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What are Roads For?

Bloodsong Termagant
Manic Artist
Join date: 22 Jan 2007
Posts: 615
04-09-2007 06:35
heyas;

so i've seen roads and highways around the sims. parcels of land advertised as fronting a 'protected roadway' etc. but i've been wondering... um... what are roads actually for?

first, whenever anybody travels anywhere... 99% of the time, they just teleport. the other 1% of the time, they can just fly.

you CAN take out your vehicle, hop on it, and (attempt to) drive down a road. if it rezzes fast enough under your wheels (or equivalent) not to drop you into a canyon, or a quagmire of quicksand, or just dump you underground or undersea.
that is, if your vehicle steers well enough to stay ON the road (which was already discussed in another post).

so i dont see any real benefit to having a shop on a roadside for example. its not like anybody drives by and sees your sign. (actually, i have a little kiosk on a highway. every time i cross the highway, i get the creepy feeling i'm about to be flattened by a semi going 80 mph, but honestly, there's never any vehicles on it.)

it's also not like a highway is picturesque, like a protected forest/part, or protected waterfront land. some of the little cobble roads might be 'quaint.' but still more or less useless.


so what are roads supposed to be for? :)
Dominguez Brentano
Registered User
Join date: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 87
04-09-2007 06:36
decoration :p
Bubba Daniels
...still waiting
Join date: 30 Dec 2006
Posts: 51
04-09-2007 07:17
I use roadways to fly over when I want to go exploring... it's one way to avoid ban lines.
Winter Ventura
Eclectic Randomness
Join date: 18 Jul 2006
Posts: 2,579
04-09-2007 07:24
long ago, I'm told.. vehicles could cross sim boundaries without major problems. Of course, I remember a time when an avatar could WALK across a sim boundary and expect to survive (or not even notice!)

The best vehicles, these days, seem to be ones designed for use in a single sim.

The roads are a relic from an SL time gone by. Those of us who build, or have built, vehicles.. hope every day to hear of a new fix that will repair the intersim transition issue. Of course, with more and more sims, and servers in not just different states, but different timezones... the likelihood of that ever happening... just doesn't seem like it's on the horizon.

I have driven the roads many a time. Mainland transitioning works better than island transitioning.. and thankfully most roads are on the mainland.The one thing I have never encountered on the roads of mainland SL.. is another driver.

Most cars worth buying these days, come with a flight mode. And sim crossings *SEEM* safer in the sky. I think that most people using vehicles for any "real" travel.. are doing so in the skies.. or within single sims. (tour busses?)
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Atashi Toshihiko
Frequently Befuddled
Join date: 7 Dec 2006
Posts: 1,423
04-09-2007 08:13
Sometimes when I'm completely bored, if I can see a road, I'll go and follow it. Usually on foot, or flying. But I have found some interesting shops that way, just walking or flying along following the road. It can get a bit wierd at the sim crossings but I guess you get used to it. Take off all the primmy attachments and just go without for a while.

Re. crossing sims in a vehicle, I got a jetski at Bora Bora that works amazing within a single sim, but it also manages sim crossings without any trouble. I was up at the prim drilling rig at ANWR and with my jetski I travelled between the two continents, up and down, about 8 or 9 times before I finaly got bored. It was a lot of fun too, roaring around a completely empty sim, nothing but water :-)

I don't know if it's just that particular vehicle, or if water vehicles in general do better, but it proved to me that not every sim crossing is potentially deadly, and not every vehicle is borked.

-Atashi
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Morwen Bunin
Everybody needs a hero!
Join date: 8 Dec 2005
Posts: 1,743
04-09-2007 08:19
Roads are there so I can ride with my horse over them...

They are for fun, decoration, borders between lands... or whatever reason. They are there and they are nice. Not everything in life (FL or SL) needs a reason....

:)

Morwen.
ForestMist Skjellerup
Sculptor
Join date: 6 Dec 2006
Posts: 57
04-09-2007 08:36
I like living by a road for a feeling of being anchored in the greater mainland and not boxed in by structures on all sides. I'm way up in the air next to the tall north continent "Great Wall", which has a road along the top, and it's nice.

Once I was working in my shop and heard a vehicle and ran to the roadside to look. It never rezzed for me- I wondered if it was a station wagon, lol. With a gentle putt-putt it went by, a smooth grey boxy ghost. Then a half hour later, it came back, returning to wherever it came from. That was delightful- I wish it would come by again.

Some day when I build vehicles, I plan on having them slow way down and make a light hop through the air over sim boundaries. It would be nice to travel along the roadways. I think it is only a matter of time before the boundary problem is solved somehow by programmers in or out of world and vehicles become more common.

-Fo
Dnate Mars
Lost
Join date: 27 Jan 2004
Posts: 1,309
04-09-2007 09:08
The real reason that roads were invented were so every few months, someone could as what are these roads for?

As for vehicles that could cross sim boundaries without major problems, I have been here over 3 years and I can't recall a time when sim crossings where seamless with vehicles. I know when I was younger I lost many cars to the sim crossing monster. 4 corner spots were the worst.
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Dnali Anabuki
Still Crazy
Join date: 17 Oct 2006
Posts: 1,633
04-09-2007 09:08
I love the roads; they are a great way to explore and someday when I find one that works well, I'm going on a road trip thru SL.
Xio Jester
Killed the King.
Join date: 13 Nov 2006
Posts: 813
04-09-2007 09:20
*If you type my name Xio Jester into YouTube you'll see what fun some of us have w/ roads. Folks got car & bike races in-world that go at pretty good speeds too. Folks w/ decent land vehicles can use em to take a ground-level tour of a Sim (especially on an Island if the road is TEXTURED not made from Prims).

*I like ta whip out my bikes when I wanna catch the detail of the city-type spots that I visit so I don't have to run (and get bounced around like a pinball every 5 seconds), or walk (which is pretty slow).

*I agree about the "quicksand" (thats what I like ta call it) problem when crossing Sim lines, and riding down Prim roads. I have found at least one spot for folks who just wanna drive... smoothest ride I've found. Roads for "miles", hardly had any problems no matter what gear I shifted to. Here's the Location:

Son 128, 129, 28
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Cocoanut Koala
Coco's Cottages
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 7,903
04-09-2007 10:32
They are for pretty!

And for use, albeit less use than they once had.

And they are practical. It really is a strange world where everything is abutted right next to everything else, with no access road. Think about it - is there anything in the world like that? No, because you need to be able to get to one place or another without going THROUGH someone's place.

Yes, here we can fly over it, but we can't really, unless you are up high, due to ban lines. SL has taught me that a world without roads and access ways is a logistically and aesthetically crummy world. (SL has taught me that, because I've never run across anywhere else LIKE that.)

Ideally, every property in SL should face a road of some kind.

coco
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Oodlemi Noodle
Frizzle Fry
Join date: 8 Feb 2006
Posts: 179
04-09-2007 10:40
The roads are for cross-country snail racing!
Johan Durant
Registered User
Join date: 7 Aug 2006
Posts: 1,657
04-09-2007 10:42
From: ForestMist Skjellerup
I like living by a road for a feeling of being anchored in the greater mainland and not boxed in by structures on all sides.

That's my feeling too. My shop is on a road not for any functional reason, but because the road makes a good front-side for the store.
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Wilhelm Neumann
Runs with Crayons
Join date: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 2,204
04-09-2007 11:06
actualy when i joined SL the first thing I did was buy a motorcycle or three and travel the entire main grid by road. It was doable then and quite fun too. I have not tried for a long time and wondering if its possible in linked private sims even?

its sad but it was fun though
Ceera Murakami
Texture Artist / Builder
Join date: 9 Sep 2005
Posts: 7,750
04-09-2007 11:24
I gave up on using roads for travel over a year ago. They do make nice landmarks as you're flying over an area, however.

For a store owner, one advantage to being on a road is that you can place your store front facing that road, and be fairly certain no one is going to but the parcel in front of the store and build so close to your property that your front door is worthless. So it adds a "buffer zone" in front of your store, increasing your visibility without the need to buy even more land and keep it empty. Another advantage is that it makes a good landmark for peopel travelling across a sim.

As a transportation network, it's relatively useless.
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Daisy Rimbaud
Registered User
Join date: 12 Oct 2006
Posts: 764
04-09-2007 11:29
If you visit a sim with no roads, and continually hit ban lines, and can find nowhere to stand that isn't private property, you appreciate roads.
Meade Paravane
Hedgehog
Join date: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 4,845
04-09-2007 11:33
It's certainly not a smooth transition but flying between sims that aren't really busy seems better for me lately. It's the ban lines that I can't see until I'm on top of them that are the real killer..
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Lucrezia Lamont
Neko Onmyoji
Join date: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 808
04-09-2007 12:20
For the bicycles!
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Joy Iddinja
Registered User
Join date: 15 Sep 2006
Posts: 344
04-09-2007 12:31
From: Bloodsong Termagant
so what are roads supposed to be for? :)
Historically, I believe they used to serve some purpose in terms of LL and the maintenance of sims (why some of them are marked 'maintenance land'), however, from what I've seen in the past 7 months, they're current purpose is to drive up the price on the land when it resells. Okay, I know cynical but your previous points are valid ones.

My theory is that in RL roadside is really appealing and so noobs who need land for a project or business or something, don't think through the arguement the original poster presented and are willing to pay the higher price. I stopped using ROADSIDE as a descripter on my land unless there was an actual paved road nearby. I know some folks do like to follow roads, even today with sim barrier probs, and that could bring business. Not to mention I personally find them charming and I'm certain some buyers will too. However, I never advertise ROADSIDE on land that is just jaggedy stretch of land, not paving or anything. It seems like a misleading waste of money to me.
Cosmic Rust
Registered User
Join date: 17 May 2006
Posts: 23
Roads
04-09-2007 13:33
I think it's a real shame that there is not a big area or a lot of sims all joined together by roads, I offen follow roads driving my DHL van but they just end in silly places. It would be good if lots of sim owners grouped together and made one road network to link them all.

Imagine how much better it would be if you had a road network and parking, you could leave your apartment, drive to where you wanted to go following signs, seeing the sites on the way and then park up.

Thats got to be more fun than click search and going into places!!

I cant ever see it happening unless i manage to own 50 sims one day.

Which I cant see happening ;)
Parker McTeague
dubious
Join date: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 198
04-09-2007 13:34
i like walking on them. avoids banlines and making me resort to flying to get over awkward hills and narrow spaces.

also, it usually lines things up neatly and breaks up the bleak mainland junkyard of a landscape. same with rivers except i don't walk on those.
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Marianne McCann
Feted Inner Child
Join date: 23 Feb 2006
Posts: 7,145
04-09-2007 14:37
From: Bloodsong Termagant
what are roads supposed to be for? :)


Well, I've been known to ride my tricycle down them.

I prefer to TP an fly, like most others -- but sometimes, it's nice to have that "real" place, I think. It adds someting. I particularly like the road from Borrowdale to Maryport for dat.

Mari
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Conifer Dada
Hiya m'dooks!
Join date: 6 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,716
04-09-2007 14:43
I am lucky enough to have a home bordering a future Linden road - at the moment it is just a ribbon of bumpy green land with clumps of ferns growing on it.

Living by a road means that you shouldn't get totally boxed in. But I enjoy walking and running in SL and I like to go for a hike along the green highway from time to time. I hope these protected corridors will remain. In a way I hope they remain as they are too, without being turned into surfaced highways that nobody uses!
Winter Phoenix
Voyager of Experiences
Join date: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 683
always liked the roads
04-09-2007 18:56
Ive driven cross country several times. Couldnt go very fast or the road wouldnt rez fast enough in front of you. Driving a Dominus motercar with the 'sim crossing' mode turned on helped with minimizing the 'quicksand' effect. Whats a sim crossing mode? It makes the car hit the brakes on sim borders. So you get a lot of stop and go. SL roadways are just a distant cousin to the roads of other 'videogames'. No high speed action here. But for the slow cruiser, hitting the brakes every minute or so, a car full of friends can explore the countryside. Its been awhile since Ive done so, maybe I'll take a roadtrip tonite and see how things are doing.
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Brenda Connolly
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Join date: 10 Jan 2007
Posts: 25,000
04-09-2007 19:20
They also come in handy when I miss the Target Skydiving. (Build more Roads)
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