Goodbye to a dream - why things need to change, and soon

Dear Linden Labs,

When I first started my SecondLife career, it was fantastic. I didn't run into a griefer for a few months after my initial registration; Lindens were friendly and helpful; and despite having no clue what I was doing, I never got a harsh word from anyone.

I started building, I started investing in the world; I cringe to think just how much money I've put into it now.

The thing is, my husband and I intended to buy an island eventually; he wanted to get his computer built first.

I don't think that's going to happen now, and it makes me sad.

I recently downgraded my account to basic, and that makes me sad, too; I rent from Desmond Shang, and paying him makes me feel safer, because I feel as though he'd help if I ran into trouble somehow.

I have no incentive to invest right now.

1) This is becoming GrieferLife. No confirmation of identity! No limits whatsoever. I love my alt, but I'd give her up if it meant getting some sanity back on the grid - I'd pay for her, but I apparently can't. (If you limit Basic accounts to two per credit card, it kind of negates any real reason people have for verifying their alts.)

A friend's private island was visited by a Linden last night - only to have said Linden griefed, bombed, and crashed repeatedly by someone who kept coming in with new alts.

That's not. Exactly. /Encouraging/.

2) PVP Abuse Notification - soon to be a thing of the past? Why? So that griefers have all the power? Were you tired of people sending in ARs after you opened the floodgates with open registration?

3) Nerfing level of detail. I hate hexagons, at least where spheres and circles are supposed to be.

4) Intellectual property protections. I have a good idea of how much work it would take to make sure that reported offenders have their stolen content removed, I really do. But still, please, make an effort? Stuff I reported months ago is either still there or back, and because of the open registrations, there's no way to fix it.

5) Finally, this whole forum debacle. This doesn't inspire confidence.

I've adopted a wait-and-see attitude about the whole thing, and I'm hoping desperately that I can eventually feel safe in investing what is - for my family - a somewhat large chunk of change, because I love SL, and I want to make beautiful things here, and feel /safe/ in doing so.

Right now, as things stand, you're punishing those of us who have done nothing wrong, abide by the rules, and aren't jerks.

That doesn't lead to lasting relationships between residents and LL.

Please, LL. Bring sanity back to the grid. I love SL, it's become a second home to me, and it really has satisfied a deep part of my mind that loves to create stuff for others. But I worry about the direction it's taken.

Sincerely,

Phee.

Bravo!

Sorry to hear that (
And I wholeheartedly agree with your thoughts.

And furthermore, I am very glad that you are a person of action and not just talk. LL will make changes when they discover all of their paying members are lowering their investments and becoming free members. The more premium members that show LL their disgust by changing to basic accounts, the more LL will begin to take into account what they're doing to us all.

People that just fuss on the forums, and continue to pay LL their money.. what's the point?!?!? Start showing LL that they actually are losing paying customers.

Ok so I am relatively new. I used to grief people at times but only if they were rude to me. I hardly even use my giant weapon stash anymore. (I am used to battlefield 2 and age of empires....never tried a massmulti game) I did not come here to invest but just to check it out. My friend's teacher of graphics/games or something told him so he told me. Now I play more than him. At first I am shocked that people paid REAL MONEY to play a "GAME" on the internet. (Nevermind trying to invest in it.) So I have been exploring and buying stuff and participating in events. Ok I do have a basic account but I see so many complaints on this forum that I wonder why anybody pays for this. I am having tons of fun here in sl and have some interest in building. I hear lot's of complaints about land owning. Oh and at this particular moment I am having a hard time logging on but it may be my internet this time. I am happy to offer sggestions to make sl better cuz i know they need them. If you wanna know my opinion I think it still seems to be in a beta mode which it should be cuz it's still version 1.xxxx. I wonder if I can log in now

Feel free to repost this in the thread "What's wrong with Secnod Life?

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If you could, please answer the other questions listed in the first post as well.

I pay a real USD premium fee and land teir. I do it because (number one) I enjoy the game, (number 2) its cheaper than alot of others online rpgs, and (number 3) I want to give soemthing back to LL - plus it gives me my stipend because I don't want a second job.

And imagine... .for 3 years all the way up to a few months ago, there actually were a lot of reasons to pay and invest.... Imagine the world that you have totally missed out on. This is why we are all bitching... because we joined and paid for one thing, and are now gettin this crap

It's possible that LL would prefer it if we would all tier down to basic accounts.

Especially if major land owners and island owners - including those who rent vast holdings to others - kept their accounts.

I'm not sure the small landholder is really of any benefit to them, or their long-term plans.

coco

P.S. I hate hexagons!

Very good point....

but (for example) I couldn't imagine McDonalds removing their .99 cent menu, along with everything else on it and just leaving only the supersized value meals.

and also, this thread was started by someone who would have bought an island, and now is not.... there's probably hundreds of other people in this same boat.

Phedre, I agree with you. The sad part in all this is that LL is willing to sacrifice something wonderful in the name of numbers.

OK, I work in Corporate America and I "get" that LL is a business and needs to be profitable. To me, opening the grid w/o age verification to boost numbers has all the look of a desperation move of some kind - and that give me even less confidence that things will get better any time soon.

My Partner and I hold 16K over in Geneva and some main grid property where our club/hangout is located. We've never worried about making our business profitable as its more of a hobby and an enjoyable way to socialise with our firends. I was content to enjoy the creativity of SL and give them my money to maintain that.....

Now tho, since the release of "Griefer Tools" (unverified accounts) - Sl is rapidly becoming an annoyance and not the stress-relief I came there for. My daughter desperately wants onto the teen grid - but there is *no* way I can allow that given the current lack of protective measures in place.

It would be nice if LL might consider a smaller "secure" grid for those of us who would be willing to pay for it. Something small, with verified accounts and the serenity and creativity that drew so many of us to SL. I'd shell out $10 a month easy, probably more just for the peace and quiet.

Hmmm...I wonder if thats the plan? Maybe unverified accounts are the "lever" to get those of us who want something better to easily move to a more lucrative pricing structure

Yuk..now *I'm* talking conspiracy theories.

"This too shall pass"

Shoot, that's no conspiracy theory. That's trying to figure out WHY they do things, and how it might fit into future plans of theirs that we don't know about.

Either one speculates about things like that, or one doesn't think about them at all, but speculating about the reasoning of others is hardly conspiracy theorizing.

My thoughts were that it might be preparatory to dropping the over-18 designation of SL, as I just mentioned in another thread.

Damned if I'm going to stop thinking - a process I've educated and honed all my life - to go into some stupid mode just because someone else might call it "conspiracy theorizing." Geez. What's the opposite of thinking critically about something? Blind adolatry? Helplessness? Not sure, but it sure isn't ever anything good.

Personally, I think your idea is a reasonable possibility, one that I hadn't thought of. I'd like that idea myself, except I would still want to be able to do business with all residents, not just the ones on the more protected, serene grid.

coco

There's the rub of LL..... they have plans (aka schemes) to boost their business... instead of harnessing ideas for developing (with the residents) the service they created.

They're forgetting what their business is in the first place and what their goals were when they started out... and that is to create a resident-run society.

I have heard (plenty of times) in text and also from Phillip's voice that any plans for the future will be stated to the residents.... that is an outright lie.

We as residents shouldnt have to 'figure out' why LL decides to make rash, sudden decisions that alter hundreds of thousands of users lives and businesses. When I signed onto SL, I was paying for one thing, and now I'm getting something entirely different.... the only thing left to do is to stop paying them.

I strongly support SL
I respect several of the Lindens
I dispise the lack of integrity of LL, and therefore will never be able to justify paying them money.

i find it very odd that this is an issue now really. It brings up my point of people waiting for the "right time" to bring up a point that has actually existed in SL for god knows how long. The forum issue is caused because hey SL's forums havent been updated in a good long while. 3.0.5 is the version they use when 3.6 is out now. There isnt really a problem with SL so they develop stuff.

They are a company and have to as such have a good medium to keep their company profitable but also to a degree need to keep residents happy. If your just downgrading your accounts to show LL yeah I'm going to do this if you dont change the way you act your just as bad as they are if not worse. As i say time and time again if you dont like SL leave. You choose to be here and just like real life not everything is going to develop just how you like.

We may not like what they do but they are a company and they do what they think is best. I myself dont agree with everything they do because i know just what they have to do to keep things up. While i may disagree with you that things need to change i do see a valid point however things need to change slowly so LL can still remain profitable unless you want any development to just halt.

I love SL (the universe), dont get me wrong... but because of LLs (the company) new changes to their services, it's now something I don't want to pay for, and can't really see why I would want to now.
I'm not saying people should downgrade because of spite... but I do think I should downgrade if I am not getting the service I initially paid for....

Quoted for emphasis.

I've not been in SL a year yet - and it's gone downhill rapidly in just the time I've been here; I can't imagine what it's like for those who were here in the beginning.

The "us and them" mentality will destroy Second Life, whether it's LL v residents, or unverified accounts v everyone else.

Some of us are trying to build a community. Many of us are wondering why we bother when all we get in return is a kick in the teeth from Linden Labs.

Lewis

I agree with you 100%. I started back in 2004. It was a strange and confusing time for me. I slowly worked my way in this world and began to enjoy it. I treated it like it was my own imagination. Now i no longer feel that way... I feel like i'm playing a multiplayer FPS with a really bad physics system, and i dont like FPS's...

Since the registration changes i've had a hell of a lot of problems with griefers. And just when i thought things might get better, they go and remove the PvP Abuse reporter thing in the preview grid (GOD FORBID THEY DO THAT ON MG!). It isn't like they read the stuff anyway, but still... LL is just digging themselves a deep hole.

That's just it! I /love/ SL. I don't /want/ to leave. I want things to get better. I spent (and still spend) money within the world; I build and texture (though not as much, since my own computer went caput); I contribute.

Part of what attracted me to this place was the fact that residents are the MAIN content providers, and are really what drives the world. LL can't afford to alienate us all.

The problem with your statement is that, in theory, we've got a system in place with which we can make recommendations to LL that are supposed to be heeded. 1503 was a prop that got "acknowledged" by the Lindens, but there's no real sign that they'll actually do anything about it.

I'm as bad as LL? That's fine, your opinion, but I beg to differ. Keeping their residents happy /is/ what keeps them profitable, in a very large way; we pay money into this place - scads of it - and lately, we've been ignored, despite having very pertinent suggestions.

This "love it or leave it (and ignore problems)" stuff has always been bullshit, no matter what context it's applied to.

*debates walking away from this one and then stupidly decides to open her mouth*

Right now, I can't see how SL is very profitable to LL. And with their wrong turns, I don't see how they could ever become profitable. There is at this point, a lot of wasted database space in the way of unused avatars that aren't used, will never be used and were probably created only to pad the numbers so that the front page looks good.

How can it look good to have 1 million accounts, but only 6,000 are active at any time? To me, it doesn't. It screams, "Look, we've done something to make our residents angry, so they aren't playing any more!" And with that assumption, I'd run screaming away from the place rather than create the 1,000,001th account.

There isn't enough reason for new player to continue playing, since there is a growing chance that they'd be griefed the moment they step onto Help Island or onto the Welcome areas. Hardly fair to new players, but hey, Linden Labs seem to want cold numbers, not warm bodies.

Well i always thought that when you pay for a sevice you should expect to recieve that service. If LL advertises... begin your sl ... be anyone or anything you want to be..... it is impossible to do so when someone is bombing you clear across the sim while you're trying to "enjoy your sl experience".
Call me crazy but i expect to recieve what i pay for. If I dont, I feel duped or taken advantage of.
So many newbies come and one of the very first things they ask is... how can I make money? I heard you can make money in this game. Well you can, provided one of the many assorted griefers don't have some sort of vendetta against you or one of the wannabe mafia groups decide to make you a perma target. But if LL doesnt do anything about the griefers then their promises in their advertisements are false.
I totally understand they must be bombarded with griefers since the no cc for new accounts policy. What I dont understand is the policy in the first place. Since then i've heard LL will be looking at IP adresses for enrollement and banning greifer's. Now the no cc policy will work and I think it was a smart move for LL to ban IP's. of course there will always be some clever people who find a way around it but for the most part I feel this is one of the best descisions LL ever made. Maybe now I can get what I've invested into for almost an entire year. Was it worth it? You bet.... sl is still the shizzles in my book. But if the griefer situation isnt curbed and gets worse then it sure isnt worth paying for the harrassment. I could have stayed with my ex for that and got it free. (sways and sings "all we are saying is give peace a chance"

Savi Sieyes

Josie, I'm only quoting your words here as a jumping off point for my thoughts. I agree with everything you and others have said about how sad the changes can make us, but I'm trying to look deeper.

One, up until the opening of registration SL has been a "niche" market. In the world of MMOs, it has barely had the subscriber numbers of the less-successful games like Toontown and Puzzle Pirates. (See this chart for the track of early SL growth comparisons).

It's not a bad thing that LL wants to grow and compete. But from the vantage point of us, the residents, it means things will change. The tight-knit feeling of community that the early members had was already unravelling when I got here a year ago. The registration changes only accelerate a process that was already underway.

It's a truism that people who live in rural areas tend to be friendlier than people in crowded cities. SL has gone from being a virtual rural area to a crowded city, and it's only going to get more crowded. People are becoming more unfriendly, paranoid and angrier. Griefers aren't the problem, they are a symptom of a bigger problem here.

I'd love to have SL 2005 back, but it's not going to happen. Each of us has to make our own decisions about whether we want to live in the SL of 2006-07. Just know that our decisions are probably not going to turn back the tide. Second Life will grow. It will change. It will never be the same.

Second Life will never be profitable no matter what they do. It'll always be a loss-leader item that demostrates the useful software Linden Lab produces and licenses. I say Linden Lab, Linden Research may eventaully contain other software companys that keep Linden Lab itself afloat. It may now. Who's to know; Philip isn't going to discuss that kind of thing with a large consumer base.

Completely agree, good job with the message.

Phedre:

I've been around this world since you could go from one end to the other in under 5 minutes fly time. I've seen many things come and go, I've heard the DoomSayer's prediction that "The END is NEAR".

Many of the points you make seem to be something that LL Developers need to address, but the other points are the same these Forums are filled with, "Everyone is going to make my SL life a living hell by griefing me!". While I agree, LL has made it incredibly easier to grief for the moment, what I also know is that LL is inheriently BAD about telling the community just why they are going down this road. Take today's announcement about the update. In it we find that LL will now be collecting computer information so they can (and will I hope) be able to ban griefer's by what computer(s) they are using, instead of what CC they are using. Now, using the CC Method seemed to be working fine by all of us, but apparently someone(s) at LL believed it wasn't working at all well and a change needed to be made. That isn't a horrible thing, the HORRIBLE thing is that instead of implementing all of these changes at once, so we can continue to have griefing ban coverage, LL decided to implement these changes in phases, leaving all of us without that umbrella of protection we all have grown accustom to. Not only did LL leave us with that protection, they also failed to fully communicate their intentions and plans. This is pretty much the NORM for our friends at LL, and as I have explained to them before, it's not a good way of keeping the community happy, but it continues to happen. While we may not be able to get LL to understand the advantages of effective communication, let's not distort their ineffective communicating with downright not caring about the community in general.

LL is making a change in HOW they go about banning people. LL is also going to be giving ALL of us in the community the ability to decide WHO we wish to socialize with. If you only want to socialize with people who have been verified, then now you can. If you don't care if these people have been verified or not, then don't look at that area of their profile. The point is, LL is making more information available, and while some people will use this information to NOT socialize with people that aren't "verified", I think the majority of the community will continue to do exactly as they have for the past three years; the community will trust a new person, until that person gives them reason NOT to trust them.

Phedre, I encourage you NOT to back away from Second Life, but continue down the road you were. LL is guilty only of ineffective communication, not of trying to destroy our world. If people would take time to think things through instead of giving knee-jerk reactions, they would see that the ONLY thing LL has done (and done and done and done) is NOT tell the community the whole and correct story.

Continue to make plans for your island Phedre, continue to help others, continue to enjoy Second Life, they are only changing HOW they deal with griefers, nothing more. I hope to one day to enjoy your Island with you and your friends, and hopefully you will be able to see through the clouds of ineffective communication that LL is really here to help the community, not destroy it!

I got to tell you, I think Linden have their eye on a bigger prize than individual paying customers.

I'm a musician, and have been noticing, ever so slowly, some big names dipping their toes in - Warner Brothers, Motown, the BBC, MTV - and, though I am not well abrest in other areas, I understand this is also true in other fields These are companies not intersested in numbers that currently amass to about 6000 or so in-world at any one time; they are used to hitting millions in one fell swoop.

I believe Linden sees the future of SL not as an exclusive, gated, private community but as a new media, and the mainstay of their futute profits from corporations, not individuals. Thus, I fear, such protestations as this, no matter what sympathy they may elecit, could fall on deaf ears.

no secret.. Philip linden over and over stated that he see's SL as the (or a) future internet.. the open registration is a step in the direction.. html on prims built in browser.. relaxation of the age restrictions which at some point I imagine will turn into no restriction.. that be up to the club/land owners content providers and eventually "sim" OWNERS that being privatly ran sims outside the LL nest.. not that I like the new changes but there is no stopping it now... do or die -.-