New theme is Revealed!.....Newbrooke...

[Rabid Cheetah]

I've yet to check out the New and Improved Newbrookes, but given that I find this style hideous even in real life, it's not high on my list of things to do tonight.

Still, I'm happy for those that are giddy about this style, and for the impulse of creativity it's generating.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Rabid Cheetah

[Teresa Firelight]

My first impression of this style was "this is not for me!" (That is ok because there are other themes that I love, like the stilts and vics.)

To me, the exterior and mole landscaping is much more important than the interior, because I tend to spend much more of my time on my deck or in my yard than inside the house itself.

The demo neighborhood felt very cramped to me, and there seemed to be a severe lack of exterior plants/landscaping. This is not an environment where I would want to spend much time outside.

On the other hand, I think that providing 512 parcels that are actual houses (instead of campers) is brilliant. I personally would not want to live in a 512 parcel, but I have some friends who need the 512 size and have been longing for a house. I am glad to see this provided.

I still dont understand why the Lindens/Moles cant place the 512 size houses on a 1024 size lot, so that people who love to decorate the outside have space and LI allowance to do so. I think the area would be much more inviting if people could choose to have as smaller house on the larger parcel. 

Maybe the solution is to build "new"1024 lot size homes that are basically the 512 house model with a 1024 lot sized fence around it. I would guess that would not be terribly difficult to do, building a new 1024 lot one that is only a simple modification from the existing 512 lot size.

 

[Raspberry Crystal]

14 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Funny how much better they look just by adding a proper roof....

And a chimney...

I would really not like it if people did this to their homes, it would be like some of those Meadowbrook 'farmhouse' conversions which looked very odd and out of place to me.

[Marianne Little]

Is the region open again? If they are going to show houses with decor and furniture, I can understand why it takes more time than changing textures on some homes.

That would be a first time it is furnished houses in a LH demo region.

[Prokofy Neva]

13 hours ago, Patch Linden said:

We have heard your feedback and we have decided to shut down the reveal region for an update.  It seems that this may not have been representative of our best foot forward approach we have taken with the homes over the past.  So I am here to make sure that everyone knows that we have not changed course, lessened our quality, mindfulness or retracted any of the heart and soul we put in to making these homes, themes and community building areas.  

Proof of the fact that I feel less present is actually due to how busy we are with continuing to do more, which is taking more and more of my time.  I am still present, we all do still participate in everything we can in world within Bellisseria, and we are always trying to find new ways to engage on everything we can, including some great Resident run efforts and projects that I know many are involved in.  

That said, the reveal region will be back Really Soon™ after we've put some touches on it to make sure our imagination is still reflected in our work. 

Thank you everyone from the team and I for being involved!  ❤️

Bellisseria is the first Linden product where ordinary, mass customer requirements were really taken into account (as distinct from coders' wishlists), and where the desire for suburbia and all associated with was not scorned, and not the target of cultural warfare from Lindens, but a mandate accepted, to create real homes for people in virtuality where they had RL comfort level and security  -- of the kind that comes with more rules, more uniformity but more predictability (which is not for everyone).

But now we see the "rising tide of expectations" and in some ways, by listening to what people have wanted and giving it to them in so many ways, you may have created a monster. You've also now introduced a wedge into the production process, where by the expectation is that if you roll out a draft at the Christmas expo, and people don't like it, and make suggestions for improvement, then you incorporate all that with another draft before the release in the spring. That seems like a recipe for disaster. 

The Lindens used to make the world, then retreat, periodically rolling out new Mainland sims, and peppering them with green divots for trees, before putting them on the auction. Then they only came back only if something was broken or to undertake disciplinary actions. By making the Moles not just builders by Gentils Organisateurs, you have a recipe for burnout. Some new CEO will come in and see all the staff agida and the resident population rioting and will order everyone back into their cubicles, as happened before.

While respecting customer demands is really great progress for Linden Lab, you can't make living areas by committee. Even in a real city with democracy, there's a limit to what elected officials can do and the forces of big business and politics play a role. So it seems like you are introducing another complicated governance problem, giving residents a veto on what kind of moulding the stairways contain.

As Raph Koster or any perceptive game designer can tell you, customers burn through content and there's a limit to how much that dynamic can always be fed and at some point they have to make their own game with what they have.

Of course if these critiques and disappointments all lead to Bellisserians becoming so unhappy with uniform construction that they go back to the Mainland and build themselves for a change, or buy prefabs with more variation, I could only welcome that development because Bellisseria should not eat the world. There should be a balance.

There's also the problem of creating "Newbrooke" when you didn't solve the problem of where "Meadowbrooke" is going to go. Is it going to be deleted? Yes or no? Are the old Linden homes going to be consolidated? Are people going to be given 30 days or 60 days to move, as they were with adult venues in M when Zindra was created? Until this piece of it is solved, there can't be closure and invidious comparisons are going to be made. If people liked the Meadowbrookes so much, they would still be in them, but they didn't, and moved out of them, raising the very issue of how they may have to be deleted.

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[yestothis]

42 minutes ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

I would really not like it if people did this to their homes, it would be like some of those Meadowbrook 'farmhouse' conversions which looked very odd and out of place to me.

People will definitely Frankenhouse. Have you seen the trad-vics? Monstrosity. 

[Raspberry Crystal]

@Prokofy Neva 'responding to feedback' is just a phrase that Patch uses, it doesn't mean what you think it means, ie it doesn't mean what you would mean if you said it.
I hope this feedback is meaningful as the word meaning has lost all meaning to me now after all the repetition.

[Raspberry Crystal]

3 minutes ago, yestothis said:

People will definitely Frankenhouse. Have you seen the trad-vics? Monstrosity. 

I'm not sure, maybe I am better shielding my eyes after the house on water houseboat conversions trauma.

[yestothis]

12 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Bellisseria is the first Linden product where ordinary, mass customer requirements were really taken into account (as distinct from coders' wishlists), and where the desire for suburbia and all associated with was not scorned, and not the target of cultural warfare from Lindens, but a mandate accepted, to create real homes for people in virtuality where they had RL comfort level and security  -- of the kind that comes with more rules, more uniformity but more predictability (which is not for everyone).

But now we see the "rising tide of expectations" and in some ways, by listening to what people have wanted and giving it to them in so many ways, you may have created a monster. You've also now introduced a wedge into the production process, where by the expectation is that if you roll out a draft at the Christmas expo, and people don't like it, and make suggestions for improvement, then you incorporate all that with another draft before the release in the spring. That seems like a recipe for disaster. 

The Lindens used to make the world, then retreat, periodically rolling out new Mainland sims, and peppering them with green divots for trees, before putting them on the auction. Then they only came back only if something was broken or to undertake disciplinary actions. By making the Moles not just builders by Gentils Organisateurs, you have a recipe for burnout. Some new CEO will come in and see all the staff agida and the resident population rioting and will order everyone back into their cubicles, as happened before.

While respecting customer demands is really great progress for Linden Lab, you can't make living areas by committee. Even in a real city with democracy, there's a limit to what elected officials can do and the forces of big business and politics play a role. So it seems like you are introducing another complicated governance problem, giving residents a veto on what kind of moulding the stairways contain.

As Raph Koster or any perceptive game designer can tell you, customers burn through content and there's a limit to how much that dynamic can always be fed and at some point they have to make their own game with what they have.

Of course if these critiques and disappointments all lead to Bellisserians becoming so unhappy with uniform construction that they go back to the Mainland and build themselves for a change, or buy prefabs with more variation, I could only welcome that development because Bellisseria should not eat the world. There should be a balance.

There's also the problem of creating "Newbrooke" when you didn't solve the problem of where "Meadowbrooke" is going to go. Is it going to be deleted? Yes or no? Are the old Linden homes going to be consolidated? Are people going to be given 30 days or 60 days to move, as they were with adult venues in M when Zindra was created? Until this piece of it is solved, there can't be closure and invidious comparisons are going to be made. If people liked the Meadowbrookes so much, they would still be in them, but they didn't, and moved out of them, raising the very issue of how they may have to be deleted.

 

You bring up so many good points! I feel like the feedback part should have happened way earlier than at the reveal. The lindens chose charity expos like the Christmas expo to give them exposure, and now the whole reveal is interrupted. I’m not sure if decorating reveal homes is the way to go. We want to see the homes and imagine our stuff in it, not walk through someone else’s dream. 

[Maitimo]

3 minutes ago, yestothis said:

 I feel like the feedback part should have happened way earlier than at the reveal. 

That's kinda... not really possible, because until the reveal has happened there's nothing for anyone to give feedback on.

Unless you want Patch to select a secret group of "FIC" reviewers who get to see the homes before anyone else does? I certainly don't want that.

[yestothis]

Just now, Maitimo said:

That's kinda... not really possible, because until the reveal has happened there's nothing for anyone to give feedback on.

Unless you want Patch to select a secret group of "FIC" reviewers who get to see the homes before anyone else does? I certainly don't want that.

Surely the moles can give team feedback. Some are residents with successful stores so they know what residents want. 

[Maitimo]

Just now, yestothis said:

Surely the moles can give team feedback. Some are residents with successful stores so they know what residents want. 

But it's the moles who are building it in the first place. Every Quality Control analyst knows not to rely on feedback from the team that created the product. 

[Sparkely Sugar]

This is totally what I envision when you say modern, container style homes. This is beautifully done, and there is a clear aesthetic here. the styling, textures and detailing match the period. Clean lines, spacious floor plan, open windows. I also do not understand why we can not have smaller houses on the 1024 parcel. Not everyone wants a huge house, which we do not have enough prims to decorate with. I love my Linden homes but less rooms open floor plans are what I want. I am perfectly happy with 3 or 4 rooms max. I know some want bigger houses, but can we not have a middle ground where 2 are large and 2 are small?

Edited December 8, 2021 by Sparkely Sugar

[Daniel Voyager]

Linden Reveal region still offline as of 1.40am SLT on Wednesday 8th December 2021. 

There is only six days left until the expo ends. I wonder if the lab/moles will have a demo region going after the expo has finished with the new changes ?

[Marianne Little]

After xxx pictures of Trompe Loeil, can we agree that Cory Edo is not a secret mole?

LL and the moles have eyes, they have seen what people buy of modern houses and decided on what we get. LL does not want everyone to live in a LH anyway, it cost money to have vast land areas that is not Bellisseria and some must live there to pay for that cost. So I think they settle for something like this.

[Marianne Little]

16 minutes ago, Daniel Voyager said:

Linden Reveal region still offline as of 1.40am SLT on Wednesday 8th December 2021. 

There is only six days left until the expo ends. I wonder if the lab/moles will have a demo region going after the expo has finished with the new changes ?

They have done it before? I am 99% sure that the Stilt demo region was opened again.

[Hedy Heartsong]

2 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

After xxx pictures of Trompe Loeil, can we agree that Cory Edo is not a secret mole?

 

Yes, at least I do. 

[arabellajones]

I don't have strong feelings about the theme, and the echoing of the old Meadowbrook style. Looked at as architecture, all the themes feel like American fakery and speculative building. I moved from one of the old Tahoe homes to a Chalet home. The change from prim tech to mesh could be a driver for this theme, and could make for other themes, but will we ever see the big numbers? I'd be unsurprised by an echoing of the Tahoe theme, it's still American, but can Linden Lab ever get away from an American feel again?

As a matter of architecture, Linden Homes are always going to be awkward, echoing Pete Seeger's "Little Boxes". It's inevitable, in essence it is mass-production, nearer to an apartment block than individual constructions. And headline architecture is going to be closer to Falling Water, a unique product for a single customer. But the water and the overhangs, it suggests possibilities for a future theme.

[Matthieu Quander]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There's also the problem of creating "Newbrooke" when you didn't solve the problem of where "Meadowbrooke" is going to go. Is it going to be deleted? Yes or no? Are the old Linden homes going to be consolidated? Are people going to be given 30 days or 60 days to move, as they were with adult venues in M when Zindra was created? Until this piece of it is solved, there can't be closure and invidious comparisons are going to be made. If people liked the Meadowbrookes so much, they would still be in them, but they didn't, and moved out of them, raising the very issue of how they may have to be deleted.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

What does creating Newbrooke have to do with what happens to the four legacy Linden Home region groupings?  Why exactly do they need to decide what happens to those regions before creating new Bellisseria content?  SOME people have moved out of Meadowbrooke and the other old homes, but they are surprisingly still very populated.  Some is by choice.  Some is due to not being aware that Bellisseria exists.  Some is due to apathy.  This is not news to you, as you have made these very points in other threads. 

It may have been the original plan for Bellisseria to be a replacement for the old Linden Homes regions, but as I have previously pointed out, sometimes plans change.  It may still happen, but it's clearly not happening anytime soon. 

There is high demand for Linden Homes in Bellisseria, so it makes sense for LL to focus on that.  There is also still at least some demand for the old Linden Homes, which makes it easy to defer any decisions on what to do with them to a later date.  Once we stop seeing legacy homes as an available option on the land page, then we can assume they will be phased out or repurposed.  

Edited December 8, 2021 by Matthieu Quander

[Patch Linden]

1 hour ago, Matthieu Quander said:

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

What does creating Newbrooke have to do with what happens to the four legacy Linden Home region groupings?  Why exactly do they need to decide what happens to those regions before creating new Bellisseria content?  SOME people have moved out of Meadowbrooke and the other old homes, but they are surprisingly still very populated.  Some is by choice.  Some is due to not being aware that Bellisseria exists.  Some is due to apathy.  This is not news to you, as you have made these very points in other threads. 

It may have been the original plan for Bellisseria to be a replacement for the old Linden Homes regions, but as I have previously pointed out, sometimes plans change.  It may still happen, but it's clearly not happening anytime soon. 

There is high demand for Linden Homes in Bellisseria, so it makes sense for LL to focus on that.  There is also still at least some demand for the old Linden Homes, which makes it easy to defer any decisions on what to do with them to a later date.  Once we stop seeing legacy homes as an available option on the land page, then we can assume they will be phased out or repurposed.  

The old homes will be phased out and/or repurposed.  I've never hidden this fact, what I don't know yet is timing.  There is a balance I have to strike on available new Linden Homes vs the old and having enough supply to meet the demand of shutting down the old homes (also, blend of available themes to choose from).  I have also contemplated keeping some of the old because it tickles my historian bones, some of the various community center or landmark places with the old homes will be preserved.  Largely though, those regions will be shut down when the time is optimal. 

[Evangeline Arcadia]

16 minutes ago, Patch Linden said:

  I have also contemplated keeping some of the old because it tickles my historian bones, some of the various community center or landmark places with the old homes will be preserved. 

I've been hoping for this! Some of the communal spaces (parks, community centers) are really nice and I think it would be great to preserve them as a piece of old SL history that is still functional.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Patch Linden said:

I have also contemplated keeping some of the old because it tickles my historian bones, some of the various community center or landmark places with the old homes will be preserved.  Largely though, those regions will be shut down when the time is optimal. 

Delete the lot and create a "model village" park in the new Linden homes with baby versions of the landmarks and all the previous homes. Give away tiny decorative copies of the houses each inside there own little snowglobe.

[Maitimo]

1 hour ago, Patch Linden said:

The old homes will be phased out and/or repurposed.  I've never hidden this fact, what I don't know yet is timing.  There is a balance I have to strike on available new Linden Homes vs the old and having enough supply to meet the demand of shutting down the old homes (also, blend of available themes to choose from).  I have also contemplated keeping some of the old because it tickles my historian bones, some of the various community center or landmark places with the old homes will be preserved.  Largely though, those regions will be shut down when the time is optimal. 

OOH keeping some as a historical build would be an awesome idea, even if they're no longer available to choose as a home. Even if its just one or two regions for each theme, with the community areas,  I would love to see them preserved.

"Look, kids, this is the kind of house we used to have. And we had to walk there and back barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways".  

Edited December 8, 2021 by Maitimo

[Abnor Mole]

3 hours ago, arabellajones said:

echoing Pete Seeger's "Little Boxes"

I always preferred Malvina Reynolds' version myself.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

I am excited to see the re-release.  I keep thinking that the decision to unveil a neighborhood of all white houses was an artistic decision that the rest of us just didn't get.  Individuality is important to residents even in a themed covenanted area, so adding some color will change the uniform feel.

I spent some time looking up container homes because I wasn't familiar with the style and didn't have any idea where the inspiration came from.  While I do wish I could have the smaller 512 house on a 1024  parcel, I am excited to try one of these out and to see what others do with it.  It will be a challenge (for me) to create an outdoor landscape that stays within the theme of this more modern and clean style.  Something to think about for the weeks or months before the real release.

Bring on some color and individuality.  I want to see it!

Edited December 8, 2021 by Cinnamon Mistwood