Point to Point Teleporting

Some thoughts on ways to do this...

OK, how about something like this?

Two ways to P2P TP, while keeping Telehubs.

1.
Add P2P teleporting to the Telehubs with a nice overhead view object map for that telehub's coverage area. If you are tracking a landmark, and are standing within a couple meters of the map, your landmark appears, only to you, as a miniature copy of the red column we are all used to. (Your real one also remains over the real location...)

When you click a spot on the map, the map rezes a nice "THiNCBOOK" style book (or even a HUD or dialog window), containing the "find places" ads sorted by the ads geographically close to the spot you clicked. If you are tracking a landmark, your landmarked spot will be on top. Pull the ads from the "About Land" "Show in Find Places" parcel info and controls. Obey landowner designated landing spots, banning, opt-out, etc.

Keep the public ad signs that are already at the telehubs, and add P2P TP capability to them, too. Users would drop in a pic, a notecard and a landmark. Add one or two more signs at each telehub, but make updating any one of them, add that ad to all the signs at that hub. Sprinkle a few such signs, but with limited range, along the Linden roads. Make the road signs not accept ads with landmarks outside of the sim they are in. Allow only landowners in that sign's sim to place ads on it. (Landowners could set up conventional TPs to return visitors to the local road sign.)

Landmarks would continue to work as they do today. If you teleport to a landmark, you wind up at a telehub, where you can either fly to your destination, or walk over to the map, left click your mini-landmark on the map and pick from the popup ads, which, if your aim was accurate, will either land you at your landmark coordinates (landowner permitting) or at the landowner's designated landing zone for the parcel clicked. A parcel with no ad would be "Fly in Only".

2.
(To be done along with #1 above...)

Allow the creation of P2P public or private "Portal" objects by landowners between places they own, or have proper permissions to. Such portals could ignore the "set landing zone" limitation if the destintion parcel was set to permit it for portals.

All portals should be two way (Object keys cross-linked?) and require objects at both ends, although each end can be made independantly public or private. (Private meaning only the landowner / group member / ticket holder, etc. of the destination parcel can use it.)

Give the landowners or group land officers the ability to allow/disallow/restrict point to point portals / landing zones, etc. on a per parcel basis. Control options would include "Only the landowner can make a portal FROM this land", "Only the landowner can make a portal TO this land", "Only group officers...", "Allow group members...", etc. In a mall, this could allow people to portal directly from your vendor, to your main store and back, for example.

Keeping the portal system object based, and requiring objects at both ends might enable sufficiently enhanced telehubs to retain some benefit and influence in such a P2P teleporting world.

I really dont understand why having P2P means hubs must be eliminated. Why not have both? A new member has no specific locations in mind for P2P destinatinations and hubs do serve as a commercial arrival area to a region.

Temporary iincrease in dwell payments will not compensate hub land owners for the substantial invenstment they made in the land surrounding hubs, and is not a solution. In addition, designating hubs as meeting areas really is a waste of land..who would meet there and why?

WHy eliminate one feature that is already in place in order to introduce an additional feature. I think limiting teleporting to P2P will turn SL into even more of a clique community. Having a better advertising ststem might alleviate this by providing a reason for members to venture away from the few direct spots designated on their P2P list, but the advertising would have to be free and effective, and more than what exists now.

Robin: could you post what parts of the P2P implementation are already set in stone?



I like 500 better, i just pulled 300 out of the air. Light zoning is the goal. What ever you might think; zoning, if properly setup, is a good thing. Currently the land prices are effected by two things distance to telehub and sim rating (and a few minor things like the topography, winter vs. summer). The value of the land inside a hotspot would almost be of equal value, the overall value would of land in hotspots would go up (it still would radiate out from the telehub but the value drop would be gradual). Land values outside the hotspot would likely be unaffected (what land baron is going to drop prices?).

Telehub Gripes: Buildings, Security Systems
The trouble with the telehub transport system is, you have to fly from the telehub to your location. Invisible objects and security systems become the bane of travelers. Most land owners will want to be in hotspots but some won't. The majority of travelers I'm betting will be traveling most of the time to locations in hotspots. Averting travel issues probably 85% of the time.

P2P Gripes: Land Values, Frame Rates, Privacy
Removal of telehub distance from the land value; subsequent devaluation of Telehub land. Decentralization of business will result in reduced sales from loss of impulse buys. Impulse buying will be effected by the fewer locations and removal of business from mall. Userbase will be unable to know where new fps hogs are going to show up. There will be no shelter from fps hogs. Privacy will be non existent, flash crowds can show up anytime anywhere. A flash crowd will cause lag (imagine a voyeurs group using Group IM's to find hot action to flash crowd).

P2P Restricted to Premium Gripes: Money
At most only 20% of the userbase are premium members. This is a minority. I don't like the idea of an elite minority. I don't like the idea of the majority having to pay for the service either. Basic users only make 50$ a week, if you make them pay for it they won't use it. Basic users will only be able to pay if the stypend is raised. If anything the premium users should pay since they account for 70% of the marketplace inflation.

Hotspot Gripes:
you still have to fly to locations outside hotspots. Telehub land will loose some of it's value (but not as much as pure P2P).

Numbers:
Currently there are 1043 mainland sims: 68,354,048m².
There are in effect 48 telehubs.
With 500m hotspots, there are about 45 or 46 telehubs worth of hotspot land (do to overlapping & the void). A hotspot covers about 12 sims worth of land.
The most valuable land is located at present around telehubs: 3,145,728m² (4.6%)
Hotspot land: 35,389,440m² (52%)
Non Hotspot land: 32,964,608m² (48%)

Images:
500m_Hotspot_Map.png
770m_Hotspot_Map.png
Most_Valuable_Land_Map.png

How about if land owners pay a fee per week (like being listed in places) in order for it to be possible for users to teleport directly onto their land?
ie if you're near a telehub then this won't matter, but if you're elsewhere because the telehubs are mobbed to hell, then you could pay say L$50 a week and with that users (other than group members living on your land) can now teleport directly to your land.

In this way Telehubs will still have some importance but it won't be so huge.

I like this as it adds a new sink to the economy, but using this as the only restriction doesn't solve privacy problems. It doesn't give a guarantied escape from this feature.

Ok how about this since theres concerns as to privacy.

Option 1.) Some how mod it so that land owners can choose whether bookmarks can be set. (doesnt own land so forgive me if that option already exists) Then make it so that you can only p2p teleport to landmarks that you have set.

Option 2.) Select set area's within each and every sim for teleporting. So in away it'll almost be like having mini-telehub(s) in every sim, not just a few in the middle of nowhere with lots of surrounding sims to muddle through.

As to the land owners who will be complaining of lost traffic bonus's, no offence, but it'd be the same arguement as all those who favored losing the rating bonus. Had a good run, but times change and so do the way things are done.

One solution would be increasing the dwell effects the closer the land is to a hub, both in payouts and more importantly in the effect in the find as this helps advertising.
The closer you are to the hub point the greater the dwell multiple could be.

This would cause shop keepers and event runners to still centralise their properties close to the hubs.
The closer you are to the hub point the greater the dwell multiple could be.

The benefit of this centralisation is it keeps them away from more residential areas.

Hmm. That's an interesting idea, but it raises a question:

Which part of the parcel determines the distance from the hub?

Center? Closest point? Furthest point? The average distance?

I can see people trying to configure their lands with little "fingers" reaching in toward the hub if it were "closest point", as that would increase their multiplier. I can see people being reluctant to expand a parcel away from the hub if it were "furthest point", as that would lower their multiplier. Unless, perhaps, they kept the parcels split or something.

Well, the way I see it, if you teleport to a piece of land that has this option set, then you go straight there. If it isn't set then you go to the telehub as normal.
This option would probably be a sub-option of being listed in Find Places (so if you're paying to be listed there, you can pay a bit extra to let people TP straight to your store).

Since residential plots wouldn't be listed in Find Places (unless you WANT people to spy on you) then direct teleportation would be impossible, someone with a landmark would go to the telehub as normal.
I'm talking here about users EITHER directly teleporting OR going via the telehub, if you wish to go somewhere with a plot near to it that can be TPed to directly, you would still go to the telehub, instead of via this teleportable land.

For example:
My store is next to a house. My store can be teleported to directly, the house cannot.
Someone wishes to teleport to this house (e.g, someone has given them a landmark).
When they choose to teleport, they will go to the telehub and NOT my store.
If they go into Find Places and looked for my store, they would be able to teleport directly to it.


Although the idea of bigger dwell bonuses closer to telehubs makes sense, I don't think that telehubs should be the only place to have commercial areas. IMO it should be possible for players to create them elsewhere.
Another consideration is that it should perhaps always be possible to teleport directly to land owned by a group that you are in (or that you own yourself).

What if I simply want people to be able to get to my place as easily as possible?

Why should I have to pay in order to NOT inconvenience people?

First of all.. Thank you LL for FINALLY listening to the complaints about hubs. They are horrible things that should have never come into being. Full of lag and only getting my dwell because of retched builds I get stuck in.

1. Privacy. Allow landholders to decide on if anyone can just pop in. Also make the landing point the spot that they do port in at.

2. This should be a free service. The L$ is up to what was stated the value that you intended it to be so there is no reason why we need more sinks. People shouldn't be forced to wade through the hub junk only to appease certain landowners.

3. The compensation to current hub land owners. Where can I vote no for this part? At anytime the dynamics of the game can change and the content that I make will be useless. Will I get compensation? No. LL, you have cowered into the corner concerning one resident's actions for long enough, isn't it about time to grow a spine?

4. The idea that content creators have to be near a hub when first starting out is false. I personally am not all that well known but my small business does well enough. I have had hub mall space a few times that the sales have never once paid for the rent. 90% of my sales have been from my main store no matter how far away from the hub it is. We do need better advertising, but the current hub situation is not where it should be.

Do you pay anything for the 'inconvenience' now?
It's going to be a new feature so there's no negative impact to having a cost for it, as those who don't wish to pay get exactly the same as they do now. It might be a slight disadvantage compared to other things, but if you're the owner of a business then chances are the cost could be recouped through the extra sales.

If you're not the owner of a business then as I noted at the end of my last post, it would be good if teleporting to group-owned land was ALWAYS p2p (if you're a member of the group) as that way you can still create apartment blocks and clubs as part of a group and TP to them right away. e.g you could set the apartment as home, but also TP direct to the club because you work there.

We (some of us) dislike what we get now. It's already an inconvenience. The entire point of P2P is to improve the situation and make the SL experience more positive overall. A feature that is designed to force us to choose between "spend extra money" or "continue to piss people off" isn't exactly the most positive thing in the world.

How about we charge those who want to make people take the long route, instead, hmm? If you are going to insist on making things harder for people than they'd have to be (or just as hard as they are now, same thing), you might as well go whole-hog and make sure that they really get the message that you are doing it deliberately.

many many intyeresting ideas here.

I'm concerned we're headed down the wrong path with having more than ONE one way to move around long distances. We already complain about having to fly places and in my oppinion that is borderline harmful to the world.

we should be concerned with having cheap ways of traveling and premium ways of traveling.

If we're going to allow p2p in some places and not in others, we'd better think of a real way to make this aspect of the world truely seamless with the commerce driven world.

Perhaps allow the p2p code to ONLY exist in a script? This would limit the functionality to an attatchment and turn the convenience into a product at the very least...

~Lefty

I'm a little surprised this hasn't been mentioned in this long thread but I'll miss being in a remote part of the world with few visitors.

Switching gears ...



Oh please. You are a smart business woman. You saw what happened to GOM and what happens when LL decides something major needs to be changed in SL for their and/or residents interests.

It's also a bit of an unfair comparison; all "investment" in WoW is banned by Blizzard. The next closest thing (the value of items themselves) are quite naturally on a downward trend as mudflation results.

Possibly it could be based on the distance of the person contributing his dwell at the instant his dwell time is added to the lands records.

I understand where you're coming from, I dislike the telehub system as well. But the thing we're trying to consider is that a lot of commercial areas have developed around telehubs. The most important result of this is that residential areas are ALSO formed by the fact that these shops/malls/etc are centralised, the further away areas can be made into homes without any problem. The ability to teleport home means that the end result is that you can teleport home quite happily, and it can be a nice, lag free place to stay.

If p2p teleporting springs up then we get shops appearing simply where the cheapest land is, which currently are the quiet, residential areas. The result here is that the lagless havens get an influx of malls, clubs and casinos.
Now, arguably this would have the benefit of more evenly distributing the load caused by such places, but at the expense of quiet areas which could become absolute chaos.
Also, without a more organised find system in which shops could submit their entire stock (so someone searching for "furry T-Shirts" could find my shop), it would have an impact on sales for people too. As a lot of sales come from impulse buys, from people seeing things while visiting another store that's nearby. If stores are clustered then this can be mutually beneficial (provided they are not competitors).

Charging people to NOT allow direct teleport is nonsensical, what if my land is group access only? Or more importantly, why charge people MORE money to own a house, which doesn't make any profit anyway? It makes more sense to charge FOR the priveledge, since it is an advantage, something that stands a chance of paying off. The majority of businesses would quickly enable this option.

An other possible alteration, what if teleportation were to take place from the roads and walkways that the Lindens have been producing? This allows for far more prime shopping space, but still allows for quiet areas off the roads.

Point to point teleport makes sense.

On the web, who would like it if when you clicked a link, you could only get the site's home page and then you would have to navigate to actually get to where you wanted. The current telehub scheme is a contrived and unnatural system.

Here's the simple fix. When you teleport to a hub, you wait for a minute, and receive a small number of L$s.

If these landowners around the hubs are so worried about losing traffic, then perhaps they can pony up a little cash in compensation for bombarding the the traveler with commerce prims.

I find arriving at a telehub quite unpleasant. Give me five or so Lindens when I arrive and maybe I might not feel so violated and maybe even spend a little there. How about it Ansche?

this is exactly the sentiment we are trying to escape... SL is not one big chat room or web browser. It is virtual space

As a matter of fact, your point agrees with mine. p2p would put the world back into the browser feel and quite frankly SL makes the world's worst information navigator... It's simply not the intention yet.

~Lefty

P2P should either:

-Be an option for a fee
-Be an option as part of a land mark (you can only P2P if u have a landmark to the location)


If it isnt implimented as either of the above I am against it.

Except, y'know, for all that space.

The fact that one can P2P teleport - you can effectively do so right now, between someone offering you a port and ROAM-like devices... as I've said for maybe the third time this thread - DOES NOT CHANGE THE SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF THE GRID.

People will still want to just mess around and explore. It's one king hell of a lot easier to do that when it strikes your fancy in a virtual world than on the web.

This has probably already been suggested (but then, I am lazy, so I didnt read all the replies, terrible, I know.), but why not make the old telehub areas public sandboxes?

I havent been a resident of SL for a very long time, but what I have noticed is that sandboxes draw people, especially free account people, and while they do not have very much money, they do have money, which means they will be potential customers, and from what I understand (from what I have read here) the free accounts are becoming increaingly popular.

I know that the idea I have presented here is an idea from an person unexperienced in the ways of SL businesses, and I am more than likely very wrong on my thinking, however, in my unexperienced opinion, this would be a workable option.

I have not read the entire thread and if someone else has made this suggestion I appologize.

Why not limit p2p to the sim one is in?

That way you don't do away with the teleport system (you still need it for long distances) and there is no need to compensate the landowners.

I think I am one of the folks who proposed PTP TPs.

One of the alternate suggestions to the original was that you be limited to 4-5 "places" to go if people really thought it affected them too much. Heck, I would pay a fee to be able to zip from one place to another long distance, places I go to with frequency (I own land).

That's something to consider. The other, though, is since the 1.7 updates, honestly, the rezzing of objects when I fly from a telehub to where I really want to go has been much slower and it would seem the benefit of being able to "discover" other places in the world is diminished.

Tikva Trudeau