Predictions from your friendly neighborhood architect...

1) People that can build efficiently AND beautifully will be richly rewarded in-game.

2) Gone are 2000-prim kitchens, useless clutter on tables, and ornate decorative furniture. In style will be efficient, useful furniture (simple tables, simple chairs, paintings) and decorative stuff.

3) Texture usage will be more useful (texturing a banister instead fo making prims, for instance)

4) Land shortages with CURRENT sims will go down dramatically as people re-do their allotments.

5) Only massive builders like myself willr equire alot of personal land... most folks will be quite happy with their "40 acres and a mule" thing.

More as I think of them

LF

True -- this means that people who have much texture-fu will have more demand than just making clothes or the like in 1.2 as people try to find ways to optimize prim usage.

another prediction...

--Sky cities... no height taxes means that the sky is literally the limit. I cannot wait to build/see a huge, sprawling town 500 meters up in the air

The height and light taxes were put in for a reason. With those gone, I'm worried we'll see a return of the problems that caused the taxes in the first place.

I don't know about you - but I have this 'Fifth Element' cityscape floating in my head....oh lord, pleasure overload, pleasure overload!!!

Yes! Yes, yes, yes, and also yes. This was the first thing I thought of when I saw that height taxes would be abolished.

And I'm going to make it entirely out of lights.

What were the problems?

i LOVE that the height tax is gone! w00t!

IIRC, lots of floating things that blocked the view.

made the sky ugly, full of "stuff" and made it difficult to fly. Also, since some people had the idea that some "in the air" builds needed land undernieth it also (IMHO) contributed to the terraforming issues.


BUT, like the terraforming issues.. be careful what you ask for. I'm also glad this is gone.

Actually, as I recall the reasons for the height tax was to encourage/force the builds to be near the terrain to increase the cross-section (as used in a physics course... er... interaction coefficient) between user/user and user/content.

In other words it was an aspect of social engineering to help the world interract with itself.

While some of the reasons for the height tax are no longer important, there are still technical reasons for limiting the height that objects can go: neither the physics engine nor the rendering engine work well with arbitrarily large possible distances between objects. Hence, the glass ceiling for objects (about 512 meters) will remain in effect for a while longer.

Umm... I see one more quirk that might have a big effect on architecture: volume.

You see, pre-point-two, taxes are determined not only by number of prims, but by the volume they take up; a 10x10x10 cube costs much more than a 0.1x0.1x0.1 sphere. But post-point-two, you are restricted only by number of prims. This may not mean too terribly much to those who use large prims sparingly for walls, but it will have a definite effect on the life span and visibility of crap builds. Moreover, if I go off and buy a sim of my own, I can fill it with 10k of these cubes. If I've done my math right, doesn't

(10,000 max prims / sim) * 10m * 10m * 10m = 10,000,000 m^3/sim ?

Even if that's a worst-case scenario, that's infinitely sustainable and will render at that sim's boundaries.

Am I imagining this? Please, someone show me where my error is... 'cause I may need to go off and cry. :_(

*smacks self in forehead*
I didnt even think about the fact that building in the air is suddenly much more feasible. that alone (imho) makes these changes so. much. cooler.

that creaking you hear is my mind changing directions

Keep in mind that even though you can build waaaay up in the sky, you will still be limited primwise. Lets build among the clouds, but efficiently.

So really this fixes everything. To all those people that are worried about all the land they own, you can keep it.. Make it 100m tall instead of 100m wide.

Andrew, how about taking up the unassisted flight limit? Most people do not have jetpacks. The maximum absolute altitude (for primitives not attached to an avatar) is 768 meters, but people can only fly unassisted to about 250 meters (and that's only if they build up momentum) before they sink down.

P.S. Sky cities get a big thumbs up from me, I think it's a fantastic idea. The NASA group used to have something like that about 300 meters up and it was pretty cool. (Not sustainable, obviously, since it cost so much.)

P.P.S. It is good to keep the absolute maximum altitude well under 1000 meters, since tolerances go to $#!7 the higher you go. I flew up several thousand meters and noticed my jetpack was literally rearranging itself. Closer to the ground = more precision.

The height tax will finally be abolished! yeeeESSS!!

*rubs hands in anticipation* i want 1.2 tomorrow please.

Yeesss!!!

Finally with the height tax abolished, the old dreams of the Kazenojin can finally come true. We could build an absolutely HUGE air station high in the clouds, and ships will be able to stay as long as they like! All those folks who were forced to forgo placing their craft at the station due to taxes now should be able to do so.

And there won't be any more foolishness with the docks being here one day, gone the next, and back again the next week.

Edit: Not unless we want it to! And since there will be no taxes, I'll probably set the system so anyone can come out and play with the rezzers.

okay, I'd love to build high up in the sky, but how do you make sure you are over your land?

I know I can just raise something vertically on the edges so I know the limit, but is there an easier way?

Easily.
Build it on the ground.
When you are done, select everything.
In Object Preferences, change the Z axis by----400?

Or-----
Do it by coordinates.

Or if you want to be really cool --- build buoys in the air--make them flash red lights or something

That would be cool looking

Bit

Sounds like you're looking for a partially alpha-ed border extending up into the sky, which would be cool if you could toggle it on and off while building to check perimeter limits.

The only other way being physical objects, like you mentioned.

wanna throw in my prediction,

the $10, 1 time fee account will draw in tens of thousands of new people eager to spend their stipends on fancy clothes and toys to bring to events. There and TSO will see a lot of their users dissapear.

if they added a searchable, categorized "store" to the SL client, that didnt cost anything to use, the $10 accounts would spend their weekly stipend buying stuff from the builders.

lots of rich people and lots of new users who are like the event/social aspect of them.

Good idea about the searchable index.

Also, what about a virtual mall that spanned the entire world? (no, not a huge building....hear me out)

It would begin in the origin coordinates - could be a small strip-style mall with a few shops, and it would repeat itself in other areas in the simulators. So what, you say?

What if they had their own telehubs, that are only used to transport you to the nearest 'neighbor' mall structure. Then, you could just browse, go to the 'end' and step on a teleport pad, and you'd be able to continue for the length and breadth of the 'mall' in the entire world.

If you could combine that with an index/map system in each part, you'd really see a viable avenue of shoppers, and it wouldn't matter what sim your store was in - you'd just have to be part of the 'mall' complex.

And no large building dominating the landscape either.

Jack get out of my head I was thinking that..LOL

you could always walk to the edges of your property, note your coordinates then make sure your Xs and Ys dont exceed this up top.