Howdy Lindens, how 'bout some road options?

Still being a newbie I did search for roadway converstaions and finding no recent one just about protected Linden roadways, here I am.

I know the roads are mostly for show since vehicles travel too fast and their physics are way off to make them them usable, but I am hopeful that one day they will be part of SL travel. To that end I picked up a parcel where a friend used to have a shop (the mall she was in got torn down and land sold) right next to the road:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Suisun/210/70/56

This road is, however, a "bordered" road, a raised partition on both sides. There are even dips in the land, particularly a nasty car drop spot when passing to Buckler. The other land owners in the sim have built ugly ramps to let cars get onto their property. One even has a great underground parking garage. A great idea for enhancing the Sl experience: drive there, get out and shop (since you can't rez your vehicle on the road to begin with).

The question, in the middle of all this muck, is how are land owners supposed to take advantage and enhance the road system if there is no way for vehicles to exit to the other property? My plan is to have a nice protected road view with scenery, but if you exit onto my parecl you'll be able to travel to a house and business area and take a dirt road up the hill to where others have built a rest area with a waterfall and great overlook gazeebo.

I'd love for vehicle physics and travel to work, but that can't be fixed overnight. I don't mind that the road on the protected land actually overlaps parts of my land. But if it does, can I please have a break in the barrier so cars could exit? I'd like to work with the other land owners to create a traffic cirlce in the area. And how do I report a proble like the phantom spot between the sims that makes some vehicles fall through the road? And how can I request that the Lindens do some terrain work themselves as part of the land under the road drops making it impossible for me to maintain a flat parcel on the edge of the road. This is the Land Forum, so that's why I'm here.

I do have another roadside property that doesn't have road barriers, but decided to make that a rest area for the whole sim (even kept the sim's name in calling it "Scafell Restsop" which can see it here:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scafell/70/70/51/

It's not quite done, I hired a landcape designer, Luna Bliss, and she's doing a wonderful job. Being a hilled area (and me having the side on the hill) I couldn't really take advantage of the roadway, but now I am ready to.

Other topics recently have focused on "open spaces" or areas devoid of row after row of odd "architechtural choices". I'd like to be part of the crowd that offers such areas. I'm not here to make money, I'm here to enjoy the open world we've been given (and are paying for) and push to enhance the system, attract the larger MMO crowd, expand the technology, and encourage the "artists preserve" that defines many of the SL regulars it seems. To that end we need help from the Lindens regading these protected areas.

Bottom line, if we're gonna make vehicles work and worthwhile in SL, and show another facet to transportation, will there be a method to request "exit" spots from barriered roadway on Linden Protected Land? I don't want to add another ugly "road bump" to the sim just to add to the ambiance!

Chris Rowley
aka
Clubside Granville

http://www.GamerResource.com

Xbox Live: clubside, clubside360, Caligula II, The Polemic, GamerResource

I would be happy with roads full stop.

Just got some land on a sim, a road has been cut out but no actual road have been placed.

I saw a liason out at the site a few hours ago, said something but got no reply so I have no idea if they were there checking out this issue. Loads and loads of Linden posts about LindeX, how about some feedback here?

Idea: What if the next continent LL puts up can have a different set of operating policies on travel, making roads available all over the continent?

Yeah there will be a lot of new rules to make, but we'd get a part of a world where cars can travel on very normal looking roads.

I'm all for it Aodhan because it's a step in making vehicles a possibly part of gameplay design. Right now we have to deal with sim crossing problems, vehicles that travel too fast to be controlled using WASD and a lot more.

I realize this issue isn't so popular as most people just fly or teleport. But there is a precadent in the actual existence of protected roadways and with that vehicles. I want to be able to create games within the "platform" that use vehicles, and right now we can't. I'm hoping by contributing some of my own land to a roadway system and asking for help from the Lindens with my particluar problem the larger issue of vehicles, analog control, etc. can come out.

And it's a nice break to talk about land in the Land & Economy Forum. Or in this case roads and land. Now I need to create a land topic about these seemingly abandoned parcels I'd like...

Hiya, Clubside,

I'm a car enthusist *shows 10W-30 running through her viens instead of blood* so I've talked to a few Lindens over my time here about this subject.

First, You can have portions of the "berm" removed/changed. Post in the Second Life Land Managment thread asking for removal. Be sure to give co-ordinants and I suggest laying out prims as markers to help explain what you need/want.

Second, that "car drop spot" sounds like a building bug that turns linked one linked prim phantom. Any found like that should be reported in the SLLM thread as well. As well as lang through roads, or any other problems. Guy Linden is very good at getting them fixed. usually within a day, though sometimes longer depending on his workload.

Lastely, the crossings are getting better. I drive the Dominus Shadow and can drive at @100mph before my vid performance can't handle the rezzing anymore. 60mph is about the best for me and I can handle most sim-crossings at that speed. (the auto-stop in the SHadow helps loads). Smooth trasitions are a bit ff, but if you watch, they do improve. The rest is up to your vid card and machine, and how much lag is in whatever sim you're in due to other things like scripts, build, people, etc.

Cars can easily outdrive anything. Lag, vid cards, servers. I mean, in 6th gear Icross a sim in 2 seconds. Hang in there. There's a medium somewhere. We just need to find it.

Happy drivin ^.^

~Jessy

Thank you very much Jessy, I must have just slid right by that forum (I am, after all, an ignoramus!). I followed your advice and posted both the request and the phantom, I guess we'll see what happens.

I love the Dominus Shadow, too. Have you ever found another car of similar quality? I've found some nice designs but without the gears meaning you're always flying to borders, stopping and crossing sims whereas with the Shadow I can actuall drive through sims in first gear taking in the sights.

I have a secondary more selfish want for fixes to vehicles, but maybe those fixes are mostly in the creators, though one isn't. For creators, simulating real world speeds is great, but it means crossing a sim in three seconds. In normal multiplayer games driving a "map" of similar size would take a minute. On the Linden side I need analog joystick support. I may be alone, but except when building or chatting I "play" Second Life entirely with a controller, the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows to be precise. I use the Pinnacle Game Profiler to map nearly every regular command for SL to it so I walk, click, fly and pan all with a regular controller. Now if we could toggle WASD/anlog input we could walk and drive better!

Clubside

How very strange, why would anyone want to drive a car in a world where you can fly and teleport! Bemused.

Because driving and piloting (planes and spacecraft) are fun. Also, avatars don't fly at 250m/sec.

Why would anyone fly or teleport when they can simply IM each other at any distance, and do all their shopping from websites? (Heck, that's almost true for RL now...)

It works, but it's just not the same.

Different strokes for different folks. People like what they like.

You're welcome. Glad I could actually help with knowledge once lol

As for other vehicles. Yes, but it all depends on what you want. I find the Shadow to be the best for me. I love the old muscle cars and thier looks. Plus the Shadow has such nice scripts and handles well. A majority of the other well manuvering craft are aircraft/spacecraft since, as you noticed, the roads are still being delveloped. Air is easy to make *snickers*

For finding any though requires a good search for them. When the roads and simlines become smoother and more finished, I expect the market for cars to increase and the creators will come out with more lines. Again, it's a wait for us. An impatient wait *Grins* I sooooo want a candy-apple red 1978 T/A to match my RL one ^.^

As for avatar flying over driving;
I see far more driving than I ever do flying. Plus with the Shadow I can drive with four of my friends and we can chat and all while cruising around. (well, they can. I can't type and drive at the same time LOL).

As I've stated in previous posts, people build as if looking from the ground, not the air. Some may, but the majority thinkin RW physics in which we can't fly. So by driving by, you actually see things by another perspective.

I highly reccomend it ^.^

~Jessy

I guess there's been talks about upgrading the number of linked items so that dream car can get made properly, right Jessy? I've been snapping cars up in preparation of both this new land (which I just expanded through more land buys) and my rental combat sim which is a full city with streets and ramps.

Now, I'm ready to talk about the other white meat, er, land: water. But that's for another topic which I'll create now!

Clubside

At the moment nobody uses the roads as its just not possible to make a good car (and i'm not talking about the model).

Go play any of the MMOFPS games (planetside was my previous) and try the multi person vechs, they are a gazillion times better than you can do in SL. The new camera controls help, but that's just a nice distraction and doesn't fix the basic problem

Ummm...wrong. You may not like the current cars, but a lot of us do. Nobody uses the roads because of simlines and the effects and the ease of P2P. "Why walk whne you can fly" is a commn statement I hear.

Vehicles in SL are very nicely done. They are limtied only by the world. Which is advancing every day.

I can drive along at 60MPH and have no problems (other than simlines and lag from bad sims) so the problem isn't the vehicle. It the driver and the world. The first needs only learn to use the interface to drive, the later only needs to continue it's slow advance.

I personally think the walking/flying movements are more "jerky" and unco-ordinated than driving. I can put the car on a 1m prim, but try moving to stand on that (without using the SIT option *Grins*).

Of course the MMOFPS are better. There are less options so programmers can make the ones you ahve look pretty. Details come slow in SL due to the near unlimited potential. Instead of programmers giving you the car and simply needing to learn how to drive it, here we have to build the car then "program" it ourselves (ie script it) then learn to drive it.

In games things only get better when the programmers of the game make them better.

Here in SL, things only get better when we make them better.

LL is working on making the world, the tools, and the interface to use those tools, better all the time. It's up to use to make everything else better. ^.^

Driving with the top down to feel the cyber breeze,
~Jessy

Vechs are all about handling.

Yup, and mine handles great. Smooth turns. Nice speed control. Braking works nicely and immeadiate in a world that needs it at times. Gears switch smoothly. The hover options on it are very nicely done as well. High speed flight, smooth turns. Allows for precise movements when needed. Side-slipping. Curise control on both modes of travel. Nice ride, no "jumps" in movement. Has hydraulics to accomidate "offroad" driving as well.

Like I said *Grins* All in what you want. If you look, it's probably out there or being made.

I also have a flgihtcraft with hover-mode and jet-mode. Though simlines in the air at highspeeds are...*shudders*. The craft handles awesome though, and if I keep my mini-map up I can avoide simlines or cross them at slower speeds to avoid the effects.

Gimmie a call after 1.10 stabilises and I'll give ya a ride ^.^

~Jessy