Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

In other words, they want to keep the $250 you paid them up-front for their product and make you pay the same monthly fee for 20% of the product you originally bought.

That... doesn't sound moral OR legal.

I maybe am missing something ... but Jack spoke about waiving the $100 conversion fee for those of us who have the OS in groups of 4 around our main sims if we want o go back to full sims ... what happend to that?


these options offered arenot an acceptable considering how these sims were sold to us in the first instance

I was expecting more. Especially I can't see it as fair to both raise the price (the new Homesteads) AND putting limits on them. That to me sounds like a make-more-money scheme.

Fair in my eyes would be offering alternatives like

a) use it as intended at the policy change in march 2008, i.e. 3750 prims but light use - I'd have no problem with limits for avatars, scripts and so on - and stay at the old price

or

b) be allowed to "break" those limits and pay a higher price for it.

Adding more restrictions AND charging a higher price at the same time is not my definition of fairness, especially not after it being YOUR own price and policy changes not even a year ago that dragged in people to pay you setup fees for more than 10,000 regions. You offer *nothing* for those who bought and used OS regions for what they were meant for (I'd call using the allowed 3750 prims with a script load of less than a quarter of what works on a full region and with less then 10 avatars on the region at any given time being totally within the old limits). Price per prim will be lots higher than on full regions, put more restrictions on it and this product is anything but a good deal.

And charging 75 dollar per month for literally nothing is kinda ... hm ... I can't really find a word for it. The same goes for a 67 percent price hike for a castrated product.

This in no way brings back trust into your company, neither from the point of a private land owner who just wants to have a nice place to live on nor from the point of a business owner who needs at least some form of stability and faith to make business plans.

Percentage of my OS regions that were planned to be abandoned after the first announcment: 90

Percentage of my OS regions that are planned to be abandoned after the this announcment: 90

Try again. And please, please: take business 101 and common sense 101. If my RL partner and I would run our company like this, we would be long out of business.

Please refund the ammount it cost to buy an open sim... otherwise yoru just thieves in suits.

This policy remains the disaster that the original one was. The only way to maintain an economic foundation for land in SL (or RL) is to make it affordable. Prims on full sims cost the owner US$0.02 each per month, as they do now on the openspace sims. Under the new policy (unchanged from the one which Jack announced), prims will cost US$0.033 each per month. Under this newly announced policy, prims on the remaining openspaces will cost an amazing $US0.10 each per month. With NO chance to develop any economic base for them!

The only way to maintain light use, in my opinion, is for one person to occupy a void sim. Raising the price to US$125/month makes that impossible.

This is a sad day for many of the estates in SL... surely including our own SL New England.


Sudane...........................

1) I am glad that you realise that your initial policy announcement was poorly executed - some folks Christmas Bonuses should reflect this - perhaps only an apple and no orange in their stocking.

2) Recognising the actual use of the majority of 'Openspace' sims as Homesteads is a step forward - however the eventual $125 monthly fee is still a problem for those of us who have policed our own OS sims and kept avatar numbers and script usage low while using the 3750 prims provided. In the current economic climate a more moderate rise may be in your long term interests.

3) Time is of the essence in LL providing feed back on any script or other limitations on Homesteads. Now is the time to post your current thoughts for discussion. Even if you only have vague ideas on this you should let your clients know now. Your clients have more experience than LL on just how such limits might affect them, and be sure we will respond.

4) LL still have a lot to learn about communicating with their clients. Those of us who have invested much time, effort and money in making SL a place worth visiting are one of your key assets. Treat us as such. We are in SL to enjoy ourselves, and for many of us the way we do this is to make places, buildings and even run events for others to enjoy. If LL's decisions mean that we no longer enjoy SL then you will lose that asset.

The fact of the matter is, if I choose to purchase a LL product, I know by now that I am subject to any changes that LL decides to cook up.

So is everyone else.

3 choices:

Use the free account, or adapt to the $$$ changes. The 3rd choice is not to use SL.

For that a OS is perfect, i totally agree with.


bad bad bad... because the scripts are mostly the problems.
Why the most don't understand that one OS can and WILL effect the 3 other OS on the same CPU?

The vague definition light and park spaces? What does open effectively mean? It can have several meanings... (See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/open)

1/. having no enclosing or confining barrier : accessible on all or nearly all sides <cattle grazing on an open range>

2/. not restricted to a particular group or category of participants <open to the public> <open housing>

3/. available to follow or make use of <the only course open to us>

4/. characterized by lack of effective regulation of various commercial enterprises

Each ot the above can be used to describe openspace sims. The lack of effective definition just adds to this conundrum, this is enforced by "...we didn’t build in and enforce specific, quantifiable performance limits on the Openspaces." It is suggested that the residents are not at fault, but rather LL is at fault for incorretly defining the initial usage of openspace sims. Therefore it is concluded that the openspace sims were not in effect openspace sims at all, and the motto of Second Life "Your World. Your Imagination." therefore does not apply. As residents applied this motto to the openspace sims, on the basis of the definition of open, and therefore, they are correct.

Furthermore, this then can have other legal complications such as the product not meeting its description. It seems that LL has failed their residents on this occassion and that the price hike to 125 USD by July 2009 clearly indicates where the focus of LL lies.

If LL wishes to lose residents, then they ought to proceed with this course of action. However, if they wish to regain their credibility, then the price hike should be filed in file 13, and forgotten, and more effective definitions set in place for existing sims.

The introduction of homestead sims will result in the same basic failures of the opensim ideologies, and thus result in more price hikes at some future point.

There was the complaint that "...imposing limits require that we hire staff to enforce them." If they cannot enforce the current ones, how then will the introduction of a new type of sim then aid this enforcement? It will create more work in enforcement. LL has become too far removed from the initial concepts of SL, and their current resident base. They form too close a relationship with residents and not enough gets done to enforce current Terms of Serivce and Community Standards.

EDIT01:

Can Jack please answer this...

Full transfers are still allowed. I believe the fee is $100 US.

They should be capped to 10.

Are you sure you can manage that? Really? It won't put you out too much? You realise that means you'll only be making US$1,500 per machine instead of the US$1,180 for full sims..

How about you just stop ripping your customers off?

How about allowing people the chance to allocate their resources on the cheapest regions?

Let's assume that prims, scripts and avatars are all fractions of a pie, and by default you can either allocate 1/3 to each of those.

If you are making basically your 'private playground', increase your prim allocation at the expense of only allowing 10 on your region instead of 20.

Or if you want to hold the occasional music event, you allow up to 30 avatars on your region but only half of the amount of scripts can be run.

Or if you're a scripter that wants somewhere to test stuff, you can double your script time allocation, at the expense of half your prims and only allowing a maximum of 5 people at a time.

You can change this allocation at any time, simply by changing the sliders one way or the other as long as the three total 100% - and if you're trying to drag the prim limit over its allocation, you aren't allowed to unless you reduce something else.

Possibly a little tricky to program, but it them allows you to limit the resources on a region to the user's specification, rather than what you think they should have - and it will still overall consume the same amount of bandwidth + processor time + asset cluster load regardless.

Would LL also consider free islands moves to fill in the gaps left by these OS being removed ?

OK, so now your answer is to not only keep the intended 67% price increase (phased in after 6 months) but now to REDUCE benefits in avatar and script limits? This seems like a step backwards from your original announcement (There are usually 5-6 avatars on my sim max now and I have been very careful to watch script use to keep it under the 1/4 resources of a full sim). There's no benefit here in paying more for less.

I have an art gallery which I run at a loss in order to support creativity and artists here in SL (loss = no profit, Snowflake). "If" I was running a sex bed shop at a profit I could probably afford this ridiculous increase. Seems like LL wants a giant porn/sex world in SL and nothing else.

My gallery will most likely be non-existent next month. I would like the option of a refund too. I made this move just 2 months ago to escape HORRENDOUS lag on the mainland and will say I have never experienced the same lag on my supposedly overused open space sim.

Actually, they're not, they're the easiest thing to deal with. All they need to do is to turn down the existing script throttle on OS sims.

The big problem is physics.

Please let me make sure I understand all of this:

1) Linden doubles the prims on Open Spaces and sell thousands.

2) Linden allows Open Spaces to be placed anywhere on the Grid independent of Full
Sims. Says they can only be used for forests and oceans (Wink, Wink)

3) Thousands of Second Life Residents purchase and migrate to Open Spaces and set up
homes. (Hook - Line - And Sinker)

4) Someone at Linden Labs says, "oops" and Linden announces that they really didn't
think that people would, you know, actually use all those shiny new prims.

5) Someone else at Linden Labs says, " Hey, I got an idea - lets blame it on the residents
and jack the prices up by 67%.

6) Second Life citizens riot at being duped.

7) Someone at Linden Labs says, "oops".

Someone else at Linden Labs says, " Hey, I got an idea - lets pull the old switcheroo
confusing everyone with new terms and multiple types of Open Spaces and still
blame it on the citizens; and, best of all, keep the price increase but extend the
implementation a few months.

9) Someone at Linden Labs shouts, "Brilliant - the old Razzle Dazzle Em! "

10) Some citizens mollified.

11) Some citizens confused.

12 Some citizens still peeved.

13) All citizens abused.

I think that about covers it.

If I could afford to pay 75US per month for useless water I could afford to convert to an a homestead.....this still does not help me... I have one resident who is rarely there, uses approx 1875 prims and rarely has over 4 people there at a time. So it would under the new definition be considered homestead. I dont make anything on it but what the resident pays does cover the 75US tiers... The resident will not pay 125. So as I said no help for those in this category

I still want at least a partial refund to turn in my OSS...I figure they can still make money off of that when they resell it to someone for 250.

Well, you've done it to your residents again - but don't worry, more will come, the fuss will die down and the stupid ones will actually thank you for charging them more money for less of everything! Life goes on right?...it's sad how old it gets after a few times, only difference is 'M Linden', who has the most unfriendly, patronising attitude I think I've ever seen from someone who claims to be a professional.

*coughs* hello? is this another 'discussion' where you don't actually bother to make an appearance? Must be taking an early lunch break to celebrate - you can certainly afford it with all the money you've screwed out of us.

1 User agreed.

That sounds like a good idea (though I believe if you buy a new sim you get free island moves in the bargain... and that may work for conversions too).

Jack?

Yes and they bought and OS with 3.750 prims for light use and not one with 750 prims!!!

So true

I think that certainly about covers it. I am sure there has to be some laws to protect users in cases like this.

Please Please my fellow residents !!!!

A bunch of people think they are now saved but please read the letter again.

ALL people who live in openspace, or build a real nice nature environment to play in,
WILL BE PAYING 125 US$ TIER starting only a few months later.