The Death of Geography - the coffin is nailed ! No more "Virtual World".

Land access restrictions extended to 200m ?
Does no-one see what this will do ?

This completes a process begun when you all begged for point-to-point teleporting so you wouldn't have to fly across the SL terrain a little way, from the Telehubs to your destination.

Some of us cried out that this would destroy our sense of a connected geographic landscape, and reduce SL to only marginally more than a disconnected set of 3-d webpages.

We were told that this was not so - merely a new transport choice being added. That those of us who still wanted to travel across the landscape still could - by exercising our choice to fly and gaze just as before. That anyone who valued landscape and geographic sense could still take off and go travelling around whenever they felt like it. So we shut up.

Now we have just had this choice effectively taken from us.

With 200m barriers anywhere and everywhere, anyone who wishes to fly will be forced above this height. In order to see what we are flying over, even setting a visible range of 200m will reveal only one spot directly below. From that height at least 300m visual range will be needed to see anything of the territory flown across, because of slant range.

I, and many like me with non-superfast equipment simply cannot function with a range that great - 128m is about my limit.

So at 200m height I see - just about nothing. Flying cross country is now pointless and effectively dead. The only remaining geographic remnant is the ocean, which for the moment we can still travel across and sight-see the coast. But the interior is dead travelwise.

Which is why I say you have finally nailed the coffin of SL geography. You people have taken away other peoples choice to live SL their way.

I think it's worse than that, even.....

Now SL geography is dead you might as well have each person's land holding floating alone in the cybervoid. That will be the next demand you all start crying for. After all - think how it would reduce lag. No need for all that data transfer and computation to render that irrelevant stuff which doesn't belong to you. Erase neighbours. Who needs them ?

Foolish, foolish people. We can no longer use the term "virtual world" in connection with SL. Our original contiguous, extended, travel-able, experience-able geographic space has been killed.

It's my personal opinion that this is a profound loss which will lead to serious degradation of the original vision, which I supported. It points SL in a bad direction, and I fear further deterioration will result.

The torch will eventually pass to a competitor, one who will offer a brilliant, sparkling, coherent landscape in which our virtual lives can be embedded, and with various transport systems as viable choices. Such a competitor would understand the concept of a virtual world, and what makes it so different from, and so superior to, a version of "my space" with 3d rooms. A sort of advanced "Habbo Hotel". Which is where SL seems to be headed.

One more example of what happens when you give inappropriate power to the masses. The rot started with the voting system. A really fancy self-build "Habbo Hotel" is probably what the average casual user would actually like, and where his votes will, I fear, ultimately take us.

I'm not quite sure what the problem is here... I for one have absolutely no problem navigating roads at a comfortable flying height when I wish to explore the landscape in areas that I have not yet seen.


And there are plenty of roads to travel in this wonderful world we know as Second Life.

if i remember all the sims of the mainland have something called "protected land wich is ALSO here as a permanent right to pass for the residents

Nah, I like the 200m ceiling. At 30m, the griefers just flew above, chucking bombs below. Sucked.

This has effectively taken care of my griefer problem. Thanks LL.

the problem described by the original poster would be a lot less an issue if more people didnt lock their land when they didnt need privacy.

Simply leaving the land unlocked and turning off others ability to build on your land - would greatly reduce the fly by issues of your fellow residents.

I dont see the attraction to having your land locked against all when you havent even been online for 3 days .. mebe its me though

sim crossings taking 10+ seconds while you keep going the same direction without control killed exploration like that for me far more than the relatively minor annoyance that the 200m height is...

I hope that was as boring to type as it was to read.

The geography died for me years ago when I realized having even the nicest bestest neighboring owners didn't guarantee they wouldn't build with dozens of 1024x1024 textures and nine-hundred scripts on their 2048sm lot.

It died second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth deaths when I've seen single 16sm blocks boasting heavily scripted scanners or three large ugly billboards in every sim I've visited.

What's the point of having geography if it means putting up with crap everywhere you go?

Blame p2p and registration procedures if you really believe that. Ignore the fact that it's Philip's precious fucking commuuuuunity that has bolted Second Life to the floor by "doing what the damn well hell we please with our own land and there's nothing you can do about it so there fool" attitude.

As I understand it the 200m bannable zone is just a short-term thing.

I thought that with the "verified" status and ability to ban unverified AVs the ban area was going to be lowered to where it used to be.

I hope they don't lower it that low. The former height *was* too low. 200m when left on all the time is a bit high, but somewhere in between would be better.

Even a simple, residential/business split would have been extremely usefull in terms of zoning sims. Most small land owners I know always seemed to live in dread of the laggy mall or club moving in next door. It wouldn't have done anything about ugly builds or excessive scripts, but it still would have solved some fairly serious problems.

Oh, and lest someone mention renting or "buying" in privately owned sims with zoning, from what I've seen and from what most of the people I know have seen, it's just really not an adequet substitute.

Or people could just fly around. Don't say one side is lazy if you don't want it turned back. Some people have access only on all the time for a reason. Deal.

I was finally able to login and experience these new "enhanced" walls in my own home sim. I must admit that it was a very interesting experience feeling around the "hall of mirrors" trying to find a permitted path from one end of the sim to the other. I eventually did find one, but it involved navigating around 10-15 "no entry" and "buy pass" signs, moving about 10m at a time.

And here I was contemplating buying a mainland sim, chop it up into 16M squares and making a maze with ban lines instead of prims.

I agree with Ellie. I enjoy flying around and exploring, and it's a total pain now. I hope they fix it soon.

As far as the new altitude, what I'd like is if the default flying height was high enough to get over the default ban lines. As it is, when you just fly forward you tend to descend to a certain altitude above the ground. I'm not sure how high it is, but it's pretty low. I think it's lower than the previous ban height. This means that even before the recent change, you would frequently run into ban lines, although it was not too hard to hit the page up button and get up over them (now, it's ridiculously hard).

If we're raising the lines above the old limits, I'd like to see them raise the flying altitude to be higher as well. (But still low enough to have a nice view of the ground.) This way, the flying-around experience would actually be improved and we would retain the sense of geography and being in a virtual world that Ellie emphasized.

Your suggestion is a valid one, but it lacks the implementation details. Please, enlighten us...how do we fly around the restricted access walls when we can't see them until it's too late to avoid them? At 25-30 m/s, which is a very reasonable speed when using an aircraft, by the time one sees the little lines it's too late to turn. But that's just a problem for us ignorant pilots, right? You apparently have a way to solve that problem since you suggested flying around them, so please, do share.

There are still 'virtual worlds'. Caledon is only (checks watch) five sims so far, but we still use telehubs.

- No point to point teleporting except for 'teleport home' for residents.

- No 'group access only' ban lines either. Why? The main reason: it's really, really unfriendly and chilling. It doesn't matter how pretty something looks behind ban lines. The message they send is "We don't like you."


It's no wonder that people use the roads, enjoy the trolley, usually know their neighbours and enjoy wandering around. ZOMG, my neighbours are really cool and have common interests! What a discovery.

It's not zoning. It never was. Caledon has yet to have even one major zoning issue, and it's mixed-use through and through.

Community really *is* everything.

The original poster is indeed a visionary, and is entirely correct, and saw, well in advance, the pitiful direction SL has gone. You are to be congratulated for this.

I *hate* the SL landscape 10 times more than before, and I am ready to leave.

The bans mean that shops that I find crusing along I no longer visit (because of a slim parcel between that has walled off my approach).

If people wanted privacy, they should not join a virtual world. They should buy The Sims, and play by themselves.

Griefers can be delt with in literally an infinite number of ways.


What LL has done, is PROVIDED, FREE OF CHARGE, the most impressive griefer tool ever imagined... and has turned countless land owners into griefers. It's griefer paradise... Imagine... 200m, invisible walls, spread all over the landscape of SL, causing thousands and thoushands of impacts on citizens every day, like birds into a plate glass window.

The 200m zeor prim glass wall is easily the most evil griefing tool ever developed, and it impacts (pun intended) thousands of residents every day.

SL has BEEN LOWERED to the LEVEL of the GRIEFERS.

LL has become what they were fighting.

This has to be fixed soon... or I sell, and leave.... because now I have ugly billboards *and* I am trapped by high walls of glass.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Honestly, I'm not that bothered by the new height limit. I'm an avid aviator, and have been flying aircraft longer that the OP has even been a member. And considering that the alternative is being TPed unexpectely by a hidden griefer orb, I'm not that bothered by a semi-visible barrier that doesn't knock me out of my plane or affect my course nearly as much as those so-called "security" balls.

I also make it a point to let people know that they have them on when it looks unintentional.

The Lindens said they'd be changing the heights anyway, keeping the ban height as-is or even extending it, and in cases of restricted access (ie, whitelist instead of blacklist), the height will be lowered. So keep your cool, folks. This is something that most security-ball users have said they'd accept as a condition for reducing their usage of those scripts, and I consider those to be far more detrimental to flight than anything Linden-made.

So, to the OP, I ask this: Is bouncing harmlessly off of a barrier really more annoying than getting teleported/orbited by a that is truly invisible?

Fly slower so they rez.

I agree -- the new ban height limit is a pain. It makes it much harder for innocent explorers to fly around the place, just to see what they find. Security orbs that push you or teleport you home with no notice are annoying too, but seem to be less common than parcels with bans on them.

I think Ellie is right; the new system does further degrade the sense of geography in SL. I hope that LL find a better solution to griefers soon...

Absolutely.

Consider the following example of this amazing new griefing opportunity:

Player A has a 512m plot. Player B has a large adjacent estate, wishes to extend, and buys up the land surrounding player A. He goes "group access only" thus caging Player A in a tiny vertical tunnel 200m high. Without teleporting the only way B can leave or enter his plot is via this vertical tunnel. Getting home would require finding an almost invisible tiny plot-sized hole in the ban ceiling, probably whilst out of sight of the ground.

But wait - it's worse. Player A has no money or know-how for a high-fly attachment. He finds he cannot rise anywhere near as high as 200m. He simply cannot leave or arrive by flying at all, even if he is willing to thread the needle of this pencil-thin vertical shaft.

Why did he choose this particular plot ? Something nearby? A mall ? A lake ? A pretty view ? A nearby friend ?

Suddenly and without warning he/she can no longer reach any of them without teleporting, which can be done from anywhere.

He/she might as well sell to Player A and move out of this unbelievable Linden sanctioned trap.

Yes indeed, Ryder. Not just the death of geography, but the ultimate griefing tool, courtesy of the management, and apparently intended to achieve the opposite effect.

This is truly ludicrous, and surely should be reversed immediately while other solutions are sought.

When the first victim of this complains, what on earth will the Lindens say ? Just teleport and get over it ? Unbelievable.

Try having a store on a 512m land between two "club only" lots where you have to see those stupid "NO ENTRY" signs in every direction, not just at land level but a sky pad level.

I had to raise my sky house to 250m, and where my view used to have cool views of some neighbors builds across the way, all I see are clouds.

I agree with the OP, this is totally killing the game for me.

My sky house is invisible if I am off line for more than 5 minutes, its a great security device and keeps my house from being an eyesore to others.

Why is it important to have these ban lines on 24/7 especially when I have not seen either of my neighbors in days?

Any solution to a problem that ruins a primary activity of the game (exploring) is a stupid solution.

i used to just fly over my neighbors land to get to my other parcels....now i have to set up a lm and teleport. Somehow I dont see that as an improvement, Lindens, but yet another infringement on the mainland dwellers. Why don't you eliminate the problem instead of puttting a band aid on it. Get rid of free accounts!!

I haven't been here that long, and I'm not an expert... but surely there must be a better and more imaginative way of dealing with griefers?

For example, LL could impose restrictions on free account holders. Some ideas:

- only allow them to visit a predetermined list of regions (a sort of try-before-you-buy account);
- disable scripting;
- code a hard limit on how many objects they can rez;
- set *their* parcel ban height higher...

I understand that LL might want to encourage more people to participate in SL by lowering the barriers to entry. You can't try out SL without creating an account. But surely it's OK to limit free accounts in some way, and then to allow those people to sign up "properly" later to overcome those restrictions, if they like what they see?