead' sim.


It appears that your comments are confusing regarding Np's disounts . In addition, may I ask why you are just renaming 'Open Spaces' as 'Homesteads' and keeping the prim limits the same ? If you are increasing prices, you should be offering an improved product .....'Homesteads' with increased prim allowances.

It therefore appears, that 'Open Space' sims have been so successful, that LL have decided to take advantage of the success by substantially increasing the cost with little added value .

Please can you reconsider your price point by increasing the prim limits for 'Homestead' sims and can you also please clarify the discounts for Np's Also, why are Non Profits required to pay 6 months tier in advance ??

At this level of pricing and lack of prim increase, I suspect the omly option will be to join another Platform.

The join dates in this thread tell their own story ... looking at Prophet's comment above.

Nice calculation, but where are the costs for the datacenters (Frisco and Dallas) and the complete VPN?

To own a blade rack isn't that expensive, but you have to pay the datacenter where you put it in. The whole GRID has also permanent traffic, even if no one is on a SIM. Don't forget employees, the office costs also money, electricity, phone, internet connection from the office etc. Shall i go ahead? If you do the math, then count all positions and not the basics only.

Not at all. This is my second time in SL, I've left in 2006 Second Life after two years due some important RL issues.

Maybe not all, but a relative old resident telling LL he'll pack up.... yes that does mean something

Regardless, LL continually grabs it's customers by the ankles, holds them upside down and shakes them to see how much more money will jingle out of their pockets. They have repeatedly financially devastated and harmed large groups of their own customers with their mis-handled management of Second Life, it's commerce structure, and so on.

I think the best thing for you is to spend a few years here though. You really can't appreciate it until you've had your back broken a few times.

ok, so its around 8 am in LA, still no alarm clock ringing?
katt had probably too muhch pop(p) corn as some said she lives in CET and sitll not alive to post
M
M
M
emmmmm
me eats RL breakfast/lunch/dinner/whatever time zone meal
91% out

They defined "light use" in entirely subjective and contradictory terms:
- "not for building" what does building mean? rezzing? then no forest. Maybe they don't want you using one as a builder's workshop? why?
- "living in" does this mean you cannot set your home point there? hang out there? rez a 10 prim cabin?
- "renting as homes" what does letting other people set their home point to your OS sim have to do with performance?
- "boating" is non-trivial av traffic, significant impact in physics simulation, and can be moderately heavily scripted - how is a boat lighter use than a house?
- "use for events" define events: can you play tag in an OS sim? have a boat race through one? chat with friends?
- "scenic" anything will require many more than 750 prim in 65k m^2 - My OS Sim has something like 1500 prim in plants, rocks, and waves and *still* looks sparse.
- Then they said they want to hear complaints if you do not follow the guidelines.
I'm willing to believe that the intended use policy has some grounding in reality, but the descriptions give little context, particularly when they are changing the deal so dramatically. The bottom line is that there is a disconnect between the words they are using, the performance model that has been fuzzily described, and the pricing of the services that they are offering.

It looks to me like the new price/capability will not be attractive to anyone, leaving only homesteads as viable options, yet they have still not guaranteed performance, only price and still reduced capacity.

Dont get me wrong - it was a serious oversight to not have enforced strict 1/4 capacity in the first place (i.e. default avlimit of 10 with max of 25, limit physical object count). If the price increase or capability decrease were within reasonable expectations then this would not be much of an issue. But LL hasn't backed their change with enough information to determine if (a) the changes are equitable and (b) the changes will actually solve the problems.

Totally agreed there and we are

Originally Posted by Lostmedia Ares
I call for a move that Mark Kingdon be removed form any position he holds at Linden Lab's by share holders , If not , Resign his post for neglect of duty to his customer base .




I'd also vote for that, for what it's worth

You got my vote..

I've wrote in a former post, that this isn't my first experience with LL and Second Life. My first time were from march 2004 till dec. 2006 and i have had personal reasons why i've left SL in 2006.

You can't compare LL/SL with a webhosting service, because SL need alot more maintanence, security support and bandwith like a website. All compares i've read shows me, that no one understands how difficult it is to run a grid in this dimensions and how cost intensive it is. All other grids will and must raise the prices IF they grow as big as SL.

On the other hand, Jack wrote that they are working on a LLnet to reduce the traffic costs and increase the stability of the Grid. Maybe thats also way to reduce fees and tier in the future. SL and the business behind is much more complex as many assume, the OS desaster is a small part only in the whole picture, but for all OS owner the most important point yet.

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=5650

read this but just scroll all the way to the big table summarizing everything.

what you dont see there is that before this policy change, openspaces used to be allowed over 3000 prims. also please note, the script limits are still TBD = to be determined

they cannot simply just cut a regular sim in 4 or eighths it seems to me they are trying to give you less than that and charging you more. (1/4 sim should be $68.74 a month tier if full sim teir is divided by 4) M said he didnt want a complicated price structure, but he definitely made one.

you see they have basically raised the price of the original openspace and are calling it homestead and lowered the prim limit of the original openspace which you cannot have unless you write to concierge to convert.

if concerge wait times for openspace are anything like buying new islands, expect to wait at least two weeks to hear news on your own opensim.

IF LL was a public company, which it is NOT, it´s share price would have plumeted into the toilet LONG before now. The myriad of mistakes made in the last 18 months are crowned by this latest jewel.

Can't see why anyone would want OS, 750 prims as stated provides very little in terms of scenery, or even trees. Big flat open bit of lumpy land, or sea, that has not visual beauty, whats the point? how can you build parkland? parks have trees, and structures... why spend $75 per month to have a big flat bit of land hardly anyone will ever see? (10 avs at a time?)

I would have thought it would be a proper SL experience if its attractively terraformed, and populated with attractive terraces, or garden walls, or even derelict life, like something once existed there, but left centuries before.. something to make people gasp.. but 750 prims... I've built single structures that use that, and would look nice in a 2048 plot... but lost in an Openspace....

This is absolutely pointless, you know. And counterproductive.

QFT!

Er.. Shareholders?

/me does a moose impression at you

I can see why people want a sim like that, although there won't be many. Although they didn't pay off and are partially for sale and partially already removed, Club Jenna Islands was a good example of how they can be used. 4 full sims, connected by 4 OS ones.
On their own they will be useless, which is the point of them, they can be used between sims, even to reduce lag generated by child agents in a neighbouring sim.
And for the 750 prim limit, I have created items that would fill that too, that just means an OS shouldn't have such a structure. i have also designed an OS sim and 750 would have been tight, but sufficiant. No you can't use 20 prim trees, but there are 1 prim trees around aswell, both made by Lindens and residents. Just see it as a challenge to build low prim, trust me it is very possible.

Oh thank you.thank you,thank you,i have been going on and on about that,and i'm glad to see more are suggesting it.
We all bought/rent our OS cos they are affordable.At the $75 rate and the estate owners profit mark up it is doable.
With the increase to $125,i can do that to,BUT once the estate owners profit is piled on top,as well as exchange rates,well That $125 becomes a lot more
What i would like to see is LL selling homesteads to non estate owners so we can pay LL t only the increased tier rate and no more