Too much clutter...

I'm new to Second Life and it's obvious to me that there's a problem with over-crowding and clutter. I've played MMORPGs like UO and SWG, (SWG beta) and I've seen what happens when player housing gets out of control. It's really, really ugly. It kills fps, it's an eyesore and it's off-putting.

Why not just create instanced zones for individual players?

Everybody could get their first land but it would exist in a seperate dimension with nothing else around. That way people would be able to hear themselves think.

Have you been around the crowded areas, the ones up for sale?

It's ugly, ugly, ugly. There are "for sale" signs everywhere and it's absolutely horrid.

If you're going to bring all manner of people together while thinking there are going to be no points of contention then that's incredibly naive. People need personal space and Second Life, whatever you may think, is not very accommodating to new players at all.

/rant

Welcome yeah it is bit ugly at times.
The only real way to change all that is to have large area that group of friends own or island where people agree to certain lay out and design.
In the areas its free for all everyone selling and doing there own thing.
Try out the public sandboxes, they are often litter, some inconsiderate or inexperinece person will stand right in your view of whatever it is you're working on.
Linden Labs doesn't want to control how we do things when it come to the land. We are suppose to design and figure it out ourselves, were just paying for the space.
I have played other games where you don't see your neighbors at all, there is teleport to your private space but really do the same things you do here if you knew how.
The design, possiblities for personal virtual space are very limited.
Here we face limits too, it based on what we can spend, design, who are our neighbors and what we know how to create, or can afford to have made.

If you dont like the mess you should investigate the regulated sims. These are privatly owned and generally have restrictions on building height, style etc and generally look allot prettier.

The whole point of SL is that all the content is created by the users, therefore you are going to inevitably end up with a clash of styles and lots of rubbish builds cluttering up the place. But to restrict our freedom to build what we want goes against everything that LL is trying to acheive. From what I hear, first land is pretty scarce but with all other land you just need to put allot of effort into searching and you will find something thats asthetically pleasing. However there is nothing to stop somebody buying a plot next door to you and building a 20m high dig turd on it. Alternatively just build in the sky. You can build up to a height of 750m odd metres I think.

It is called freedom, quite scary to those raised under the socialist systems alive and well in all Western nations. But it is the natrual state of man, to be free. Don't bring big brother into SL.

Hi Zante, yes you're abolutely right. It can be pandemonium in areas of land sales especially the zones marked as First Land but it is life!
You have the option of renting or buying in private islands where covenants impose some kind of order but then your First Land is for anything you want. No planning applications. No consultations with county or parish zoning/planning/whatever. It's yours to do exactly what you want.
Ok, if it's too noisy and cluttered you can built a skybox and have your peace above it all. The options are manyfold.
Some of us who are lucky enough to have nice neighbours simply get on with each other releasing our angst for more material things like lag or sim restarts

.. now then .. would that come under the category of Virtual RealityTV?

I quite like the chaos of it all on the mainland, it's exciting isn't it?! ...as previously said if it's order you're looking for a privately owned sim would suit you more.

It is exciting isn't it Pud? Well said
That is, it is exciting till someone puts up a camping chair/casino complex next to your little dream home and grind your frames per second into last week.
Not a put down, it's life. Gotta take the rough with the smooth .. and change is good

There a few things the Lindens build like roads, water.
Why do they even do that?
I have wondered,
Last time I found road I couldn't put a viechle down to use it. I figured LL or it was privately own didn't allow it.

I found a road a while back and put a freebie dune buggy on it. Could I drive a straight line? The thing was a waste of time. I hang out at Silver Island for the chat. The racing is just so laggy I can't think why anyone bothers with it.
A friend took me out in their speedboat .. that was good till we hit someone's red banlines.
Vehicle transport is a complete disaster. Had a balloon threw us out too. Sim borders? Aaaagh!
/endrant

Yes, and in fact, there was a run of Big Brother in SL.

Aaaaagh!! <rips prim hair out> ROFL

I just turn my draw distance down to 64. No more clutter, and better performance.

it WOULD be nice, however, to have a "drop off the grid" button, to make your parcel temporarily a private fortress of solitude. It would be really nice for those intimate moments. If only to be "cam proof" briefly, and unable to be heard, or hear others.

At least, I think it would be. It's been months and months since anything like that happened to me.

Awwww! ... <hugs Winter>

Before the days of point to point teleporting you could only teleport into a sim at a designated telehub. So people generally then followed the roads when exploring a sim and having a road bordering your plot would add considerable value to the land as they would help bring passing trade to commercial plots. However, this is now obsolete and as its always risky business passing through sim borders in a vehicle, they are pretty much pointless other than offering a plot a linden protected border which is allways nice to have.

Not quite pointless - I rather enjoy flying like supergirl along the roads and exploring. I stop at some of the roadside shops too. It works much better than attempting to pilot a vehicle.

I do that too, only I have a bicycle that serves as a walk/run animation override. It seems to navigate sim borders fairly well and I can usually explore around for an hour or two before I end up riding off into the great gray yonder and crashing to desktop. I'm not sure where I got it, but it was free. My property now is along a projected road which is still undeveloped, but it makes a pretty good dirt road all the same.

Katie

Yes I suppose your right, if you are flying around exploring your more likely to follow a road than to fly about aimlessly. I retract my previously harsh comments regarding roads

I demand you retract your retraction! Vehicles and sim borders are c**p!

I love the clutter - even the ugly commercial places are fascinating - relics, bust things, half done stores, gaudy revolving icons, mad unworkable constructions, lurid flashing abstractions.

The great thing about it - and SL - it that it's all a record of human activity, rather than someone's design given to us all - the cottage and casino, surfboard and skin.

Mess/rubbish is interesting anyway, and very much so in SL.

Arg!

I wouldn't mind it so much if I could glean inspiration from a reasonable percentage of what I see but that's just not the case.

People are expressing themselves and their frustrations, the fact that there's no taboo makes things even more awkward. That's fine however, people should be free.

All I'm saying is that, with this being a realm of consciousness, we should be able to remove ourselves from the presence of other people and exist in a private world of our own design. Sure, you can team up for a group-based endeavour but when it comes to being creative, a personal sandbox would go a long way to keeping people happy.

You could try building high in the sky and limiting access to your land. You can be alone that way. I suppose one needs land though. Hmmm, maybe things just are more cacophanous if you don;t have land.

But there are usually some nice quiet pretty places.

I had a point buried in there somewhere... *walks off scratching head

I spend most of my time in sandboxes while designing floating arenas in which I can be alone ; p

If you are spending your time in sandboxes, clutter is to be expected. One cannot expect any degree of privacy or well designed surroundings in a sandbox. By its nature, it is free for all to use and experiment in. Buying or renting land, elevating yourself to 768 meters, and limiting your draw distance is the solution.