The Big Prim Problem

Thank you Michael for soliciting our opinions.

I think non-physical megaprims of the more useful "smaller" sizes should stay. The curved ones in particular are uniquely useful; I suppose the flat ones could be replaced by larger prim limits and better build tools. But nothing can replace a simple large curved surface.

Personally, I've never used a megaprim larger than 60x60.

I do appreciate the Havoc and intersim communications issues referred to in the thread Sindy cited:

I don't see a need for megaprims to ever be physical, which if I understand it would contain the collision detection issues for Havoc. They cannot be mandated as phantom, though - as several posters have said, they now form both walls and floors of many impressive builds.

Alert: the following paragraph may contain outstandingly stupid statements, it's well beyond my level of competence: If there have to be limits on how close megaprims can be placed to the edge of a sim in order to limit the intersim communications issues, so be it. A solution to this could possibly relate to the encroachment issue: would it be horrendously difficult to check for parcel encroachment whenever an object is newly placed? Perhaps the rendering engine could provide a "footprint" of any placed object, and the object could be autoreturned with error if it encroaches?

I also like megaprims and use them intensively. Maybe remove only the ones over 100m?

Also, having it at that, why not just make prims limit be 100m instead of 10m? And also lower the low limit 10 times!! If we can make smaller prims cutting and torturing, why not have more forgiving limits?


{}Overtake

Just like everything else in the world - a few bad ones ruin it for everybody.

Don't take the 'mega' prims... your limits are bad enough already. To have decent looking trees and homes requires prims. On my very basic home alone... I would have to go from 6 prims to 96 - on the outside alone.

Don't punish everyone for a few people's indiscretion.

I'm not so much a fan of Jopsy's suggestion. I'd prefer to have a 64m^3 sculptie bound by a convex hull in Havok 4 so that the physics boundaries of whatever I'm making fit (roughly) what I have built. So if I want a giant floating island, it'll be a giant floating island, no giant invisible platter to act as a support platform for it. I'd also prefer to add scripting to mega prims so I could, say, use rez faux on a large building that I want to sell.

I've spent most of my time on islands, and have yet to see a megaprim used for abuse.

I've seen them used to save prims (classrooms in TUi, Mystical Masteries, etc.). I've seen them to make wonderful creations (60M tall Christmas tree, artwork, etc.).

I use them to house my workshop (inside a 50M globe covered with a planet Earth texture and a floor inside). It keeps my "in process" things from being an eyesore to neighbors (if they every go up to 700 m).

I have friends that use them in building.

I know they are more challenging when it come to changing - especially the size, but the results seem to be worth that extra effort.

I've been griefed a few time - fortunately, only a few. None of them were even with prims at the maximum size for standard ones. Anything that can be used, can be used wrong. If we get rid of everything that can be misused, there really isn't much - if anything - left. If we get rid of megas to keep griefers from using them, they will just find other things to use.

I noted a previous entry about a spacestation and prims I believe around the size of a sim. I don't see valid uses for ones larger that that. In most cases, the megas used are the "smaller" ones.

To me, removing all of them would remove some of the magic and postive options of SL. Removing those much larger than a sim is fine, but keep the useful ones that help build SL.

"If You're Unto a Good Thing, Why Change It?"
by DMC Zsigmond
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Second Life, in concept, is based on a self-perpetuating idea. Everything about it, including resident ability to define and create their own experiences in-world represents the hallmark and the appeal of Second Life's as an effective 3D virtual world offering an online social networking hub and potential mass marketplace."

My point being:

Once certain Second Life ideas, products and/or features etc. are introduced and begin to take shape, self-perpetuate and then propagate within Second Life (i.e. become 'popular'), DON'T remove them. Anything that becomes popular is a valuable asset to the community and in the eyes of consumers - accepting the GOOD along with the BAD.


Besides, POLICY on this is already established:
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http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/12/20/town-hall-with-cory-introductory-transcript/
), to which Cory Linden answered: “I think the policy is to return them if a nuisance … oh, a follow up on megaprims: we are going to allow them on private estates as well.”
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Residents have already broadly accepted use of Megaprims and are deriving value from them.

Some residents intentionally and/or sometimes unintentionally abuse them.


FINDING A WORKAROUND:

If MegaPrim Usage vs Stability is an issue, Linden Lab ought to work to find a compromise that ensures Grid reliability and performance, while if necessary, regulating the access and use of Megaprims available within Physics Engine tolerances.

Set restrictions on excessively large sizes (i.e. say larger than a SIM?)


OUR PRIVATE SIM USES MEGAPRIMS:

I, for one, am another RL Business Owner and SL Resident voting NOT IN FAVOR of removing Megaprims. They are highly useful, if used responsibly.

As the owner of SCiENCE FiCTION (Island & News Groups) in Second Life, we invested in a Private Island and have intentionally made use of Megaprims in order to maximize prim efficiency while building a large sky-based Complex above our land.

A combination of Sculpties, Conventional Prims & Megaprims are being used.
The largest Megaprims being deployed on our island are 100m x 100m and no larger because they fit within the dimension of a private sim and can be easily moved around a 65Km2 Island lot!

Our decision to use megaprims was based on previously established Linden Policy to allow Megaprims on Private Islands.

As RL Commercial Business Customer of Linden Labs and potential strategic partner in future, we like all SL businesses 'need' to be able to derive value from our investment, and must be free to maximize our investment through innovation.

With Commercial Businesses and Brands like American Apparel closing down, and other brands like Giorgio Armani opening up, there is a ONE serious observation relating to the overall commercialization of SL as a viable business platform which historically tends to get overlooked. Only recently, on the back end of all the SL Media hype, as the problem crept back in again to criticize SL.

GHOST SIMs:
Businesses and even the Media Investing in Second Life are discovering their SIMs are EMPTY 90% of the time.

... LAG. No of what I'm saying here of course is new, but I believe it's more commonly associated from a resident user rather than a business point of view.

It is with some trepidation, delay and reluctance that I attach this OBSERVATION to the Megaprim discussion here, however on SCiENCE FiCTION Island & Station, we are trying to address something...

SIMULATIONS/Private Island and Land (in-general) inside Second Life needs to be fast, and PRIM usage on any land inside Second Life matched with really interesting content is needed to build SIMs that residents and NEWLY-SIGNED or BUSINESS REFERRED Internet Customers coming to Second Life will enjoy.

Just getting 80 or even 100 avatars to a SIM on a regular-basis with some degree of decent performance seems to be the target at the moment!

Our company is very interested in supporting and developing Second Life's Linux Client as a project to help spread customer usage of the platform, and from startup to successful ongoing operation, Linden Lab's needs to provide we residents with all of the tools, features and options they can.

So to conclude: ANYTHING that helps us build faster or PRIM efficient SIMs. ANYTHING that allows us to innovate with our designs to attract more users to Second Life is really important... And MEGAPRIMS, within controllable standards and limits helps us to achieve that.

So Linden Labs, Commercial Businesses seeking to partner with you in future want to see their SIMs populated with residents and visitors and filled - NOT EMPTY.

Ideally, if we had ability to Pack a Sim with 3000 visitors straight off the Internet WITH SPEED in order to communicate and trade business effectively - this is the business ideal.

Continue to regulate Megaprims, but don't remove them.


Sincerely,

David Michael Chen
DMC Zsigmond

(Owner)
SCiENCE FiCTION
Island & Groups Second Life
(Founder & CEO)
Science Fiction Computer(R) Pty Limited
www.scifipc.com | www.sciencefiction.info | www.soslinux.com

What's good about them..hmm well...

I recently built a race track on two levels (way up about 700'ish m), I used a 128 x 128 mega for one side of the upper level and a complete 256 x 256 mega for the lower level. The other half of the upper level necessarily had to be of more conventional sized prims to allow for ramps to be built between the two levels. I'm not sure how many prims I saved doing the build this way but it must run into the several hundreds. Clearly the main advantage of mega's is they save on large numbers of 10 x 10's, and their use saves a huge ammount of time in many builds. As an Island owner, and as a result with 12000 prims to 'spend', the saving on prim numbers wasn't a huge issue, however if I lived on mainland, and with a restricted prim budget I'd be grateful for any method to keep my numbers down.

What's bad...

Somewhere down below I've been working on a sort of space station 'thingy'. I have the movie 'Silent Running' in mind when I work on this build. Vast pods full of plants 'n' stuff inside space green houses. I wanted large domed glass structures and mega's were the answer once again. However once constructed I found unlike 10 x 10 semi spheres, with megas you can't actually enter them (ie you can't walk into the hollowed out space). Not much good as green house then (actually whereas I can't enter the space.the plants can).

A little higher up I have my big build platform..one of those 'ripped from the ground' type structures I made myself from a 50 x 50 x 50 mega. Works great untill you're flying around some new build you done and crash into an invisible object just off to one side of the platform.

Good/Bad....

I'm told they are shocking lag inducers..I 've never experienced that.. but possibly in a more conjested environment this might well be true.


Ideas...

I havn't been around long enough to shout "get rid of them.." I'm aware of their history and of how those that are around today are a legacy of a 'bye-gone age in SL' They certainly serve a valuable purpose to many in SL, though to others are a pain. If LL gets rid of them then I think LL should increase the 10x10x10 limit to something a little larger...20x20x20..or even maybe 30x30x30.

Perre Anatine

It's a pretty complex issue you have here Michael. On the one hand megaprims were never a documented or supported item so residents using them really ran the risk of seeing them being broken sometime in the future. Partly their fault for the situation. I was often tempted to use them but their undocumented status successfully dissuaded me every time.

If the physics engine really will have problems with some sizes of megaprim then you're left with little option in the matter, you have to get rid of the ones whose sizes will cause problems. That's because the problems they cause will persist and you will wind up hearing more complaints and dealing with more bugs.

Find the limit that the physics engine will reliably allow then set the megaprim limit there and turn them into a supported prim size. Any megaprims beyond that size, sorry, must go.

I want to use bigger prims, even 16, 20, or 32m prims would be fantastic but I want them supported and not just the result of a hack whose future support I can't rely on.

Please let the technical side win this time, for the sake of less problems later. Find a supersize prim value that's safe for Havok 4 change the build limits to that and then inform everyone which prim sizes will have to go. Give enough time for everyone affected to make changes.

Fellow residents, as much as the megaprim has proven useful and many have become dependent on them, also recognize that they present a technical problem which might indirectly give us more headaches in the future. I'm sure LL can give us larger prims, but don't ask them to push those limits beyond what the engine can reliably handle. We all want better sim performance, let's not demand something that will compromise that.

perhaps there would be less call for mega prims of some types if residential mainland could be protected from ad farms and other uglies. i would also like to see an enforced limit on lag producers such as clubs in residential areas. i think not seperating mainland into commercial/residential sections has created more trouble than the mega prims used to repair the views.

I think Mega Prims larger than 128m in any dimension are not needed. I also think the current 10m size limit on prim dimensions is on the small side, I understand there is likely a good reason, but with the physics engine being revamped, couldn't it be possible to increase the prim size limit to at least 20m a side, even 30 or 40m? It would help out a lot for large projects such as ship, or Starship builds that need large exterior or floor panels.

Dear Lindens, I use big prims for rocks, water, big tree trunks and things of this sort. The solution to the problem of the big prims blocking avatars is to make them phantoms so the avs can walk right through. Please do not take away our big prims. Thank you. Tira Greenwood.

I love these prims not just for prim count savings but for speeding up builds. Their are some inefficient sculpted prims that cause just as much lag as a mega, so I really don't buy into the lag thing. I actually avoid sculpted prims because of lag.

Trying to use a mega by hollowing or cutting really doesn't work and seems to lag things so I avoid them...

I'd say limit your physics stuff to 10 x 10 max and leave the megas for straight up builds.

As in RL it is much easier to take people's rights away rather than spend time enforcing rules. I witnessed and filed abuse reports as a series of self rezzing mega prims were used to make 5 regions totally useless. After calling concierge support, and being told to file abuse reports, much to my sadness I was stunned to see that the person responsible for this outright breach of TOS as well as disrupting my business and lives of many honest citizens in these regions still has an active account.

So what do we do? Eliminate llRezObject ? Eliminate megas but allow people to continue greifing? Considering this person didn't even have payment info on file?

Its no different from people banning dogs on beaches because a few people don't pick up after their dog, rather than fine the people actually breaking the law.

My concern Michael is where are you going with this? If Linden Labs CANNOT display a quick response to an obvious cut and dry situation of witnessed abuse, are we to think that you are taking the easier way out by shrouding it as a physics issue?

Maybe this. Greifing with a Mega bans you from SL.... or maybe somehow making the use of anything over 10 x 10 available to people over a certain time frame.

I work countless hours in SL and spend quite a bit of money here and trust Linden Labs will make come up with an intelligent solution to a "problem" that I see really doesn't exist!

There are a great many commerical and non commerical builds that will suffer extensive "damage" and rework costs if you eliminate these prims.

Best Regards,
Blaccard Burks

They should be left alone. They aren't any worse for the griefing problem than scripting itself is and I think they both serve the same purpose...to assist in creation.

Get rid of the ability to make unverified accounts if you want to solve this problem. At least go back to the cell phone confirmation deal you guys had back in 2005 when I started. I still don't know what you were thinking when you changed that!

As to the adversity due to mega prims….

It is unfortunate that mega prims are used in ways, which are detrimental to SL.

Alas, numerous things in SL can be contrived to create some havoc if put out there in a malicious way.
People use scripts, object creation and other standard tools to attack upon the grids performance.
Removing mega prims all together won’t stop these individuals from seeking out a new path to spread some sort of chaos.

Now one huge advantage to the ‘reasonably’ sized mega prims;

The current landscaping and estate tools are limited with creating certain environments.
Mega prims are extremely useful for more detailed, *realistic terrain modifications.

With the somewhat recent introduction of sculpted prims coupled to a reasonable mega prim, we can now, with some ease, actually create much more intricate landscapes with a texture that does not repeat and instead flows nicely.

For example; I recently have begun a mountain with an intricate cave/grotto combination underneath, which spans 50x80m and about 70m high..uhm maybe higher.
Anyway, I used mega prims for the basic housing no larger then 40x40x40 & 50x50x50.
(Why no larger.. cause I’m still not sure of their stability myself, I heard somewhere that over 50x50x50 causes sim instability. However, to disregard them all together, well as an artist.. the advantages are just tooo great for me to not try and at least see if they work out ok.)
To attempt such a build with 10x10’s would recalculate my labor to a minimum of 10 times more. (This would be enough to scare other people from even attempting such builds… alas a loss for SL!)
For example, one cave topper section, 40x40x40 sculpted map… break that down to, uhm… well quite a bit more. Now the texture would also need to be broken down, and nonetheless the build itself will take much longer to line up.

Now, I’m not one to be intimidated by work… but time efficiency is what it is.. it is smart time management and that is one of the huge advantages mega prims provide people who use them in constructive ways.

Imagine the rolling hills of grass, cliffs, sea beds, or valleys with meadows and different greens.
Sure this can be done with 10x10’s… but now imagine it nearly seamless.

i have kept my mega prim use down to a low in comparison to the majority. i have used them for one deck in the sky 100x100 as a work area and one deck below 40x40 as a living area in water and a 40x40 sphere in the sky as a balloon to my balloon home.
AND i did this while owning enough land that allowed me over 8000 prims, keeping half of my prim space free at all times meaning never using 4000 prims of which i paid to use and that because i have always tried to be very thoughtful about others and caring about the sim i do live in and as my way of helping to keep down on the lag.

i have always owned a rather large amount of land and never cared to use the land ban lines because i know how those land ban lines are worse than any griefer that people think they are banning and due to this i got so irritated at how if i accidentally crossed my property line while trying to go up in my small balloon i would get kicked and so then lose my balloon and have to start all over again and this taking place over and over as i am surrounded with these types of people and this is all over sl with these types of people.

i got irritated enough once that i surrounded my land with 100x100 walls from the floor up but as phantom prims because i am not as inconsiderate as land ban users and i made the texture clear to the public and then on the inside clear with a trim around them just so that i could be sure that i did not go one bit over my own boundaries when trying to fly my balloon. i have always owned enough land that is plenty to enjoy a nice balloon ride on.
i did leave two sides at the ground not as phantom that were full of land ban users so that they could run into my walls cuz i am so sick of these types of people.

as sl was down for a wednesday maintenance, data linden took upon himself to remove my 100x100 walls which was fine by me as they were not a necessity for me and were only there so that i could stay on my on property and not have to constantly be kicked around by my neighbors land bans. BUT not only did data linden take down my walls, he also removed my work space deck and my balloon to my balloon home. he left a message for me not to use that many mega prims.

i had 4000 prim space free that i was not using and my neighbor was using mega prims out the mega rear and their prim space used up to the max ... data linden chose to leave me with only one 40x40 mega prim that was down on my land as he removed my balloon home and work deck .... along with the big walls of which would have been fine if he only played God over the big walls.
i have seen mega prims used all over sl much more than i would have ever thought about using ... is data linden on a mission to remove them ALL ????

i sold my land and i will never in my life pay another monthly tier as i am not paying for someone to come around me and play God in such a fashion. i will not support any such program with any high monthly payments.

i do own a 512 square as that is within the yearly premium allowance with no monthly payments and it has been VERY hard for me to discipline myself to live within these means and i find i rarely log into sl now because i do not have enough prim space to enjoy myself but this particular linden's actions remain in my mind as a constant reminder not to ever again support this program with any monthly payments. i do use mega prims.
i use a 32x32 cut in half as my deck and another one as my fencing ... wonder if i will encounter data linden any time soon LOLOLOL

*land ban lines should be banned except to allow only the feature to add a name to be banned when there is actually a problem with individuals as land banning the entirety of sl is grief to the extremes, worse than any griefer. sl is surrounded with land ban lines and this makes sl a miserable place*

The case has been made for big prims far more eloquently and knowledgeably than I ever could. But even in my very limited experience at building I can see big prims are a godsend. By all means, get rid of the behemoths over 256, especially if they cause physics engine problems. But please, find some way to keep the rest.

At first I thought maybe an upper limit of 50 - 100 m. would be good (I only use 20x20s myself), but this thread has opened my eyes to the ingenious and valuable uses people have found for big prims up to 256m.

Count me in as one more proponent of big prims.

Hmmm...k....my 2 cents. I haven't used megaprims much in the past.....typically I'm more inclined to working at the nanoprim level. However, I did start using them recently.....I liked the ease of dropping a floor which otherwise would have taken many prims to line up.....& save in my inventory to speed up builds. Obviously, they're useful. I think it's like anything here in sl.......ppl who like to harrass others....grief....cause problems will. I mean to the point where you can create insane limitations to ppls creativity and you will find even more creative griefs. I don't think that's really a good reason to ban them. If you make ppl aware that....high res textures on prims cause lag......putting them over other parcels' boundaries.....infringes....invisibles....cause ppl to smash into them like trapped birds....and these things aren't ok......then....you've shortened the learning curve for newbies or the "building challenged" and clueless......after which pt I think you can clearly say.....k....dork ur a griefer.....um.....delete.....return.....oops and it's gone. I don't entirely understand how this is such a huge issue.....when they're are so many other things in sl......that actually r important. My time.

Honestly, I've found that megaprims have a multitude of uses, mainly for large spans that are out of the reach of regular prims. For example, by using megaprims for both the floors and roof of my 1024sqm warehouse loft combined with the use of cut / hollowed blocks I was able to create the base structure using only 20 prims leaving the rest for furniture, decorations, gadgets, etc. Without them I would have wasted at least another 20 prims on just the floors and roof alone! I would not have had enough prims left to even furnish the building effectively, forget decorating it. Instead of creating a virtual space that actually looks as though it's inhabited by someone, instead I would have wound up with just an empty, abandoned, incomplete looking warehouse that wouldn't have served much purpose at all aside from a simple decoration on the landscape of the sim.

From my view, megaprims just make sense in that they lower the prim count of a plot or sim thereby increasing it's efficiency. Even in the case of a large sim that includes roadways or sidewalks they make sense, even though in any case their current implementation is indeed difficult to work with. Why not just either extend the size limit of the current prim implementation so that for example one prim could cover a 1024 plot or larger within reason, or even create a new or special prim that has an extended size?

Rather than outlawing a component that has the great potential to increase efficiency and creativity by lowering the base prim count for a structure, why not simply embrace the idea and include it within the system? I'd love it if anyone would like to take a look at what I've done with my superprims, however I should warn that it's still a work in progress and its located in a mature urban rollplay sim so don't be surprised if there's a gunfight in progress somewhere near by. It's located at http://slurl.com/secondlife/District%208/16/176

Thanks,

- Orion

On the encroachment issue:

The problem is not limited to megaprims so it may be better if we have a more generalized solution. Right now deletion is only possible if the centers encroach.

Allow landowners to delete any prim that has uncut areas encroaching (i.e. a prim that is cut so that it doesn't encroach is ok). So even a 1mm overhang should be deletable. People have to learn how to setup and position their prims properly.

On the subject of rights:

Megaprims were *never* a right. Their status is "undocumented feature" at best, "hack" at its basic and they were created by an early-day hack. They exist today only because of the "live and let live" attitude LL took at the time. If these prims cannot be made to work reliably with Havok 4 WE will all suffer.

I think they have uses, I would like to see our default usage size upgraded to 40 by 40

any larger is a bit too much

but 40 by 40 is useful and saves on prims

if mega prims can cause problems with improvements planned for the physics engine then I would say remove them

remove them from the entire grid, else as mentioned they will just leak back in to the mainland

keeping them if they will cause problems only logical solution is remove them

(I am guessing if they could be supported it would have been done already)

I am a professional builder and have a great number of projects that have used the smaller mega prims, although I have tried to stay clear of using them too much. but on sim builds they are often the best solution to paving or large walls or roads and I think they compliment the collection of shapes you can get with standard prims quite well. I would not mind losing the larger ones, it seems even the 256x 256 meter one can be used abusively and I am surprised to not see it being used that way more often. but I also use 256x256s at the sim I am at, and they are a great tool. From what I have seen they are a huge part of the building infrastructure throughout SL at this point. So if the worst case scenario was to eliminate them, then I would say at the very least give us 3 months notice so people could fix their builds, and clients builds. To have them suddenly removed would cause massive headaches world wide. What sizes do I most use? 20x20x60, 32x32x40, 50x50, 100x100, 40x7.5x1.5. Man, those are some good prims. I would love to keep em.

Megaprims are invaluable for many, many uses. Everything from saving prims in large buildings to putting the sky around the skybox, to create stunning effects. Megaprims can be a nuisance, but they're far too valuable to do away with.

I'd consider them akin to scripts. Every greifer weapon or other offensive device in SL uses scripts, but scripts make the world go 'round, so all one can do is deal with these issues on an individual basis. Thus is the same for megaprims.

I've seen megaprims as large as 256x256 taken for practical use, such as mapping a new region's terrain for script-assisted terrain editing. I use more than a dozen 20x20x0.5 megaprims as the foundation and basic structure of my building. They're convenient in that they reduce building time and prim usage.

I'm using Megaprims to build my Virtual Reality Room, and they're a big help in keeping prim count down. Specifically, I use the 20x20x0.5 for the VRR 280 (a cube 80m in size) For the huge sim-wide VRR I use the 256x256x1. To prevent griefing, this last one is sold only to Island owners, and is hardwired to deploy itself only in selected SIMs defined at the time of buy.

Almost anything has the potential for abuse, be it intentional or not. I agree there are significant issues that can arise from the bad use of megaprims, but IMO we and LL should be working a way to overcome these rather than taking the blunderbuss approach.

Megaprims are very useful when properly used for the reasons many people have stated above. The 20x20x0.5 prim alone makes a significant saving on floorprim use without any discernable effect on performance. Where prims efficiency = money (because poor prim efficiency means more land is needed and more land is more initial capital and more tier), megaprims can be critical in enabling a good build.

Michael Linden stated on his blog that the big sim-sized prim will definitely be going, and that they will be removed from all of SL, not just the mainland. I think this is a mistake. In some very themed sims, some very clever use of this large flat simsized prim has been made - I've seen it used to make a base of lava with an animated texture (the former Byss sim for those who remember it), or several of them layered to replicate a misty foggy water (one of the Avilion sims, I forget which), or a weird alien sky. Also, many themed sims (and my own experience is the Star Wars sims) use them vertically on the edge of the sim to form walls which can be textured with giant images to give wonderful thematic flavour - for instance an entire cityscape (please visit Telos IV or The Outer Rim sims for examples of this) or brooding mountains (Vjun sim). There is *no other way* of doing this satisfactorily at present.

Similarly, I've seen the 250m diameter sphere used with a wonderful cloudy sky texture inside and made phantom, surrounding a large skybuild (Nautilus sim - also defunct now) which was a fantastic effect. Maybe Windlight will achieve this also but you can't suddenly change your mind and replace it with a starfield texture to simulate space....or whatever you want.

I fully understand the problems with bad usage of megaprims, but then even normal prims and other things like scripts can be abused - are we to ban those also?

Megaprims as floors above a certain size (20x20x0.5m as I said appear to be fine) are a bad idea due to the different collision properties, and physics enabled megaprims are also a bad idea. But these surely are issues the Lindens can sort out with some controls...

- no megaprim can be physical? - would solve people playing with this function or trying to make megaprim vehicles (ACK)

- megaprims over a certain size must be phantom? - so no more huge megaprim floors to lag people out

Parcel encroachment issues are a problem, but there can also be abuse without using megaprims and there is no programming solution for those - an abuse report or somesuch is needed. Why is this different?

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!

People like Hathead Rickenbacker and Genereplacement make a lot of sense. LL PLEASE listen to them.