Open Spaces Announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden

well done, LL ))))

I don't think this as crossed anyone else's mind yet, but what this really is, is a Prim Tax under a different name.

I see we have passed through the weekend and the first workday of the week with no dialog at all from the linden's. I have watch the blog go from early satisfaction from those who had not looked at the details, to genuine outrage coupled with some very constructive suggestions and now the blog has been on a slow path where people are starting to snipe at each other over minor details taking the focus off the core issues. LL has created a situation that has shaken SL to the core and judging from their participation on this blog, do not seem to care in the least. It is very hard to imagine anyone having the confidence in this world to be willing to invest time and money in something when the "owners" plainly don't give a hoot about the customer or the viability of the virtual world they created and manage. It is astounding that ANY company could conceive and announce something this vital in such a poor way and then compound the insult by the total lack of concern for their customer base. every hour that goes by without some communication just confirms what many customers have been thinking.

I will not dig deep into just how badly LL has screwed on this whole thing. I think that has been discussed pretty well. What I will do is say what I am doing about it.

I "own" 1/2 of a full estate sim, but the area I am in has 4 full sims and 8 openspace sims. All but one of these openspace sims are rented out as residential sims. I have not heard back from my landlord yet, but I doubt if the new homestead will be a viable business model for them. They will either have to raise tier quite a bit or take a loss. Raising tier will most likely drive away any renters they currently have.

That being the case I am having to prepare for the fact that my island I have lived on for almost 2 years will go away in the next few months. I expect this to happen a lot all around the grid.

My partner and I had been talking about buying our own estate, but this whole mess has killed that idea. We cannot trust LL to not suddenly change the tier on us at any time, so we would be foolish to enter into such a commitment. (There is that trust issue again)

I already have a nice 4k Mainland plot that my partner and can live in until SL finally folds. As I do expect this to be the end of SL as we know it. Once the trust is broken with a company things tend to fall apart rather quickly. Toss in the current economic world wide situation and many people are going to tier down or just leave. What will be left will be the all those freebie accounts with "No payment used". They make a very poor profit model.

As part of my preparations I have downloaded the OpenSim server code, and started a nice group of regions on an old computer of mine. I will work with this, tracking the progress of the server code and the viability of the many "OpenGrid"s that are being born now. This way when the inevitable comes I will be ready to leave SL behind, take my content to another grid. I have spoken to many other creators and what I am hearing is that once the OpenSim software supports a good permission system they will be moving to an alternate grid too.

(btw I am running 9 regions on an old 1.4 gig single core AMD with 1 gig of ram. Not many prims yet, but the perfomance is quite nice considering)

So soon it will be bye bye to SL and Hello OpenSim.. I will leave, taking my content and my $200+ a month with me.

While I am only one person, I am by far not the only one thinking this way.

So soon it will be "Goodbye SL and thanks for the fish"

Lizzy

so now we know they need the money to pay a prize but 10,000 US dollars... paid in linden ... sneaky way to get around the government and all those pesky taxes yu pay for prize money don't you think?

10,000 USD worth of linden LOL that they will get 3.5 % back as winner sells them, not to mention ... ohh forget it i am sure once the irs see's this they will be very interested LOL

originally posted by a Linden

'I am very excited to announce the inaugural Linden Prize.

The Linden Prize will award one Second Life Resident or team with $10,000 USD, paid in Linden dollars, for an innovative inworld project that improves the way people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world. The award is intended to align with Linden Lab’s company mission–to connect all people to an online world that advances the human condition.' - end quote

Jesus, Maria and Joe and Buddha, and the great Shamalamadingdong. What they ever have with their virtual world? We are all ever in life, even when we are sitting in front of the screen, working or playing. All is life and real. I am physically and intellectual present in any situation. To advance the human condition it would be nice to drop the tricky fee strategy completely. We would like to see nothing more or less than a simple bread-dry, dust-dry old fashioned serious salesmanship. So called handshake-quality including law-safe contracts. Any average cow-market in Texas or any mysterious carpet-market in Armenia has a more handshake-quality pricing and marketing structure. You buy there something once and it is yours. Or if based on renting, then I point on my ISP and my Webspace-provider.

Both are delivering excellent service and high-end products for absolute affordable and stable low end prices since I can think, warranties and glass-clear policies embedded. In front of all, they are making us literal no stress. Also they are not jumping up and down like crazy frogs with their services and fees and they are yelling not at us, like we were stupid dum children in kindergarden when we are using their products to a limit. beside the fact, that for example my providers setted no limits...

And when I start to meditate about their biz structures, I have no impressions of snowballs, snowslides and pyramid-systems...you know what I mean...

This thing here is not virtual. It eats real money like nothing. To simplify the system again, based on a single full sim example: We own here exact nothing. We buy them - despite the purchase...and the setup fees... - well, we buy them 12 processors per year while they sale one single processoer 12 times a year to us.

Plus VAT.

And all few weeks they're coming up with some new stress. Technical drop outs, surprising increases of fees, brutal lacks of service and a snotnosed behavior against the customers.

Even when they try to wipe honey around our mouths it is bad behavior.

But all that is often said.

This is the 'virtual world' real world connection. I shout: get some handshake-quality and some affordable normal fee structure and then you can give that 10000 Dollar price money to yourself, because you reached then the zone of acceptable salesmanship, wich would be the best social activity I could imagine. Thanx.

And by the way, before I forget: each and everyone who rezzed a prim and talked friendly to the other players has deserved this prize - there is no need to seperate a single person or a single organisation from the rest. My opinion. And the form of such a price is also clear: be fair to us. More we don't need!

So if this is true, surely they can't actually increse the price when it states that open spaces can be used in other ways but not recommended. So some Sim owners are purchasing these Open spaces, and using them fairly responsibly with maybe a few boats on them or a small house and getting penalised for using them this way. I think LL need to be carefull how they word things. People who bought these Open spaces under these guidlines, not rules and who are using them fairly responsible shouldn't be charged the increased rate. If LL decide to change their wording and set definate rules not to be broken. Then they have somewhere to stand if the "Rules" are broken, for future purchasers.

Is somehow supposed to make good, all the PR damage, all the closed OS regions, the financial burden its going to place on hundred's of people.
Somehow make up for LL's money grab in the months to come, because they were to incompetent to calculate the server strain.
I don't own OS or private land I own mainland tier and even I'm going to be effected by this disaster.

My SL partner and I live on opposite parts of the world, in 2007 her home city was hit by an earthquake it resulted in much chaos and there was obviously loss of life, and internet was suspended to many of the general populace to help bring the place to normality, this resulted in her having no internet connection for some months, durring which time she visited the shrine dedicated the the Cat Kami,(at the time my AV was a Neko hybrid) because she couldn't be with me and thought of me, even during a time of great tragedy. On her return, she took me to the virtual one in SL because it is nearly the same.

Early this year she was forced to retire from a job she loved, due to the strain it puts on your body, and she was once more forced to stay away from SL again for many months, as she fought the pain of the many years of damage her type of work accumilates.

During that time when I was at my lowest, when I felt myself only half believing the words her friends who would tell me that she would be back. I would go to the virtual shrine to think and pray, sometimes hiding the tears from my daughter, and try to feel close to her.

Now if the current price hike stands with the present conditions the shrine is gone, as the owner has announced here, in this very thread, that she will be returning her sims, and who can really blame her.

This is just part of our story, and I'm sure there are very many more like us, who while not hurt financially are going to have places that have great emotional value destroyed by Linden Labs uncareing policy.

Raise your hand if you think these package offerings seem realistic and fair....

Region Types:
WaterRegion is water only and cannot be terraformed.
You will not have access to estate tools with water or mainland regions.

3xRegion - 3x (45,000) Prim Region - 65536sq.m.
$25.00 initial purchase Plus 1st month tier of $65.00
Then each following month just $65.00 per month.

2xRegion - 2x (30,000) Prim Region - 65536sq.m.
$25.00 initial purchase Plus 1st month tier of $55.00
Then each following month just $55.00 per month.

1xRegion - 1x (15,000) Prim Region - 65536sq.m.
$25.00 initial purchase Plus 1st month tier of $45.00
Then each following month just $45.00 per month.

.5xRegion - 1/2 (7,500) Prim Region - 65536sq.m.
$25.00 initial purchase Plus 1st month tier of $25.00
Then each following month just $25.00 per month.

.25xRegion - 1/4 (3,750) Prim Region - 65536sq.m.
$25.00 initial purchase Plus 1st month tier of $16.00
Then each following month just $16.00 per month.

WaterRegion - Water Only - 1000 Prim Region - 65536sq.m.
$10.00 initial purchase Plus 1st month tier of $9.00
Then each following month just $9.00 per month.

LOL your joking, look at what LL ARE going to charge and try again.

Oh yeah, they are throwing out crumbs for all these hungry dogs to fight over.

L$10,000 is not even worth US$35 at today's exchange rate. It can't even pay for the tier price increase in April 30, 2009, just in time for the final price increase in June.

It's not realistic. That's OpenLife, right?

Nicoladie: Read it again. That's ten thousand US Dollars.

That is more like it. Thank you.

I also used to think so, but there are a few good builds which get pretty close. Limiting users to 750 prims kills the possibility for users to even try - which is against LL's statement about creativity.


Well I'm not happy with a cartoon world, and I'm happy to see some others are not either, and try push the limits to achieve more realistic builds.

Why should we have to use normal sims? Who says we all want many visitors etc? I don't. What about just having our own space that we can create as we please privately? Thats what OS's opened up on the grid. In any case, if a normal sim is what it takes to create good builds, that makes it impossible for the majority of users - who can barely afford OS property.


I think you're pretty naive if you think LL will only run sets of 4 of those 750prim regions. They are going to lump those things on a server and make a fortune in profits.


lol ... what about 10, or 20 per prim?!, as my good professor once said : there are many that dream the most amazing things at night, but few who stay up at night and can actually do them. Maybe you need to study it a bit closer ... thats not a simplistic 'plane'-type 2.5D tree with flat textures, its a fully formed 3D shape which gives it a much more realistic quality. Well, we're drifting off the sim discussion again - but please let me know if you ever succeed - specially as it sounds we're going to need a lot of these.


In that case 100 prims would also be enough for what LL wants with an OS. And BTW I (like everyone else bar a few LL-bunnies) have been shouting all along for more prims on the base product - why have yet another product.


As I said ... its not the same thing. Your comparison is true for those who are yet to buy, and they can't afford it so its a shame. This is different - these people have already sacrificed a lot of their RL income to do this, invested a lot of their time in building etc, and NOW LL tears it away from them - thats just pure mean. They should at least get grandfathered tier, else a monetary return on their investment.

Time to put down your popcorn Katt and go into M's office and tell him we are still waiting for the chance to talk WITH him as he has promised.

Or is he known for lying and breaking his word?

Do they really think, that this will stop protests? I am very "excited" to see, if this is going to work.

Katt, can you pass me the popcorn, please?

This was announced in July. This is not the smoking gun you are looking for.

I know this will probably fall on deaf ears, and I suspect it will also be perceived as little more than a parroting of existing sentiment, but as a small-time estate owner about to lose his business, I feel compelled to comment.

When the Lindens decided to slash prices on private land, i was thankful i had no unsold parcels, and took the change an incentive to grow my business. It became at least a little more affordable to get more land. That was good.

Then I saw they also slashed the prices on openspace. Not much of an interest to me, as I understood them to be for light use: minimal prims and attached to an exsisting full sim. But wait, these new sims had TONS of prims, AND could be placed anywhere on the grid, AND could be resold. WOW!

Before I dived into what was apparently the opportunity of a lifetime, i checked the KB. OK, they don't say I cant use them as a residential lot for single renters, just that they wont respond to performance issues. I respected that position. I wondered, though, why they would allocate almost 4000 prims if they were intended as open areas of water. That didn't make sense to me at all. I concluded that they didn't care what you did with them, but they were not going to deal with performance issues if you actually used the prims they allocated for it. Fair enough.

So now I have a dozen customers on as many openspace sims asking me why this is happening, and the fact is that I cant really explain it to them other than to say what is obvious: Linden Lab made a mistake, and now those of us that took them at their word are left holding the bag.

Before you all chime in with "they were never meant for that use" I ask you this: Perhaps you have heard of a "Terms Of Service" agreement. It should have been stated, in no uncertain terms, how openspace was to be used. Argue all you want, it was not. Did you read it? I did.

Please consider the idea of grandfathering those customers that used them within the limits that were allocated. You cannot blame people for using what you gave them.

I know you won't listen, and I expect to be told that I should have interpreted the KB article, at the time, to mean more than anyone fluent in english would have correctly interpreted it, but you are dropping a giant box of ruin on some of your most faithful and profit generating customers, and no matter how many times you reword this, it amounts to the same thing.

Please reconsider,

Cy

I posted this on about page 97 so I will repeat it for you CY.
/130/cb/107206/2.html#post1042460/130/cb/107206/2.html#post1042460

Thanks but how does that justify not grandfathering in those of us that took them at their word? I am fully aware of the performance issues all this has caused, but how, exactly, is that the fault of people that used them for what they were allowed to be used?

They NEVER said they could not be used this way, just that they would not support it. Thats far and away different from just saying no in the first place.

Why am I going out of business as a result of this?

I realize this is a rehash of what countless others have said already, so consider my post a pointless rant. I felt that I could not remain silent, and my post was the result.

There's nothing about ANY land in the ToS. In fact, the terms 'land', 'estate', and 'region' don't appear in the ToS ('gambling' and 'wagering' don't either. That means I can open a casino? Or a 'bank' for that matter). ToS isn't a monolithic policy document. ToS is about the software and the service as a whole. There's also 'Community Standards' which are enforceable in their own document. Other policy is laid out in a series of KB articles.

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=4235

"It is therefore important to understand what these regions are. They are provided for light use only, not for building, living in, renting as homes or use for events. As a stretch of open water for boating or a scenic wooded area they are fine, but we do not advise more serious use than this and will not respond to performance issues reported should you not use them in this way."

Well...
After reading the last post i just can think about one thing:

-"Markting strategy"

The only thing that last post make me realise was that dont care about us.
The prize is going to a publicity way for them to bring others users to SL because they know ppl are starting to leave and giving back OS and full sims too.

The new users will login on SL on this "dark age", but for them is going to be a beautifull new hobby/business thing. Without knowing the past of SL they will just meet the present and play the game like it is now.

Thats what LL wants:

-Attract new users to SL to be their new costumers.

They will not complain because when they start playing SL, the prices of OS/HOMESH***T
are these ones we all know.

But... Hey!!! If u have 10.000usd to give away, refound ppl back!!! If you are trying to look like the good samaritan first do the right thing.

I was just pointing out what Jack said himself about renting and living on OS. Showing that it wasn't just a few that read what was stated in the Wiki and was miss lead. LL flat out said it was OK to do it. You and everyone else are justified in your rants!!!

adding jacks own words from the link I posted above **Just to clarify a little, we're not saying that folk can't rent out these areas or live in them - we just don't recommend it because of the relative performance compared to normal regions.


Jack**

You think THIS is all of 'The Past'?

Congratulations on living through your first The World Is About To End Crisis, brought to you by Linden Labs.

These are the ones I remember since being here, in no particular order
* The end of Dwell (This was supposed to kill camping and clubbing by making an already difficult business model tougher)
* The end of DI and education bonus (bit more minor, but people felt betrayed)
* End of Telehubs (not a world-ender but people were feeling betrayed. Some were compensated financially for, hello, staking a large financial claim in land that wasn't guaranteed to hold its value over time. And people STILL do this)
* Doubling the island purchase and tier cost (It was feared this would destroy the land market. Land market survived but purely creative projects took a beating. They did it for the corporations, and they tipped off their favorite land barons to empty the land store of 'old' rate regions. Thoughtful. BTY, where ARE all these corporations now? The price hike was partially reversed.)
* Gambling ban (Necessary but we're STILL feeling the economic hurt)
* Banking ban
* Copybot (Supposed to be The Big One about this time in 2006. This one even had me a little worried, but life went on)
* Unlimited free accounts (Hi you guys! Destroying the world yet?)

I swear there's a big one I'm missing but I can't think of it. Anybody from further back have any good ones to share?

I've been hearing about the immanent death of Second Life (Has Netcraft confirmed it? No. That's why we're FINE) for a bit more than two years, and others have been hearing about it a lot longer. But we're still. here. This too shall pass. This lovely shared illusion of ours is showing itself to be more resilient than some of the people who make it up, no matter how hard the parent company or the residents try to hurt it.

How many of the people from back when all those things occurred are still in the game? I would say more than you imagine percentage wise left the game to be replaced by the great flood of late 2006-mid 2007. In other words the population loss from these profound changes was easily covered with newbies.

Now... with population tanking for over a year, with a less favourable press, with other worlds, with the almost worldwide recession... how do the lab think they will make up the spending population that will leave or just stop spending?

I would estimate that it takes most people a year to 18 months before they are comfortable spending $125+ a month on a game, and then only a small fraction of the 10% who stay in world past the first week will even do that.

So, with next to no incoming population and with the current spenders kicked out this will have a larger impact than many people who only look at "The good old days when..." haven't thought about.