Frogs, Riots & Moderation

Just posting some thoughts, while not trying to repeat what others have said already. The major thing that strikes me as odd here in this whole 'times of radical economic change' thing is the radical part of it, the major strides they are taking. Not everyone can change as fast as LL, so I'd expect that them taking several smaller strides with a greater total change might actually yield more.

Which brings me to frogs. Put a frog in boiling water and it'll jump out immediately. Put it into cold water, heat the water slowly, and it'll let itself be boiled to death.

People are a lot like that too. Make 'em jump, and there's riots. So the trick would be, it seems, to apply moderation. Like a monthly interest change or something, based on how the in-game economy actually runs. Why go from L$1 to L$25 in one step? I agree that ratings are so cheap that they've lost their meaning, look at the rating fests and so on, but why not change it to L$2 first, or L$5? Next month, review, apply change... Etcetera.

Same goes for event support. Want to cut down on event support spending? Fine. I'm not hosting any so I might not see the whole picture, but I think it might actually be a good thing. Just don't cut 'em off at the knees right away; lower the fee in several steps, give 'em time to adapt and come up with something new. Set a deadline for total cancellation of event support payouts, but make it two months, not ONE WEEK.

Gradual change. Moderation.

Same goes for all the kneejerk reaction going on both on the forums and in-game. Take a breath, review, then take a look at actual impact on your bottomline. Does it really mean that much? If it does, find out why, and present it with clear facts and numbers, you'll have a much wider audience.

*ponders*

Perhaps. Well, I hope LL gave some good thought to the longterm effects of their decisions, such as how likely people are to recommend the game and so on.

OK, I'll get back into the game, and have some fun. See you all around, hope I made at least some of the sense I intended to make...

I was thinking pretty much exactly the same thing, Jack.

Why on earth would LL decide to make such drastic changes? The Fed doesn't change interest rates 5% at a time, they do it 1/4% at a time and see how the changes effect the market.

Another thing that bothers me is that they have focused solely on 1 segment of the game, the casual player. The people they are harming the most are those that don't play alot and those that aren't interested or can't build. They've left the commercial players alone.

Understanding that the goal of LL is to decrease (or slow) the amount of L$ in game to decrease inflation of the L$, I would propose some changes or additions to their policies.

1. Tax sales of land. If there was, say, a 6% tax on the sales of land, this would add up to 300-400,000 L$ per week. (about 1.4 million L$ per month) I personally don't think that the sale of land should be promoted by LL. That there is nothing positive for the game, and only for a very few SL residents, in selling of land.

2. Sell more new sims for $L instead of $ at auction. Obviously, this would take more $L out of circulation (conservatively, 100,000 L$/ week pr 400,000/mo.)

3. Make ratings 5$L per rating. This is cheap enough that most people would still give ratings like they do now, and 5 times as expensive. I have no idea how much L$ this would get out of circulation, but for arguments sake, lets say an additional 100,000 per month)

4. Tax vendor sales by 6%. Spread the pain to the store owners as well. This would bring in about 150-200,000 L$ a week, or about 600,000/month.

So, this would make up about 2.5 million of the 4.5 million L$ per month that Lindon Labs is looking to take out of circulation. Now they can half the Event support and still keep event planners and clubs in business.

There is one other move LL could make to correct there mistake...but it will never happen. THEY could buy up the excess currency from IGE and GOE. hahahaha, like I said, never happen.

~Jaz

I think I remember seeing the title in one of Philip Linden's posts, recently. Maybe not those exact words, but something along those lines. Anyway, who cares, looks cute

There's some seriousness to it too, however. I basically agree with all your points Jaz, and I would even suggest that LL could do several price hikes over a period of time, if the in-game economy would benefit from it.

The thing that occured to me just now however, with a lot of reasonable suggestions being made by players on both sides of the debate that seems to be raging; why doesn't the most open company in the world consult some of its customers before pushing major changes like this?

Really, Philip, or any Linden that's looking; there's a lot of knowledge and expertise out there in players who want your product to succeed, who want to continue to pay you money to host their Second Life. Why not put a topic up in the forums, or hold a town hall meeting, before you implement these kind of measures?

Just explain the problem at hand, suggest possible solutions, and ask for player feedback? If you give me a minute, I can name at least ten people who'd come up with things you might not have thought of.

Think of it as open sourcing part of the decision making process, without loosing the right to make the final decision based on what's good for LL as a company?

I think you would've gotten plenty of understanding and agreement, but also a call for moderation.

Jack and Jaz

With all the extremism going on, I'm hoping that sensible suggestions( like yours) and calmer heads prevail. I don't have the big picture info/experience , I can only focus on my corner of SL. I belong to a group whose main source of tier fee payment was based on dwell bonuses, and not commercial enterprise. LL support was a major part of our event income. We were just starting to recover from set-backs due to bugs and a rebuild when this came down. Basically, we're back at the drawing board with how we're going to function under these new conditions. Our group has a good team of creative and resiliant people, I'm confident we'll keep going. I'd be even more confident if the changes had been more gradual, but seems like Sgt Murphy's in charge somewhere.

Jase Byrne
Isle de Montmartre
Officer: Artistes les Montmartre
Officer: les Gardiens du Phare

Peace and brownies

That's a great analogy! I don't totally agree with you though. Any change, even minor, tends to be greeted with reactionary hysteria. It bumps up against people's sense of entitlement. I imagine the logic is to get it out of the way by making several changes at once. Some that are unwilling to adapt will leave, but far more will stay. SL has never been static. You'll be amazed how fast this all dies down and gets forgotten. It'll just be another "remember when..."

The how to boil a frog is one of my favorite metaphors for life. I think I should write it up for wikipedia - they have Death by a Thousand Cuts already.

I'm kinda shocked about the suddenness and magnitude of these changes too. I think LL is going to be surprised at how poorly they go over.

I think the magnitude is being very overstated. Apparantly the median ratings bonus is only about $75, meaning the average SL'er is going to lose $37.5 a week. I don't think that really qualifies for the "end is nigh" treatment it's being given. The biggest impact will be on event hosts, but I've always thought people should charge for events anyway.

I was sitting in the Welcome Area today asking if anyone knew the existing median ratings bonus, but with all the passionate feelings around, I suspect nobody heard me.
Does anyone have a link or reference to the figure Chip quotes above? -- I think it among the key stats in the current debate, and it sounds realistic to me, but I'm hesitant to quote it to anyone without reliable verification of some sort in this ocean of rumor we've dog-paddled in today.

You're probably right. Minor changes will get the same kneejerk reaction, but usually from a smaller crowd. I mean, there'd be plenty of people pissed even if things happened more gradually, but it would at least allow some people time to find alternatives to support their current tiers, or tier down, that sort of thing.

The only thing that doesn't make any sense to me is the new cost per rate point. Doesn't get me mad, never understood the fun of blindly rating everyone for some extra stipend, there's just no sense in it it seems. Make it L$5, or even L$10 perhaps... But L$25, when the weekly stipend for Basic accounts is at L$50?

Oh well... In six months, I'll probably build a campfire in a sandbox somewhere, and tell newbies what SL was like I was their age

Anyone have a nice 'walk with cane' anim? LOL!

I think the main point that no one has gone near (not sure as I've not followed all the threads) is that LL is setting things up to encourage people to switch from Basic to Premium accounts.

Personally I have no issues with that - I've spent about the same here on Premium account than I would have on Uru Live if it had gone that far (perhaps less, since I paid Yearly). And for my basic needs the L$500/week is just fine, as it should for the average user as well.

Of course I wanted a bit more (I'm still an Urufugee afterall), and renting or buying a reasonable amount of land to work with is going to cost if you're on either account.

LL has the Basic option there, and its not a bad idea for some. They may still need to adjust the base stipend for them up slightly, but a change of focus towards the Premium members in the economy (both in SL *and* LL's bottom lines) is probably inevitable.

ahahah. I just posted the same thing. Zeitgeist!

Well, that should be a big part of their business plan, really. The Basic account is a loss leader, teaser or whatever you want to call it; you want upgrading to be as attractive as possible, without discouraging the occasional user. Maybe they should add an extra subscription option at like $9,95 per quarter or something, which would give you the current 'Basic' with higher stipend and stipend bonuses.

I still think the new plan lacks balance though, but we'll see. Perhaps they'll make more with fewer users in the new economy...

I think its great

I have to say they are entitled to what they were promissed when they gave LL their CC#. Hell of a thing to pull the rug out and say "we'll we don't want to do the simple thing and buy a lot of lindens on the gom or ige to get the money out of circulation. Instead we are just going to take it from you . Reguardless of what we promissed you when you signed up. I think ppl are entitled to what they PAID for.

They do:

Basic Access One time access fee $9.95
Premium - Monthly $9.95/month, billed monthly
Premium - Quarterly $7.50/month, billed quarterly
Premium - Annual $6.00/month, billed annually

I love it when you get all philosophical you lovely Weirdork.

- Siouxsie

Personally, I think they are planning on replacing the rating system entirely, and this
latest move is to wean us off the current ratings system. Just a thought.

There has been so much griping about ratings, I think that you are right--they are phasing them out.

As for the other changes, I think they are just tired of devoting resources to processing requests for event reimbursment.

They may actually want to shake out some land holders who will release land to tier down, which will allow them to auction off the land again without adding any server resources; however, I think that it is more likely that they simply have not thought through how important prize money can be to the success of events.