How does Horizons Fit Into Mainland?

[Teresa Firelight]

I had always assumed that Horizons was its own mainland continent. But I dont see it listed as such on LL's Wiki (List Of Continents - Second Life Wiki). But on the other hand, I dont see Bellisseria listed either, so maybe the wiki is just old and out of date??

So my question: Is Horizons an SL Continent?

If so, why isnt it listed in the SL Wiki as such? If not, what continent is it a part of, and why is it not connected to it?

[Eowyn Southmoor]

It is connected to Zindra, which makes sense considering Horizons parcels, as far as i know, are all Adult rated regions.

[Teresa Firelight]

ty.. I suppose in a way it makes sense since Zindra and Horizons are both adult. But, in my thinking. continents are physically connected.. and I dont see a physical connection between those two continents, so it is still a bit confusing to me.

 

[Eowyn Southmoor]

Horizons is physically connected to Zindra at the Hoxel Beach and Shell Beach Regions

[Teresa Firelight]

oh... I thought those were oceans separating the continents. I guess it is all in how you interpret it and you have just explained the LL interpretation for me.. .TY

[Abnor Mole]

Horizons is part of the Zindra continent the way Bay City is part of the Sansara continent. 

[animats]

Horizons is strange. It's a successful failure. It's adult, but there are few adult businesses. It has a theme of mid century futurism, but it's not followed very strictly. It has some Linden themed homes, but they're not widely used. Land there is incredibly expensive, but few people go there. It has a big theme park in the middle, used by few.

Right now, in Horizons, there are

• 72 avatars stuck at safe hubs. Mostly bots or lost AFKs. Nobody is chatting or moving.
• 27 in two clubs.
• 29 in various other locations around Horizons.
• 1 in the game / theme park.

Safe hubs need bot decluttering. I've suggested having a Linden experience for safe hubs which detects avatars that don't move or chat for an hour. Just sit them on nearby chairs or benches to get them out of the way. This makes it clear they're not active, but doesn't interfere with ones being used for free phone calls, tiny empires, and such. I have a bench at my place in Vallone scripted to do that as a demo; it's not hard.

[Chic Aeon]

47 minutes ago, animats said:

Horizons is strange. It's a successful failure. It's adult, but there are few adult businesses. It has a theme of mid century futurism, but it's not followed very strictly. It has some Linden themed homes, but they're not widely used. Land there is incredibly expensive, but few people go there. It has a big theme park in the middle, used by few.

 

It was all pretty exciting when it opened == and in retrospect it was a precursor to Belli with the house choices and all.  BUT unlike Belli there was no policing and as you say not much futuristic stuff going on.  It is a good place to rent if you want adult land. Good value for the prim count. That can be said of Bay City too, but Horizons seems to be more consistently inexpensive for rents. 

IF the game in the middle would have taken off like The Realms (original, not current) that might have helped. But when it opened it had lots of issues and never took off. 

 

 

[Teresa Firelight]

I have two parcels in horizons. For me, the draw wasnt the adult rating but:

* double LI

* landscaping around parcels with roads, canals, little parks, etc that just seem more decorative and tidier to me than open mainland

The drawbacks (which were not enough to keep me from having Horizons parcels):

* price .. was outrageous when I bought it 3.5 years ago and now is beyond outrageous. some places are asking over $1500 USD for a single 32x32 virtual parcel.

* you cant terraform or join parcels.

Most of the people around me appear to be in it (renting or owning) for the double LI rather than for the adult rating. I rarely see stuff here that I would consider adult, even though it is permitted.

It is true that you can rez Linden homes here that do not count against your LI allowance, but they are very primitive and poorly done. Few people would want to live in them.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Chic Aeon said:

BUT unlike Belli there was no policing and as you say not much futuristic stuff going on.

At launch it did have a more restrictive covenant I believe.

The big difference is that Horizons was gifted from LL directly into the lands of land barons, who immediately scuppered the entire project in a quest to make profits. This is very much a precursor to Belli and contains most of the same elements.

Much of Horizons is still owned by the same barons and is intentionally held off the market so as to constrain supply and keep the prices artificially high, not to mention the constant shuffling of land between shell groups and other potentially fraudulent "weirdness". None of this is hard to verify or document.

The sad part is people do actually want to live on horizons, both for the double prim land and adult rating, but at L$ 110,000 to get out of bed, it's beyond the reach of regular people.

 

Will we ever get more Horizons land to break the land barons grip on the market and allow prices to normalize ? Nope. 

[Gabriele Graves]

The same thing has happened at Nautilus City, much of the land is now in the hands of large scale rental companies.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Coffee Pancake]

At this point the only correction to the mainland land market would be to prohibit sub letting and rentals, probably with a transition period and sweetener for land holders to migrate that aspect of their business to private estates.

Land as a speculative investment is not a going concern and is in effect held back from the people who actually populate and use the platform, rentals help to justify the on going dead weight.

 

[Aethelwine]

On 7/28/2022 at 3:38 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Aethelwine
Wrong thread

[Aethelwine]

On 7/27/2022 at 7:37 PM, animats said:

Horizons is strange. It's a successful failure. It's adult, but there are few adult businesses. It has a theme of mid century futurism, but it's not followed very strictly. It has some Linden themed homes, but they're not widely used. Land there is incredibly expensive, but few people go there. It has a big theme park in the middle, used by few.

Right now, in Horizons, there are

• 72 avatars stuck at safe hubs. Mostly bots or lost AFKs. Nobody is chatting or moving.
• 27 in two clubs.
• 29 in various other locations around Horizons.
• 1 in the game / theme park.

Safe hubs need bot decluttering. I've suggested having a Linden experience for safe hubs which detects avatars that don't move or chat for an hour. Just sit them on nearby chairs or benches to get them out of the way. This makes it clear they're not active, but doesn't interfere with ones being used for free phone calls, tiny empires, and such. I have a bench at my place in Vallone scripted to do that as a demo; it's not hard.

For zindra they should put afk bots on dance poles

[Prokofy Neva]

On 7/27/2022 at 2:37 PM, animats said:

Horizons is strange. It's a successful failure. It's adult, but there are few adult businesses. It has a theme of mid century futurism, but it's not followed very strictly. It has some Linden themed homes, but they're not widely used. Land there is incredibly expensive, but few people go there. It has a big theme park in the middle, used by few.

Right now, in Horizons, there are

• 72 avatars stuck at safe hubs. Mostly bots or lost AFKs. Nobody is chatting or moving.
• 27 in two clubs.
• 29 in various other locations around Horizons.
• 1 in the game / theme park.

Safe hubs need bot decluttering. I've suggested having a Linden experience for safe hubs which detects avatars that don't move or chat for an hour. Just sit them on nearby chairs or benches to get them out of the way. This makes it clear they're not active, but doesn't interfere with ones being used for free phone calls, tiny empires, and such. I have a bench at my place in Vallone scripted to do that as a demo; it's not hard.

Perhaps the locution "successful failure" could be applied more widely across Second Life or describe all of SL itself, but obviously, if it's successful, if the land still has value, because it is "zoned" in a way, there's no reason to kill it off. I notice a number of businesses put stores there in the sky, non-adult and non-future.

There's a better way than "seating" the bots (to reduce lag from collisions).

Scripted avatars designated as bots through LL's registration system, when they fall offline due to a random sim crash or a rolling re-start, should not "go anywhere". They are not live avatars that need to be sent to the "safe hub" in Zindra because their own land is not available. They are unconscious robots unable to perform their jobs and therefore should remain offline until their owners re-log them on to their home base, be it a club or rentals office or RP sim or whatever.

The Iris telehub is constantly filled with a dozen or more bots which I constantly ask the Lindens to remove by re-setting the sim (which makes them at least fall off permanently *from that sim, to which they came from other sims* until their owners wake up and collect them. The reason is because such bots take up avatar slots which newbies and returning oldbies then can't use.

Since the scripted bot avatar is a separate designated category visible to Lindens presumably (due to the registration process) although regrettably, not marked in anyway inworld, it shouldn't be a problem for them to order them to stay offline and not go to the infohubs.

 

Edited August 9, 2022 by Prokofy Neva