Robin's Comments on Teluhubs, p2p tp, compensation for people near telehubs

It seems I'm again on the unpopular side of this debate. The idea LL would change the infrastructure in such a profound way is scary. One person compared it to the mall closing/moving. I would rather compare it to the county moving all the roads leaving the mall out in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly the value of the mall land is equal to the cow pastures.

For those of you who think the words from Robin gave hope of P2P teleporting, better read it again. It looks to me as if those words were meant as a back peddle. It's true they would like to look at the issue, but as Jeska said on 07/22/05.. there is no plan to change the teleporting system in the works. Unless all these issues listed by Robin can be worked out there will be no change.

My personal opinion is hubs are valuable, flying isn't that big of an inconvenience, and we are not losing any customer base because of telehubs.

For those reasons I seriously doubt there will be a change any time soon. So hang on to that hub land.

I continue to add my vote towards allowing residents an option of 10 P2P teleport locations, which coveres frequently-traveled-to locations, assuming landowner permission. I would like to see them set up just like a friends list or group list in a menu that you can open up an choose a destination. This solves everyones problem except those that at too freakin' lazy to fly for 30 seconds to a destination a bit further away.

And SL is the poorer for it. I'm not in SL that much anymore, and sometimes I wonder if I'll ever come back long term. Being forced to fly through a slow rezzing store attick every time I want to go anywhere is just one more thing keeping me out.

Telehubs are a mistake. They never should have existed in the first place. They were an elaborate experiment that failed to bring any benefit, and now some people are arguing they should stay... Why? Cause they like that a much earlier mistake allows them to trap people and make others' lives a misery for possible financial gain for themselves.

That is kind of what's wrong with the world. Often we can see how to sort something out, we can see the right path, but we never quite make it to doing the right thing, cause somebody somewhere has a vested interest...

Providing you were to find a way to:

a) Preserve telehub areas as common egress points.

b) Preserve the current value of telehub land.

c) Have the ability to set a p2p "Landing point" on each parcel (for privacy reasons).

That completely changes my position on p2p teleporting. Accomplish the above three, and I'm 100% behind p2p teleporting.

I've been wanting to relocate the Shelter to a PG location for some time now, for a host of reasons. Because we cater primarily to new residents, easy access is critical for us - hence the need to be near a telehub. PG Telehub sims are hard to come by these days - p2p teleporting would allow us to move to a more lag-free environment with a lot less pain.

I've taken all the steps I can on my own parcel to be a good neighbor, and be as resource-light as possible. Unfortunately, being in a Mature sim surrounded by malls - most of my efforts are nullified.

It is scary yes. I remember saying just that when 1.2 and land tiers were announced. I said it too when they first started talking about auctioning land. Others made similar statements when the particle system was overhauled, when estate sims were introduced, when on parcel audio and video were implemented, and when auctions were converted to whole sims only.

These were all scary changes. But they were also necessary for the continued growth and development of Second Life and Linden Lab's bottom line. P2P is equally necessary and I give them enough credit to believe that they know it. If they feel obligated to leave telehubs in place, phase in p2p as Eggy suggested, or compensate people who paid through the nose for telehub land, they can take some time to iron out the details. But they've put this off almost as long as they can.

BTW, I bought snow land and couldn't sell it four weeks later for 1/3 of the purchase price because LL released 40+ additional snow sims all at once. I don't remember asking them for compensation. Perhaps I should've. You know, come to think of it, I remember one land broker telling us over and over again that they took a nosedive on a bunch of snow land too but that was just business and we should all take our lumps quietly. I think that now they're not worried about losing what they paid for the land, but losing the aibility to milk rent from a fresh batch of niave merchant every month.

Not being a professional ... just based on my own observations, I suspect that it has to do with the inability to maintain two points of view. Basically I think that it amounts to "/this/ perspective is right, therefore any view that is /not this/ must be wrong".

And I suspect a lot of people dont even recognize when they are working with that premise; and dont see how it colors their decisions, influences the way they manage situations and interact with others.

Just my personal, non-professional opinion ...

The good news is it's already done

a) See no problem with this
b) Fix the value of one bit of land, fix the value of it all, not a good idea
c) We can already set a landing point. See no reason why that wouldn't also be the teleporting point too.

Its not that easy. What about people who want some privacy? What if I don't want people teleporting right next to me at my land? What about those of us trying to get work done? What about those of us who intentionally live a bit farther away from telehubs?

What about stalkers?

DON'T just do it. Think about it first.

-Flip

this is good. when i go out i take the bus on the way there and the taxi on the way home. once again SL emulates RL!!!!

You're right... If we implement this, people could come on to our land!!

Damn, actually they can already. So I guess the same old answers are the right ones. If you want to keep someone off your land, move your land to "the following people are allowed only".

If you are thinking P2P will mean crowds of Japanese tourist avs will turn up on your land with cameras, you're wrong. You'll be hidden by cloak of anonymity. For instance, if you can P2P to anywhere on the grid, why all go to that one spot in that one sim in the corner somewhere.

Just because people can flock, it doesn't mean they will. And let's face it, if people were going to flock to your house like geese, they'd do it right now. Only they'd take a while longer and be more bothered by flying journeys and telehubs when they got there.

There's a world of difference between someone flying in (seeing a green dot approaching from a distance) and someone appearing RIGHT NEXT TO YOU. C'mon man.

I can barely get any work done as is because SL doesn't have enough privacy controls (invisible mode and such - like any instant messenger has). Just cause it would make your life easier doesn't mean "just do it." A lot of us have concerns.

-Flip

*whistles innocently*

*hides*

For one you could define where someone who teleports onto your land appears. For two, you could block anyone but an access list from coming onto your land, and for three, people can come on your land right now.

We can have P2P and no less control over access, in the blink of an eye. Things like landing points are already part of Second Life. It's already done.

I know some people find it scary that this will let people move 'faster', but really all you have to fear is fear itself.

Hey!! Why not put the new railroad stations in place of the old Hubs?? They would be much more fun to visit!

Fear of running into buildings, fear of flying a distance... as opposed to fear of losing thousands of real dollars invested in land, fear of having malls built in areas far from hubs...

We need to qualify and quantify the fear, and who's ox is being gored...

Options make the difference. No one would pop up right next to you unless you were standing at the place you designated to be your landing spot. Being able to enable teleport to your land or turn it off could be utlized as an additional tool. On indicates that visitors are welcome, off tells them right off that you are busy without even having to explain. Could be easier than telling someone, who flew all the way from the hub just to see you btw, that now is not a good time.

I think a real study needs to be done to figure out the worth of telehubs. I always use FIND to go somewhere. Half the time I'm waiting for a limo ride from someone else.

I never stick around telehubs and leave before things begin to rez. I've found that 99.9% of the time the place I wanted was not at the telehub anyway.

I would much prefer to goto the destination I wanted and not get stuck in a sucky lag filled telehub strip mall. I hate having to fly through the lag filled areas only having to close the client at my destination and reload.

TP direct has my vote.

Naaa, I won't be pissed of Mal!

I heartily agree with your post up to the last few sentences which I'm thinking is born of your own experience with people being willing to travel a ways to buy your product. However shopping for landscaping items is not the same as others items such as clothing and other attachments. Malls are better suited for that. I'm not a mall person, perhaps you aren't either. They are a concept which is proven to be successful with the masses. especially if combined with a comfortable gathering space, think center court or town square. Just don't make me have to deal with mall traffic when I'm trying to go some place else.

Btw, I have had 2 major landscaping purchase expeditions. The first time, I made the rounds to all the places to see what was available, took notes, and then backtracked picking up what I liked from each place, including yours. The 2nd time, teleporting was having a bad hair day. I had such a hard time getting to the first place that I bought a bunch of items from Rose Karuna and called it a day. You make a very nice product, I'm pleased with my ealier purchaces, but it just wasn't worth the extra effort and aggravation of traveling there.

Instead of having laggy malls and clubs near hubs it would be much better to have them everywhere. That will make things better for us all.. after all, malls and clubs like being near people, residential areas are better for business. Soon you will be able to shop in your back yard if P2P is instituted <sarcasm off>

Some people don't want a casino as a neighbor. I guess LL could create zones, but wasn't that the intent of telehubs, to create a self policing zone system? Where there was no need for LL to watch for violations of the zone.

My opinion is this would harm more than just business owners. Compensating land owners in hub sims and surrounding sims for value loss doesn't address the non-monetery loss of land located far from hubs. How do we compensate people when a mall pops up next door? I know it can happen now, but it's not very likely. All business people know proximity is a major concern. When a business decides on location much research is needed. The same has been true in SL for the time I have been here.

Anyone interested in privacy will want to oppose this idea. Unless one likes malls, clubs and casinos next door.

I agree. I haven't seen anyone using telehubs. Mostly my experience has been you go to one, and then fly to where you want to go. I mena the areas areong the telehbs are often so garish and over built, its impossible to shop in those malls. A place like slootsville or midnight city is a much more pleasing shopping experience. I have never seen communities formed around telehubs, they are formed around places. I think the big night clubs do a lot more to establish "community" in sl than the telehubs do.

I think efforts on community building should be focused less on restricting the geography, and more on providing or enablish content for users. or to facilitate them locating places of interest. I think an interactive guide to SL is a more owrthy project than telehubs, and I woudl certianly put som effort into revising the "find system."

200 years ago, with limted transportation, communites were defined by geography. Cites tended to be small in area and densely packed. Local stores got the freshed produce and mass distribution was very limited. So cities like new york grew up with distinct locales (even smaller than neighboorhoods). The community was built by necessity of transportation.

to capture this in LL, you would have to do away with telehubs all together, and divide the world into 9 sim regrions, and force people to long out and log back in to change regions. Do this and every region will become its own little community. But this it snot a natural outflow of how the the users want to play the game.

In contrast, in southern california, we have big box stores and destination malls. When people want soemthing they go to the Ralphs or the Target, or Bestbuy and then go home. They go to particular theatres for entertainment, and they go to particular boutiques for shopping. there are some shopping areas that are sort of neighbohoods like Rodeo drive, but you can't buy groceries there. In So cal, you gete in your car and go to where you want, or to where they have the product you need. You don't talk to bob the grocer on your way home, but you may to to a fucky bookstore in West LA to a poetry reading with your bookclub.

I think that the telehubs were an artificial effort to form communities, and really they have been bypassed. Telehubs are like the low rent strip malls. Someone must shop there, but noone knows who.

Really I think a study should be done on how users actually use SL to determine the value of the commuity. I mean do merchants with both telehub stores and stand alone boutiques, realize more profit at the telehub stores? I guess I never see anyone shopping at telehub malls and so I wonder if the land is actually that valuable?

Ig uess as read my rant I focus on the essential salient point that in order for a community to be built, it must be responsive to to social needs of the people particpating. telehubs don't seem to accomplish that.

Unrestricted P2P...

The advatages are MANY.

The only disadvantage mentioned so far is that people that own land around telehubs may not be able to sell their land for as much as they paid for it. (As if that was guaranteed...)


Unrestricted P2P.

Anything else is an over-complicated half measure.

Nope

I don't know what tangent your on - In fact I don't even know what your saying... Everything you mentioned there has absolutely nothing to do with any point I've made at all.. it's like a totally different conversation.

And I can't even break down what I'm saying to be any simpler... So I'll just give up.

Siggy, I think Hiro was saying if we keep the hubs and allow p2p, as some would like, we will need to continue growing the hub system. With a 20% growth in land, hubs will need to be placed in the new areas, just as it is now, even with the option to use p2p.

I tend to get mired in things like sentences and words at 3am, sorry.

What I mean is, I think it'd be cool -- and quite likely -- that LL would create a contest for users to build new telehubs (so, yes, the telehub *buildings* are in jeopardy).