Unpopular Opinion. Redo the mainland from scratch?

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, ChinRey said:

Unfortunately it would also clear out the few attempts to create larger consistent and eyesore free landscapes that currently exist.

An empty region is better than a load of janky buildings tossed up by land barrons.

 

[Sid Nagy]

There are surely possibilities to do something to improve chunks of mainland.
But what does LL gain from it?

There are still people who don't want anything else than main land parcels.
And there are those who could not care less if mainland would magically disappear over night.
That's why there are two kinds of sims in SL. And there is Belli for those who only want to consume en live their lives in SL.

So everything is pretty much covered as it is.
And I don't see improved mainland drive in tons of new residents.

So how would it be beneficial for LL to put a lot of extra work in it.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Coffee Pancake]

Not everything has to be reduced to a zero sum game.

[Sid Nagy]

LL is a business and has to think like one.
No free lunches.

And updating mainland would be a vast project.
To big to do it out of love for the residents alone IMHO.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Feorie Frimon]

16 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

LL is a business and has to think like one.
No free lunches.

And updating mainland would be a vast project.
To big to do it out of love for the residents alone IMHO.

I don't know... changing some ratings, updating some terrain textures, and adding some water seems like it could be a Mole project, right? Sure, it's a little bit of $$ in hours spent (I can't imagine it would take more than 10 hours...tops?), but the parcels would sell fast and if they went through the same ticket process as Abandoned Land, LL stands to profit directly from the intital sale of the land. They'd make that $$ up pretty fast. 

That uses all current infrastructure with little work on the part of the Lab. 

[Sid Nagy]

If it does not attract new blood into SL it is only moving from one place to another.
Nothing gained financially for LL.
And 10 hours per sim, that adds up real quickly to a vast amount of money. There are thousands of mainland sims.
I don't think the Moles work for free.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Coffee Pancake]

I'd be happy to see a list of public works that LL could open up to volunteers, be completed away from the live grid and only need a Linden/Mole to sign off on once completed. 

 

[Feorie Frimon]

2 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

If it does not attract new blood into SL it is only moving from one place to another.
Nothing gained.
And 10 hours per sim, that adds up real quickly to a vast amount of money.
I don't think the Moles work for free.

No, they get paid as far as I know. But, 10 hours per sim? Holy crap, that's alot - I meant for the entire project. 

Put me in that Linden building group and I'll adjust some water heights, terraform some lakes, and change some textures.

Bam. Done.

[Feorie Frimon]

Just now, Coffee Pancake said:

I'd be happy to see a list of public works that LL could open up to volunteers, be completed away from the live grid and only need a Linden/Mole to sign off on once completed. 

 

This. So this. 👆

[Sid Nagy]

Seriously?

10 hours for the whole project?
Mainland is thousands of different sims, that have to line exactly to its neighboring borders, keep in infra structure consistent.
That takes planning, an lot of planning.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Feorie Frimon]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

Seriously?

Yeah, why not?

Sorry for dragging us off topic here... but I think there are a huge number of SL residents that would do stuff like this - people that are plenty qualified and can follow instructions/details of what the Lab would want. SL Resident Volenteers are amazing - I can't tell you how many times I've gotten help from someone random that not only did what I needed, but did it better than I even thought could be done and did it for free. 

[Coffee Pancake]

Yes.

100% serious.

There are tons of people in SL who will happily do stuff for LL, for nothing more than personal satisfaction.

Take the example of 3rd party viewers. The bulk of the grid uses one or another. None of them make even close to the money required to pay a single full time developer (realistically, best anyone manages is to break even on web hosting costs) , and here we all are .. 40 .. 60 .. more hours a week, every week, for years.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

45 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

There are surely possibilities to do something to improve chunks of mainland.
But what does LL gain from it?

Right now LL is hosting, maintaining massive amounts of land that no one is paying for. Surely there's a cost to that. Making that land more marketable by adding roads, water, or doing away with it completely is what we're talking about. 

[Sid Nagy]

If every sim attracts only one griefer volunteer during the volunteer action (and that would be an amazing low number) harm is higher than the gain.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Feorie Frimon]

7 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Seriously?

10 hours for the whole project?
Mainland is thousands of different sims, that have to line exactly to its neighboring borders, keep in infra structure consistent.
That takes planning, an lot of planning.

Yeah, I know.... but alot of those sims are inhabitted. I'm not talking about those. 

I'm talking about abandoned land - well, really abandoned sims. We're talking about making that abandoned land more desireable for residents that are already on the grid. 

Sim borders aren't a problem - you can terraform across sim boarders the same as any other part of land (at least I could when I build a theater with a stage on one side and an audience on another). 

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

12 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I'd be happy to see a list of public works that LL could open up to volunteers, be completed away from the live grid and only need a Linden/Mole to sign off on once completed. 

I love terraforming, I'd do it for free. I mean not all day, I have a job.

[Feorie Frimon]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

If every sim attracts only one griefer volunteer (and that would be an amazing low number) harm is higher than the gain.

So kick that griefer out and return his prims. Done. 

I mean, you vet the volenteers first of course...have them jump through whatever hoops to make sure they are up to snuff...but then let them do whatever it is the Moles want them to do and don't have time to do themselves. The Moles have a look when the project is complete, give their seal of approval, then sell the land. Money for LL - prettier Mainland - happier residents. 

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

If every sim attracts only one griefer volunteer during the volunteer action (and that would be an amazing low number) harm is higher than the gain.

Hence having a Linden/Mole to sign off on anything a volunteer does.

We will work for nothing, for fun, to exacting predefined requirements and submit to oversight!

[animats]

5 hours ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

But people love land beside a road.

The interior of Corsica makes this clear. There are entire abandoned mainland sims of bare rock hills. All the development is near roads or water.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

I think the LDPW was created for this actually when it was started. "Beautify the mainland". Unfortunately, at the time, this resulted in less terraforming and reorganizing of parcels and more really dated looking content being added to what was already kind of a mess. 

The moles have done great stuff in Belli though under Patch. Which is primarily where they work now I think. I don't think anything is really being touched on the dirty ol mainland right now and hasn't been since they introduced Belli.

Edited June 18, 2021 by Ingrid Ingersoll

[Feorie Frimon]

I wonder if there are rules about what can be used on 'Linden Land' though - like, does it have to be something they own rights to? Or were created by someone at the lab? Can the Moles buy stuff and stock their inventories and use it in their builds? I've always wanted to interrogate one and find out how it works. 

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

I feel like if they ever decide to work on the mainland again, they need to stop adding content unless it's just rocks, trees an plants. Because that stuff looks old FAST. 

Just delete old junk, terraform, re-parcel, add trees and rocks. 

[ChinRey]

18 minutes ago, Feorie Frimon said:

Can the Moles buy stuff and stock their inventories and use it in their builds?

They once bought some of my houses and used them for one of the infohubs, so yes, they can.

[ChinRey]

28 minutes ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

I feel like if they ever decide to work on the mainland again, they need to stop adding content unless it's just rocks, trees an plants. Because that stuff looks old FAST. 

Just delete old junk, terraform, re-parcel, add trees and rocks. 

How about roads? Roads are by far the most efficient kind of sim filler we have. You can easily cover the equivalent of a whole sim of area with 200 land impact and four or five 512x512 textures.

Edited June 18, 2021 by ChinRey

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

and roads. and bridges. No octopuses, no lollipops, no kittens.