Present Needs & Future Direction For Nova Albion's Infrastructure and Development

This thread is to help get a discussion going and to record thoughts and ideas on Nova Albion's present needs and future development. Might be a good place to post chat logs of any meetings pertaining to this topic as well. LisaHot Juran and Osprey Therian have begun compiling a folder of landmarks pointing out locations in the city that could use attention from the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) for repair and maintenance. We'll post a list of these locations in this thread as well. Please add such locations or your own ideas for Nova Albion's future here so we can chart our course and have some say in how the city develops.

Hi - I'm sure you guys know about this already, but there is a bit of the bridge that leads east from Grignano that has a phonton floor section - this picture is from last year's parade and shows me and a couple of others stuck in it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/headburroantfarm/2353273886/sizes/l/

Last night I went through Miramare and noted about 5 missing canal walls. I will go through a region a night and see what I can find. Osprey said that Michael wants the major noteables first. Then we can get the smaller ones. We'll need MANY eyes for everything. Please give all LM's to Osprey...we may double some of them. But just so ya know I am looking through the Canals first.
btw...Barcola has a Sewer like structure in the canal between Armidi Parcels. Anyone know about them?

Also...when you make an LM...add to the title of the LM what it is like "canal wall"
or "planter"
k?
kk
~Lisa~

Since NA is currently choked with half a dozen megaprims, I thought it was the right time to share some thoughts on the nature and direction of Nova Albion.

Hypnotic megaprims, nuclear explosions, locust swarms of particle placards, beachball hailstones (often labeled with something too offensive to repeat here), smoldering clouds from burning tires; let's face it, Nova Albion is a dump.

So, why did I come here and, if I don't like it, why don't I leave?

In my opinion, Nova Albion is the closest thing to a central city in SL. From its glory days of 2004, it has declined to little more than a broken playground. Canal walls are missing, sickly Linden trees gasp and wilt under the constant onslaught of particle pollution and the lag is so great that one shudders at the thought of installing a vendor. It didn't help when LL built an industrial waste site next door (Bay City) - complete with Channel Island Mental Hospital, perched like Alcatraz off the coast of Sistiana.

Yet, as with New York City at its nadir in 1975, I cannot help believe that people are tired of the griefers and graffiti and wish to see Nova Albion return to pride of place in SL. It is for this reason I invested heavily in Miramare, bucking the trend of capital flight triggered by LL's policy of June 2006 inviting kids and griefers into SL via anonymous accounts.

As Nova Albion's fifth anniversary approaches, I find it strange to celebrate decline and dereliction. Why not instead seek revitalization? Why not use the coming anniversary to initiate a few basic changes that would encourage investment, growth and civic pride?

Of the four sims, Barcola alone permits object creation on Linden-owned maintenance land. As a result, Barcola is a sandbox. Yet there are no less than six full sandbox sims to the southeast, not to mention Plum, Mauve and Lime to the east. Doesn't it makes more sense to put a landmark giver at the hub pointing to the sandboxes instead of having one of our own?

While removing object creation permission from Barcola maintenance land (including the hub itself) won't reverse global warming, eliminate poverty or bring about world peace, it would encourage those with too much testosterone to strut their plumage elsewhere. Without the constant harassment of griefers, I believe Nova Albion would become a magnet for investment and innovation. Without the lag, someone might even open a business.

We are, Del.

Nova Albion is a community. One of HUGE SL history. Of course I rezzed there so I am partial but that is not the point. The point is, to be a part of it is a great honor. Caroline Apollo was and still is a celebrity to me. The class of the woman she is shines through in the very pixilated soil of Nova. And Salazar Jack, the man the myth. Every inch of the HUB has his name on it and EVERYONE wants a glimps of him just so they can say...I SAW HIM! Even more than any Linden, if they ever showed up anymore.
Nova Albion is a place in this great SL that residents come to meet the people they came to know when they first rezzed there.
It is a place where residents come and step out of their RP and just kick back and have some laughs. Show everyone something they just learned or bought or made. A gesture, a beanbag to kick back in. Or maybe it's they newest HUD weapon on the market or gun.
I understand this.
Nova is a Public Place! Not only do people gather there to just chat it up, but some have been there to demonstrate certain issues. Rant and rave about what they believe in.
What City does NOT have this? (cept for the weapon part hehe)
People are good in Nova Albion. But yes there are some that are not. Those that come in as obviouse ALTS and basically consume the city with auto rezzing scripted prims that lag us all to a very bad frame by frame experience. Those that lay down Sim sized Mega prims just to get everyones goat.
These examples are to me what needs to be fixed. And I agree with Del that making Barcola No Rez just like Miramare, Grignano, and Sistiana are, will decrease this type of grief by a TON! I also think that there should be a rez area for those that want to set a car down and FREELY drive through the streets as they should be able to. They should as the Highway from Bay City (another public place) runs right through Nova.
For the future of Nova I see greater builds. Businesses, art galleries, retailers, Museum!
Nova needs a facelift I agree. In order to do this I also believe in building from the ground up. Osprey Therian and I have been locating certain problems with the ground we stand on. Hopefully we can get those fixed. Once you stablize the ground to stand on, it is then you work on those things that enable you to walk freely without lag.
Pretty soon Nova will fly.
That is my vision of Nova Albion.
In the words of Henry Ford, Whether you think you can or think you can't...you're RIGHT!

/me gets all misty eyed and stands up to salute the Nova Albion flag! I'm with you LJ! x

Nova Albion may have some seedy aspects, but it has a lot of vitality. I think the celebration plans have sparked a lot of ideas on how to renovate and refurbish our beloved city.

As the ancient ones used to say:
Don't mourn, ORGANIZE!

Thanks to Salazar Jack, LisaHot Juran, Osprey Therian, and Headburro Antfarm, we are doing just that.

I am so glad that we are all talking about this now, old and new residents. It will be so cool to see Nova Albion take it's next steps into the future. We all have great ideas and differing perspectives, but I see that as helping us to come up with good solutions and a clear direction to take as we begin the next part of the journey.

I'm not sure who's responsible for this but the Nova Albion trolley has been broken for months now.
I had thought the Lindens had taken it away but I found it at Luna it keeps coming off the rails and crashing into the shopping area.

Ah...Brit. haha. The Trolly has been a problem since H4. I have seen many working on it but with no luck. At the Parade today, I see it rezzes in Luna and just crashes into the mall. But I will say that it is part of the whole infrastructure plan we have to get fixed. No it won't happen overnight , but it is part of the plan.

Here are some great comments about Nova Albion from another one of the group threads...

/252/54/79605/6.html#post2422378

/252/54/79605/6.html#post2447801

Deltango Vale makes an interesting comment about this in a related thread:

/252/54/79605/6.html#post2455681

How would a capitol city in SL be different from other cities? What would it have? What would it do?

It certainly has the historical chops to take this on.

Foreword:

In seeking to assess the present condition and future direction of Nova Albion, one must first understand the context and perspective of the question. Rarely does a question or phenomenon or problem exist in isolation but instead nestles within a Matryoshka (set of Russian dolls) of related issues. In the case of Nova Albion, the city is encapsulated within the larger doll of Secon Life and contains within itself the smaller doll of the infohub. I say this not to broaden the issue unnecessarily but to make our discussions more fruitful. Without context and perspective, one can drown in existential myopia; good ideas can be lost in the noise of excessive detail and vast resources can be wasted on unrealistic schemes.

Outer Shell: Second Life:

Since 2007, Linden Lab has moved Second Life in a direction counter to its original philosophy and design. The current 'adult' policy is the latest and most significant symbol of that change. The great resistance from residents toward this new policy is symbolic of a philosophical and political debate that has been long brewing between the company and its userbase. Matters have come to a head. Should Linden Lab act solely as a gatekeeper (2003-2006) or should they be a 'parent' (2007-2009) or should they be both gatekeeper and 'parent' (current 'adult' policy). The future direction - the very nature - of Second Life is unclear. These issues matter to strategic investors such as myself. If Nova Albion is to be revitalized, it needs strategic investors. Personally, I am much in favor of Lindon Lab abandoning the role of 'parent' and returning to their original role as gatekeeper. I fear Disneyfication of Second Life above all things.

Middle Shell: Nova Albion:

In Second Life, history, location and reputation are the key economic variables. For this reason, Nova Albion is, without question, the 'capital city' of Second Life. Having recently celebrated its fifth birthday, it is not only the first and oldest city in SL, but it is located near the heart of the original 16 sims and has a history almost as rich as Second Life itself. Moreover, the spirit of community of its founders and current residents is unique for a pluralistic sim (in this case, four sims). Implicit in my definition of 'city' is landscaped, double-prim, no-terraform mainland. While Bay City and Nautilus fit into this definition, they are, in my opinion, too large, too diverse and too new to represent what we might consider a capital city.

Yes, I do see Nova Albion as the capital city of Second Life, but more along the lines of Manhattan or Chicago than Washington. As such, it has the potential to be the focal point of Second Life, the 'start here' on the 35,000-sim map, the central display case for the entire world, the 'Times Square', 'Piccadilly Circus', 'Place de la Concorde', 'Piaza San Marco' or, forgive the pun, 'Unter den Linden' of Second Life.

How can this make sense? How is this practicable? It makes sense if you understand Second Life in terms of symbols instead of objects. Every schoolchild laughs at the coinage of the Pacific Island of Yap - those big millstones with a hole in the middle (transported on wooden poles) - until it is explained that it is not the objects - the stones themselves - that are valuable. It is instead the history and stories associated with the stones that gives them importance, that makes them into a currency. He who owns a stone is himself interwoven into the story through ownership. In one case, when a stone was lost in the ocean while being transported to another island, its value increased. Even though it sat on the bottom of the ocean, forever out of sight, it continued to be used as a 'coin'. The object was gone, but the symbol remained more vibrant than ever. Ironically, it is an aboriginal society that shows us the future economy of the West; it is the ultimate expression of the 'subjective theory of value' made possible by the historic fall in the costs of material production. Therefore, Nova Albion is not simply double-prim land; it is a 5-year-old story unique in Second Life. As such, it is very valuable.

It also makes sense if you think of Nova Albion as the geographical equivalent of search. It can be not only the 'shop window' or 'factory outlet' for thousands of businesses spread across 35,000 sims but it can act as the center point from which residents - especially new residents - can organize their exploration of Second Life. In other words, Nova Albion can become the geographical center of a conceptual/organizational map - the Grand Central Station of Second Life, the Rome from which all roads lead throughout the empire.

Inner Shell: The Infohub:

Since there is a thread specifically for that topic, I will not add much here except to say that the hub needs to function as a focal point for Second Life as a whole. It therefore needs to be able to handle the large traffic that will eventually arrive here. Thus, Sal's idea of expanding the Miramare infohub into four infohubs, one on each corner of the four sims, makes sense.

Hey now.. Bay City may have a sewage treatment plant, but we're not an industrial waste site. Besides, all us cities can work together -- we're stronger in unison.



I see no issue with the size, diversity, or age of Bay City -- but I would agree that Nova Albion is much more the capitol than we in the city by the bay. You're the center between us, the suburbs to the north, Ahern, and the smaller communities of Nexus Prime, Dark Wood, and Lusk Estates.



it was even wonky before H4, often skittering off the tracks near Kex Godel's place, and not returning from Dore at all due to a missing trolley stop. H4 only dramatically escalated its issues.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1836

Aside from reworking of the trolleys scripting themselves, they'll need to fix the missing overhead on the way towards Dore and install a end of line bumper at Dore.

As an aside, there are issues in Luna (which IMO is as much a part of Nova Albion as New Port Yacht Club or Channel Island is to Bay City), with some of its infrastructure having gone missing in November of last year. See http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1893



Pure poetry, and explains a lot about the whole tri-city area.

I agree that NABC can accomplish much together. It is thanks to LisaHot Juran (who first welcomed me to Nova Albion) that I abandoned my earlier prejudices against Bay City. It is thanks to Harris Givens that I purchased a parcel in BC-Docklands - who, with Dougie Flossberg, first welcomed me to Bay City. While I tend to take a back seat in community affairs, I greatly appreciate the community spirit that has evolved in NABC from the hard work and dedication of so many people.

Not to mention the "treatment facility" that used to grace the northern shore of Barcola.

/18/37/12662/1.html#post118074

Thank you Del! And I look forward to greeting any future residents to Nova Albion.

Because these have come up in other threads, I hope no one minds if I leave a little list of JIRA entries of relevance to the Nova Albion and surrounding areas to the East (I left off Suburb or Bay City specific ones). I figure it is easier if they're all together.

Orientation Station in the Castle (aka Yamato, Shangri-La)
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-2398

Nova Albion Trolley
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1836

Luna Oaks Shopping Center
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1893

Ahern
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-2397

Archery Range in Morris
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1074

Wild West Town
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1073

Vehicle sims
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MISC-1140

It might be wise to group some of the other Linden/Mole needs for Nova Albion into a JIRA entry as well, including pictures and SLURLs to trouble spots (missing canal walls, etc.). I would also suggest adding it as a support ticket.

While I appreciate the history and efforts of all the "city sims" in SL, this talk of a capital city make me a little nervous.

Also since we have been a long standing city-like sim, quite possibly one of LL's first attempts at a city sim, I should mention Kissling in this thread. We're only a stones throw away from Ahern as well. Sure our history is not as shiny as some of the others but Kissling these days is a nice place. It has had many visitors since it was brought online in late 2003 and I expect that will continue for a very long time to come.

Good luck to Nova Albion and all the other city sims in the future. May your streets be lag free.

Angel, thanks very much for commenting. I have always tried to be careful and refer to Nova Albion as "one of the first cities of SL" as I know there are others that have come before. Both Linden and resident driven. And sometime both, as Nova Albion certainly fits in that particular category. It's good to remember all the Grid's history.

Kissling is indeed an important historical city of the Grid and definitely predates Magellan's discovery of the Lost City of Nova Albion. It has a unique and interesting history of it's own.

I'm glad that Kissling continues to stand on that plateau and wish you and the other citizens there good luck as well.

[17:41] Deltango Vale: Hi Infinity, you once contacted me inworld in appreciation for an article I had written in the forum. As you know, I am a balanced and reasonable person. Normally, I would not contact you, but I do so now out of desperation at Linden Lab's plummeting reputation within the resident community. The grinding intransigence with which Linden Lab is proceeding with its ‘adult policy’ is starting to harm the company. There has to be some response from Linden Lab to the thousands of blog posts of complaint across the whole spectrum of Second Life. This is not a handful of residents seeking to protect a special interest, this is an economy-wide political issue that is affecting every single resident. Linden Lab’s complete rejection of the mounting protest is becoming embarrassing for everyone. I apologize again for IMing you, but I don’t know what else to do. Frustration within the community is leading to anger and bitterness. Linden Lab needs to do something and quick.
[17:41] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.

Having been involved with mainland real estate in Second Life for almost three years, I thought it would be helpful for residents of Nova Albion to have a land price structure.

As most of you have guessed, I am not a particularly good builder. I consider scripts a form of alien language - the sort of thing that guys at the NSA play with on weekends to discover if Sir Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays. My wardrobe tends to be limited, special edition gothic and, while I can dance up a storm at SR, my animations are less than amazing. For some peculiar reason, a twist of fate, perhaps, I met a land specialist within days of arriving in SL one foggy morning back in October 2006. I happen to know a lot about land. Now I am going to share some of that knowledge with you.

Nova Albion currently looks like the semaphore for Q, a yellow flag. Okay, maybe not Q but definitely a combination of D, K and L (don't ask why I have a plastic guide on my desk listing the semaphore alphabet with Morse Code below each flag, my BF is a nautical nut and he thinks I need to know this stuff - like if we ever get caught in a storm at sea and I have to shred my blouse to get us rescued, whatever). Anyway, Nova Albion is looking a bit vacant these days and, in my opinion, the reason is due to lack of knowledge about prices.

First, the bad news. Your land is not worth the GDP of South Korea. You might like to believe your 160m2 lot will pay for your daughter's university education at Stanford, but, sadly, even a 320m2 will come up short by, oh, say, US$100,000. Thinking of paying off the mortgage by unloading a 560m2 near the hub in Barcola? Ain't happ'n'n'. Got your eye on a used Learjet? Thinking about dumping that 1024m2 in Grig? Well, it might work if you also liquidate your 500 island estates. Please don't shoot the messenger, but we need to leave the rabbit hole and - deliberately mixing metaphors for dramatic effect - return to Kansas.

So, I hear you say, tapping your fingernail impatiently on the spine of your mouse, what's the good news? Well, the good news is that, in general, Nova Albion is the most valuable double-prim land in SL and, judging from the negative reaction to Ursula/Zindra, it is likely to stay that way. Don't quit your day job, but NA is good land to own.

Right, here are the baseline numbers:

- within 30m of the hub, L600 per m2
- within 40m of the hub, L500 per m2
- within 50m of the hub, L400 per m2
- within 60m of the hub, L300 per m2
- everywhere else, L150 per m2

For NA, because it is a four-sim city, the price difference between Mature and PG is negligible. It's the difference between a 4-carat diamond set in platinum or 20k white gold; the setting is insignificant compared to the value of the diamond.

Of course, there is no objective value to land. Its value is only what someone is willing to pay for it. Let's just say that it will take, hmmm, about 20-25 million years for the southeast corner of Grignano to sell at L290k (especially since it was going nowhere at L196k). Over a year ago, the southwest corner of Sistiana sat on the market for months, unsold at L200k. Then, it was worth about L180k; today, it is worth about L180k. Marcos' old land (now Lisa's) was and remains worth about L250k.

So, if you want to sell your land within your own lifetime, I suggest you aim for a price somewhere in the same galaxy as the baseline prices per m2 listed above. Otherwise, your great great grandchildren will have to scrape pixelated fungus off the buildings before they can move in.

I am sitting here on a rock in Barcola. There aren't many people around, and that's because Moose Beach sim is full.

Moose Beach, you see, is where all the new newbies are materializing, and that's OK.

But that means Nova Albion has a few newbies and some not-so-newbies, and not so much chaos.

Just some random thoughts:

What is Nova Albion missing? Real builds, for one thing. There's a couple giant flashing monolithic, uhm.. ads. One for onltd.com. Another for Amphetamine ("High profile, low silhouette advertising at the center of the world.".

How many prims does Armidi really need? Barcola looks like one of those suburban areas that was never developed, but the roads were built.

Community graffiti project: Great idea two years ago. Sell please. Or make a group and let others manage it. I'd love to turn it into a rotating exhibit of important SL art. Anyone?

SLUniverse Center: COMING SOON! (since 2004)

Lookout Terrace... At some point there will be architectural historians who remark at the way they made virtual worlds 'back then' in 2004. They'll point to this build, still standing, still occupying some database somewhere, as an example of early experiments in flight-oriented virtual architecture.

Starchild Coffee: EXCELLENT. More like this please. Laughing man and consumerism. Yay SL. Someone actually cares enough to build something, even if it's a modified prefab. However Cafe Jack won't be going out of business soon, I hope.


Glad to see the SL Museum of Antiquity finally taking shape. I was almost prepared to make something and drop it in someone's inventory unbidden. However, one might argue that Nova Albion is, itself, the SL Museum of Antiquity. Whether this is good or bad, or relevant or irrelevant, is a matter entirely for interpretation.

And the arch has fallen? Yay. Make something better. Nice arch, been there too long.


What does Nova Albion need? The same thing every place needs: Make plans. Carry them out. I'll help if anyone needs it.

Either that or just drown it in amber and store it in a jar.

Thank you so much for your input. It is nice to have a fresh opinon of Nova Albion. But if I may, I would like to clarify some of the things you discussed.
Armidi, Yes...they own alot of land and did nothing to it. Unfortunately we cannot do anything to make them build. It is their land and my guess is they are just sitting on it for equity.
In Sistiana, the graffiti building. That would be one of the first owners of Nova Albion and I am sorry to say we are not sure if he is still in world. And again, there is nothing we can do to change that.
Also in Sistiana another original owner to Nova Albion has put a very high price on his land and will probably be very vacant for years to come.
Many other owners in Nova Albion have not been in the city for a long time as far as I know...and I am there everyday.
However those of us that do still inhabit our land there do our best to make NA as much of a city as we can. Cafe Jacks and the Brownstones are one of the highlights of NA and now that the Museum is going in we are very excited to see what Sal has in his pockets to put in there. In Sistiana I do love that coffee shop, and there is a really nice park next to it over looking Luna. Thankfully that owner is very much a part of our world.
Each owner there that is still inworld does alot to try and make NA what it is...one of the first double prim cities in SL.
To this extent I think you are correct in that NA itself is a museum of sorts. Many of the builds there have been standing for over 5 years now. Unfortunately the famous Grignano Arch was a casualty of a recent grid quake. Whether it will be put back up or not I do not know. Only the man himself knows.
Our first plan to improve NA is to update the HUB, and we are discussing that on another NA thread right here
/252/54/79605/1.html
I do appreciate your input Solo on behalf of the City Slickers and all past owners and residents of Nova Albion. Please...You are welcome to let us know any ideas you have!