All Sticks, No Carrots

Doesn't invalidate my points. If a model won't work in SL, then find a model that does. Don't swim upstream and then complain when the out-the-door model fails. Sorry to be hardcore, but that's reality. Lobbying to get your particular vision supported might work. But finding a way to change the culture would work better.

Let's say you have a private sim that is so cool that word of mouth promotes it as the hottest thing in SL. Then you charge a modest fee to enter. Then you find compelling content and people there that make you want to come back. Not impossible. The main thing IMO standing in the way of that is the platform, not the policies. Sim performance once you load it down with avatars just isn't reliable enough for a crowd doing much else that "dancing" and chatting.

No, it means that you spend $USD for some $L.

Frankly, five uploads wouldn't have been a drop in the bucket when I was first learning clothing design. Yes, it probably is easier for established people. However, it is also easier for people with RL disposable income. It's always easier for someone.

I enjoyed myself when I was a broke newb. It's why I kept coming back. Other than teir, I rarely spend $L in SL cause there just isn't much that I want that I can't make myself. I can't think of any other place in the world where there are so many possibilities for such a minor investment.

This is just my observation, but I keep running into people in SL who seem to have a mindset of things should come easy and be available just for the asking. I can't figure out where that comes from, unless their RLs are a lot easier than mine. Part of the satisfaction and enjoyment of achieving my dreams has been the hard work and obstacles overcome on the way.

If I want to sell a large area of land, so I sell it as one unit, then indeed I don't care what anyone else builds there once they have bought it.

If I want to sell a large area of land, but instead I break it into small parcels so people can buy smaller amounts if they want to, then I run the risk of someone buying one and putting a build there specifically to ruin my ability to sell the rest.

Whether they have the "right" to do this, or whether it is morally right or wrong of them, is immaterial. The reality is that the only way I can avoid that risk, which could seriously hurt my pocket (even if I'm not in the land business - I still need to pay tier if it doesn't sell, and abandoning it would lose a big investment) is to not divide my land into parcels.

Now, is it in the interest of LL or anyone else for people not to be able to divide sale land into parcels, so that the only land anyone can buy, other than First Land, is in big chunks?

That isn't the same for everyone. Some people have to do more learning than others; some people just aren't talented and will never get the hang of these things (but don't necessarily know that right away). Now you can say "well, that's just life not being fair and we can't do anything about it", but the problem is that SL can't be composed of just the talented people, because then everyone will think "there isn't much that I want that I can't make myself" and nobody will sell anything. Trust me, for some people there are very few possibilities in SL, and other people decide what they are.



SL is not RL. RL doesn't need to sell itself. SL does. All the clothes and attachments and gadgets in the metaverse aren't worth anything if you don't want to be part of SL. Giving newbies nothing to start with isn't likely to make them want that. And giving them speeches about "nothing is free, life isn't fair, you have to buy L$" is far more likely to send them out of the door, taking their wallet with them. "Well, they'd never have contributed anyway!" is just sour grapes after that.

Well, Siggy, I think you should think again. Both you and Juro seem to be expecting way more OUT of the zoning than what I'm suggesting and also fearing way more FROM it. Stuff like "ugly builds" and "what is in the next sim over" are not supposed to be covered by the zoning I'm talking about.

I know Boardman has some pretty strict zoning requirements, but those actually go beyond the "residential" I'm thinking of.

I've lived in Nexus and Adam's zoned sims since the beginning, and these are reasonably designated commercial or residential. Everyone pretty much agrees to that, and everyone seems to pretty much adopt a live-and-let-live sort of attitude, within those reasonable guidelines.

It works. The same sort of definition could be provided for all new sims on the mainland, and it would probably work as well as it does in Azure Islands. I'm talking three things: Sims zoned residential. Sims zoned commercial. Sims zoned residential/commercial (i.e., not zoned at all.)

I don't know where you are getting the idea of "forcing it on anyone." It's would not be "forced" on anyone because the new sims would come with the designation. You would not be forced to buy land in a residential sim, would you? And if you wanted a freer atmosphere, you would buy in the mixed zone.

If Blumfield had been presented as residentially zoned (again, with non-draconian rules), those people would have been happy. Instead, they were given an OBVIOUSLY residential sim, PRE-MADE to be that way, even, and charming in that way, and then told, well enjoy it now, cause we're not going to give you any way to keep this way.

I think you and Juro may just not really understand this idea, perhaps because you have never lived in it? It really works out quite well, nobody's miserable, and people put up whatever they want - within the very reasonable and not very many guidelines.

See, if you didn't like the idea, that would be cool - you just would buy only in the mixed zones. I would say you are saying that no one should have the ability to choose anything else. They should be forced to choose land in a mixed-zone (what we have now) whether they like it or not.

Why not give people more of a choice for what they might like, even though it is not what you would like? That way someone buying First Land - or Seventeenth Land, for their little romantic hidaway - could at least plop it down into something residential. Those looking for a place for their shop could choose a commercial area and know that none of their residential neighbors would feel dwarfed or bothered by them.

coco

Eloise, the observation still stands. It is good for the majority of your users to be able to see goals, as well as see some feasible means for achieving those goals. The less of that you have, the more people go away. Conversely, if you make things too easy, people will have no challenge and go away.

coco

I am happy to build stuff all day. I spend a lot of time with new players who aren't of that mindset. They don't want to own a sim (most want to rent land and not even buy at all). They are either not at all interested in running a business, or interested, but several months away from possessing the skills to do so. Lots of the newer players (not anyone who is commenting on this thread) just want stuff to do.

I love sl and will be here till the day it closes. I can't imagine going anywhere else for my virtual entertainment. That said, I guess it is worth mentioning that not everyone is going to get fulfillment from having a business. Many of us value our customers (I'm sure you do too, Surreal) enough to provide them with stuff to do also where we sell our items. But will those interactive surprises that one has to find on one's own not feel a bit lonely once all the clubs are gone? Imagine sl with no clubs, no events, no contests, no dances, no amusement parks, nothing. All that is left is commercial enterprises and the few places that put little fun things around where they sell stuff. What then?

I worry is all. I like happy customers.

Yeah, I was thinking you did, Juro! (And I was thinking it WAS in Azure Islands!) And though Azure Islands does have that nice buffer, I don't think it is necessary for what I'm talking about. Nice, sure - but not vital for people to still enjoy having zoned sims.

If there was a sim designated residential, and I wanted to live there, I might look for land in the middle. If all I could get was something on the edge, I would decide whether I wanted to buy it anyway. It would be understood that the extent of the zoning would be to the edges of that sim only, or for the extent of the several sims which might lie next to each other which are zoned the same way.

coco

Go play Sony's SWG.

Instead of just a stick, people there got the whole shaft.

SL's a heavenly dream.

Cristiano,

It is not the culture. 90% of Second Life Agree with Coconut. But the 10 % who support getting rid of pay, Dwell etc are what I have refered to, (For lack of a better term) The Star Chamber. and You can see their membership here... All those who support ending dwell, DI, Weekly pay etc are of the so-called Star Chamber, even if they themselves don't think so.

Another good name for them is the Vocal Minority. Infact it might fit better than Star Chamber.

Actually the soloution for Linden Labs was to do nothing at all. The Only ones who were opposed to the Bonus was the Vocal Minority. And instead of listening to the Majority of people who wanted the Bonus, LL listened to the Vocal Minority.

I would like for you to remember your view (Conservative Work Ethic) Is the absolute minority. Nothing more nothing less. Most people are not here to earn money but to have fun.

There is definitely a culture in SL that refuses to pay for entertainment in the same way they will pay for tangible items like skins and hair, you can't deny that. That is what makes it difficult for non-retail businesses to be self-supporting. It has nothing to do with some nefarious powerful group - it has to do with the fact that people just will not pay to go to a club - in fact they seem to think they should instead be paid for attending.

Well, I am also against the Wal-Mart culture. And thats where a lot of people are getting this from. Its hard to charge for something that has been free for such a long time. Just ask the RIAA. they are now seeing their Lawsuits backfiring and recently one of the Recording companies that was a member of RIAA, told the RIAA they will refuse to sue people and infact they are paying for the defense of a grandmother who was sued by the RIAA.

However, the fact exist that when the big debate over the bonus was happening, only 10% of SL wanted them gone, (The Vocial Minority) And the Lindens decided to listen to that 10% instead of the 90% who did not want to loose the bonus.

do you mean the 10% which constitutes 99% of the immersion production in SL?

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Well considering this mythical majority *didn't say anything*, I say it's their own fault.

Stand up and be counted, or sit down and be ignored.

Hardly the absolute minority, but it is an absolute shame that they aren't the majority. Maybe in time we can change that.

and in one line you utterly missed everything I said to Juro.

We HAVE lived in such areas because we BOTH helped forum such communities - with zoning and such WITHOUT having to make homeowners assocations hardcoded into SL.

Am I saying you can't or you shouldn't?

Nothing of any such substance entered my points - you put it there... it has nothing to do with my points about 'zoning' whatsover.. its your own notions that they are connected.

You still have made NO reasonable connection, btw, on how you somehow should have a say on land you don't own - or how no zoning is detrimental to parceling. you parcel - you sell.. once sold thats that...

Anything to suggest you have any connect past the point where dollars hit your account in my opinion is just boneheaded.

No, they are connected. Let me try and make it plainer:

1 - I have a large area of land that I want to sell.

2 - If I divide it into smaller parcels and sell those, there is the risk that a griefer will buy one and place an ugly structure on it, with the explicit goal of preventing the other parcels from selling and blackmailing me for L$ to have it removed.

3 - As a result, probably I will decide not to divide my land into smaller parcels, and since this applies to everyone selling land (not just me), others will not either, with the result that smaller parcels other than First Land will become hard or impossible to find.

4 - If the situation in (3) is undesirable, then action needs to be taken to prevent the situation in (2) arising, irrespective of "morality", "rights", etc.

Also, while I did a bit of reading about this I found something interesting. In RL, when you buy and sell land, you have no right to a view. But you do have a right to light - look at the "Leylandii Law" in the UK. This, as a side effect, prevents too much damage being done to the view - if it were possible to build a floating 10m wide cube in the real world, it would cast huge shadows on nearby properties and violate their right to light. So there is some precedent for laws which - albeit as a side effect - prevent people harming the view from land that other people own.

I remember when it was called the Protestant Work Ethic.

Magnum,

If that is true, then why is the first question that many new residents ask "how do I make money"?

Many people seem unable to have fun without someone else to make content. In a regular mmo like WoW or MXO, that work is done by some very well paid graphics artist, animators, programmers, etc. And that cost is passed on to the customer in the form of an initial buy fee (usually around $50) and a monthly use fee (approx. $10-$20). Everyone pays the same... no choice.

Here that work is done by designers, animators, and scriptors. They are not well paid for the hours that they put in, nor for their initial start up costs. Most of them do it because they enjoy it, but also because as an added bonus they can get their game costs covered.

Magnum, who do you think should pay for content in SL?

Surreal, perhaps I can provide you an indirect answer for your question. Very well thought-out, by the way, but not really something which will get you a satisfactory response. Here is why.



That should explain pretty much all of these discussions, neh?

OMG!!

You're right, it is impossible to have a discussion with a worldview not based in any kind of reality.

I wish Robert Heinlein were still alive. I wonder what he would have to say about attitudes like this, considering he contributed TANSTAFL to the language. He was a fascist, but I find myself more and more taking on his point of view (so long as I'm in charge!)

For the non sci-fi reader, TANSTAFL is There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. Example, if McDonalds charged for ketchup packages, their hamburgers would cost less.