The Myth of Only

You landlord types out there are shooting yourselves squarely in the foot by deeming rental areas "residential only" or "commercial only."

Rentors can as easily bring one of your sims to crawl building a furnishing a house as they can setting up a shop or hosting events. They can as easily crap up the view as well.

Jarod often says to me "it's software stupid." In this case, the phrase is apropos. You'll greatly improve your model, especially considering the new estate tools, to insist that your customers "use low lagging scripts, maintain reasonable texture sizes, and be considerate of your neighbors' view."

In the interest of seeing this software used to build viable communities, I beg you all to not repeat the mistakes that LL have made with the mainland. Manage your estates responsibly rather than with useless "only" catch phrases.

Furthermore, the latest trend in urban planning nowadays is what's called "mixed use" zoning. That is, allowing multiple uses on the same plot. A common example is your ordinary American downtown; commercial shops and offices on the first floor at street level, and residences on the upper levels. There's no reason this can't be happening in SL. Simply designate a minimum of two-floor buildings, with the bottom floor reserved for commerce. It would make shopping easier to browse (everything's at ground level), and allow for a bit more privacy in residences (away from the beaten path, so to speak).

Just a thought.

My sims are zoned residential or commercial for reasons that have nothing to do with any supposed difference in resource needs for one type over the other, it's a lot simpler than that. Those who want to set up a store invariably wish to do so in the middle of an area of many other stores. Those who wanto to se up home, prefer a lower traffic environment without a tringo event taking place next door.

As for my zoning on scripts, etc. In the main, it is impractical to write rules, and police those rules, that dictate which scripts can or can not be used, it needs to be kept as simple as possible. I operate a 'lag awareness' policy, where residents are asked to use the resources in an unselfish way, and to generally use common sense. I don't go around checking scripts, textures, etc daily, but I do check sim performance daily. If the sim is struggling, I will then ask/tell the main contributor(s) to make changes, with advice as to what changes they could and should make.

So far, it has been immensely successful, and it I have only had cause to contact a small number of residents in this last year, and every time, the resident has always been cooperative.

I built two sims recently for a customer. One is designated "Residential Only", and the other is "Residential, with limited Commercial Development". Both are contiguous with two other sims that the same person owns, which are mixed commercial and rental and residential properties, and much less restricted. The two new sims feature a unified Tropical theme, with pre-built houses on the lots that are for sale. Zoning requirements state that appearances must maintain the tropical theme.

The result is more like the real world. We have 'downtown', the mixed use sims, with lots of commercial development and a large club. We have a quiet residential suburb, where people can relax and not worry that a large club might suddenly crop up as their next door neighbor. And we have the 'light commercial' sim, where commercial vendors are limited to a small area near the public water park. Rather like a residential neighborhood that has a small shopping complex on one main street. Future sim developments will feature other mixes of residential and/or commercial use.

The main reason for 'residential' sims is to provide homes where people can entertain friends and not worry about the traffic from clubs and businesses. We use zoning covenants to enzure that things remain beautiful and don't turn into a chaotic mess. Yes, lag is a factor too, but as you said, that can be lessened in impact by insisting on low-lag vendors. That is what we require in the limited commercial area, and we will also be monitoring the residential sites for lag-inducing problems.

I prefer to aim for a 'planned community' approach myself, much as a well-planned city is zoned. The results, I think, make for a better set of sims.

I'd actually prefer the ability to set up a small scale sell point in otherwise 'residential' house, supposedly with neighbours doing similar thing -- then you can have a 'hq' of sorts for customers to tp in and do shopping if they're specifically interested in things you do, without having to download whole mall worth of textures ... and after they're done shopping, there's similar small scale fast loading shops for them in the neighbourhood to check out. At the same time, small scale customer traffic doesn't lag out people who happen to live there like some kind of *ngo event or yard sale would.

Caledon comes to mind here, on visit there it seemed that's pretty much the model they utilize and it's quite appealing...

I do have 3 sims that are zoned in a similar way to what you have suggested, but the rest are strictly one or the other. If I had had a larger demand for a mixed type zoning, I would have zoned more sims in that way. The demand for 'mixed' zoning is just a lot smaller than for seperated zoning.

I don't mind residential only sims. I rent about 8000m in one, and the lack of extra traffic from people coming to shop is actually very refreshing. The sim is less laggy without vending systems and casinos/camping farms.

I have also noticed a LOT less griefing in the residential sim I rent from. There usually aren't a crap load of people there to grief, so what's the point in going there to grief?

This makes sense, perhaps commercial only meets that need.

This does not make sense. I see "homes" all over the grid where dozens of people congregate daily causing the sim to lag considerably. They're not hosting any published event, playing any game, operating a dance machine or such, people just hang out there. I maintain that "residential only" doesn't solve the problems that people think it does.

Seems a good, successful plan. How does it apply to designating saddling entire sims with "only" restrictions?

You are right, quite often you will get a popular resident who always has many friends with them on their island, though still the traffic in general is a lot lower in residential sims. It's not about lag though, avatar lag is near impossible to halt. it's about what 'kind' of traffic you see in residential sims. The majority of avatars in a residential sim are there to see someone in particular, and have no intentions of exploring or 'bothering' other residents in the sim. I am not suggesting that 'explorers' are 'teh bad', I am just pointing out that the fact you see less of them in residential sims is welcomed by many who are looking for a quiet corner in SL.



I must be having a dense moment, as I am not sure what you are asking. Could you elaborate?

I'm personally all for guidelines as to the use of certain areas. I just don't think "commercial" and "residential" are a good idea. After all, these are RL categories and reflect all sorts of RL aspects - commercial taxes, power consumption, litter generated, and so on. There's no particular reason why these two categories should work in SL. They would certainly cause problems for me.

Certainly in Caledon, the mix of functions of different properties works in everyone's favour, since people often promenade, admiring a house here, an art gallery there, commercial premises yonder, chatting to people as they go. It's much more sociable. If anyone wants to find a particular shop they always have the option of using the map, they're not going to get lost. I'm much more interested in style and behaviour guidelines than usage ones. Who cares whether your neighbour is selling things or not if their property causes you no bother? And if it causes you bother, address the bothersome aspects with rules.

I hadn't thought of the type of person who would be visiting a friend rather than shopping/exploring around the area. So "residential only" is a message to visitors as well as rentors. That's interesting.



Your description of lag checking technique seems to work well for you without being a whole lot of work for you. But it works equally well in sims no matter supporting any kind of builds or traffic. Does it not?

Are you implying that Second Life is some kind of innovative social tool? Oh YOU...YOU...ha ha ha I needed a good life you kidder you.

You'll be calling "collaborative" next ha ha ha

How about "compelling" oh I'm killing me ho ho ho

For better or worse, "residential" and "commercial" are generally understood without a lot of explanation on the part of the people setting up the zoning. Not everyone wants to take the time to go into details about which J. Random Passerby is unlikely to care anyway.

As for the "shooting yourself in the foot" of the original post, I don't see it that way, myself. Given the "generally understood" above, the "Only Zones" are, I think, more likely to attract customers, compared to the possibility of someone thinking they're moving into a nice quiet unzoned neighborhood, only to find that the next day they're ringed in by casinos.

(Ok, that last bit is hyperbole, but not by that great a degree. )

I suppose Azure Islands misses out on the occasional prospective resident who wants to have a combination house/shop.

But it appeals to those who very much want them separate. Having lived there for a year now, I have to say I absolutely love the set-up.

Not only is the area beautiful - beautifully designed by Nexus and Adam - but there is a sim for the shops. In fact, from my land I can look across the bay and see the shopping sim (or I could if my draw distance were higher than 64), which is reached by a lovely bridge down the road (or you could row there).

It is incredibly peaceful to live in a residential area. You know everyone around you is "at home." It's the same reasons that real-life residential areas are more peaceful than mixed-use areas.

I like rl mixed-use areas, too (I loved living in Manhattan), and I can see why some would prefer to live in mixed-use areas on private sims, too. I'm just not one of them.

coco

But not everyone wants to be uber-sociable (at 'home', that is), and some people do care, you are simply presenting your opinion, and that's cool, but not everyone shares it. The important thing is that there are many flavours of zoning offered by many landlords/ladies that provide a variety of choice. That's got to be good, right?

There certainly is no unwelcome message meant there, it's just an observation. I am just suggesting that there is a part of the SL community who prefer a quieter SL, and that this suits them.



That's correct. I completely agree with you that residential sims can be more resource hungry than commercial sims, though I have found that generally it's the other way round. But my motivation for having residential and commercial zoning is not based on any idea that one is more resource hungry than the other, anyway.

Variety is the spice of life, afterall.

I LIKE zoning and wish there was more of it in SL, much of which is a confusing sprawl. Anyone who has had to live next to spinning cubes and casinos, when they just want a nice little home in a quiet residential neighborhood, appreciates residential only areas. I don't get this beef at all? I live in a large city and no one wants to live over a store or across the street from a bar that is open all night. That is economics. In SL too, people pay more to have pleasant, quiet surroundings for their "home" because, I don't know... living in a strip mall isn't very appealing?

And if you don't think lag is an issue, try standing next to a busy club or a popular tringo game. Yes, big parties next door can slow up a sim, but it isn't constant. Some, like Otherland, give enough space and discourage excessive scripts and huge gatherings, which is nice if you can afford it. They don't seem to have any problem getting people to buy their lots, either, even with those restrictions.