A plea to Linden Labs: Let the Madness Stop Now!

Good Morning, Second Life Residents.

I usually avoid the boards to avoid giving myself chronic migraines, but have been so angered and disappointed the last few weeks I felt I had to post. My reason for posting it simple: I am tired of the sea of alts, many of them created solely to grief, swarming the grid.

Every month I hand LL $195 for thand that houses my community. Until recentely, I have hardly had any trouble. However, over the last week or so I have been targetted by griefers day and night, several times a day, often by the same people or persons. The show up with weapons that shoot annoying "particle fire," missiles or, worse, push scripts. I realize particle effects can be disabled, but that is not the point. I realize I can lock off my land; that is not the point. I realize I can set my land to group; that is not the point. I realize I can eject and ban; that is not the point.

The point is I am a paying customer being plagued by free accounts created solely for the purpose of ruining the game for other players. This not only affects me, but my guests and customers as well. I realize that adult communities are often subject for griefing or ridicule, but, again, that is not the point. I expect....No, I demand, that Linden Labs take a step back, open its eyes and realize what the heck is going on here.


LL needs to sstop bying myopic and realize the harm their relaxed registration process has caused the community.

Anyway, that's all.

Linden Labs will stop the free signups when they reach the unspecified magical number of "residents" that their potential buyer wants to see.

Meanwhile, the normal 1 or 2% of population that are griefers will remake themselves as alts at will, each time discouraging regular residents, driving away newbies, and despoiling the community atmosphere of SL. In the end, this is not a no-loss situation for LL. They risk their good relationships with residents and tarnish their image even more.

Last night, I banned and AR'd 6 different avatars in one hour from our community. It was the worst flood of griefers I've seen. Three of them showed up at the same time dressed identically as Arabs with Arab names, harrassing regular members and creating havoc. All three of them had birthdates of 6/19/06. One of them claimed he was "al Qaeda".

Let me be very specific here without naming names (although the names of these jerks is immaterial as they'll just remake): in most cases, these "griefers" grief through annoying, abrasive behavior instead of scripted attacks. We get the script bombs too, but it strikes me as more than a coincidence that the majority of these newborn dolts don't appear to have script-attack abilities. Some do. Some just buy weapons to shoot people. Most are just out to be assholes, but their impact on the ambience of our world is every bit as destructive due to sheer numbers as the occasional script-bomber.

All of this lies squarely at the feet of the Lindens. I read Daniel's blog entry yesterday which claimed that abuse reports had not gone up statistically -- but he was drawing conclusions after only 1 week of the change. A week where the grid was down a full day for the 1.10 patch and many SLers were unable to log in. I think his data needs serious revision, because it's much worse now than it ever was before the registration change.

I hesitate to say this because I hate to over-dramatize, but quite frankly if this is how things are going to be when we hit 1 million residents, there's no way I'm sticking around for the lag and the griefing unless we get improved land control tools, the additional privacy options we were promised AND some method of I.D. verification for all registrants.

This just isn't fun any more the way it is.

while we're talking out of our asses, here's my completely unfounded speculation:

LL will stop the free signups when they reach the unspecified magical number of "residents" that Donald Rumsfeld wants to see.

oh and another one:

LL will stop the free signups when they reach the unspecified magical number of "residents" that Jayne Mansfield's Ghost wants to see.

Personally I think the last bit of asstalking the most likely. But that's just because I like Mariska Hargitay.

I am just floored that LL would so blatentely disregard its loyal and paying customers. I wonder what percentage of these new new residents will actually make an investment into the world as I and many others have. I am sure the three characters dressed as Arabs who walked into our community with bombs strapped to their chests, detonated them and pushed all my guests three sims distant will one day make a valuable contribution to Second Life.

I read Daniel's blog. Based on my experiences, I simply can't believe the percentages he provides. I'm not going to give into conspiracy theories, though. At least not yet.

I used all my remaining votes but 1 to support 1503. Thank you Crucial.

I actually agree with you on the registration policy. Don't much like it. But I think Moopf Murray's speculation is probably right: LL is doing this in the hopes that people who in the past decided not to bother joining because of all the registration hoo-hah would go ahead with the client download this time. Maybe it's a good bet. Maybe not. Personally I'd be happy with better controls on who can visit my (if I still had any) property. IP bans, MAC bans, all sound like good starts.

If they can get controls like that up and running in a month, I won't bitch about things. If not, well, then I'll start bitching.

every one that has voted thanks you

vote for prop 1503 bring back identity verification

500,000 sounds good?????????????? Really I have no idea...But what is purpose. Just adding "ALT" heads? Many use to think LLabs was on a sellers block. But its doubtful this is the case. There been articals in the japanese publications i have read here that LLabs is dipping deep in the asian market. "HENCE all the strange and odd japanese last names added resently" They refuse to add more chinese and or korean names because they are not suiting ( this is assumed ) the needs of the people role playing such creeds. It seems LLabs did a "U" turn in they "ASSUMED" and now are trying to corrects the populas miscalcuations at they thought they would have at this point. Heace the lifting of the 5 limited and no CC check. Again as I posted through this forum this is a new game we are looking at now and in the future. EVEN if thestop this unlimted avies counts per person. Its way to lateand the damage is fully inplanted in the game with griefters problem players and of people that should not bein this game due to their past involvement with breaking LLabs rules.