Urban and Rural Sims

I was reading a bit on the rationale behind the Telehubs - vary the landscape, encourage certain parts of the world to take on a "rural" feel and others to become urban areas.

Here's a way that would do a whole lot more to encourage this sort of variety: Different sizes of sims.

Currently, all sims are sized at 256 x 256 meters, which results in a general suburban or estate level of density. It's a happy medium, or unhappy, depending on how well you like your neighbors. This same level of density eventually develops in each case because all sims have the same prim and av limits.

So, if you want a downtown area, why not make a grid of 4 128 x 128 meter sims, each with 10,000 prims available.

And if you want an area to have a real countryside feel, make a sim at 512 x 512 or even 1024 meters on a side. This would make for a very open feel, with lots of space between neighbors.

This would make for some really nice variety, and maybe less of the "suburban wasteland" feel that much of the world has now.

While I dont know how easily this could be pulled off this is an interesting idea. The rural sims would have lower (per capita) prim count but more space, would be interesting to see how things went.

The problem is that unless you limit the maximum number of prims a person can use in the rual land then one person could easily move in and use them all up. Issues like this have already happend in normal sims.

As far as the 128x128 sims, thats also interesting, as most successful players could (if they packed up other things) possibly buy up an entire sim....

Perhaps if the urban sims were 4x as expensive as a 256x256 sim, since it's 1/4 the size. That way the cost of land relative to sim size would remain a constant, just the 128x128 would allow for 'denser' builds. In essence you are getting the same value for your money, I think.

Of course, making a 512x512 sim 1/4 the price of a 256x256 sim wouldn't help the problem with that. Perhaps creating it as 4 separate normal sims with lower object limits.

Yah, to make this work, the urban sim would have to have a higher land tax rate and higher initial land prices, but to compensate and encourage building there, you would need to lower the prim taxes, especially the height tax! You might also want to plan it around a public attraction, such as a stage, or arena, or a Linden-sponsored mall.

I'd only raise land taxes and prices to double their normal rates.

Conversely, in the rural sim, lower the land taxes and raise the prim taxes. Personally I'd like to see a whole square mile in a single sim (or 1024 x 1024 meters), because the wide open spaces and distance from the (dangerous to vehicles) border crossings would encourage more races and combat activities. It would also prevent the sim from getting too clogged to engage in things like that.

Plus, you could arrange the land in a rural sim like was done in Boardman, only each person or group could have all the land they wanted, separate from others, and make no restrictions on what gets built (i.e. custom palatial estates rather than prefab houses)

I persionally like the concept, but not the implimentation ^_^ As this would throw off alot of different vehicle projects of mine.

Bump ^_^

Is this idea doable, do you think? I'd like to find out if it's ever likely.

I'm daydreaming of miles and miles of sea, or desert, or snow to use vehicles on (just the six vehicle sims could be expanded to HUGE amounts of varied terrain). Picture sailing across the ocean to a spot like Cayman, or skiing down miles of fresh powder and ending the day in the hot tub at a remote lodge...

... and on the small scale heading downtown to go shopping, where the density of prims in the small sims means you KNOW you'll find something exciting to see or buy...

Regarding Chris's concerns, maybe an approach to this would be to retain the 256m grid layout, but set it up so several low-density limited-prim "sims" would actually be one giant seamless sim and would all be handled by the same server. And for a high-density arrangement, one sim would actually be divided into four quadrants and its resources handled by four different servers.

Is this technically feasible?

The problem I see with it is that it violates several of the basic assumptions made when Linden Labs designed the server grid Second Life is running on:

1) Each in-world region corresponds to exactly one server
2) Each region has exactly nine neighbors, four of which players can move into.
3) Each server has network connections to those four servers that players can move to, and that contain objects that may affect the server's contents.

Having not seen exactly how the server grid is set up, I couldn't tell you if it is really limited in this manner. Certainly every sim is also hooked up to the content, access, and accounts servers as well as its neighbor sims. It's really a question of whether the grid and the exchange protocol between servers is limited to just four interactions or whether this could be expanded.

That's a question I'd like to see a Linden answer on, frankly. I don't doubt that it would take a bit of rethinking but it doesn't violate the basic premise: infinite expandability of the world and seamless interaction between servers. It would just add greater variety to the experience.

I'd like to see a true urban area. Sorry, although some areas are ambitious, the overall design aesthetic doesn't strike me as 'city' just 'lots of mostly empty boxes'. Not to be harsh, but it makes me sad. I want urban areas to be dense but active - it should feel like a city, not someone's overturned toy box with a single picture frame on the wall.

I realize there is a primitive object limit, but perhaps if the Lindens could allow zoning for urban areas with an acceptable height that would be allowable to build higher, maybe even enact a prim-density tax proportional to land area, or better yet, allow structures to be rated.

I'd love to see structures rated like people are, but I don't know of a good way to handle negative rating abuse, etc..

For the people who make dining room sets and silverware drawers, etc... I really wish we could make the leap to this world being a design aesthetic that doesn't have to blindly parrot the outside RL. A toilet in a VR world? Please. I admire your commitment to detail, but once you build it - how does this become functional in SL?

It's simple, it provides no real function. Although this argument could be taken to extremes, (hey, we don't need houses!), I mean this in the nicest way possible. If you are going to make a sauna and hang out, great - it has function along with design. If you make a lockeroom for your tennis club, but nobody really goes in there, and there is no true need for it - please don't build it.

I don't expect any big changes from a one-off post, but its just a few things I've been thinking about in relation to builds, etc..

(no, this isn't a prim-hog post, just one devoted to utilizing whatever prims you use in a more directed fashion I guess.)

The only restrictive concern I'd have is if the sizes (256 metres being such a suspiciously round number) are hardcoded....

They could "fake" a 128x128 sim, by creating one that is all Linden owned except the center.. or four sims with their inner corners available.

I have a feeling the idea that each sim is bordered by 8 others really is sort of ingrained into the design.

Good idea - maybe just a reserved central space - so you could have more prim density. Also, it would be cool aesthetically if the Lindens put a 'cone' of build zoning in place -- you can't build higher than that point on the cone - so, in the center - you get the tallest buildings - then it tapers off to shorter structures on the edges. This would also allow players not as linden-dollar blessed to get in on the action. The expectation however would be that if you get a lot of land with a good height, that you make every effort to build up to that level.

Its just more about looks though, but just an idea I had.