What if Second Life removed teleportation?

[Rowan Amore]

48 minutes ago, animats said:

There are some things SL could do to make the sense of space in the world a bit more real.

Personally, I don't come to SL for the realism.  Might as well do away with flying without an aircraft, too.

[Love Zhaoying]

I think when teleporting "breaks" on occasion, you don't see avatars gleefully exploring the local areas and getting to know their neighbors. Nope, when that happens users often give up and log out.

[Extrude Ragu]

1 hour ago, animats said:

• Parcels with privacy on ("Avatars on other parcels can see and chat with avatars on this parcel" unchecked) should not allow camming in. You have to go there. Right now, you can cam in, but can't see the avatars.
• On parcels with privacy on, you would not be allowed to sit or double-click teleport while camming. You have to walk there. This also means you can't "sit" through a wall, so locked doors offer some security. You can set the landing point for the parcel outside the house, so visitors appear at your front door, not inside.
• Smarten up camera control, so that the viewpoint is never on the other side of a wall from the avatar. Pull the viewpoint towards the avatar until there's no obstacle in between. Just sitting on a chair should never result in a viewpoint outside the wall. This reduces the need for camming.

I don't think that the existing privacy measures in SecondLife should do more than they already do. It would encroach way too much on the way that people are used to things working. I imagine having your alt cam blocked on the mainland would get old pretty fast, especially because you don't know if the parcels you are alt-camming are private or not. It would be a minefield with the viewer constantly not doing what you tell it to do. Stressful.

The 2nd point seems to conflate privacy and security. Sure with this people could not enter your private room. But they can still see in it. The camera being constrained to being unable to pass through obstacles would be annoying too. Especially when building.

I do think there is a need for privacy from camming, and also for game sims with a hide and seek element. Private region owners should IMO have the option to limit max alt-cam distance. Related: I made a JIRA recently suggesting the LSL ability to limit camera zoom distance from a script although I was mostly thinking about for games and experiences.

 

[animats]

2 minutes ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I made a JIRA recently suggesting the LSL ability to limit camera zoom distance from a script although I was mostly thinking about for games and experiences.

Check out the Amazon River roleplay area, which does that via an experience. They force you to load an anti-cheat script.

[Noelle Delaunay]

It would drastically change the perceived size of SL. You would actually get to experience how far it is from one point to the other. You would feel way more immersed. It would actually matter where you live. If someone wanted to visit you right now, you pass them the LM, or TP them, and they wouldn't even need to look at the map. They don't know where you live. However, the map would be the main utility in a world without teleports.

Would users actually want this? It's a very romantic illusion to think that people would want this. Just look at certain games with large worlds, MMORPGS, and you will find that users always prefer convenience over anything else.

[Sid Nagy]

Yeah, just image someone IM's and needs some customer support.  You need to go onsite to get the picture what is needed and then you find out the address is at the other side of SL.
Real fun, to have to use half of your available SL time to travel to the customer and back.
Fingers crossed that nothing happens at the 179 sim crossings.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[MoiraKathleen]

46 minutes ago, Noelle Delaunay said:

It would drastically change the perceived size of SL. You would actually get to experience how far it is from one point to the other. You would feel way more immersed. It would actually matter where you live. If someone wanted to visit you right now, you pass them the LM, or TP them, and they wouldn't even need to look at the map. They don't know where you live. However, the map would be the main utility in a world without teleports.

Would users actually want this? It's a very romantic illusion to think that people would want this. Just look at certain games with large worlds, MMORPGS, and you will find that users always prefer convenience over anything else.

It's true it would increase the immersion, but I think you're correct that users prefer convenience over anything else.  I do walk or ride to quite a few places in-world, when the idea of doing that suits me, and there are clear transportation routes available. When I lived on Heterocera, I did drive, and boat, and drive again to an event in Bay City several times, but only when I had nothing else to do that day and could spend all that time inworld to just travel from one location to another.   Other times, it's either not possbile to do because of no transportation routes available, or I just do not want to spend the extra time to do so at that particular time I'm in-world. 

It's fine when traveling with TP's is an option that one can choose to do when they wish, but I would hate to see it be the only choice.  

[Silent Mistwalker]

People aren't using the maps? I'd be lost without them. Every game I play, including any MMOS, all have maps for locating many things, players included. Some of the games I play can't be played without maps. Unless you just want to get completely lost in space and not be able to find your way back to home base. Maps of the planets, the solar systems. Somebody has to navigate!

[MoiraKathleen]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

People aren't using the maps? I'd be lost without them. Every game I play, including any MMOS, all have maps for locating many things, players included. Some of the games I play can't be played without maps. Unless you just want to get completely lost in space and not be able to find your way back to home base. Maps of the planets, the solar systems. Somebody has to navigate!

I bring up the map often to see where places are located.  I like to see if a destination is on a mainland continent (and if so which one) or if it's a private estate and is it a single region or a group of regions,  to see how full a region is, checking out parcels for sale, looking for roads or protected waterways on mainland - a lot of reasons. 

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 minutes ago, MoiraKathleen said:

I bring up the map often to see where places are located.  I like to see if a destination is on a mainland continent (and if so which one) or if it's a private estate and is it a single region or a group of regions,  to see how full a region is, checking out parcels for sale, looking for roads or protected waterways on mainland - a lot of reasons. 

Useful things, maps. And not those GPS things. Give me a printed on paper atlas any day! 😉

[Innula Zenovka]

4 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

I don't think it's realistic to seriously consider reverting to no teleports at all, but nonetheless I think there may be an opportunity here. As others have mentioned, there's already an ability to restrict a region's teleports to telehub locations. What might be interesting is if that constraint were applied to some of the fully-abandoned Mainland regions (or the being-abandoned older Linden Homes regions), redesigned by Moles to have public-access cow paths and alleys and sidewalks, etc., so all parcels on the region could be reached from the telehub, with parcels set no-join no-subdivide (as in Bay City) but able to be resold (also as in Bay City but unlike Belli). Maybe a prim bonus of 1.5 or something if the cow paths are Land Impact efficient.

This would still allow inter-region teleports (and normal TPs within other regions, too), and wouldn't really be that much of a change from existing abilities, except imposing on parts of Governor Linden's domain pretty much the same constraints that some Estates already impose on some private regions.

Not sure this would be the big success that Bellisseria was, with its specific set of different but quite strict constraints. But it might be worth a try.

I think LDPW already do this on their multi-region games and experiences, for the whole group of regions that comprise the quest.  Same principle, so long as the teleport points are set.   

By the same token, though, the owner of a private estate has access to exactly the same region and estate tools as do LDPW and the Governor, so it really shouldn't be too difficult (famous last words) for an estate owner to set up something similar to what the OP suggests, using those tools and some of the experience access settings.  

I bet if a private estate owner asked Land for help with the experience and region settings, they'd able to set up something pretty similar to what the OP wants.    Visitors might once be asked to join a particular experience the first time they TP'd in, but the more I think about it, the more I think it would be possible.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Innula Zenovka

[MoiraKathleen]

5 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Useful things, maps. And not those GPS things. Give me a printed on paper atlas any day! 😉

We do a lot of driving around our state and a few neighboring states for little 3 or 4 day trips, and we like to take the small highways or country roads.  Paper maps are the best for finding those types of ways to get places, though a map app on a PC isn't too bad, if you have the app full-screen and zoom out so you can see a good amount of area (but not so far you loose the detail of the smaller roads).  Once I've seen the big picture that way, then I can navigate using a map on a phone, but I have to have seen that bigger picture of the full route first.  I'm looking forward to when my husband retires next summer, because we'll have more time for trips planned just for the sake of that trip - there are a couple of trips I've planned just because of neat routes I've found on maps that look like they would be fun to drive and fun to stop and visit the little towns along the way. 

[Paul Hexem]

7 hours ago, Maitimo said:

Indeed - this is what I meant about needing a complete road network with ALL fixed-size parcels served by a Linden-managed road network.  They would basically have to change the entirety of mainland into Bellisseria/Horizons. The cost would be immense; they'd lose ALL the private-owned land, and half of mainland which would now be buried under tarmac. This is one of the things about RL that is not better and not worthy of making mandatory in SL.

Also  Tier would have to double, or triple, or more, to compensate for that lost income. And who is willing to pay that increased tier? 

Not necessarily. Parcel owners are perfectly capable of designing their parcel in such a way as to allow passage through it. Travel the public roads or waterways a little and look at some of what people build. For every ban line, there's an open dock or airport or gas station. Around the roads there's often bridges or tunnels. With a little creativity, there's a ton of ways to allow passage through, over, or alongside whatever you build.

 

5 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

It really could. Many private roleplay regions already turn off teleports as it is, including mine for much of the same reasons OP states.

If I were a land Baron in SecondLife I'd be tempted to invest in some regions to create a private 'mainland' with this gimmick myself. I'm not sure if there are any on SecondLife successful enough to be willing to experiment on a new concept like that.

It'd probably have to be done by LL for that reason.

Before I went Premium, I used to rent from a place called Lionheart Estate. They did that, lots of roads and waterways, with zoning restrictions. I thought it was pretty good.

 

3 hours ago, Maitimo said:

Except that the Snow Crash Metaverse has a massive highway running through it, and every place that exists in their grid is attached to that highway.

SL doesn't have such a highway. It would be impossible to create one without literally wiping the grid completely clean and starting from (literally) square one again.

You are correct that much of SL would have to be scrapped and redone from scratch. Even just how people treat their parcels would have to be a little different, giant privacy walls and ban lines would have to be completely reconsidered.

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 hours ago, Maitimo said:

Except that the Snow Crash Metaverse has a massive highway running through it, and every place that exists in their grid is attached to that highway.

SL doesn't have such a highway. It would be impossible to create one without literally wiping the grid completely clean and starting from (literally) square one again.

 

Also, Snow Crash had the benefit of being created by an author who could declare its users to be happy without a more direct point-to-point transportation method.

[Chris Corvinus]

Privacy would die. 

[Harper Held]

7 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I have been in SL long enough to remember when we didn't have point to point TPs. I really, really do not want to ever go back to that again. And the first person that mentions taxing TPs or prims or anything of the sort... 

 

Came here to say this.

 

Seriously, this was a horrible idea when it was done the first time, it's a horrible idea now.

[Bree Giffen]

Well I'm back! I read everyone's replies and many good points were made against it. I'm surprised there was even some support. Do I still think it should be done? Only if LL were able to roll it out with some kind of master plan. Maybe no teleportation changes but perhaps something can be done to address the general layout of the SL map to make it more non-teleport travel friendly. Maybe they could make a large area for new people where they have to travel by foot, then by car, then boat, then plane before they finally get to a place where they can teleport. This trip would last 30 days. Then they could teleport to clubs and go inside immediately. 

[sceneris]

travel will takes hour and waste time, i was on a platform without teleport functionality, it was a disaster, i spent most of my time travel via horse carriage

removing teleportion will result in most people stop travelling or logging in

private region somehow have to connect to each other, someone mention banlines and security orb, probably untravelable

[MirandaBowers]

I think it could be interesting to see some more projects/areas like Bay City expanded upon, and more mainland made to be travel friendly. But not take away the teleporting altogether, poor souls like myself who can't drive very well in game would take ages to get around 

[LittleMe Jewell]

No freakin way. 

Do you realize how long it will take me to do the weekend sales if I have to actually walk or drive to every single store rather than TP there in an instant?

That is just not going to work for me.

Edited July 21, 2021 by LittleMe Jewell

[Laylah Yaseotoko]

Yeah I think I'd be out real fast. I don't want to spend my precious free time traveling the grid to get from place A to B... neither would I want to spend upwards of 400 US a month for my islands just to take hours to get back to them. "Oh I need this outfit for a picture/rp scene, whelp my friends I'll see you in three days or so, if I don't get held up at work and can travel my precious free time away with relatively little lag because the store it is at is... 150 sims away." That would really not work for me

[Chroma Starlight]

14 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

What do you think will happen if LL decided to to remove teleportation from SL?

Increased rocket pack sales! 

🚀zoom

[Eowyn Southmoor]

Whilst plenty of other posts have dealt with the numerous reasons why this idea shouldn't even be considered, I have a suspicion that the OP doesn't realise how big just the SL mainland already is.

In a thread in the mainland forum section, someone fairly recently took a vehicle and did basically the longest continuous journey you can undertake in mainland - East Gaeta V continent to north Heterocera Atoll continent.

If I recall correctly, the journey took them over 5 hours. Yes, that's 5 hours. 

Even as someone who will happily spend several hours in a car/plane/boat in SL cruising round, I would never want to have my ability to TP removed, nor would I consider it very fair to inflict it on the 1000's of people who have no interest in travelling round like I do.

 

 

[Maitimo]

7 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

Not necessarily. Parcel owners are perfectly capable of designing their parcel in such a way as to allow passage through it.

Capable of, sure. But the majority will be too selfish or too malicious to bother. 

[Chris Corvinus]

I’ll support this if there’s flying cars and Second Life is renamed to Jetsons Life.