Telehub

Its a tough call, Vince. In a community as large as ours, its impossible to please everyone.

If you put in place a telehub - you *will* see increased commercial activity in the vicinity of it. Surrounding it by a greater expense of Linden land may mitigate this somewhat... but the Linden land has to end somewhere... and you can bet commercial areas will spring up at that point.

The problem is - for folks like yourself and chad - this isn't an issue at all, and telehubs are critical to your plans. For folks like Alan and Prak - telehubs are something to escape from and would sabotage their plans. Everyone involved is entitled to their opinion - and since you all own land - who wins?

The way I see it - as it stands right now, there are options. If people want to be far from a telehub - there is a place they can live and be away from it. If people want a closer fly time, there are plenty of places on the main continent where you can be closer to a telehub.

This new continent was released in a unique way from the start - with the crypic letters from Magellan - the talk of a "new" place unlike the old. If I were to be a land speculator in such a new place - I'd think it would have made sense to throw all my expectations out the window - and be prepared for an interesting ride.

I know it doesn't seem this way - but adding a full compliment of telehubs may actually *take away* options, rather than adding them. Not for yourself, but for the community as a whole.

I know you'll probably disagree with me - but thats cool too

Travis,

I understand wht you're saying, but I do think we need at least one telehub in the center of the continent. That will give the new people a way to get to the businesses that are already springing up here. We can't really expect to know the various routes (one at the present moment) that they would have to fly in order to get here. I can understand the frustration of the people who purchased land here without knowing this was possibly going to have very limited access. Especially the store owners. Why should a customer fly some round about route to buy something if they can find something similar that isn't a pain in the butt to try and get to the store. None of this was disclosed to anyone buying land up here.

As I said earlier, no one has thrown all their expectations out of the window. I expected to be able to terraform my land, and luckily I have. I expected to be able to build structures on my land and I have. I didn't go on live help to find these things out before making a purchase and, quite frankly, I shouldn't have to for basic abilities and services we've all come to expect. My land is for my residence. I, luckily, have no shop on the new continent, but that was my original intention. I was going to put up my home and leave a small corner of my land for a very small shop. I did this in Keener and it was very successful even though I was about 800 meters from the nearest telehub. Of course that could hardly compare to the extended flight necessary had I foolishly put my shop on the new continent.

I'm not a "land speculator" but someone who bought a large tract of land with the intention of staying and running businesses.

But I respect those who buy and sell land too because the auction land is sold by the Lindens with the intent of creating a land market in this game, and it is an excellent thing that one exists.

I don't see why expectations of a telehub would normally ever be thrown out of the window in a game that has had them for more than two years, and had them each time new batches of sims have appeared.

But it is manipulative to play fast and loose with peoples' reasonable expectations. I wager that most of the people who have bought land there so far would never have done so if they knew it would be a vast expanse with no telehubs. Maybe a different kind of people might have come and bought out there then, and that's fine. There should be a variety of experiences in the game.

I feel, however, that Linden Labs should avoid the appearance of being manipulative with customers, and avoid the appearance that they are celebrating one group of customers at the expense of another, pitting them against each other. And that's what is happening now. People who expected telehubs feel robbed and cheated, and people who hate telehubs are gloating and feeling feted.

The idea that there is some "service to the community" that has to happen is an expectation all of its own. Linden Labs should create public spaces for sale with conveniences if that is their business, as they have marketed it. If someone wants a vast tract of land without telehubs, they can get them from the Lindens in the form of batches of estate sims.

The obvious solution is for the Lindens to stop being as secretive as they have been about telehubs. They deliberately keep their plans at bay, and meanwhile watch prices rise for telehub land rise sky high. Trust me, the Lindens know full well that if they announce only one telehub in the new continent, and then put up on the market all the land around it, the feeding frenzy will be enormous and prices will rise skyhigh.

It's clear from looking around at the patches of sold and unsold land on the New Continent that there isn't planning for telehubs. There aren't those red Governor Linden squares not set to purple for an auction. So what's up? Anyone buying there now has to be willing to accept a land without telehubs (this wasn't evident a few weeks ago when it was first rolled out, however).

The idea that players are all supposed to follow a marketing gimmick like the travels of Magellan, to buy into a mythology, and dope it out and figure out what the next move is, is rather manipulative. Most players haven't had time to read those stories and can't be expected to base their understanding of the game on them. I think there's a substantial number of people that want Linden Labs just to concentrate on making the servers work well and keep new patches from breaking everyone's game, and not become involved in social experimentation with classes and groups of players as the guinea pigs.

But what about all those poor speculators who purchased under the assumption their land would appreciate once telehubs were placed in the new continent?

Well, Jamie, nobody is going to feel sorry for "poor speculators" in this game, although you could call them by another name "customers who spent a lot on the Linden land auction and wish to pay tier and make a profit".

I completely reject the idea that an expectation of telehubs is somehow unreasonable. Of course it is reasonable because there have always been telehubs. I don't know if there are scientifically fewer in the snow sims, but that question of this poll is not: "would you like to see FEWER telehubs in the new sims and have a rail service instead" but an all-or-nothing proposition.

It's hard to imagine how they will get by with no telehubs at all.

To make a new continent with the intent of not putting in telehubs, and not inform the public about it, is irresponsible, given that telehubs are required for ease of travel, have been installed in the game as the norm in all sims, and given the absence of the ability to teleport directly to lots.

A minor historical point, telehubs have been around for about a year and a half. Prior to that, teleportation was direct-to-location and cost money.

I'd like to see one teleport hub located on the edge of the new continent.

It should be in its own SIM or on a very large plot of protected land.

This way, we're not relying on the purple sim as our transportation hub .... and we avoid having lag ridden property surrounding the tp.

If LL doesn't supply me with a faster jet pack with an auto pilot feature or a telehub, I've got some land to sell up there to anyone interested...

I would just like to point out that this has already happened to me. I have land in the north but rent in the south currently.

I think twice, ... but I am certain of at least once, that I have not been able to go to my land to do a build because (for at least an hour or two), the entire continent was inacessible.

Went to bed instead.

There is little doubt that the current new continent format is of only limited functionality. I am not proposing telehubs every 800 meters. But I do think that we need at least SOME telehubs. I went to Xenon Linden's discussion of the new builds event and received some good news there. Xenon told us that the Moth Temple would be converted into a telehub. So we now know of at least one location, which is a vast improvement.