Either Philip's account got hacked - or dwell is gone.

Considering that the vast majority of accounts are basic accounts and contributing nothing to LL towards its costs, we're already mostly there anyway.

There are plenty of people out there who would be happy to volunteer towards making SL a better experience, I'm sure.

Considering LL is more or less a hippy commune in the office judging from what we've heard, what's the problem?

Lewis

Considering that the vast majority of accounts are basic accounts and contributing nothing to LL towards its costs, we're already mostly there anyway.

There are plenty of people out there who would be happy to volunteer towards making SL a better experience, I'm sure.

Considering LL is more or less a hippy commune in the office judging from what we've heard, what's the problem?

Lewis

Considering that the vast majority of accounts are basic accounts and contributing nothing to LL towards its costs, we're already mostly there anyway.

There are plenty of people out there who would be happy to volunteer towards making SL a better experience, I'm sure.

Considering LL is more or less a hippy commune in the office judging from what we've heard, what's the problem?

Lewis

I don't think anyone is asking for that. What people are looking for is balance and a reason to play the "game" (yes, I said the GAME word). When it comes to the point where non-commercial content producers can't afford SL hosting costs and that content goes away then it stops being a "game" and becomes just a mall/casino/white trash hangout. Whats the point in coming online in SL for that when one can find it easily in real life? And hell, your average local indian casino is far more entertaining.

OH MY GOD ARE YOU RICH?

That was fast.

mortgages and food.

Well, I'd think removing Traffic payments makes it more like a real economic simulation. After all, I never get paid for people hanging about in my house/club. To make money in RL I'd have to charge people to come in and give them a really good incentive for doing so.

I'd happily pay to go to places in SL, as long as they were offering me something interesting to do there.

Ok, let me get this straight:

People who pay nothing for SL, are being persecuted because they aren't getting stuff for nothing.

I just don't get where the indignancy comes from? You're not paying anything. For anything. The excuse is 'well some people can't afford $10 a month', but... so okay:

really, help me here:

You spend $40/mo or so for broadband.... but $10 for something to use over it is highway robbery?

Please, educate me. I just don't understand. That's $120 a year. Do all these basic users like, not have jobs, cars, or housing in RL?

Actually, it's $1250 + $195 a month for a sim. But, you are missing something, and that is that you don't have to own a whole sim. There's a lot of tier levels in between. You can own a decent size and very usable plot of land (let's say 4096m, a sim is 65536m) for about $35 a month, including the $10/mo account fee.

Imagine there's no traffic,
It's easy if you buy,
No camping chairs below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no Dwellnor,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No gaming too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Sorry... couldn't help myself

$10 - $15 is the average monthly cost of your average MMORPG. Needing to spend more than that for pixels puppets and items in a GAME seems like something mentally unstable to me.

To each their own. *shrug*

This is my point, and this is the kind of thing LL wants to encourage, I'd imagine. Instead of them paying your incentive, now you are in a better position to ask residents to pay your incentive.

I know quite a few people that would be willing to do this, provided the place you're paying to get into is worth it. You wanna make something available to the masses? Charge L$5/L$10 for coming to see. Want a high-end exclusive locale? Charge L$250. You want to do something for the good of the world for everyone to enjoy regardless. Charge nothing.

This is putting the power back in the hands of land owners as to how compensation should be received or if it is received at all.

Where in the "rules" to this "game" does it say that you get to do everything you want for free anyway?

Actually I think in 6 months we'll have a wider selection of things to do. Now the idea of success is to compete with the dwellopers. No more. No more dwell. No camping chairs, no money balls, no more cash prizes just for being there. And no more ridiculous 'contests' where you show up and dance for an hour or two and some person picked at random wins a couple hundred dollars for wearing red.

And these same clubs won't be able to charge admission for the same entertainment they give now. Who the hell will pay $20 an hour to play a dance animation for 2 hours listening to music they can stream to their own land and invite a few firends over for free?

Entertainment clubs will have to ENTERTAIN if they want to charge admission, and most won't be upo to it.

No, I see this as a huge opportunity to a lot of people who've up till now, felt marginalized by the status quo of the dwellopers. Now they'll have their chance as a large number of well established arenas crumble under tier.

Travis. Honestly. I'm not against that ideal. But it is an -ideal-, and someone's gotta pay for the hardware, development, and connectivity. That's what I don't get, where do people think SL would come from?

SL has to be profitable for LL to continue it -- that does NOT, NOT, NOT mean that LL's only concern is profit. But in order for people to go to work every day, live, and develop software, they have to be paid.

In order for this to happen, they have to charge for services.

So, some people have to pay tier.

Because of this, things cost money in SL, so that people can pay that tier that goes to LL that makes SL continue.

So in the long run, as it stands right now, that payment has to come from somewhere. LL can't put money into the world and then pay themselves with it. It's the whole "why can't they just print more money" attitude.

I gotta ask the people who want everything to be free -- who should take the hit? Because for SOMEONE down the line, this ISN'T gonna be free, even if it is for you.

(by you I dont mean you, Travis, it's general.)

Then go to an MMORPG and pay for that. I can't imagine anyone will miss you taking your $0.00 and leaving.

No by itself it is reasonable. But remember SL is competing with many other things for that money not just in the online social/game market.

Everyone has to do determine if the value they get is worth it.

"But its only $20 dollars!" is the response to everything. Except everyones entertainment dollars laid out per month starts looking like: $100 cable + $40 broadband + $50 rentals + $50 + $20 + $20 + $10 + $10 + $10 + $5 + $5 + $5.... And people wonder why the average american is deep in credit card debt and can't balance a checkbook. Anyway, thats a side issue and not important.



They do not feel they get value for their dollar. (aka what they see isn't worth paying for). I for one would not have thought about picking this game up again if I had to pay a fee to try it again. Now that I'm back I'm willing to pay a small bit for content from other players. Everyone has their own bar at which they are willing/unwilling to pay for something, good for you that yours is higher than most.

And it should be noted that I think the reason for the removal of the dwell income is to readjust the value of the premium accounts into being worth it again for nonland owners. If they manage to make the Linden currency more value and people start to drop their prices a tad so premium stipends can buy common items then it will have been a success.

It won't be the end of camping chairs; they still serve a purpose, dwell never paid for them entirely. There'll be fewer of them and/or they'll pay less money.

The only clubs that will survive are the established ones, which people will go back to because they know people there, and might pay to do so. Even they will take a hit. Oh, sex clubs will survive as well. It won't help new clubs - I don't see why it would make a difference.

There will be LOTS more casinos, and any other sort of passive entertainment where the entire point of it involves spending money.

I don't see how this is a powerful rebuttal. You're saying there are people here who believe that SL is worth $0, and if SL requires > $0, they'll leave.

Where's the injustice in that?

People gripe about camping chairs/dance pads/whatever they're called today. Those could be fixed without deleting dwell.

Dwell/traffic is, in my opinion, an incentive. An incentive for people to make interesting places with new and compelling content. Or places where new and compelling content could be made, like sandboxes.

I'm not an economist, but with dwell gone, I can see landowners trying to squeeze as much money as they can out of every square meter, by building malls, which would generate rent from vendors. If social venues continue to exist, I can see a large spike in the usage of the 'buy pass' borders; in essence, sandboxes, clubs, amusement parks, anywhere with new and compelling content and a social atmosphere charging a cover charge justs to make some money to help keep themselves afloat, as visitors would no longer generate revenue just by showing up.

For some, entertainment might mean free money and free stuff. But for others, entertainment is being able to go someplace and say, build somethign while talking to friends, or just being social. Big grey boxes full of vendors really aren't that entertaining, or conducive to social gathering.

You're about three years late to the doomsday party. I've heard this sentiment expressed about once amonth by someone since I've been here. Thus far, exactly the opposite keeps happening.

How does dwell translate to anything "new and compelling" ? You don't need to be new, or compelling. You just have to give out 2% of what you're going to get through dwell payments to your customers.

If a place actually was new and compelling enough, they could actually charge L$2 for admission, instead of giving people L$2 just to show up. The only thing that "compels" people to be there, is the fact that they may get some coin. Content's got nothing to do with it. SLAI.RAR does.

I for one wasn't saying that. I was saying the value of the premium accounts for many isn't there. The value is in player generated content and the worthwhile content for me is accessible for only a small number of US dollars a month. The value being presented isn't being presented in a way that encourages me to spend $50/month or whatever people think is a viable figure to have "fun".

This thread brings up so many qeustions into my mind, so I'll list a few of my thoughts.

First of all, how many posting here actually received dwell incentive?

Why are you all surprised? This was announced a couple months ago.

There is nothing rewarding to LL or SL residents to have alts sitting around a lag-infested venue with little to no entertainment value to collect free money.

The simple fact is that the incentive was meant to support innovation and creative development. It failed and therefore has no purpose. LL will still have content creation incentives, but will do so in a way that ensures original content is actually being created.

Maybe my biggest questions revolve around the sense that some of you seem to believe SL is made and run by a couple of college guys on the weekend. I don't think these ppl respect or understand the scope of what this is all about.

The fact is most of you aren't being affected one bit by this and if you don't feel you are getting your money's worth then why are you here?