Prok is right. SL is a dog's breakfast. Why do people argue with this?

The problem I think isn't just the lack of classes (though yes, that is a problem) but I think it's because we lack tools to encourage people to collaborate together in an opt-out way.

Right now it is very opt-in. You have to join a group and donate tier. If by purchasing land in a in sim you were automatically 'opted into' the group, I think people might find themselves being a part of group builds more often.

Obviously, when the land was sold you'd need to warn the buyer what he was getting himself into.

But if they could buy land for very cheap (because it was zoned), they might just do it!

Could you detail what tools you think they should include?

Also, I think we might see a rise in the amount of classes again with the advent of streaming video.

1. A hammer.

2. I think rather than upper/lower/middle classes that Fetid, Feted, and Fettered should cover most of the folkies you'll find in SL.

Siggy.

Nice to see this thread taking up a different tone. I'll match.

Zoning new sims by the Lindens would be one "tool", I assume. If there are others tools to encourage user/community initiatives, then zoning older sims would be another possibility. But somebody in one of these threads said something very germaine: Zoning is almost always a function of civil government. And that's a direction few people want to go in. Other possible tools also "resemble" civil government, including "community meetings", "civil planning", "technical protocols for ownership or grouping decided on by committees", etc.

So, not to start a fire, but I guess the question I have is: How are "tools" we can imagine going to be qualitatively different from "government"?

That's a sincere question, btw. No agenda.

Also, what made me stay in Second Life was the fun of learning how to build and landscape in 3D, and the bizarre discovery that I was sort of good at it. So I am definitely an amateur, but I wouldn't consider anyone building something for me. Maybe teaching me more, however.

edited for typos

its not a thing of who is a profreesonal becasue sl building style isnt something that to can pick up you still ahve to learn it. thats the only reason people make bad content people want something but dont have acess to builders or scripters they are here to have fun but we all cant be suppliers we need some consumers.

im best at building and what people dont know that when building there is a lot of logic involved such as i dont have this shape so hoe do i go about to get around this problem.

its not a problem but some times whats makes a good build is how you use textures

the only way to fix this problems is require builders to go out for builders licens and scripters to go out for scripters licens and so on if they are going to make public content but what freedoms do we take away.

or

do we allowcertain sims where you need a certain licens to buld some thing or permit

I'm of two minds about this 'license' idea.

Sure, on one hand, the licensing is usually coming as an 'effect' of classes (potential cause, of which in this case, the cause is something desired by me). Having licenses of differing levels could lead to an interesting market:
"Hello, I'm a licensed Class D housebuilder. I'll build your dream home for, say, L$1250."
"Well, I'm a licensed Class C housebuilder. I'll build your dream home even better than he will for the same price. I'll even throw in a car for your driveway."
"Uh, I'm not licensed, but I shore know hows to build, boy howdy! I'll even do it for L$300 and a six pack!"

But that might drive far too much business to the ones who hold the higher licenses, and drive them off and away from here after one request too many.

The idea could be used to regulate what kind of building goes on in an area, but it has its own flaws:
What if Joe Hacksawson doesn't like Hannah Homewanter's landlord, MoneyBaronBan King?
Sure, he's a class B builder, this Joe is, but he hates Mr. King so bad that instead of building Hannah's home, he builds, f.a.s., a giant model of Thor (an adult toy in the shape of horse genitalia) on Hannah's land.
Who enforces the licensing rules in this case? (I sense the other hand coming in to play now...)

Now the workload for the world's administration has gone from what we know it as to making sure players are not only behaving in social situations, and keeping their objects/scripts in check among things, but also now to policing what someone builds in violation of their license.
Not to even touch on, "How do we determine what level license to assign an applicant?", or if we go without levels on the license, "Is this person's building skill good enough to issue them the rights to build in a licensed zone?"


As for the allowing certain sims with licensing...
Though I brushed that a lot with the above, I can actually see a few cases where it would apply - In a sim that is attempting to recreate something, be it a school, or a model of a city, or anything that requires lots of unity and communication, having a license could possibly work out. I just haven't figured that out completely, but it could possibly work out.




... I've rambled quite a bit. I'm going to go quiet now, and go do that sleep thing.
Again, all of my post are just my thoughts or randomly occuring ideas and currently have a value of two cents in my home country.
YMMV, IANAL, etc. No problem if you think my post is tl; dr.

You know, every time we have this discussion, it always degenerates into a fight over licensing and player government and claims of Nazi building codes.

And that is just never a direction to take it in.

I am advocating sometihng much lighter and fluffier, believe me.

We all know what it is to wake up one morning and find Club Lagg blocking the entire waterfront with amateurish twirling waterfalls and spewing particles lagging the sim. We have all come home to find a face full of plywood darkening the sun. These matters are just so obvious that I don't know where to begin trying to get people off their silly "what ifs' and "why can't I's" when we all know *exactly* what a white-cube-of-death is and what a black-box-of-doom is. There is no question in my mind. Because we all know exactly what these horrors mean for the interference of our own enjoyment of SL. April knows full well that her annoying white-cube-of-death (now green) is only on one side of her view, and that a hulking menace like this taking up a skyline and a sim's feel is a different order of magnitude. She knows yet again that a white-cube-of-death actually blocking physical access to a waterline is a white-cube-of-death precisely for that reason. There are very, very simple criteria that have to do with blocking access to a line of the property, lagging the sim below a tolerable level, and obstructing the whole view corridor/horizon. The "you can't buy the view" with which Sl denizens are so quick to snidely smack you actually isn't true -- you can buy it but you just can't keep it nice because of all the idiots.

It's like your right to assemble in a march in any city. There are lawful restrictions as to time, place, and manner. Every city hall and every muncipal court in America knows that despite their First Amendment duties to uphold freedom of expression, they sure as hell have the right to restrict a moron who swings from a lightpole in rush hour with a sign and holds up traffic. Time, place, and manner. These are the limitations in every city in the land. This extremist, maximalist silly utopian notion of First Amendmentitis that people think they can put over on the spineless politically correct in this game is simply belied by the RL and the SL restrictions that are reasonable in a democratic society as to time, place, and manner.

In the same way, condemnation and restrictions on, and even removal of, white and black boxes that lag the sim (time), block the access (place), and excessively block the view and enjoyment of the game (manner) are reasonable and just in a democratic society. To expect this to be different in SL is to import fascism and communism which has no place here.

Who can enforce time, place, and manner? There are no courts and we don't want a government but there are ways to induce at least AWARENESS of these LAWFUL restrictions. One is simply to put a name on something.

By God, I have found that simply by putting up "store lot" I can make a set of lots become a commercial strip when the day before they were houses. People do go by what a sign says. They can adjust their expectations. If you tell them "store lot" they don't worry about spinning signs, because that's the "norm". If you say "residential lot" they become annoyed at a spinning sign.

All I am asking for is that guidepost, label, direction, that would come in a CA saying "club, mall, residential, experimental" just to guide the flow just a *little bit* in this morass of this dog's breakfast we swim in.

Next, I'm saying that the dispute mechanisms -- not licenses! not competing service industries of licenses! -- just plain talking and establishing the facts of the case -- are what could be helpful. Some people started these community associations and they take different forms. Some of them are endless boring socialist democracy toys like Newoldenbrg. Others are probably never consulted but once a year to count prims. The point is that they can be a tool to help organize life so it is more tolerable.

It's very easy to sit in a forum while you're at work and snipe mercilessly at somebody in the game about their build. It is another matter to walk up to the property line, look them in the eye, and tell them their build harms your enjoyment of Second Life. And I know, because I have done both, I have attacked builds in the forum that I think significantly impact the enjoyment of SL for many, and I have marched right up to the property line and let them have it for their white cubes of death in game.

Again, what slays me is how quickly any discussion of building criteria degenerates into a fight about newbie clutter and bad newbie building or must amateurish anybody building. But I'm talking about builds that affect time/place/manner of the game significantly, not amateurish newbie stuff or oldbie unprofessional clutter.

So while I am deathly sick of Siggy Romulus' eternal prefab in every 512 postage-stamp sheet, I realize that it is "within the norm" and "ok" and even "low prim" and that it just gets to exist, without a challenge from any aesthetic notion. Meanwhile, the idiot with the giant phallic sculpture for $1500 which essentially says "Buy me or look at this foever," he is significantly impacting my game if I live next to him. There are differences.

*Applauds* and if more people were of the same mindset this would be a much better place to be.

This is a very interesting idea. Linden Lab is focused on providing tools to the residents to help them organize themselves however they see fit. The concept of a new "opt-out" kind of land ownership, directly encouraging residents to be part of a group community, could be something for us to investigate.

Everyone, please share more specific ideas about this. I'm all ears.

there are two different kinds of collaboration that would be great to enhance -- collaboration on what you do with land, and collaboration in how you build. Both are "feature requests" of course because they need enhanced tools.

As has been discussed, groups have no intermediate level. You either own everything, or the group owns everything. The latter holds serious risks in terms of officers being voted out and any officer able to sell land (the biggest issue). There is also the issue of the person who buys the land and fronts the cash, then has to share proceeds with the entire group if the plot gets sold. An intermediate group structure which reduces some of the risks of land-collaborating with others would be great.

of course, i also think that the *building* collaboration tools can be enhanced. It seems to me that the title of the thread was complaining about design quality in SL. Now collaborative design/building does not necessarily lead to higher quality, but it does improve the ways that specialists can work together. Right now, it is awfully hard to build with others because of the limits of "share with group".

You guys, what is fun about SL is the chance to learn and experiment and try something that you've never done before.

If you start saying who can and can't do what, or if you make it too expensive to play around and learn, you will absolutely kill the game (or whatever SL is).

If you want to control the way a place looks and what happens there, you need to pay for the right to do that by buying the place.

That's about the bottom line here.

I remember when "desktop publishing" first became available. Before PageMaker, people had to hire a graphic artist to lay out a newsletter, because only the professionals had the expensive equipment needed to do layout and vary the fonts and font sizes. After PageMaker, anyone could lay out their own newsletter -- so they did.

What many people failed to realize, however, was that the graphic artists had more than just expensive equipment. They also had talent and experience. When suddenly everyone could do it themselves, they did -- and the results were often awful. Angry Fruit Salad. Ransom Notes. Walls of Words. It was terrible.

Today, documents tend to look pretty good, even when prepared by pretty much anybody. Some people have a special knack for making things look bad, but on balance, the quality of do-it-yourself document layout is pretty good.

I think the same thing will happen in SL. Most people come into SL with zero experience with 3D modeling. SL makes it incredibly easy, so people without talent or experience are building things. The results are predictable.

Over time, people will get better at it. With exposure, people begin to recognize quality work, and their own builds will improve. I think the "dogs breakfast" problem will decline over time all on its own.

If you segregate the newbies from the quality builds, however, then the newbies will only ever see other newbie work in their own neighborhood. Their house won't look bad compared to something down the street, so they won't have any incentive to improve it.

Of course the griefers, w-hats and extortionists are a problem. I would like to see some kind of zoning associations on the main grid, but I would hate to see that get too strict. Boardman style projects are great, as far as I'm concerned, but I would not want to see them suck ALL the talent off the grid.

Buster

yeah, the only rule should be that everyone has a chance to succeed (and fail), the creative types should be allowed to build and sell and the people who do not will have to find another way to buy things. There is a natural evolution and dealing with griefers is part of the process, those who can adapt will succeed, but those who cannot will stop 'playing'. It's that simple, this isn't a socialist state where everyone is protected, we are not people we are avatars, this is different than the real world where perhaps a social safety net is a compassionate response.

I DO NOT WANT SL TO BE FAIR AND EASY.

I want to get a sence of accomplishment by working hard and building and selling and communicating. I'm sorry for the people who spend all their money and get bored or get cheated by a land barron or are squeezed out by towers but that's tough. You failed the electronic Darwin test!

I have noticed tons of creative people and people who are just cool and friendly and you want them around, they will survive, the people who feel put upon and cheated may not. I have no problem giving a positive rating to someone who is polite and helpfull, the ratings help give you a bonus payday, it's simple math (according to what I've seen), be nice and get paid. But I'll be damned if we have to help those who cannot make it here in SL, why should we have to? This is a game, people win and people lose.

It appears to me that many people want quantity of avatars out there, not quality. Quantity of avatars to possibly buy stuff, and by keeping as many people as possible in the game the oldbies stand to make more cash so it appears they have deleloped this elaborate scheme to help the people who would normally stop playing SL.

My theory may be wrong when it comes to the noble intents of any particular person but it is a numbers game, more people on Sl means more cold hard cash for land barrons (for example) so it is in their best interest to keep as many people in the game and if they have to make the game 'easier' they will try to do so.

Ugh, das Groshomme. Fascism. Social Darwinism. Randianism. Brutal utopian communism or Nazism that kills all the misfits and dissidents and "failures". Ugh, ugh, ugh. Not even worth the debate. You're point of view is exactly what I was fighting when I took on the white tower in Caleta over a variety of issues: the belief, implicit in the tower builders and sponsors, that towers like that are better than "tacky" Tiki (though Jim Lumiere is the best!) and better than the low bottom-feeders buying and selling first land. This sucks. I do not accept that hierarchy and judgement. No way. I have a right to exist as does the Tiki, and we don't need any special socialism to exist, but what we do need is for the corporate socialism and state socialism to stop celebrating and feting those megatowers and their sponsors quite as much as they do. There must be tools provided to democratize and empower landowners to protect their property rights and have some hedge against the towers.



The idea that when you come into the sim, and are automatically enrolled in a land group just because you buy land, or automatically enrolled in any kind of non-land group community association, is a horror to me because it is not voluntary. No one should be shanghaied into a public-interest group without a voluntary consent. You could just have Linden Labs lay out a sim, put the land group in, and tell people that anyone who comes in and puts in tier gets that group 10 percent discount and the group just fills up with strangers with the like-minded goal of having a joint sim -- just like TSO! Yes, just like our much-maligned TSO, where lots filled up with strangers who wanted to cooperate on job objects and the like.

BUT I don't want an automatic opt-in with a forced opt-out because the learning curve on what tier, land, and costs are is too steep. People even with college educations come into this game and get all confused about tier, land, and costs. Believe me, I know because I was confused for many weeks myself as to how to put my 512 land and its 512 tier into a group and still remain on that land (you can't except by deeding the land, and don't click "owner contributes tier" because it will dun you for tier ON TOP of that 512 to ANOTHER 512 putting you in the 1024 $5 level).

I've spent hours explaining tier, land, and costs to people. Do not force them to go through that kind of aggravation by forcing their land purchase to be a goddamn collective communist farm. Horrors!

This must be opt-in. Land cooperatives or groups must be voluntary, and distinct from community associations. If the two agree to merge and become one thing, fine (ie for the sake of maintaining the sims park or commons or collective business). But don't frog march them.

I can't say it enough -- officer recall and officer right to re-sell land not paid for in purchase price and not paid for by tier MUST be removed and refined. Only those persons who bought land and pay tier can should have the officer status.

Currently, any officer with officer status can sell any piece of land. There should be a status where only officers who have purchased land and put in tier can have the "owning officer" status -- or maybe this has to be simply the "founding officer" status so that only the "founding officer" can sell land.

Now, one down side of making officer actions tied to precisely their tier contribution or their founding status is that one officer cannot then freely operate collectively from the group, i.e. to make a land purchase on behalf of the whole group using not just his own paid tier but the group's. That feature is worth retaining for ease of operation. And no, I am not saying this so I can bilk newbie tier donators, but because you need that kind of ease of operation to function in this game, especially when such frequent crashes and problems occur and you can miss a purchase or sale at key critical movements. And it would be a convenience as it is now to have any officer, not just founding officers, be able to set land for sale.

But on balance, it is better to create the two tiers, the founders/people who pay purchase and tier and the supporters -- those willing to work, manage, build on land who should have the edit, naming, URL, etc. functions and members who can also contribute and then get the benefits from dwell and group sales.

I would much prefer better working tools like we have now, with some pernicious elements removed. I'd rather see someone come into the sim, and form the standard group and invite everyone to be officers who shows up. Everyone who buys (and I would include tenants who rent as well) gets to be an officer. But it is not a land group, just a group.

Or, if people do actually form a land group together, that it be voluntary. I figured this would be way, way more easy than it has been. It was so easy in TSO, I thought it would be easy here. What I hadn't factored in is how angry and clutchy people get about land issues precisely because they have paid real-life money. So you have to go gingerly on this. People simply will not open themselves up to more griefing than they already experience in this game!

and the towers don't?

- devil's advocate

They don't get pride of place?

They don't get to perpetuate the myth of architecture uber alles?

They don't get to use their platform to spread falsehoods about me?

They don't get to take up so much of the sim resources/skyline/character without a pushback from little Tikis and from me?

Yeah, they have their right of place on their square purchased by their owner, but no more no less, and their surging up into the air of the entire sim is the moment when I, as a viewer of that air, gets to squawk.

They own the view because they go up high, and get more prims, but not really that many more? But I don't own the view because I don't build under it, yet I have to endure their intrusion of my view line? Why?

And all this intrusion, from people who supposedly care about "view corridors".

It's all crap.

ok, ignoring the fact that anyone with an ounce of creativity can put a tiki on top of their own tower if there is a big tower next to them,

PLEASE explain to us obviously confused people, what 'corporate socialism and state socialism' is in the context of this game?

define 'feting'

how can you 'democratise' landowners, it's a FEUDAL system, he who owns the land makes the rules, renting isn't democracy ya know.

and why is it a crime to build a tower on your own land? it isn't a crime, but somehow you don't want your neighbors to build these things, why? Is this because big buildings create crowds and lag? can a club next door to your plot with a humble tiki cause your land to lag as well? IF that is your point, in that your neighbors heavily populated space makes your unpopulated space lag then maybe I can see your point, but it just isn't making sence what your point is.

Yes, and they should if they are proud of the build - as anyone should be. Tiki hut or skyscraper, if you are proud of your build, show it.

That's an issue with the INDIVIDUAL.

They take up a proportional amount of resources, dictated by thier land ownership in the sim. You could have a Tiki hut with a fully-replicated 900 prim bar. Sure, it wouldn't 'scar' the skyline, but it would certainly use sim recourses.

Squawk away.. but, don't try to vilify those who build up high because you're sore over a dispute with a neighbor who happens to own a highrise.

Your choice. Want more prims? Buy them. Want the view? Build a highrise. You made your choice, quit squawking about it.

I do care about them, that's why I bought mine.

It certainly is.

I love SL. I truly do. In spite of this, if pressure was placed on residents "directly encouraging" them to be a part of a group community, I'd figure it was time for me to leave.

Juro,

This idea of "buying the view" is one that people get oh-so-shirty about and oh-so-superior about but...let's just review that for a second. I surely know about buying the view because I already several times bought a sim or area of a sim, make its view, then move to the next sim and buy the view into that first sim in a sense by buying the land that looks on to it.

But I do think that a person buying land in a game is entitled to a reasonable sense of that space he is in as extending out into a view corridor. This harsh, mean, nasty, superior attitude that so many uber-architects have that you have to BUY THE VIEW is an inherently unjust one. Why?

Because in real life, buildings that are tall and domineering like that don't just get to march into a space, go up, and then sneer that everybody should just "buy the view" -- i.e. buy an entire sim at highway-robbery prices just to prevent them from marching in like that.

In SL, just whoever gets to log on first and jump on a new sim gets to gloat that they "bought the view". Um, are they special? No. So often, all the do is buy 2048 or 4096 (ahem, often that free-for-life socialist subsidy from Uncle Joe Linden). They buy a square in the middle of a lot, or a middle of a waterfront. Then the ENTIRE OTHER 65,000 odd other square meters in that sim have to look at them! Now is that right? Of course not. Why do they get to mar the view and the horizon for EVERYONE on the sim, just because some asswipe tells them with gloating fascistic superiority BUY THE VIEW DUMBASS.

Let me cue you up on something, Juro. You can't buy the view by buying one sim. You can't buy the sim by buying two sims. You cannot even buy the view by buying three sims. That's $600 tier a month, and a purchase price of possibly $4500 US or more.

Huh? You are telling me that to secure myself from the antics of some fuck-you hedonist on 2048 square meters on a sim, sucking prims in group land maybe from on the margins, gets to tell me gloatingly that I have to BUY THE VIEW and spend $4500 to be free of his fuck-you antics with his fuck-you tower?

No, Juro. You are not telling me that. I refuse to spend nearly $5000 just to BUY THE VIEW in this fascistic idiotic prim paradise-gone-wrong.

No, Juro. I will tell you that this fascistic tower menace should have a few common considerations of neighborliness before they come in and scarf up 4096 or 8192 or even 10k of a 65,000 m2 sim and mar its horizon for EVERYONE in the sim. I will suggest that tower think of where it could be moving to ROADSIDE. I would suggest that it move AWAY FROM WATERFRONT and so on. Just to exercise a modicum of common courtesy.

And I would raise the discussion about whether the community shouldn't ought to put its foot down about these vanity prim monsters hogging the skyline and view corridors just because they're ummmmm special and feted.

Did I merge two separate issues, one some personal dispute and the other some public building debate? I did not. This is not about an individual, but an attitude permeating that individual and many like him. Because the two are intimately intertwined. The builder crossed the street to harass me and make false charges about me and my business precisely because of his overdeveloped sense that builders (let's not call them "architects" when they give no consideration to community concerns and site specifics) can hold sway and be at the top of the right-of-way hierarchy in SL due to their skills/feting/visibilty/etc, but land sellers and Tiki huts in their shadow are crap. That's the attitude I attack hammer and tong. It has no place in this game.

Those who build up high can often do so with a modicum of prims. I amazed myself building a gigundu art installation called Club Lagg in Portage to make some wry commentary about this white-cube-of-death laggy particly club blocking the waterfront. God, "rotating texture" is a dangerous thing to be putting in "My Library"! Lindens should charge $100 for each use of "rotate script"!!!

I slapped that in...some ugly textures...I burned maybe 30 prims at most...and walla, I had an ugly, menacing, horrific, black box of doom to terrorize my neighbours (which I removed after making my art statement). See how easy it is, without even using resources? Yet everyone thinks that is "ok". I do not. I call for the use of negrates, community discussion, community associations, other tools, to stop this menace and stop the ruination of mine and others' enjoyment of SL.

Note how the white tower of death ran screaming and threatened to boycott the game and pull their company and investment because they were unwilling to grant the same rights they had seized on this sim, seized away from those next to them, unwilling to grant to the black box of doom, which also seized those same rights.

Do you see it?

It's because no one will accept restrictions as to time, place, and manner.

Prokofy,

Here's what I object to: other players attempting to dictate what type of build another player can erect on thier own land. It's pretty simple, really.

Sure, it would be 'nice' if they would have more consideration and not erect a skyscraper in a sim otherwise dominated by low-rise structures. But, where would you put them? Land in the few city-themed sims we have is rarely, if ever, available. The only other land is all the remaining sims. Sure, you might be able to find something near a telehub - but that land can be extremely expensive. Additionally, there is no current 'zoning' for most of the sims.

I've built several highrises myself, all of which were design studies an none hung around too long. Were they out of place on my land? Maybe... they certainly did class with Hiro's Japanese styled builds - but he took my building indulgencies in stride (Thanks Hiro!).

Structures of all kinds, along with the natural landscape, make up the 'view'. A highrise does not, necessarily, ruin it. There are many fanciful structures that rise well above the 'normal' build heights - yet you seem to have aimed your poison pen in one particular direction: vain, high-prim skyscrapers.

Your track of thinking is one that I cannot agree with Prokofy. If I were to subscribe to this line, where do you stop? What if I object to vain, high-prim castles? What if I object to ticky-tacky, low-quality, suburban prefabs? Where do you stop?

SL guarantees that when you buy your land, you have complete freedom to build whatever you like within the guidelines of TOS. As a neighbor, I may not like it - but I would never tell you that you have NO right to do so. It is, after all, your land.

Am I the only one would finds the humor in the anti-highrise rhetoric coming from someone living in New York City?

Oh, I saw it... and my response, if I were king, would be: buh-bye. For the same reasons I would defend his tower, I would need to defend the black tower of death (or whatever you've nicknamed it).

Here's what I object to, Prokofy, players who only buy 2048 or 4096 of space and suck prims ruining the view for the other 65000 meters on a sim, so that even an owner of 16k on a sim is ruined. And no April, your view on your sim isn't ruined, as anyone can see by noting your Linden sea in front of you, your Linden road behind you, and your open land/sea to your right. So it is not an equivalent situation.

Juro, limitations as to time, place, and manner are legitimate in a free, democratic society. And how can this be arranged? By making more city sims. By making a rough "zoning tag" which is just a suggestion (middle sims with flat get the club/mall tag; waterfront get the residential tag).



Juro, are you just tuning in to my poison pen LOL? Did you not read about the white-cube-of-death of last week in Portage, home of my whimsical Club Lagg? THAT cube was only a storey or two-storeys, but blocking waterfront access/view/and sim resources with lag. And other white and black boxes I've discussed have blocked access, or view, without actually being towers.



But in fact the tower people who reign supreme DO object to ticky-tacky on the hillside (remember that old song about the "Little Boxes"?). And that's the problem. They cannot have respect for the variety of other modes of SL existence that do not include Soviet Empire Gigantism type of builds. Quaint is something they hate. And I'm tired of that. They don't get to do that by forcing me out of business, or my clients, or anybody. That's what is at stake here. They just don't get to do that without a pushback from me. I am pushing back to restore the balance, the balance of forces taking over a sim. That's all.




Well, that's exactly the debate. The TOS also concerns griefing, the TOS also talks about interfering with enjoyment of the game, and when a giant tower comes to the sim, and attracts its other ilk (as this one did), the Tikis scatter. That's not right. They need to feel community pressure. They need to know that Tiki dwellers will not give up without a fight.



Isnt' that all the more reason not to see it replicate in what is supposed to be my second life, where I might have a Tiki hut without the Empire State Building in my lap?

In my city, the UN's tower or Donald Trum's tower or even somebody's low-rise apartment building never goes up without a fight, permits, laws, community boards, all kinds of stuff. You want to keep that out of SL. OK. But then you have given power over to that uber-architect mega-vanity-tower griefers and let them seize the view.

I don't see what we should do that.

First, they are not 'sucking' up prims. It is a resource that they are using because they have paid for it. They suck as much as you do.

Second, who is to say that waterfront needs to be low-rise residential? You? You live in NYC and surely you've been to or seen Miami, Chicago, SF, Seattle, Vancouver, Hong Kong, etc. and in those cities there are plenty of waterfront highrises. Why should SL be any different?


Evidentally so. Right now, I'm largely let down by you after all this. When I first met you, I thought "cool, another developer who wants to make themed communities". Instead, what I've been witnessing here on the forums is the villification and utter lack of repect for builds of all types. Expected of the Donald, but I wasn't expecting it from you.


And yet you seem to have the same lack of respect for variety.


Unfotunate, yes.. but noone forced them to move. They packed up and did relocated themselves.

Highrises are a part of the view - one you may object with, but they *are* part of it.