Increase Prim Limit on Linden Land?

[Marianne Little]

2 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

As an example of what is possible with the limited number of prims available for Linden Homes, here's my example of a stilt home on water. I still have 54 prims available after doing my deco.

With those 54 prims I can rez a boat or if my home was actually on land that would leave me enough prims to have a little garden.

It is also the difference between a small Linden Home and the biggest one. I think the Log Cabin shown in the OP is the biggest you can get, with 3 floors.

It would be really hard to have that huge log house furnished in every room and have enough left for a garden. 

[Blush Bravin]

Just now, Marianne Little said:

It is also the difference between a small Linden Home and the biggest one. I think the Log Cabin shown in the OP is the biggest you can get, with 3 floors.

It would be really hard to have that huge log house furnished in every room and have enough left for a garden. 

I agree with some of the really largest homes you have to be super creative. I have in fact blocked off complete rooms when necessary. But even with those huge homes if you shop carefully and are super mindful of prims you can decorate them nicely including a nice garden. But you also have to keep in mind that oftentimes less is more. We don't have to fill every nook and cranny to have a really nicely decorated home.

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Blush Bravin said:

I may be wrong, but my take on Patch calling them starter homes, is not meant to say they are not adequate in themselves as there are many who settle into one and make it their home for the foreseeable future. I think more what he is saying is if a Linden Home does not meet your needs then there are many other avenues to find homes that will fit your needs. So in that regard a Linden Home may be a starter for some and a forever home for others.

 

The part I bolded is primarily what I meant, explained better in my previous post on page 1:

18 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Remember what Patch says:

(my interpretation of his meaning):
The Linden Homes are designed to be starter homes.  If they are not meeting your needs and you are wanting more (options, LI, etc..) there is a VAST SL world out there.  Many places to create your own perfect home.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

Calling them starter homes misses the point .. yes, they do obviously tick that box, but they are also about community, real or imagined. There are other houses (just like yours) and other people (just like you) and other things going on (that you could be doing), even if you don't participate, that familiarity beyond your own walls is the secret sauce that's made Belli a runaway success.

With mainland you lose that. More land for more primbs, more space between people, vistas that haven't changed in a decade and some idiot with 50m privacy walls, you will see other people from time to time .. but they aren't going to be your friend.

A neighbor moving in isn't a exciting opportunity to meet someone new, it's an existential threat to everything you have worked to build yourself .. and then they rez a skyscraper, or worse. Sucks to be you. So you move to a private island or homestead with some basic rules and peaceful isolation.

 

 

[Feorie Frimon]

17 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

Yes but I was simply going off what a resident's cost was AND you failed to consider what the costs of those regions are. It's just not plopping down a region and calling it a day. They have to create everything in the region, landscape the region and hire staff to provide support $1,013 per year doesn't even pay a salary for one person for a month.  Possibly 2 weeks if they are making $17/hour. That's one person per region for 2 weeks pay for a whole year to do all that work.  

Face it. We are getting a bargain. You can't hardly buy one month of one streaming service for $8.25/month let alone a monthly subscription to a game.  The sims online was more than that when it was at it's peak.

I considered them, I just didn’t include them. I assume there are tons of extra costs - server fees, employees, employee insurance, etc. 

We have no way of knowing what those costs are for the Lab.  It was just -quick- math to illustrate the point that the Linden Homes are indeed a bargain for the Resident as well as THE money maker for Linden Labs. 

[Quistess Alpha]

Another prim-saving trick I'll share: I just bought a few furnishing sets for my new house, and I noticed the seller had linked small invisible cubes to a lot of items so as to change the creator name to themself rather than the full-perm creator they're reselling in the set (a common practice), removing the cubes can on occasion lower a 2li piece of decor down to a 1li item. If you're strapped for prims, investigating every piece and seeing if there are any invisible cubes or built-in shadows you can do without is worth the effort.

[Hunny Bunny]

If you have to be creative with decorating these "starter homes" is something that someone who's new to SL would even know how to do and is that really premium content?

[Matthieu Quander]

5 hours ago, Hunny Bunny said:

Well, I'm calling bs on this one because for for an extra $30/month you can have an extra 10k prims added to a private estate so technically it's entirely possible.

I should have added the qualifier that assumes no changes are made to the server specifications.  I did mention that they can likely add more LI by throwing money at the issue, but that would still require a lot of work to be completed on the backend.  Also, comparing private estates to Bellisseria regions isn't really fair.  They were built for different purposes and don't have to meet the same criteria.  

I don't have any inside knowledge of such things, and am merely offering an educated guess, so you could be correct that LL could easily add more LI with zero added costs, work hours, or performance tradeoffs, and they they are simply choosing to not do so because they don't want to give us what we want.  

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

46 minutes ago, Hunny Bunny said:

If you have to be creative with decorating these "starter homes" is something that someone who's new to SL would even know how to do and is that really premium content?

No a newbie will not know this and yes it's both premium and free content.  Learning a new platform and your limitations in it is part of the process.  It is the same in any game or virtual world.  The learning curve for SL is steep.  You may have to put in a tiny bit of effort to learn.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Cinnamon Mistwood
spelling and clarity

[Hunny Bunny]

13 minutes ago, Matthieu Quander said:

Also, comparing private estates to Bellisseria regions isn't really fair.

How so, is one somehow inferior to the other? Is it made of lesser stuff? I thought it was all digital, 1's and 0's ... Yes or No. Yes it comes with added expense for region owners but it is just changing a variable on the backend. It could be from 20,000 to 30,000 or even 50,000 and sure there could be a performance hit but is that really server side or is that viewer side? I ask because if these are "starter homes" as so many suggest are they in fact inferior to mainland or private regions and if so is that where you want to put the people who are new to the game to learn?

[Nika Talaj]

3 minutes ago, Hunny Bunny said:

I ask because if these are "starter homes" as so many suggest are they in fact inferior to mainland or private regions and if so is that where you want to put the people who are new to the game to learn?

Wut. I think it makes perfect sense to start folks who are fairly new to SL (or at least new to Premium) in one of several styles of nice-looking neighborhoods, where they are gifted their choice of decent-looking prefabs, flooded with information about interesting places to go (and where to get freebies or buy cool content}, encouraged to join groups and  activities, pick up free vehicles and go exploring, where they can chatter endlessly all day if they want with people who are totally willing to answer newbie questions about where they live, etc.

Inferiority is in the eyes of the beholder.  IMHO, someone who has a vision of what exactly they want to create in SL will find LH's too restrictive.  Someone who is mostly here for SLex may not be completely comfortable in Belli.  Someone who wants to experiment with SL commerce will need land elsewhere.  Someone who wants to goof around and play pranks (totally valid second life ambition, lol) may have more fun elsewhere.

Someone who doesn't know what SL is all about and is willing to spend some time relaxing in a peaceful, escapist forest or beach or private home of their very own while they learn,  ahhhh, welcome to Belli.

[Matthieu Quander]

14 minutes ago, Hunny Bunny said:

How so, is one somehow inferior to the other? Is it made of lesser stuff? I thought it was all digital, 1's and 0's ... Yes or No. Yes it comes with added expense for region owners but it is just changing a variable on the backend. It could be from 20,000 to 30,000 or even 50,000 and sure there could be a performance hit but is that really server side or is that viewer side? I ask because if these are "starter homes" as so many suggest are they in fact inferior to mainland or private regions and if so is that where you want to put the people who are new to the game to learn?

Yes, it is all 1s and 0s, which as you noted aren't free. 

"Starter homes" is a term that has been used by LL, but I'm pretty sure that they realize that most Premium Homes are owned by people who have been in SL for years. 

Is your gripe that Bellisseria isn't noob-friendly?  I don't see how mainland or private regions are any less daunting to someone just starting out, but I'm happy to take your word for it and continue enjoying Bellisseria, in spite of the fact that it doesn't meet all of anyone's wish list.  

 

[Matthieu Quander]

Here's an example of what can be done with a log home with the limited LI.  It's not the Mountaineer, but it does technically have a 3rd floor.   http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Brichester/15/231/55

[Hunny Bunny]

45 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Inferiority is in the eyes of the beholder

That is why it was a question. A question you did not answer.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Hunny Bunny

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, Hunny Bunny said:

If you have to be creative with decorating these "starter homes" is something that someone who's new to SL would even know how to do and is that really premium content?

There are so many things that new folks have to learn.  There is no time that is better than any other for learning, especially when it comes to learning about good mesh versus bad mesh.  Since all of SL is user made content, it is best if ones learns that stuff sooner rather than later. 

[Orka Kiyori]

1 hour ago, Matthieu Quander said:

Here's an example of what can be done with a log home with the limited LI.  It's not the Mountaineer, but it does technically have a 3rd floor.   http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Brichester/15/231/55

THATS BEAUTIFUL!!! 

[Orka Kiyori]

7 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

It is also the difference between a small Linden Home and the biggest one. I think the Log Cabin shown in the OP is the biggest you can get, with 3 floors.

It would be really hard to have that huge log house furnished in every room and have enough left for a garden. 

I love this one too

[Nick0678]

1 hour ago, Matthieu Quander said:

 

Glad that this is Second Life so no people/animals are harmed after falling from balconies that lack railings..

[Matthieu Quander]

2 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

Glad that this is Second Life so no people/animals are harmed after falling from balconies that lack railings..

Me too.  That way I don't spend LI on something that is only going to block my view.  

[Maitimo]

They absolutely cannot raise the number of prims per region on Bellisseria. It's already laggy enough, imagine how much worse it would be if everyone could add double the amount of unoptimized mesh to their parcels. It would be impossible to move.

The only other way would be to remove all of the landscaping between the homes. No trees, no roads, no nice community areas. Just bare land everywhere.  

[Hunny Bunny]

41 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

They absolutely cannot raise the number of prims per region on Bellisseria. It's already laggy enough, imagine how much worse it would be if everyone could add double the amount of unoptimized mesh to their parcels. It would be impossible to move.

How so? It's not at all laggy now.

[Blush Bravin]

I think part of the problem here is focusing on the term "starter home" and trying to make it mean inferior or that it's somehow only meant for those new to SL. Perhaps a mind shift is needed.

People new to SL end up all over the grid. Is SL a challenge to learn? Why yes, it is. For me that is part of the fun. I like a challenge. I don't want everything handed to me on a silver platter. I want to work for it. I want my brain challenged every day so that it stays active and young. So for me the learning curve is a feature not a problem.

One thing I can attest to though is that when I've had neighbors who are new to SL I go out of my way to help them with those challenges. I personally believe that happens all the time around Belli. Belli is populated with lots of people who have been in SL for years and years. What a great place to get introduced to this virtual world!

I have to agree with the statement that adding to the prim allowance for Belli would just add more lag. It might be an easy engineering task to just up that allowance, but just because you can doesn't mean you should. I personally think it would be a mini disaster.

[Coffee Pancake]

7 hours ago, Maitimo said:

They absolutely cannot raise the number of prims per region on Bellisseria. It's already laggy enough, imagine how much worse it would be if everyone could add double the amount of unoptimized mesh to their parcels. It would be impossible to move.

 

Rezzed objects aren't the cause of SL's poor performance, however the frame rate will take a beating while it's loading all the stuff in .. the more stuff, the longer that's going to take. Made worse by the viewer not being great at handling things you can't see directly. 

The rendering part is the quick part, fetching and decoding an object and its textures isn't - not because the viewer is waiting around for the stuff to download, but because it takes time to process that data once it has it. It's going as fast as possible and doing it's best. Just not being as smart as it could be.

Better object occlusion and prioritizing the stuff you can actually see and object density related problems do just go away for the most part (eg, the viewer should just ignore objects behind walls, or at least leave them till last). This is a solvable problem and one I hope to see the lab tackle more this year.

 

Rezzed mesh objects aren't unoptimized. The max detail model is usually ok, the lower detail models are over optimized because the creator is trying to get the Li down to something they feel is acceptable. This is why objects turn to junk as soon as you step away from them (or vanish completely). It's hard to have a better optimized mesh than one with so few triangles it's literally invisible.

A better optimized mesh would have more complicated LOD models, be more expensive to render and have a higher Li.

 

Avatars on the other hand .. There are no constraints on how complex your avatar can be, this rarely results in insanely complicated individual meshes, but because there is no need to hit a Li target, the LOD models don't need to be particularly aggressive (plenty of creators don't even bother with them at all). In the grand scheme of things this is only slightly bad.

The real kicker comes when the avatar needs to be animated. Each rigged mesh is it's own unique special baby and has to be animated individually (games tend to combine meshes into a single mesh and then animate that, but that's not really possible with SL because we can all have different bodies).

Animating a mesh isn't all that slow, but when an avatar has 15 meshes, it (unsurprisingly) takes about 15 times longer to complete the avatar. If you have 10 avatars with 15 meshes each .. well that's about 150 times longer.

This is done as a priority by the viewer (because avatars not animating correctly is far more noticeable than stuff not loading a fraction of a second faster)

Basically, time spent on this step eats into the time available to fetch data and process textures and everything else, so SL slows to a crawl in a crowd.

 

tl;dr SL is a very complex beasty made from many systems, mesh on it's own (good or bad) is rarely responsible for performance woes, rendering is only a tiny part of the loop that has to happen every frame, and if SL was a game and we didn't need to do all the other stuff, it would be stupid fast .. even with all the amateur content. But then it wouldn't be SL

[heartzwhim]

On 12/31/2021 at 6:29 PM, Nick0678 said:

Glad that this is Second Life so no people/animals are harmed after falling from balconies that lack railings..

I loooooove the fireplace, may I please ask where its from? Been looking forever for just the right one.

[Nick0678]

42 minutes ago, heartzwhim said:

I loooooove the fireplace, may I please ask where its from? Been looking forever for just the right one.

Yes you can.