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SSP?


Garnet Psaltery

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copy that....  just a two region connector and   OMG!!!! we at Stromberg. They added rows of 5, 4, 4, and 3... total of 12 regions, mixed Newbrookes and Houseboats. Appears to be THE END of northeasterly expansion as this  block is surrounded by water channels on all nothern borders.

 

to stromberg and beyond.jpg

Edited by diamond Marchant
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On 8/9/2022 at 9:36 PM, Nika Talaj said:

Is it remarkable?  It might be better to compare SL to other "games", rather than the real world (tempting tho that may be because of SL's extensive continents).  There are many MMOGs that allow users to create content, but are there any that give users a voice in defining new content that the game makers are developing?

[Honest question, I know very little about other MMOGs]

FreeSO, which is a reverse-engineered and updated version of the old EA.com The Sims Online, which has a small but avid core of devs and users, put in the commuty voting program for "mayors" which used to (sort of) function in the original TSO. And then there are options to chose which regions go in the community and their themes and activities. It's not exactly democracy, because you need an independent judiciary and free press and free civil society for democracy to function, and no virtual world ever has that.

I continue to think that the JIRA is the worst place for land requests, as it is supposed to be for software and is quite undemocratic and wonky to use.

I think the Features Voting System we once had should be returned, and collect a simple up-and-down yes/no vote on each proposal, and when a proposal reaches X minimal votes, it should get a Linden comment of "can't do" or "do," whereupon it can continue to collect votes, but with the understanding is that it will not be a priority.

 

Edited by Prokofy Neva
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11 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I think the Features Voting System we once had should be returned, and collect a simple up-and-down yes/no vote on each proposal

Prok, read the room. We are all wetting our pants over the new regions that just dropped. No time atm for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (sorry for the worn out cliche).

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On 8/10/2022 at 3:01 AM, Mike McGregor said:

You are absolutely right, of course it is more realistic to compare SL with other games and not with real life. But I don't know anything about other 'games', if you can call SL a game? The moment you yell 'Hi' in my IM, you are already in my real life. That's how I feel.

I'm someone who even thinks it's a good idea to create an electable civilian board in SL, hence. An electable participation committee would be a good start. This is just a wish! I am not telling others what to do, please. Sure hell, SL would become ungovernable,... 

I do know that the residents in SL build the content (partly), but at the moment they have nothing to say about the infrastructure. That's a little 'shame', I won't change that, my contribution may even be undesirable if I read some of the comments here. I'm just trying to create a better and, above all, optimally usable world. No, I don't pay attention to the costs. A new sea strait between Bellisseria and the Blake Sea (the old land) is also just a wish, but probably the best idea. 

I don't know if you're aware of the fact that one group of residents who started an RP group for fun called "Bellisserian Bureaucratic Bureaucracy" in fact surprisingly (or not, if you know SL history) morphed into *the* resident "civilian board" that the Lindens now deal with on Bellisseria on a variety of issues, whether "exploration" with their stamp game or events on public lands or various schemes to encourage premium accounts and Mainland "nature". 

So you could try to get into this group, which seems to have a very severe vetting process both on the Linden side and the resident side (it's a hybrid group really) -- good luck!

As for Mainland proper, or "Legacy Mainland" (the Lindens do not treat Bellisseria as "Mainland" and it is not part of Governor Linden's large Estate, which is all of the old Mainland) -- nothing can stop you from forming something like the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, which is on islands. You can start it, and see who shows up. You can try to get the Lindens to pay attention. Good luck!

In the old days, there were meaningful Town Halls, meaningful workshops (such as on reform of the Group Tools) and meaningful meetings with Philip Linden and other top Lindens on vital matters such as a code of conduct for LL, a policy to end Linden endorsement of resident businesses (since abandoned), deployment of telehubs, and the telehub land buyback plan. I think since those days, following the "Virtual World Winter" after the boom in 2006-2007, there hasn't been anything like this "Magna Carta" effort of sorts.

I find there is only one way to "vote" in SL: 1) pay tier or 2) abandon land. When enough people pay tier or buy premiums, the Lindens keep doing the thing (Bellisseria). When enough people abandon land (continents without roads and water), the Lindens don't keep doing a thing (maintenance, building).

The only real way to get something done on land is to buy it, alone or in groups, and put in what you want, like Corsica South Coast and other such Mainland communities.

Again, in the old days, when there were furious fights over resources on every level, three main political groupings were formed to lobby the Lindens, and their antics on the forums cause the Lindens to entirely shut down "General Discussion" to control them (I'm not counting the griefers' group which led to Philip banning about 50 accounts in the early days).

Roughtly speaking, these groups were:

1) Leftists, consisting of oldbies, scripters, designers, Linden friends or even past/future Lindens, who treated SL as a "platform" and were known as "platformistas";

2) Centrists, who wanted regulated commerce, rules for Mainland to encourage nice verisimilitude - they were "worlders".

3) Conservatives, mainly big land barons who wanted less regulated commerce or policies favourable to themselves like bulk discounts.

Thus groups like "Metaverse Justice Watch" was born and hotly contested by warring factions.

Today, most of the loudest voices in these old groups are gone completely from SL.

I do think it is time to have a more conscious Mainland lobbying group, which is why I started Mainland Appreciation Society, by I really don't have the capacity to lobby Lindens other than by those two methods I mentioned above: 1) pay tier 2) abandon land. Pro tip: MonCierge meetings are NOT a place to lobby Lindens, as these Lindens are among the most powerless, with the least amount of clout within management.

The real action is in the code-cave meetings like "Web Developer" or "Server" etc which are meetings largely populated by computer specialists but which could really use some attendance and sharp questioning from informed "norms". Follow all the YouTubes thoughtfully provided by Pantera on YouTube; read all of Inara Pey's summaries, and jump in with pointed requests.

It's shocking to compare and contrast the MonCierge and the code meetings. In the former, very nice and helpful Lindens listen to your woes, and try to suggest remedies, but are reduced mainly to telling you to file a ticket and then fill the silence by reading off the Linden blog which we already read.

By contrast, the code meetings often have more Lindens than residents, and powerful Lindens who actually run the code and decide on their own about the features from that code, without even "troika" input (and I'm not even sure which Lindens make up the troika these days). Firestorm developers laze along the decks of Linden offices, or skate around or jump with their shoulder pets while Lindens lavish them with praise for doing this or that code chore and ask how fast they need this or that little thing to be coded *and it is*. It's just SHOCKING.

Of course, the things they ask for and do sometimes seem obscure, like "fix avatar foot shadows" or "the rising moon is blue" or "jpegs of X size won't load under Y and Z odd circumstances". Yet occasionally, they casually announce that they're "going to get rid of the ability to comment on reviews on the MP" -- because some diva's feelings were hurt in these meetings and stamped her little foot until it was done.

Nota bene: when these very forums were recently nerfed, and there simply *had* to be some outlet for protest and Linden engagement, the Lindens steered those people who could break away during the work day to a Web meeting (coders) and wheeled out Kiera Linden to field questions. This at least created a pipeline in theory for complaints by emailing her (see how far that goes).

As I said it is SHOCKING. But it all cries out for engagement if you have the stamina. I go to one meeting a year. I may increase this to two. But I'm old and sick. You sound like a strong young fellow.

 

Edited by Prokofy Neva
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17 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Prok, read the room. We are all wetting our pants over the new regions that just dropped. No time atm for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (sorry for the worn out cliche).

I'm not answering the pants-wetters but the person who made the interesting comment, McGregor. The "room" that you imagine needs to be "read" consists only of the tiny percentage of people who can play "Game of Homes" with multiple accounts, not the bulk of even the Bellisserian residents.

The issue of how the continents connect up, and the issue of how waterways on Legacy Mainland function especially on the way to Bellisseria, remains BURNING. Read THAT room which isn't only in this thread. As a non-sailor (I just ride the railroads or my Megapuss on the roads), I don't have a stake in this issue, except to note that apparently major commercial/reputational forces seem to be at play, as it is a windfall for both the sailing communities and their commerce and those landowners fortunate enough to have bought land proximate to these areas where they can put rentals.

The Lindens still see the Mainland useful as a safari destination and a place to prospect for new premium accounts. I don't notice them turning away the large payments on the auctions for Blake Sea land and any sailing land on the way to/near Bellisseria.

Edited by Prokofy Neva
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8 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

This room is called "SSP?" and the topic is regions beginning with SSP.

I realize how you view SSP as a topic within your own business realm.

But SSP as a topic inspired two other residents, namely Mike MacGregor and Nija Talaj, to comment that there really is no mechanism for having a say in how the land is managed, or how/when/what styles are rolled out with Bellisseria, and how unlike RL this. And "how unlike RL this is" is the theme song of the entire Metaverse these days, and makes it or breaks it. So I replied to them as I think their concerns are valid.

And when a tasty-looking new region is rolled out, it always invokes all the usual mixed feelings of awe coupled with envy of those who can play "Game of Homes" avidly with hundreds of accounts and dollars, and the kind of sailing challenges that persist in and around those SSPs. SSPs are not in a vacuum.

You can always AR a post you find "off topic" and see if you can get the post removed.

 

Edited by Prokofy Neva
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13 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Don't tempt me, Prok.  If I report your posts for being OT, the Mods might decide to lock the whole thread instead. It's safer to just ignore them.

Well, not everyone is as prudent as you are, but I do hope those with their hands at the ready on the AR button AR the people to whom I responded, not just me, but ok, I saved the entire thread and it can be discussed on my blog if you like. 

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The latest group of sixteen regions have appeared on the inworld SL map.

298159203_Newbrooke12Aug2022.thumb.png.b1d36cdc7809f88a3b8fa5fb1c5a3204.png

They are from top left:

SSPCurrent Sea, SSPShell Yeah, SSPTiedown Inlet,

SSPSteelhead Shoal, SSPBlack Dog Island, SSPNightwind, SSPBluebottle

SSPTwin Coves, SSPSolomon Reef, SSPSriracha, SSPClear Day,

SSPSlushy, SSPThunder Quay, SSPManatee Wharf, SSPRhonda Beach, SSPRum Deal,

Edited by SarahKB7 Koskinen
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I'd also like to point out that Blofeld and Klebb regions in Satori continent both have fully protected west coastlines and are worthy of being connected to wider sea regions too.

This in turn could prompt private parcel owners in regions to their south to cooperate, redesign and rearrange parcels as communal water areas which allow vessels to move between Satori's coastal regions, such as they currently are, using Blofeld and Klebb as an exit/entry point to elsewhere.

However, should LL be in a particularly generous mood, they should fill the entire void between Satori and Bellisseria with sea regions instead, which should help reduce the anticipated amount of inter-parcel and inter-region arguing and disputes between Satori's landlocked inhabitants about water travel rights. 😜

177579717_Newbrookev212Aug2022.thumb.png.80f569f45c0a2ab0840ab4ec71e55886.png

Edited by SarahKB7 Koskinen
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  • Moles

If private parcel owners were able to cooperate and had set their land to allow for a pathway along the coast for travelers there wouldn't have been a need to bypass that area in the first place. They could have done that already when Bellisseria was connected to the mainland the south and they still can. They haven't done that because there is no guarantee that any one person along that route could not shut off access at any moment. Simply having a vestigial strip of protected coastline does not warrant adding 4, 2, or even one region at that location for the same reason. Sadly, such a connection would most likely only ever benefit the owners of the land directly bordering that region and them alone. 

Everyone along that edge can still can have open access to the water to the south if they can all agree, and there is nothing stopping you from approaching them to see if they are open to coming to a mutually beneficial agreement to do so.  I wish you luck with that because all it takes is one person to say no.

Edited by Abnor Mole
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1 hour ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I'd also like to point out that Blofeld and Klebb regions in Satori continent both have fully protected west coastlines and are worthy of being connected to wider sea regions too.

Not following. If you put a protected water region to west of ANY of the Satori regions south of Stromberg and north of Imelza, it's the same. You are simply increasing the real estate value of those parcels. That existing 12m channel in Blofeld and Klebb is irrelevant.  Oops, Abnor said it first :)

Edited by diamond Marchant
abnor said it first
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16 hours ago, Abnor Mole said:

I wish you luck with that because all it takes is one person to say no.

Indeed and so it is! I did investigate this option. Imposible :(

You know Abnor, and you know that, there are people in SL who automatically pay their Premium Membership every year and own a 1024m2 free plot. But they never log in. Try to reach them? Sorry that won't work.

And there are people on the coast there between 3 high walls and a lovely see view. There land is made privat. And you think starting a conversation about making a passage :), Naah. 

Edited by Mike McGregor
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