New Northern Continent Sims

I hope anyone who wishes to answer this thread will.

I have just been to the new northern sims and they are really nice. A lot of us would like to keep those sims nice. We are afraid though that like so many other places they will be bought and sold and resold and flattened in mass by those who have made it their business to buy and resell land destroying all the beauty and hard work there. Land for Landless usually ends up being bought up second hand by land barons and then flattened to get the most flat area per meter. I don't really want to see these nice sims go the way the snow sims did and how the north eastern sims are quickly becoming.

I know there is not an easy solution to this. I think its something that should be addressed by the SL community though.

This is a very difficult question. We've tried to do a couple of things to preserve the overall feel of a region -- retain some percentage of each sim to Linden ownership, and in both of the last two regions (snow and northeast lakes region) retain several sims as open space.

But a fundamental value in SL is land ownership, and along with that the landowner's right to control the land. Deleting trees to increase prim counts, creating a flat pad for a structure, limiting access, are all rights that come with ownership. Even if we were to enforce a zoning system, if would still be difficult to tell a landowner they didn't have the right to make changes to their parcel which in their view made the parcel more valuable to them. Whether the landowner is a middleman or not doesn't change that right.

Let me know if you agree with this stance. I'll repost this thread to the land forum for people's thoughts.

I guess I would have to agree with what Robin is saying about balancing land ownership rights with the "look" of a sim.

I have to say that trying to save land, and find ways to make land pay for itself and still look nice, is hella, hella hard in this game, and it is a game, full stop.

Until people put their money where their mouths are and buy half or whole sims and struggle with these issues, I almost don't want to talk to them. I'm tired of all these wishy-washy laments about "not ruining nice sims" and "evil land barons". Pay for the sim yourself. Then control how it looks. Find ways to give barons incentive, by forming groups, pooling tier, working with land barons to have them purchase or give you discounts or hold aside coherent land for you. That's really about all you can do.

The one thing that has been lacking in the game is a wide open space that can be a hang out but which isn't the Ahern welcome area type of thing which becomes a stupid laggy alphabet soup sometimes of names, with a lot of show-off FICs trying to lure newbies into their various clubs and businesses. I avoid them like the plague.

It would be nice to have more "normal" areas that aren't spawning and aren't pawning either, but just open spaces to hang out. If the water area in the new sims became that, with the oil rig and whatnot, that would be great.

If it is too great a loss of income to have that much untilled unpaid service, maybe charge to hold events? I dunno, think of something.

Linden land with nice builds adds considerably to the value of any sim and the individual parcels on it.

What Lindens do need to grapple with is the propensity of the idiotic few on the 512s and the 1024s to mount their black boxes of doom and white cubes of death and paralyze the hundreds of owners on 4-8 sims around them. They need to charge for CPU draw. They need to create player dispute resolution systems and step aside and not punish players who investigate abuse and create better businesss bureaus. And they need to make sure they don't switch servers and knock down FPS on existing sims, to curb the incentive of people to abandon sims and not working at keeping them up.

Thanks for that blurb Robin.. The leftist nuts don't like to hear that Land Ownership rights truely exist. But like I've said a million times, "If you don't own the land, you don't have a voice".

More power to land ownership rights!!!!!

I love the new look that has been created, but I understand that land ownership is an integral part of SL. It's also an integral part of SL's success. LL is a business and needs to generate revenue in order to survive. Running multiple servers maintaining sims that generate no revenue is an excellent way to damage this business' ability to achieve profitability

I love the pristine look of these new sims, but understand that it will not last. I'm glad to hear that portions will be retained by the Lindens to preserve some of this. If people feel strongly enough about preserving these sims as they are, then they should purchase them as private sims and leave them in their pristine state. Asking LL to do this is hardly fair.

shinmai Akebone:

These sentiments surface in many threads. The problem is implementation. Each person wants his own version of a solution. People may disagree about the amount of server resources Linden Labs 'should' provide to preserve pristine land versus the detrimental effect of those costs on the enterprise. People disagree all the time on matters of style; perhaps each feels that the other's build defaces the land. People disagree on the mechanics of group formation and decisionmaking.

The successes don't surface in the forums to the same degree. I notice that the most successful land groups by far are those formed by experienced players with long term trusted friends all treating each other as equal partners. Taber is a splendid example. I recommend touring that sim. They had obstacles to overcome, but the Taberites are good folks, and that sim is a gem.

I have no problem with people owning land at all actually. And I also agree and understand what Robin is saying. It’s a rather difficult issue. I would simply like to see some cooperation to make nice looking places. I have seen some good examples of this in many places in SL. At the same time I have seen lots of builds just thrown up in a few moments without any care of how it looks.

I think owning land is a very important part of SL. John Lock said "Property that belongs to everyone serves the interest of none." In other words if no one owns the property then no one will have the incentive to take care of it. I am hoping that people do own land but I also hope to develop a possible SL culture through groups to cooperatively take care of the land and build areas that people will want to visit. There are many such areas already in SL. Then again what makes a good area is a matter of opinion. One what believes to be nice, another would think looks very bad.

Once again I do not have a very easy simple answer to this. One suggestion I would make though is if you own land in a sim, get to know your neighbours. Find out who else owns land in your sim. Build a sense of community. I know that many sims are in fact like this. It is a trend that I hope will grow.

I'm not sure how political leaning has anything to do with this. I consider myself to be rather moderate truthfully.

That is a Terrible thing to say. Who are YOU to judge what is and isn't "nice looking"? You are attempting to force your values onto others who buy the land and choose to do with it as they wish. If somebody wants to put up a 500/m tall yellow building, its not your place to judge and claim its not "nice looking".

So back to Rule Number 1. If you don't own the land, your views don't count. It just upsetting that people have this idea that you must conform to their view of beauty, otherwise you're an outcast. I hope you rethink your remarks Shinmai.

If you want to see the world in your eyes, then I suggest you open your wallet and make it the way you want.

Hi shin. I and many people had the exact same thoughts as we toured those gorgeous sims. "Wouldn't it be wonderful to preserve this." (after the train to go on the railroad was put in of course)

They, in their pristine, wonderfully-textured, you-can-breath-here beauty will go the way of the dodo because that is the business model and I wish LL all the success in the world.

You know what my hope is? That LL keeps a steady flow of a few new, upcoming sims so that we can explore prior to their being turned over to us unwashed masses . Just like what they did here. Doesn't have to be such a big landmass either.

Something like that would fit nicely with what they've done with various festivals where everything is temporary... an embrace of the "you can't freeze the present because we're building towards the future" attitude.

If you read my post carfefully you would notice that I agree with you. What I think is my opinion and the same with everyone else. I don't at all believe that my opinion is the only one that counts. I do not have any desire to have anyone else conform to my likes or dislikes. I can only offer suggestions and beyond that it is up to them to decide what they like.

Taber is great, but is is a specialized Sim for very long-term beta-era players with very specialized good architecture, certainly not a solution for the whole game.

I've managed to have quite successful land groups even with strangers because I try to eliminate the problem of the treacherous officers by not putting in officers unless I have worked with them and see that they are not going to damage the enterprise as some have. It's a matter of trust and good, predictable behaviour.

You don't have to be old players, long-term trusted friends, or even treating each other as equal partners in some special project (often of the feted kind). That makes sense for some projects and some people but it is not a solution to the land problem in SL as a whole for the rank and file, especially those who aren't creators and builders. Having only the trusted kind of circle also leads to smug, closed, groups who tend to think "we're surrounded by idiots" etc. and become insular.

In my groups, I take complete strangers as tier donators. They get rent free. They stay a long time, many of them. They are happy. They save up to buy land or they just enjoy not paying purchase prices. They pay the Lindens their tier fees, so no money changes hands with me -- they don't have to trust me. I deliberately keep a buffer to prevent sudden attacks by tier-pullers which has happened twice, both times by risky individuals.
But most people do what they say they are going to do.

People need to get less sentimental about the land, the game, and the projects and just pool their tier. It does not mean that people who organize this enterprise are arrogant sons of bitches trying to control everybody and suck their tier for investments. It just means that they want to help organize sims rationally. It can be done with a modicum of player trust and cooperation.

Complete strangers can show up and in just the same amount of time it takes them to work on a building problem, can solve a land problem. Tier, tier, tier. OK, we got it. Let's go. Let's go buy that expensive piece of land together so no one strains under the load and let's plan it -- just a little. No clubs, no lag. Ok, you get 1024, you get 512, you get 4096 depending on your donation. Walla, a nice little corner of good-looking, organized SL.

I continue to be amazed that no one does this. They don't because they live under the mistaken belief that the Lindens frown on it, and they also distrust those who try to organize such groups but precisely protect themselves against treacherous officers by not making every passerby an officer.

I think it's important to stop sniping at those who attempt to make tier donation groups and organize sims collectively through cooperation, rentals, or purchases, and stop considering them rapacious tier-suckers out to control people and become lords of the sim, and understand that ANYBODY can do this. It is astounding they don't do it more often.

One idea is that we have some type of zoning, not sure what, but something that will encourage more synergistic collaboration among SL residents so that the end result will improve the new continent rather than make it look worse.