Oooo a New Shiny. Event Regions - What do you think of this?

[Crim Mip]

One of these would be great for that rare large event, but I can't see anyone wanting or needing one long term. There are very few venues in SL that could take advantage of one of these on a regular basis. I'm not sure it would even pay if you got one and rented it by the day to others to use for events. They are priced too high for the actual utility they offer even at the intro price.

[Nalates Urriah]

Consider that past anticipated large events used four regions, which gave enough computer power for ~200 avatars. And things were pretty laggy.

So one $900 region for 200 peps is sort of a deal.

 

[Mercedes Avon]

I am on the fence about this. I will never have need for one of these regions but someone might. I think the thing I'm stuck on is that it appeals to only a very select few SL premium residents. I suppose I might benefit from it as a shopper and that is nice, but the price seems crazy high to me. Events will have to charge more per booth and I can see that higher booth price being passed on to the consumer. No, thank you.

I would be much more excited it they came up with affordable options for the regular folks of SL and didn't cater only to the high-rollers. Homesteads without needing a full region would be a nice start. Ultimately, little sims - the size of a quarter sim with 1250LI & a 1/4 the price that matches - would make my year.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

3 minutes ago, Mercedes Avon said:

 

I would be much more excited it they came up with affordable options for the regular folks of SL and didn't cater only to the high-rollers. Homesteads without needing a full region would be a nice start. Ultimately, little sims - the size of a quarter sim with 1250LI & a 1/4 the price that matches - would make my year.

Side effect to that is and used to be with openspace sims, people went nuts, LL ran out of space for them,  so they capped it like it is now.   aws is another animal and can get costly depending on how their aws configuration is too,  LL is already paying more for the aws setup than they were for their physical setup in arizona,  so there is that to think about before they go about rolling anything out that people would like,  whats the bottom line cost and will they start dipping into the black on what's being brought in too.

[Mercedes Avon]

17 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Side effect to that is and used to be with openspace sims, people went nuts, LL ran out of space for them,  so they capped it like it is now.   aws is another animal and can get costly depending on how their aws configuration is too,  LL is already paying more for the aws setup than they were for their physical setup in arizona,  so there is that to think about before they go about rolling anything out that people would like,  whats the bottom line cost and will they start dipping into the black on what's being brought in too.

That makes perfect sense and not something I considered as an average SL consumer. 

[Qie Niangao]

I doubt I’ll get an answer to my technical question about texture-loading lag, so I’ll opine on pricing like everybody else: For most SL events, the pricing makes sense for between four hours and a week. If there were some way to gracefully shift an event from one of these sims back down to a normal full region host, without loosing landmark/SLURL addressing and with at most a restart, I could see it being a product that big Estates could timeshare-out at a profit.

As much as we may say we can just wait ‘til the crowds die down, SL shopping is pure impulse buying and waiting equals lost sales. There’s opportunity here, but a month-long term doesn’t correspond to high-volume demand for any SL event I’ve ever attended. Maybe that’s just my personal SL attention span, though.

[Tary Allen]

8 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

I find the timing impeccable. LL stated last Web meeting they wanted to roll out Premium Plus before the end of May and were going to announce what we'd be getting with the feature in tomorrow's Web meeting.

Now I see that that meeting has been cancelled.

Does this also mean that Premium Plus' planned rollout for this month has also been cancelled?

Is this new "shiny" and its insane pricing being used as a final gauge of public interest before they commit to an equally insane Premium Plus price?

 

And this is what I'm also thinking, LL is talking about Plus for 2 years more or less now. Yes, the time was not the best, economy and COVID, so delayed, now really I don't know why, (I saw the  video of the web meeting and listened to what was said, still doesn't justify all these delays).

In the meantime a shiny and very expensive thing is announced. Doesn't really matter to most of SL residents, only a few will buy  a region 900 USD month. It will matter most outside SL, trying to bring big corporations inworld again I guess, and that is good.

But also can be the beggining of a trend in increased prices, a lot.  If this applies to plus or even the normal premium (will there be a raise in price?) it concerns us all.

 

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, Mercedes Avon said:

That makes perfect sense and not something I considered as an average SL consumer. 

I have my hand in a few things and lots of it deals with AWS,  it's got some good pricing, but at the levels LL are at, it's a bit up there in terms of price, so LL has to off set that and half of the populace of SL will never understand it at all, they love to come around and try to fight LL or beg LL for pricing for the bottom tier, which if LL wants to stay in business and keep their shareholders and owner happy,  they will do what's best for them and pass off what they can to us the consumer.

[Marianne Little]

LL can take what prices they want, we are hooked up.

I think land for us ordinary people is too expensive, I will never even think about paying this price. Or the tier for an ordinary region. Even a stand alone homestead would be difficult to pay as my RL economy is what it is.

But those who can afford it, LL will see if it sells, or if stores continue to have a region and a cam region.

Market it against RL conferences... well, that would be good for LL.

I doubt us riffraff will be offered lower prices if it is a huge success. We stick to our 1024 or 4098 and pay the prices as it is. And shop as we do. So LL gets its due as it is now, even if they sell 0 Event Regions.

Covid and many who lost their RL income as a result, did not make LL loose customers, did it?

[Phil Deakins]

5 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

As far as "White glove concierge service" Shouldn't everyone get that?

All paying customers, yes. But LL has never shown any interest in helping those who pay them. Amazon, on the other hand, is customer-centric par excellence. Total chalk and cheese between the two. Amazon gets my money very frequently, but LL stopped getting it a very very long time ago, and it's their own fault.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Phil Deakins

[Rowan Amore]

Most of the cam regions are homesteads anyway and not full regions so less.than $500/month for 1 full and 2 homesteads or $900 for an elite region.  

3 different events opened recently.  Anthem, Level and Fasmeshed.  I got into all 3 on the first day, first try.  This idea might have been great a few years ago but not today.  The weekend and weekday sales have taken over IMO.  

I get it.  They're trying to find ways to generate income.  They're just a little too late on this one.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Rowan Amore

[Marianne Little]

6 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Most of the cam regions are homesteads anyway and not full regions so less.than $500/month for 1 full and 2 homesteads or $900 for an elite region.  

3 different events opened recently.  Anthem, Level and Fasmeshed.  I got into all 3 on the first day, first try.  This idea might have been great a few years ago but not today.  The weekend and weekday sales have taken over IMO.  

I get it.  They're trying to find ways to generate income.  They're just a little too late on this one.

Isn't Fameshead filled with gifts this round? You should think it was difficult to get in. I heard Anthem had so-called "gifts" for 50L, so I doubt the event will be stormed by freebie hunters.

[Rowan Amore]

8 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Isn't Fameshead filled with gifts this round? You should think it was difficult to get in. I heard Anthem had so-called "gifts" for 50L, so I doubt the event will be stormed by freebie hunters.

I was there, first day on a cam region.  One try to get in.  I wasn't even aware at the time that it was an anniversary round.  Same thing with Anthem.  Got right in twice.  Grabbed demos, went home, went back and made a few purchases.

[Qie Niangao]

7 hours ago, Tary Allen said:

But also can be the beggining of a trend in increased prices, a lot.  If this applies to plus or even the normal premium (will there be a raise in price?) it concerns us all.

There are a couple ways this could go, and I think I'm more concerned with a scenario where they keep prices the same but gradually reduce the resources allotted to non-super-premium-event uses until only those pricier options are acceptable, especially as user expectations increase.

Script performance improved quite appreciably a few months ago, for all of us. I hope such improvements continue (and aren't reversed).

[Sid Nagy]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

Most of the cam regions are homesteads anyway and not full regions so less.than $500/month for 1 full and 2 homesteads or $900 for an elite region.  

3 different events opened recently.  Anthem, Level and Fasmeshed.  I got into all 3 on the first day, first try.  This idea might have been great a few years ago but not today.  The weekend and weekday sales have taken over IMO.  

I get it.  They're trying to find ways to generate income.  They're just a little too late on this one.

you might think they did some research before they put it in the market.
And besides, they already use these sims for their own events like the birthdays, as Patch pointed out.
So nothing much lost if they don't sell like crazy. The technique is available.
Even if LL only leases out one event region a month extra, they make several thousand dollars a year.

[Luna Bliss]

19 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I just don't get why people are getting mad, if they can't afford it. They just don't get it. 

Well I think some who get mad about the direction or expenditures of LL are viewing SL as a community they belong to and so want to have some input. I might roll my eyes at some of the suggestions at times, but overall I like the fact that people feel so passionate about one of their internet homes.

[Claireschen Hesten]

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

Isn't Fameshead filled with gifts this round? You should think it was difficult to get in.

I don't think it is, people were slamming the lack of gifts (compared to Cosmo's current anniversary round) and the approach they took for this anniversary round in their group

[Katherine Heartsong]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

3 different events opened recently.  Anthem, Level and Fasmeshed.  I got into all 3 on the first day, first try.  This idea might have been great a few years ago but not today.  The weekend and weekday sales have taken over IMO.  

The current Fameshed layout bugs me to no end. Grrr.... The angry redhead muttering under her breath there is me.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Katherine Heartsong

[Coffee Pancake]

12 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Consider that past anticipated large events used four regions, which gave enough computer power for ~200 avatars. And things were pretty laggy.

So one $900 region for 200 peps is sort of a deal.

 

Yeah .... 

But when we visit the ultra busy events that these new regions would be good for .. we derender everyone so we can have frames (plural) per second.

So why spend the extra to have all those extra avatars in one place, it guarantees no one will see anyone else, and anyone on the Linden's own client is just doomed as they can't derender and the 512mb texture cap will max out long before anything has rezzed.

Which then brings us neatly to the other elephant in the room. 1 fancy event region or 3 regular regions .. it's not even a contest in terms of resources for your $$, the only caveats are you can't jam everyone onto the same dance floor (or whatever) and local chat is limited (like we all talk in huge groups in local chat ever anyway).

If performance events are really your ideal use case, 3 regular regions and a homestead for the performers arranged in a 2x2 grid would be my budget goto (but really, if you're dropping a grand, what's having 4 full regions). At least that way if one host goes down mid party you don't lose the entire party.

 

SL is exceptionally bad when it comes to stacking a lot of people in one place, and it's not really a server side issue, the client's ability to cope with the avatar load sinks your battle ship long before the region cap.

You could use ARC to try and police avatar complexity, but that creates a revolving door where the region is spending all it's time loading and unloading avatars

 

Instancing as offered here isn't really what we need for event's either (or really instancing), we need the ability to have one region set into a "pool" mode where new instances are seamlessly spun up and down based on live demand. Incoming visitors entering a single region location are balance between all those in the pool with some care given to keeping friends together. It's important to note that an instance isn't a copy, it's a separate region sharing the same grid location and live asset database. 

Take the use case of a shopping event as an example, there is a huge surge in people wanting to visit at the start and that drops off rather quickly over the course of the month.

1 regular region with a pool mode threshold of 30. Once 30 people hit a second instance is silently spun up server side and incoming visitors start getting balanced between the 2 regions with a deliberate effort made to route people to the instance with their friends (and the ability for users to switch instance when it gets it wrong, and it will). The system should prioritize pool usage to keep regions at the threshold and spin down excess instances.

Billing should be time based where you only pay for the extra pool mode capacity when you are actually using it, rather than provisioning an entire month based on expected peak usage for the first week.

 

"Instancing" as offered here is little more than a time saving region clone where you can build one event region and then have it rubber stamped onto a second (at full price!).

The only use case I see where this makes any commercial sense is for live performances with "real world" ticket prices, and not to sound cynical, is the exact same pony Sansar demonstrated was not something people actually care for.

 

There seems to be a fundamental misconception inside LL about why we do the things we do. A shopping event or a music venue isn't an end in of itself. Attending such things is simply a means to an entirely separate and entirely social end.

[Gwin LeShelle]

The world: Ugh recession.

LL: Hold my beer XD 

 

But it's for events so yeah, especially when they market it to RL companies etc. I bet they could even take more from those. I know some event owners in SL only involved are pretty cheap XD so not sure how good those will sell to them, but then again I really have no clue at all what those are paying atm for a region, I always found the region pricing list rather confusing and way overpriced, so I never payed that much attention to it to be honest.

But here's hope that they also work on cheaper regions for the non event spaces then x3 ...and pigs fly...

Btw I saw the "large event live test" happening...the region crashed horribly so I hope they have fixed that x3 

I totally understand LL wanting their slice of the metaverse hype cake, they surely deserve it I mean they were there almost 2 decades while others just laughed at them and now? Still nothing like the grid out there but maybe they should finally work on decent prices for the normal user and fill those endless empty voids of mainland again. I'd die to see the mainland as colorful and busy again as it once was. 

Make us stay, make us decorate your grid, make us pay ...SL is still alive because of a community which was willing to pay for virtual goods long before others trusted online things like this, and we still surely pay alot (because we vain decoration Freaks) for this hobby and I love it. But don't try to come at me with ridiculous pricing like this. I don't complain paying taxes or fees on every L purchase but I surely won't ever buy more than a parcel at those prices.

I want to meet people again, while exploring so dang it it can't be that hard to make people come back or make them buy land for the first time even, you guys had 20 years to watch us and you know what we want, because this community was always loud and clear. 

finally start utilizing that advantage you have above all the other new "metaverse" things popping up left and right.

BIt instead working on offering more LI or how to attract the common user they again just focus on the small field yes 900 bucks is not small but how many of those will sell?

They tend to make the 3rd step before the first and second like usual xP 

same with the last names...instead offering more names and not only weird seasonal ones for a price like 20 or 25 dollars or as premium benefit like one change included once a year or so to drag more premiums that keep staying premium longer than the one month needed for the name change...nope they chose to punch us in the face with 40 bucks plus vat and heyyy get premium...this sells of course but they this could sell also more! They never seem to eye the long run they always focus on a sprint.

...or crazy thought *sarcasm on* fix things like the search...because no need for new regions of we can't find them XD 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by Gwin LeShelle

[Chris Corvinus]

Yo Linden Lab, your greed is showing. Those prices are unreal. What are you even using the money for??? You ditched Sansar and the mobile app. It's not like you're creating anything new. Seriously, sky high prices for a region that you even admitted would have degraded performance over 20k? 

Horrible deal. 

[Maryanne Solo]

LL deserves all the kudos and profit that the originator of metaverses might command, but not from US. We've already shouldered the burden of cost for SL's duration.
The world is now their oyster, longterm devotees should not be lumped into that same ocean though. 

[Chris Corvinus]

On 5/3/2022 at 10:15 AM, Patch Linden said:

Since the cat is out of the bag as they say, yes, most extremely large scale events have been running on them internally for around a year now, a lot of time and testing went in to this.  Meet the Lindens at SLB, some of the Shop and Hop events, various other events of importance happening around the grid if we knew about them might have found themselves on the hosts specifically purposed for events regions.

Oh really. Ive been to quite a few Shop and Hop events and the lag is beyond horrible. I have to always set my preferences to friends only to move. Mind you, I have a Ryzen 9 // RTX 2070 SUPER // 32 gig ram desktop.

The problem is your program only takes a single core and doesn't utilize any modern hardware whatsoever. 

I'm being critical because I do enjoy SL but I think your focus is in the wrong area. 

Edited May 4, 2022 by Chris Nova

[Paul Hexem]

5 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

There seems to be a fundamental misconception inside LL about why we do the things we do.

Linden Lab has been 20 years behind since 1999. Why do we always seem to think they're suddenly going to get a clue every time they roll out some new feature that the rest of the Internet had decades ago (and did it better decades ago, too)?

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Paul Hexem said:

Linden Lab has been 20 years behind since 1999. Why do we always seem to think they're suddenly going to get a clue every time they roll out some new feature that the rest of the Internet had decades ago (and did it better decades ago, too)?

I don't think that they don't have a clue, just that when viewed though the business lens of platform growth, things like fancy beefcake regions are easier to break down, cost and measure ROI. 

They also aren't typically social in SL, so perhaps don't really appreciate the tooling required to ramp up that side of the offering. What's it like to have a couple hundred fiends who name's change from one week to the next, or manage membership of over 50 active groups, find your friends, find what's going on right now, bridge the gap between text chat and meaningful emotional investment, navigate the world with half the screen covered in chat and friend floaters, struggle with UI that's locked to the frame rate of the world and so on ... get actual work done in SL.

 

Do they use slack or some other chat system internally? Do they prefer video calls and zoom meetings? Phone calls and sms?

Dog food days* are all well and good, but they don't inspire the same kind of understanding as dog food month after month. The only way they gain that perspective is by mandating all staff (from the very top all the way down) to use SL as provided day to day for all their regular work needs. It's going to be brutal, but it will drive a dramatic improvement in those tools pretty quickly.

 

* Eating your own dog food is a phrase that refers to the internal use of a company's own products or services in its day-to-day operations. The idea is that if the product is good enough for consumers, it is good enough for its employees to use on the job.