mgjackson Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 I've read a lot about the decline of SL and I guess the hay-day where big brands bought into it* have gone, but from what I can see land is being bought and sold and new things being built.After a lot of searching I've purchased 512 of sea-fronted main land which in real money was about 30 GBP, which does seem quite a lot for something that doesn't exist :-), but I looked at a couple of larger plots which were cheaper but was put off by the tier costs. However, both of those plots and a third near me which was up for the equiv of a staggering 300GBP have sold very quickly. *If I understand it correctly, a few years back it was thought that the internet would become an imersive experince and people would log on with their avatars and would do virtual shopping of real world goods etc. However, that requires a lot of dedicated time in front of a computer and the idea never really caught on. What has happened is the internet has come pervasive, ie thanks to smart phones and tablets its bloody everywhere and you can now even order your weekly shopping while sat on the loo :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abigail Merlin Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 mgjackson wrote: Ironically, the internet has come pervasive, ie thanks to smart phones and tablets its bloody everywhere and you can now even order your weekly shopping while sat on the loo :-) It's worse, you can now shop online while in the rl shop.. yes it is true, one DIY store here has made an ap that will let you browse their inventory while in their store pointing you to the right section of the store to get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgjackson Posted May 31, 2013 Author Share Posted May 31, 2013 Yep. I reserved a Nexus 7 at PC World from the demo one that HMV had on display because HMV didn't have any in stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christin73 Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 I have seen in world where if you have an inworld compter or tv, you can view youtube. Also I think you can go onto facebook if I am not mistaen. So in a way SL is going in that direction where you can use your avi in world to view the internet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer Boyle Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 At one time, it was common for there to be over 70,000 people logged onto SL. It is hard for me to accurately remember times, but I think that was in 2007. I can think of a few things that happened that harmed SL. First, LL had great ambitions for SL to be used as a communication platform by large organizations and focused its efforts on that for a while, but it turned out to be futile. Before the spring of 2008, there was a thriving real estate market in SL. Then, for reasons known only to themselves, the Lindens flooded the market with new land, driving land prices down very rapidly severely, wiping out a very large amount of SL wealth. Then they opened Zindra to segregate adult activities, which again increased the amount of mainland. The idea itself was not so bad, but the implementation was very poorly communicated, planned, and executed. Once completed, it was a good thing for everyone, but getting there was much more painful than it should have been. Then there was basic mode. They were trying to address the real problem of the complexity of the viewer menus being overwhelming to beginners, but they went overboard and removed so much functionality that basic mode was useless and was, therefore, unused. THen, instead of tweaking it and making it usable as intended, they abandoned it. These missteps and others, as well as external events, caused a dramatic decrease in the average number of users logged in. For the last year or two, things have been improving, and the number of concurrent users has been gradually increasing. I hope that that continues, and I think it will barring more major missteps by LL. I have ventured briefly into a number of other virtual worlds, and none offered an experience remotely comparable to SL. In addition, longtime residents have a lot invested here, so that the cost of migrating to another virtual world would be high, and there would have to be a real incentive for it to happen. The SL experience has improved dramatically during my six year here. There have been many technical improvements, and stability has dramatically improved. The one thing that has become much worse during my tenure is communication between LL and customers. For whatever reason, the company does not want to know what its customers want or think and limits the information it provides to them severely. ETA: I almost forgot the debacle of doing away with last names. Not only did residents hate it, but it made making a new account really frustrating when, after only a short time, all of the names that were obvious, pronounceable, and desirable had been taken. To top it off, the CEO publicly acknowledged that it was a mistake and said that last names would be reinstitution, only to say announce a few months later that they would not be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qwalyphi Korpov Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 /me imagines you observing the fall of the Roman Empire and commenting "Things seem well. Land is bought and sold. The people make things." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madelaine McMasters Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Jennifer Boyle wrote: <snip> For the last year or two, things have been improving, and the number of concurrent users has been gradually increasing. Tateru Nino's charts show continued decline, and that's been my anecdotal observation as well. Note in particular the historical concurrency, which covers 5+ years, and the annual concurrency which covers the last 12 months. Both are in decline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillon Levenque Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: /me imagines you observing the fall of the Roman Empire and commenting "Things seem well. Land is bought and sold. The people make things." Well, aren't you the glass-half-empty chipmunk! For the record, while the fall of the Roman Empire is generally considered to have gotten well under way in the fourth century, it didn't actually end until Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453. SL should be so lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squashy Beeswing Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: /me imagines you observing the fall of the Roman Empire and commenting "Things seem well. Land is bought and sold. The people make things." Ugh, the negativity. But it did make me laugh! :matte-motes-big-grin-wink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vania Chaplin Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Jennifer Boyle wrote: (...) Before the spring of 2008, there was a thriving real estate market in SL. Then, for reasons known only to themselves, the Lindens flooded the market with new land, driving land prices down very rapidly severely, wiping out a very large amount of SL wealth. (...) Not being an expert in land commerce in SL, I think I can say something on this . When I was satarting my SL I tried the land commerce. I used to spent half to an hour every day looking for cheao land in mainland, under 6000 for a 512 plot. And put them to seel for 6500-7500. In that time I prefered a plot for, say, 5500 L$ in a nice surrounding than one for 4000 L$ between a casino and a add-farm. In average it took 7-10 days to resell one plot this this way, and I grew up to almost a hwole sim, scattered through the mainland. In June, or July that year, LL announced the end of the casinos - they used to cover something like half the mainland. The result was obvious, even to me, half the land would be put to sell, and the prices would go down. Sold all land that I had, and abandoned my brief experience as "land lord" :-) In fact, the prices went down to half what they used to be.soon after the new anti-gambling politics was inforced. From than on, it seems that every time someone went to bathroom in Linden Lab, land prices went even down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abigail Merlin Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 true it used to be that abandoned land at 1 L$ per sqm was a steal and the average was about 10 L$ per sqm, right now 1 L$ per sqm land can sit for months. Luckely private estate sims are doing better now, not yet at waiting list level but I do have plenty of months that I only have a few plots available, especialy the 1024 and 512 plots get picked up soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knutz Scorpio Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 From my relatively short three years on SL it has definitely been better. From Second Life Grid Survey, both concurrency and number of regions have been on a steady decline for quite a while. You might see land being sold and bought but I'm seeing an increasing amount of mainland go abandoned. No I don't have sources and figures to back that up, but as I check out empty looking plots and seeing a good number of them owned by the Lindens, seeing plots being abandoned and not going up for sale, and seeing abandoned land being taken off of the for sale list but still owned by the Lindens, I can't see how the amount of abandoned land is doing anything other then growing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vania Chaplin Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Yep! I still have land in mainland, but since I became adicted to slsailing, I bought a sea-side plot, where I can build my boats, and start from there - these plots still have a high value - sea-side, to a navigable sea - mine is a 1020 sq m (1024 for 2 premium accounts, mor 10% for group owned land) in Gulf of Moles, and I paid 17 th for it, and my old plot inland, instead of sell it for 1 L$/sq m, I give it for free to a neighbour, to not pay double fee. P.S. seasideplots near Blake Sea can be even more expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnaudRecneps Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 I am a total and complete newbie to almost everything SL, but have noticed several things that might pertain to this subject...then again, they might not.... I know nothing about the buying and selling of land here, I am a premium member and have my 512 townhouse type of residence that I'm already feeling constrained in because of the restrictions. In looking around my developement in Violin it seems there are many vacancies and very seldom more than myself in my immediate vicinity,. I love to fly around over various areas, picking an interesting looking or sounding place to TP to...after awhile I will use a combo ot TP/Fly to wander around, the number of vacant/for sale/abandoned properties is shocking to me. It also is getting my interest up to look into buying something to play with as an SL home and build the way I want it, not as an investment...however living on a fixed income I haven't gotten serious about that project :matte-motes-asleep-2:..yet... I know that on evenings when I am bored and will call up a random word in the search funciton (Gentlemens Club comes to mind for some reason....blush) I will start at the head of the list and TP to everyone listed....finding maybe out of 25 clubs 3 to 5 will actually have someone there aside from the stray dancer/avi whose RL counterpart is probably having a cuppa and hasn't been near the pc in an hour.... and it is obvious that in so many cases (not just these clubs but in many different types of business) that a lot of love and money has gone into their construction....I am usually depressed by the sight of them. I have been intrigued by the sailing aspect of SL...seen some wonderful boats and would like to maybe persue that avenue but as in so many things in SL...where does an easily confused newbie find help and answers? Maybe one of the things that is contributing to the "decline" from what you all remember as the heyday of SL is the fact that so many people come into SL and find themselves treated as lesser beings because they don't know how things work. That coupled with the fact that just about anytime you go somewhere you are bombarded with notecards, invitations, join messages, advertisments for sex, don't do this lists, and on and on.....sorry didn't mean to get on that soapbox. However....all of that being said....SL is a marvelous and wonderful place for me, the quality of overall experience and the quantity of available sights is staggering....I saw a list as I was logging on day before yesterday and it said that there were currently 48+K people logged on....48,000 people from all over the world...the wide spot in the road where I live has a population of 2,500....the nearest "large" town has a pop of 41,000! Amazing.... sorry to ramble on like this, but then I never have learned that there is a reason to stop yapping :smileylol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qwalyphi Korpov Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Dillon Levenque wrote: Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: /me imagines you observing the fall of the Roman Empire and commenting "Things seem well. Land is bought and sold. The people make things." Well, aren't you the glass-half-empty chipmunk! For the record, while the fall of the Roman Empire is generally considered to have gotten well under way in the fourth century, it didn't actually end until Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453. SL should be so lucky. I knew I might be on thin ice with the Roman Empire thing. Although I was pretty certain it had fallen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenbro Utu Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: fall of the Roman Empire fell to the Turks in 1453. Although I was pretty certain it had fallen. Don't worry, I am sure someone will find an old post in a forum from 1453 and resurrect it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia Sautereau Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 Jennifer Boyle wrote: At one time, it was common for there to be over 70,000 people logged onto SL. Don`t forget that 50,000 of those were bots :matte-motes-wink-tongue: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theresa Tennyson Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: /me imagines you observing the fall of the Roman Empire and commenting "Things seem well. Land is bought and sold. The people make things." Indeed, because what once was the city of Rome is today a scooterless patch of empty scorched earth, devoid of life, silent save for the keening of the lonely wind. Oh, wait... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solaria Goldshark Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 mgjackson wrote: ...... What has happened is the internet has come pervasive, ie thanks to smart phones and tablets its bloody everywhere and you can now even order your weekly shopping while sat on the loo :-) The last thing I'm thinking about while sitting on the loo is shopping for groceries, and while conducting business there, I'm probably thinking to myself......"dear god! I should really try that juice fasting thing I've been putting off." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillon Levenque Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 Theresa Tennyson wrote: Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: /me imagines you observing the fall of the Roman Empire and commenting "Things seem well. Land is bought and sold. The people make things." Indeed, because what once was the city of Rome is today a scooterless patch of empty scorched earth, devoid of life, silent save for the keening of the lonely wind. Oh, wait... LOL, although there was a time when all that had been Rome was virtually forgotten. The Roman Forum (the REAL forum, for which all since have been named) was called Campo Vaccinio, because it was a grazing area for cattle and goats. Even then, Rome was a vibrant city, as you suggest. There are some forces that just go on regardless. Maybe in the not too distant future there will be fabulous virtual worlds all over the internet. I like to think that the culture that arose in Second Life (please don't laugh: without getting all dramatic I really do think SL has a culture that is distinct) will somehow be part of the baseline for virtual worlds to come. ETA the quoted post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwenting Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 Abigail Merlin wrote: true it used to be that abandoned land at 1 L$ per sqm was a steal and the average was about 10 L$ per sqm, right now 1 L$ per sqm land can sit for months. that;s because all the decent land, decent size, shape, etc. is gobbled up by the land barrons in minutes (I guess they have bots prowling the grid looking for land for sale), then rented out or put up for private sale at heavily inflated prices. In fact I've strong indication that some are gaming the system by hiring griefers to attack people who own real estate in areas they want to buy, right after making them "an offer you can't refuse" to sell at 0.1 or lower. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwenting Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 and oh, remember that SL has been dead since before the public beta started, if the idiots are to be believed who prowl the internet proclaiming such (including these forums). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgjackson Posted June 1, 2013 Author Share Posted June 1, 2013 I looked at quite a lot of the abandoned land and a lot of it wasn't that good. I suppose the other thing is the Linden Homes - they are very popular and why bother hunting for land when you can have a very nice home in a nice neighbourhood. I looked around the LH regions and I didn't see any empty Californian style homes and the trangular Alpine style ones which I had one of also seemed to have quite a high residency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 EnaudRecneps wrote: However....all of that being said....SL is a marvelous and wonderful place for me, the quality of overall experience and the quantity of available sights is staggering....I saw a list as I was logging on day before yesterday and it said that there were currently 48+K people logged on....48,000 people from all over the world...the wide spot in the road where I live has a population of 2,500....the nearest "large" town has a pop of 41,000! Amazing.... sorry to ramble on like this, but then I never have learned that there is a reason to stop yapping :smileylol: It used to be more than double that number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 Alicia Sautereau wrote: Jennifer Boyle wrote: At one time, it was common for there to be over 70,000 people logged onto SL. Don`t forget that 50,000 of those were bots :matte-motes-wink-tongue: No they weren't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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