Do sandboxes fail their intended purpose?

Sounds ok but in practise...

http://imagesocket.com/view/combat_box673.jpg
http://imagesocket.com/view/island_box712.jpg

Not exactly a building enviroment.

Do we need tighter rules, the lindens to go around with a vacuum cleaner every thirty minutes or the resident sandbox patrol? Or are sandboxes absolutely fine?

Personally I find them to be usable within a few hours of the wipe, so long as you sit on a prim to avoid getting run over/shot. After six or so hours the cruft has built up to levels where using a floating platform is a better idea.

Is it just me, or have the sandboxes become blazing infernos recently? Every time I enter, the whole place seems to be alight.

What I'd like to propose is this: Put a notice (or three) in every sandbox, asking people to clean up after themselves..

Simple, no? I think that most people are pretty decent and will do so if they're asked. There would still be the minority of people that rez those dozens of coloured blocks, or the GIANT guns, but it would be less socially acceptable - at the moment, you can't really say anything because nobody has asked them NOT to do it.

It would at least be a start, and require very little effort to implement

It would be nice if people would simply follow a few simple rules, like tidy up your crap before you leave the sandbox.

Unfortunately very few people think about others, and sandboxes seem particularly susceptible to it .

Last night I was somewhere quiet, testing a transport system that runs along a sim, and used a 250m strip about 20m wide on one edge of the region. The rest of the sim was almost completely empty, with just a couple of others in corners working on projects, or flying around bothering nobody.

After 10 minutes, a group of people turned up and started dropping crap, not just all over the sandbox, but right on top of where I was trying to work, completely obstructing my workspace, bumping me around, and setting off huge particle effects that caused lag. Now that's not just an accident, that's deliberate asshatness. There was plenty of other room in the sandbox for them to play, but no, they have to go and drop their junk (mostly plywood boxes), and not even attempt to do anything with them.

We shouldn't have to buy huge chunks of land just to get a bit of peace and quiet to build... maybe thats part of the LL masterplan, and the reason sandboxes aren't kept in order.

Lewis

A few more Linden managed- and created sandboxes would be nice, including some for weapons testing, and some mature ones for those non PG builds and modifications...

And about the wipes, automatic wipes are great, but if you're in the middle of something, it can be annoying, specially since you get a warning just aa few minutes before the wipe, resulting in panic linking and taking into the inventory.
maybe the Lindens can create more jobs by appointing sandbox wipers, who go around to manually wipe things, so they can avoid deleting stuff people are working on.
This will also be good for the economy I think, as it creates jobs for people to do (not everyone wants to be an escort or something like that)...

What I see in some private owned sandboxes, that they start renting out plots of land on the edges of the sandboxes... this of course isn't a smart thing to do, as the sandbox becomes smaller and more laggy... Good example of how not to do it, is the Furnation sandboxes. Hardly possible to build anything bigger then a chair before things start lagging up.

Would the sandbox wipers be supplied with a dance pole? But seriously, I've had to call in Lindens while working in Cordova. On one occasion some clown rezzed several hundred 10X10X10 plywood cubes that swamped my build project (I often do large-scale builds) and the one next to mine. I got onto live help and a Linden showed up within minutes.

The only answer I can think of would be for LL to open several more sim-sized sandboxes. Things were fine a year ago when the population was much lower. You could actually get a fair bit of work done. Nowadays the sandboxes are simply madhouses. I put it down to the population increase. There hasn't been a corresponding increase in facilities (such as the major sandboxes) so thiungs tend to appear more chaotic and messy.

Sandboxes are screwed by a selfish lot. Thousands of prims eaten up and the owners are nowhere in sight.

I'd made a suggestion elsewhere to address this, and I think a rework is in order.

1. There will be two types of sandboxes, controlled and uncontrolled.

2. Everyone (basic and premium) is given a 260-300 prim allowance. The total number of prims you rez in all controlled sandboxes is compared against this allowance. The number allows for making a maximum-prim attachment with allowance for support items. This forces people to clean up.

3. Uncontrolled sandboxes are for premium members only. This is because it's the premium members that may have a need to test abnormally large builds outside their land. Uncontrolled sandboxes are not subject to the prim allowance. So the people who have been crowding out sandboxes now will have to contend with each other.

4. In addition to wipes every 12 hours. Prims should be deleted two hours after its owner has left the sandbox where the prims are located. For as long as the avatar is present, the prims will persist (subject only to the per-12 hour wipe).

What do you think? I am looking for a better solution to replace #3, but the solution in #2 should be good already.

I like the idea of "premium only" sandboxes, especially if they are under tighter control so you can report people who are being deliberate asshats. We need more reasons for people to 'go premium', and certainly it would stop a lot of the alts who are created just to cause trouble who hang around sandboxes.

Lewis

Hmmm, I can think of a few builders on Basic Accounts who do large-scale builds and are habitues of Cordova and Goguen. It'd never fly, Aodhan. The 2-hour timout might, but I've had situations where I've had to go offline in the middle of a project without time to save my work. RL can get like that. I'm certain I'm not the only one who's had their work interrupted by RL demands and been thankful that it's all still there when they return several hours later.

If there's going to be any sandbox 'segregation' it should be more along the lines of 'play' vs 'work'. Some people just wanna have fun and goof around. Why not? Play is just as important as work: something that so many adults seem to forget. Others wanna get down to their latest build project. And builders should have access to peaceful sandboxes where they can get on with their work undisturbed.

I think this is on the right track. I would definitly be far more likely to visit sandboxes that arent frequented by basic users, as it tends to cut back on the number of "griefer" incidents. I like how the sandboxes were when I was a new user. Yes, there was still griefing, but it was nowhere near this bad, and it was easy to find people to socialize with as well.

This is not to say that I don't approve of teaching new users the basics of content creation in SL. However, I think that the current sandboxes available have become wastelands in recent weeks.

@Lewis and Alazarin

I agree with both your observations, hence the request for a better solution to replace #3.

@Alazarin

The ideal segregation of sandboxes is according to the lines between work/play.

When I was a basic member and had only the sandboxes to build in it was really frustrating to see a 1000+ prim tower erected mere minutes after the wipe. As the tower is a prefab (and it appears in the pics of the OP too!) it certainly isn't a "work" rez.

In the current absence of any real way to distinguish between work and asshat (not play) building implementing even just 3 controlled sandboxes with limit set at 150 prims (instead of 300) and 2 hour no-avatar time limit will make a significant positive impact. The rest can remain uncontrolled.

We want to give a positive impression to the basic account holders that could be tomorrow's great builders. It's not nice that they have to go up against even more asshat builders than I had to put up with.

YES! That's something I have thought about too.

I wished I had the cash to have a Private sim sandbox managed by me and having the Wipe that normal Sandboxes has... because a Peaceful Sandbox, means more peaceful builds

I am tried of the griefers and people that come around and drop stuff and tp away :/, like they only want a sim to crash thats all :/

Stand up and make a sandbox sim! I may not be able to own one but i can manage well and online alot... >.>

A one hour auto return would be fine for now. Then maybe later they could make the 'auto-return' process return objects as a single inventory item. Having 200 unlinked prims returned to your inventory as 200 seperate objects isn't fun at all!.

It would be nice if we could leave stuff on display in the sandbox, but it's now got to the point where that's not really practical. If we try and leave something on display, then it's not long before it's lost amongst all the other "art" that gets added.

The idea of using a sandbox police force isn't good at all.

"Hey, your build is crap! I'm deleting it.".

Yeah, right..

Ideally the sandboxes can showcase art by basic members, but we are also in agreement that it's really not practical.

I always deleted stuff before I logout because prims I take up can't be used by someone else. The only time I left stuff is when I fell asleep logged in. I got logged out automatically but when I returned later, my stuff was still there. Since I normally keep a good copy of whatever I'm doing before I break off to rest it really wouldn't have mattered to me if it got deleted immediately.

Perhaps the autodelete will instill some discipline in builders who should make sure they make copies before progressing. It is a good habit after all because you never know when a sim will roll back.

There is a weapons testing sandbox already that the Lindens run and there is a whole sim that is a Mature Sandbox sponsored by A. Chung if you or anyone want a LM to these places just send me an IM in world. Heck I have a whole folder full of LM's to different sandboxes around SL that I'd be happy to share.

There is also Combat Sanboxes, three of them (Red Team, Raush and Blue team), but they are almost impossible to get into since idiots there routinely use Instant kill weapons and pushbased weaponry.

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Sandbox addict here:

As for the segregation of Premium and Basics, I think that is a bad idea, I'm basic but I have never griefed and never will grief so that would exile at least one who is there to do serious building, and it would not suprise me the least if there isn't a whole bunch more of us.
This segregation would be better if it was verified Acc. contra unverified Acc. IMHO. Still a good way of dealing with griefers.


I like the idea of separating them in play and work areas, that would solve a lot of issues as I can see it.

The idea of Sandbox maids will never fly as I can see it, the workload is just too big, and not to mention locating all the prims in high orbit and bellow the ground.

There have been numerous threads discussing what exactly LL can do to provide more of an incentive to go premium. You say it wouldn't fly, but much as people would like it, you can't have everything for free, particularly not "premium" features, and I think this is a great example of a resource directly contributed and controlled by LL, that would be both very benificial to users and for which they themselves might consider making a direct investment to LL through a subscription.

And most importantly, it doesn't actually remove a feature from any non-paying player, because the regular sandboxes remain. But if you want a place where you're actually less likely to get harrassed then you just pay for it.

Perhaps we could even have 'verified' and 'premium only' sandboxes, so those that are traceable by putting in credit card information get a place away from the real griefer problems.

Lewis

How is Newcomb, the no script sandbox? It has been where I've gone when I had no land and wanted to build and not script. It's been peaceful for me, though I haven't been there in a while.

Newcomb's fine as far as it goes. But my rez-faux box won't work there... waaaaaaaaaaaah. Nor any of the other scripts that are routinely used as part of building work. Grumble, grumble

BTW CJ, I'm a premium member of SL and would benefit from 'premium-only' sandboxes. But I can imagine the howls of protest if such a practice was implemented.

I think LL should create a developer's program which includes restricted access to building and testing sims. If purchasing your own sim were cheaper, that would be a better solution, but US$1,250 is too large an investment just to develop. Basically there should be something analagous to the developer's edition of SQLServer for this "platform".

Actually this could all be solved by an "off line building" function. Surely it couldn't be difficult for your own PC to serve as a 'sim, with the only online connection needed to download your inventory. Then when you're finished, you just take the stuff to your inventory, upload it, then log on and place in-world.

Solves lag and griefers in one easy swoop.

Lewis

Yup, that would be better, but I think even more unlikely. It doesn't hurt to suggest solutions though.

I agree. I wonder how this would affect the inworld population count though? People attract people, and if nobody was inworld then SL may shrivel up and die. Grifers are people too, they need people to shoot at. I also wonder how many people spend their entire day discussing griefers and trying to fight them off.

Griefers are like the plankton of SL. Take them away and the whole SL foodchain may die.

Shutup you freaking fool!!!

Resmods!!!