Telehub

Ive read several discussions on telehubs and how they should be improved. I like the idea now that new land gets telehubs last. However I can't help but notice how few telehubs there are in SL. I just opened a casino in Jouppi called Sunset Casino and no one can teleport anywere near it. For people to come to my casino they have to manually choose Desire or somewhere near that location and then fly about 1840m to my casino. I understand the economics of the telehubs and thats fine. But why can't we get telehubs that allow people to get to where they need to go? Almost every island has its own telehub, yet ive seen telehubs 10 sims apart on the mainland. I don't want a telehub on my casino roof. But I would like to see something thats a little closer then 1840m away. I know I could have chosen a better place for my casino, but I didn't think that when people telepor to my location that they would be stranded on the other side of the ocean with no means to get to me.


Joe Debs (SL)
[email]JoeDebs@gmail.com[/email]

Ever heard the RL saying "Location, Location, Location?"

Its critical for a successful buisness that you select a location that's not too far from a Telehub. Conversely, your neighbors around you may have chosen their location to be as far away as possible from commercial venues.

I'm not familiar with your part of the map - but from your description, my guess would be its somewhat of a residential area - not a good place for a casino.

Joe, on the SL feature voting page ( http://secondlife.com/vote/ ), Proposition 89 supports "pinpoint teleporting," which means you could teleport to any location you wanted without having to use a telehub. You can vote for this feature if you feel it would be a positive change.

Some players don't want to see telehubs removed because they like the idea of commercial development centering around them. Also, many people who have taken pains to buy land close to telehubs would probably feel slighted if this proposition were approved. I, on the other hand, absolutely detest having to fly many meters to and from SL locations; it feels like a real waste of my time.

I agree this is annoying. It's why you have to study telehub ecology and distances to and from and flyover factors before you site a business.

A way to get around this difficult is to constantly announce events where you or your managers are on hand to provide personal TPs to guests.

I would really like to know why you chose to put a casino in this location? Opponents of the pt 2 pt teleport proposal cite the decentralization of commercial activities should telehubs become defunct. Yet, having purchased land in more than one hard to access location, I have seen commercial endeavors created in these remote locations time and time again. You indicate an awareness of the lack of accessibility this location held. Can you explain? What were you thinking?

When I was looking for a site to place a store the main concern was how close the hub was to the land. In some caes the hub was close but there was an empty/non-existant sim in the middle, meaning those tping couldn't follow the red line directly, a turn was needed.

My suggestion would be to sell your land and find something near a hub, within a sim or two. If you plan to do m rated events be sure it's m rated land. Ifyou need help locating such a location let us know in this forum, I'm sure you'll get plenty of help.

Well I have the opposite problem. I went out of my to find some remote land. Fount a nice spot, and then boom, they put in a telehub 2 sims away. LoL So much for being isolated. I still think point to point tp is better after all what socializing goes on at the telehub. If you want people to socialize you gotta offer them something to do. People Socilize at clubs and not telehubs.

I think being right next to a telehub is about the worst place to put a business. No one ever waits for stuff to rez. When I port in to a hub I immediately fly up to cloud level and continue on to my destination, never seeing anything around the hub. I imagine I'm not alone in this.

I do the same thing, Chip. Hub congestion is annoying at best. I refuse to shop at the maze of shops that clutter around hubs.

hehe - you're absolutely right, Chip. That's why, IMHO - the prime spot for commercial locations are in the 100m - 300m from the hub range. At least..... today.

You are not alone. My alts and I do the same. The best place to locate a business if you want me to shop there is in FIND.

In fact there are at least 3 groups of people/attitudes in SL re: telehubs so it's no good constantly fighting over which is best because this is one of those "Coke/Pepsi" or "cloth/disposable" arguments that go nowhere.

Some people come to hubs precisely because they are congested, they see a lot of activity, they see a lot of bright lights, they see other people, and they've also possibly clicked on a landmark that brought them to somebody's main store right at a telehub. Telehubs get traffic. They get sales. Not for everyone, but enough so that many are justified in placing vendors in stores by telehubs, and telehub land is expensive.

Other people like to fly a ways from the telehub -- 100-300 meters, but not more than 500 or their arms get tired from flying. These people like to press page up and the forward arrow to get out and away from the telehub which they feel is ugly, overly commercialized, and is trying to trap their avatars into a sale. Tacky! They keep flying...but if someone has the wit and foresight to just place *the same thing* maybe a little less gaudy 300 meters away, they'll get the business of this more "discriminating" av.

Still others think that unless they fly 1000 meters, pack a lunch, and get ready to camp out on some barren windswept mountain top, they aren't shopping high-end. Unless they can be really, really far away from "blight" they don't think they've arrived. Sometimes, their boutique friends actually just hang out in these remote areas and just TP in their select list of shoppers.

I could even put in a fourth category, I suppose, which is people who put out shops in residential areas far from telehubs so that the people with "set to home" who live in that area will do a little shopping right in that area (i.e. in Ravenglass/Furness/Maryport, 800-100- meters from the telehub). We put a lot of work into developing shops along the road that aren't malls, and aren't heavy impacts on the sim, but still provide a mixture of activity and make the sim a little more interesting and provide some income mainly for the residents who live there who have their own shops in some cases or rent them.

Why can't there be a mixture of styles of commerce and revenue generation and shopping in SL? Surely it's a big enough world for all. There shouldn't be this constant effort of one kind of style trying to stamp out everyone else, i.e. boutiquers trying to kill of telehubberss and telehubbers trying to start out boutiquers.

Or of course the fifth category which hates all stores, malls, commerce (sometimes their own store will be the exception LOL).

I don't wait for the rezzing either. The point is whether a person looking to go to a casino is going to make a 1800 m trip to get to one. Probably not. So do you place one in a remote area, find that your business is not thriving, and then ask for a redesign of the grid so that a telehub is placed nearer to it? I'm looking for the "I bought land in remote area and I'm still stuck next to a particle spewing black box" thread to accompany this one.

Incidentally, has anyone seen this thread?:

/111/19/47595/1.html

Does this add a wrinkle to the telehub discussion, or is it just an irrelevant footnote?
(And if it's irrelevant, that's cool... I just don't see that many folks talking about it yet.)

this is how i shop for those things i buy.

Yep. I've been following that and every other thread about direct teleport in the last four months. I've offered $, prayers, homemeade soup; still no product available to purchase. This sounds most promising; I'm almost at the point of allowing myself to be excited in anticipation of its public release.

from:
/invalid_link.html
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Yep, I hear ya Khamon. I'm all about using FIND. I'm not much of a random explorer.

Yes, Stoneself, I read those too. The post dates are from March. I waited a bit to give them time to review the posts in that thread and continue their discussions. I finally inquired about the status in the hotline right before the voting system was introduced. The response I received was a suggestion to make a proposal about it to be voted upon.

IMHO - I'd be somewhat surprised if LL introduced a feature change in this area in the short-term future. If support for this was universal, it'd be a different story - but its not. There are passionate and logical arguments on both sides of this debate, for a variety of reasons.

Its nice that we have a feature proposal - but LL is well aware that it doesn't account for 'votes against'. That's what the attached discussion thread is for - and if you read it, there is by no means a universally-held community opinion on the subject.

I think LL is waiting for us to devise a solution to this problem, rather than dictating it to us. Just a guess, though

As posted above, I also think that LL will put off changing the telehub system until it's obvious that hubs are so outmoded that nobody will care. We'll have to rely on resident-based taxibot services or telestick technology to get around the blight until then.

Wow, this thread sure got a lot of attention. To answer a few peoples questions let me explain why I am where I am. The area is beautiful and yes it is residential. My casino is 10m high only and has no lights on the outside. No noise, no disruptions. I was going for a more upscale place then what I have seen. All of the area around me is not developed. I wouldn't mind flying 1500m or so to my casino if the telehubs would teleport me to the right one. However, when someone chooses to teleport to my casino they get put on the other side of the "ocean" and are unable to fly over. This is obviously a glitch in SL. The telehub system should choose the closest telehub by flying time, not line of sight. I know location is everything, and i acknowledged this in my first post. I don't want the next las vegas in jouppi, its more of a relaxing place to play some slots and enjoy the area around the casino. As for residential only, i have put a lot of thought into this. Who here lives 20-30 minutes away from anything retail or commercial? no one im sure. So i don't see a problem with putting some small unobtrusive stores, malls, shops, or anything else in a residential area. This main post was about how the telehub system was faulty. It doesn't exactly give you the most convienent route to your destination.

Joe, I hear you about that cross-ocean travel. I think the most annoying thing about being far from telehubs isn't even the distance or flight time.

It's that you have to face that horrible wall of flying over sims seams and the Void, and it often simply won't let you pass. I know there are all sorts of theories about getting rid of attachments, not flying near sim corners, etc. etc. but the fact is, it's a huge pain in the ass and all of it goes away when the Lindens themselves make adjustments. For example, I used to not be able to fly to the new continent, but then after a certain patch, bang, I was able to cross over those sim seams like butter. Nothing changed on my computer or game. Then I was back to getting stuck out by Portage, unable to ever reach land that I had bought, unable to use it, unable to get tenants to it, who also couldn't reach it. It's that problem that makes it hard to develop areas outside telehubs.

I notice that as soon as the Lindens finish building in a new sims area and get rid of the Void and so on, it normalizes, beats down, and you can fly over it ok.

The link that Robin has in her post takes us back here to General. Not sure what that means.

The idea that you socialize with people 200 or more meters below you on the ground as you fly the 1000 meters out of telehubs is a little odd yes.

What does happen though is as you fly around, if you see a big group of people, or something lit up, or just some interesting build or sign, you might stop and land. So in that sense, sure, it's like the way some department stores make you walk through the entire floor to see the merchandise, before they let you descend on the next leve of the down escalator, all the way on the other side of the building. It's a retail gimmick, and one that leaves you feeling a bit used but often you do see more bargains that way.

Wow, I just saw that on the auction yesterday, a plot of land of 11000 k plus sold for $23 LL a meter, for $1052 US -- that's like 9 cents a meter.

That's a huge amount even for telehub land. Hyles is the second telehub to come in the new continent.

The name is an unknown (could be an alt of a baron) and they outbid Anshe.

Just goes to show you, people continue to understand the value of telehub land and pay a pretty price for it.

Agreed, I absolutley thiink telehub land is worth more. I just wish people could get to my place period. Even if that means flying 1840m, fine, but as of now they really can't.