A Suggestion on Improving Mainland

[Coffee Pancake]

9 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

I think Coffee Pancake suggested or has spoken in the past about changing the range at which you could set to show banlines.

 

The viewer has no idea you can't enter till the server sends that information to the viewer.

It used to be more obvious and people complained they could see them and they were ugly. So LL hacked up a 30 second solution and now you don't see them till you're rubbing your face on them. This is because the viewer can't know context, are you looking for a route to navigate or taking a picture.

Ideally I would like the region to tell the viewer about all the parcels and an avatars ability to enter (etc etc) as soon as a possible, then the viewer (and tpv devs) can try and do smart things with that data

[Marianne Little]

21 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I think that there are a lot of assumptions there that I suspect don't hold true.  Do we actually know what percentage of Mainland is simply abandoned?  Is it possible to find out?  That would atleast give a perspective on the scale of the problem.

The assumption that abandoned Mainland is laying around simply because it isn't wanted may also not be true.  It could be due to the tier structure and not being able to afford the next level to acquire more land.   RL circumstances changing or simply buying other Mainland they liked more.  All of those are much different reasons with much different things that could be done.

I have strong doubts that a land texture change will make any kind of difference to the amount of resident owned Mainland.  The only complaints I've ever read/heard was about the granite textured Mainland and they could just swap that out with the existing grass/sand textures.  I would suspect almost everyone would be happier even though it still would likely have little impact.

It seems to me that "like Bellisseria but with empty plots" is just a variation on a theme.  Perhaps it would be better to petition LL to make that an actual new Bellisseria theme.

One of the things I read about in another topic (Privacy Screens) was an account of someone trying to block a dwelling (Spaceship) that was actually part of the theme (Horizons) and the person giving the account was describing what they had to do to block it out and was actually building what looked like a very out-of-theme house and garden.

That's obviously OK in Horizons.  That kind of thing is likely going to cause issues though in a "Like Belli (ie. themed and covenanted) but with empty plot" type place though.  Perhaps this is why Belli doesn't have those types of places and perhaps that is also why an "almost Belli-like Mainland 2.0" is a bad idea.  An empty plot in a themed region might suggest more freedom to some than it ought so what would the rules actually have to be to create harmony?

We have the BonnieBots page over abandoned land. I admit that I am too lazy to sit and sum up every of the 2819 regions to see the total. But I have looked over many pages and see it is inland. Coastal land gets picked up. https://www.bonniebots.com/abandoned-land

It is many things I do not understand. One of those is when I sort the page to show abandoned by date, and see all the small parcels. Some abandoned as late as 2013. They are not added to land later, so it must be because the tier model is so  - stupid. If we paid by m instead of steps, I belive it would improve Mainland. Small parts of land could be added for just a few cent in tier. So why do LL cling to the ancient tier model?

A big parcel of 57344m was abandoned in 2016, that's the oldest major sized abandoned land I found. But it is also recent huge lands that's abandoned this year. So somebody had a big mass of land and just left it. It could be due to the RL finances and the cost of living, what do I know. In that case it would be hard to get people to buy it up no matter what textures the ground has.

Maybe LL could split those big lands in some parts protected land and the rest as smaller parcels in easy sizes to build on, like squares and rectangles. The hard-to-use parts could be public land, like the small squares next to roads. But there is the question of time and money. LL is a business. And while the idea of residents working for free, planting trees and build roads is a nice dream, I see it as a dream.

It was I who "blocked" the spaceship. I tried to show it as a "better" way to hide it than 64 m plates. Since it is Mainland, I could say "What's not forbidden, is allowed" and put up 64 m walls textured on both sides, making the plot an ugly box on ground. I choose not to. Because I know I do not like to live next to those walls.

Double prim land is puzzling to me. Another things I do not understand. Double prim land became really popular. So I should think that a business like LL would say "Hey, people love this. We must make more". But they did not, and I can't imagine why. Has anyone read a reason not to? Those places are the only ones in SL where a low income person like me (disabled in RL) can rent a plot to use a high land impact house and have prims to decorate it with. The only other alternative is to get really big land, and to a higher cost.

The time I used that land, less than 6 months, it was already a place where people put up everything from small English cottages to huge stores covering every inch of land. Linden Lab did nothing to keep the land in theme.

What I love about Horizons in addition to double prims, is that land cutting is not allowed, and it is roads and waterways that separate the plots. It is also some protected land with Linden buildings, trees, small parks and forests between. It makes is unproblematic to me that it is all kinds of buildings. They are not back-to back to me.

The roads and water is a buffer. It is also fewer low skyboxes there than on much other Mainland. At least in those places of double prims lands I have visited. It is some in Nautilus too.

I do not use roads much. But I like that they are there, that people can travel, stop and look around, and go into stores and galleries.

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Marianne Little

[Marianne Little]

13 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

That region sounds like a nice place for a club .. which brings me to another problem with mainland and neighbours, the way resources are allocated per region with potential for one 512 parcel on the region to use all the script time, or become a popular club packed 24/7 with people. On an estate an estate manager has an interest in managing it on mainland in extreme circumstances you might have some success getting Governance to intervene but in reality best option is just to move out.

This sort of lack of control over what neighbours can do inevitably limits the value of land and impacts retention.

I have a fairly large parcel in Zindra, water access and Japanese manga club on one of the parcels regularly with 20 or more avatars hanging out. It is their parcel, they pay tier on it although less than I do, but they are using it and so I am limited with what I can do.

They are nice enough people and they have every right to make use of it and pleased for their ongoing success, but I think it does illustrate a much more real problem for landowners and the land market than passersby intruding.

Another thing LL did not care about. They could have split continents in Residential and Business areas, or tried to manage the use of resources in some way. But they picked the easy way out. Make the land, set no rules, and do not think more about it.

I wouldn't mind a club like that, unless it was so many avatars in the region that I could not go home. Then it would be a problem for me. What could I do, other than move or wait in a sandbox, was to hope the club get out of fashion so there are fewer people.

[Marianne Little]

13 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

----

But not once did I ever feel the need to buy an orb object which kicks a person out of "my" land because I felt like I didn't want them there. Yes I could ban them, but there was a far easier solution that that, one which sometimes gave me amusement.

The Eject button. I learned that Naughty Avatars don't fly very well when you eject them. 😜

Haha, I have used the Eject once in all my years, and that was when a couple went on doing their stuff on a sunbed outside while I was in the house. It was funny when I ejected the man and the woman was standing there, "Where did he go?" confused until he came back, was ejected again... 😁 Until I found the ban button. I had never used "Ban" before that, and I am not sure if I have used it later. I think not.

So now I buy PG outdoor furniture. (It is often cheaper too)  But I am not really bothered if I have adult furniture and somebody is using it when I'm not there. I don't have to wash the bedsheets...

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Marianne Little

[Marianne Little]

15 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Here's a way to improve mainland ... 

Probably the only way to improve mainland in any way that actually counts, putting people and occupancy first.

 

Pick a continent, any continent, and close it.

 

Do a Zindra move for people to get land on the remaining mainland. 

No one will like it. There will be screaming. Some will walk away. Which is all fine.

We get significantly higher occupancy of the mainland that remains, we're no longer paying for vast swathes of dead land sitting on servers that have to be kept up and online 24/7 (which might be enough to stave off fee increases), the remaining mainland gets a massive injection of life.

I am sure most of those who were forced to move to Zindra was very angry and said they would leave SL and never come back. But who really did it? One, two or many?

I doubt LL will do a forced move, unless it is too costly with so much land sitting on the servers. But if they need to, they will force it through. SL is a business, and LL have to do what they have to do in order to survive. No matter if it will upset people.

[Marianne Little]

12 hours ago, animats said:

LL has announced that mainland terrain will get textures with materials. I'm trying to talk them into using that trick I've mentioned before where textures are divided into hexes and each hex randomly rotated, then blended with the adjacent hex. Then you can have high detail grass, rock, sand, etc. that doesn't look repeated, although it is.  (You turn this off for bricks, cobblestones, etc.) At present, you have to choose some texture scale which is a compromise between too low-rez and repeated too often. That's why terrain looks so blah.

Most of mainland terrain is just four standard textures - ocean bottom, sand, grass, rock. Changing them is just setting new textures in the region tab by someone with the privilege to do that. Estate owners can do that for their own regions.

Oh! So it is in the works! That means they can afford it.

Do you know what's worrying me? That LL ignore you, and add materials to the same old textures, including the super ugly rock ground. 🥺

The repeat in the stone is visible even on a tiny region image. The BonnieBots image of Windlesham show it. I have looked for cheap land in the past, and I teleport away if it is that ground.

I really, really hope LL will listen to you.

https://www.bonniebots.com/abandoned-land

[Aethelwine]

47 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Another thing LL did not care about. They could have split continents in Residential and Business areas, or tried to manage the use of resources in some way. But they picked the easy way out. Make the land, set no rules, and do not think more about it.

I wouldn't mind a club like that, unless it was so many avatars in the region that I could not go home. Then it would be a problem for me. What could I do, other than move or wait in a sandbox, was to hope the club get out of fashion so there are fewer people.

The way I use land is admittedly unusual. I create public spaces to attract visitors with a secondary purpose of using them as destinations for cruises where for an hour or so there will be around 20-30 people dancing and socialising. The place likely to be used for a party no more than once a quarter normally, so whilst I benefit from the way resources currently can be used on a region I don't think it is an excessive use. It does mean that at my Zindra place I can't really use it for parties, limiting its value to me.

[Aethelwine]

In you first recent post you wonder amongst other things why people abandon land rather than selling. I don't recall ever selling land except on one occasion where I contacted a neighbour to ask if they wanted it. When I abandon land it is because I have found somewhere I want to buy, leaving me option to go up tier levels or abandon land to get the tier I need.

I understand the benefits of selling but the few thousand you would make back on a quick sale doesn't seem worth it for the risk of the land you want getting bought before you make the sale or the cost of upping your tier level.

I wonder more at people paying tier on land listed for sale and why they do that. Unless of course we are talking water access parcel worth tens or hundreds of thousands of Linden dollars, but those are exceptional.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Aethelwine

[Marianne Little]

https://www.bonniebots.com/abandoned-land

By looking very fast on the statistics of Abandoned land here, it is almost 1000 regions with 30 000 m abandoned land or more. I did no accurate count, I do 100 rows per page and the 30 000 m ends between 901 and 1000 regions.

Included in those regions are almost 300 regions with 50 000 m or more abandoned land.

Going further down the list of abandoned land, 10 000 m or more abandoned land ends between 1701 - 1800 regions.

On the other end, it is between 701 - 800 regions that has less than 5000 m abandoned land.

I let you all look at the numbers and correct me if I am wrong. I let you decide if it is much or little abandoned land.

[Marianne Little]

40 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

In you first recent post you wonder amongst other things why people abandon land rather than selling. I don't recall ever selling land except on one occasion where I contacted a neighbour to ask if they wanted it. When I abandon land it is because I have found somewhere I want to buy, leaving me option to go up tier levels or abandon land to get the tier I need.

I understand the benefits of selling but the few thousand you would make back on a quick sale doesn't seem worth it for the risk of the land you want getting bought before you make the sale or the cost of upping your tier level.

I wonder more at people paying tier on land listed for sale and why they do that.

I think I read some place that they have rental boxes there, and set the land for sale so it will show up as yellow color. In the description, it is almost always stated "for rent or sale".

Popular land as the double prim parcels I talk about can be priced to 250 000 L for 1024 m. When I land there in Horizons or other places, it is almost always a rental box in the corner.

They found out that this model works for them? Yellow attract people, they rent if it is too expensive to buy and if it is someone who buy the land... they get a large amount of money.

I owned Mainland before VAT was added to tier. I moved around a bit. I always sold my land, because I priced it lower than other land in the region. I did not care to get back what I paid, so I reduced the price if it didn't sell the first week. And I never had that land for more than a month before it was sold.

I sold 4096 m land for 12 L / m between protected land and water. Protected on 2 sides. And sailable to Bay of Space Pigs. I reduced the price to 10 L / m. Then to 8. I got an offer of 5 L / m and sold it.

It was no problem to sell because I always bought land that was next to water. And it was not my goal to get rich, so I was happy to get what I could.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Marianne Little

[Gabriele Graves]

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

I am sure most of those who were forced to move to Zindra was very angry and said they would leave SL and never come back. But who really did it? One, two or many?

I feel obliged to correct the record here.

As I recall nobody was forced to move to Zindra.  There was always a choice available to everyone and that choice was to accept that Mature was being reclassified as Moderate and had more restrictive rules than Mature had about what activities people could engage in out in the open but keep their existing land or swap for an Adult Zindra parcel of at least equivalent size.

Granted that some felt that they had no choice but nevertheless there was no forced migration to Zindra.  People always had the option to retain the land they already owned.

In what is being discussed here, someone retaining the land they own that is slated for reclamation wouldn't have that option which would make the endeavour an unprecedented step beyond what has gone before.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Gabriele Graves

[Marianne Little]

1 minute ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I feel obliged to correct the record here.

As I recall nobody was forced to move to Zindra.  There was always a choice available to everyone and that choice was to accept that Mature was being reclassified as Moderate and more restrictive rules than Mature had about what activities people could engage in out in the open but keep their existing land or swap for an Adult Zindra parcel of at least equivalent size.

Granted that some felt that they had no choice but nevertheless there was no forced migration to Zindra.  People always had the option to retain the land they already owned.

In what is being discussed here, someone retaining the land they own that is slated for reclamation wouldn't have that option which would make the endeavour an unprecedented step beyond what has gone before.

Zindra was many years ago, and I only heard the buzz around it. I got the impression it was forced, but it was probably those who was negative that posted most about it. Thank you for the clarification.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

Disallow land cutting, divide the entire mainland into 4096's, set each parcel for sale at the same price private estates set their land for sale, and presto, watch mainland fill up.

People can still sell their land for whatever price they want, but who will pay it when u can get a parcel for $1 L.

And I have no problem if flippers buy it all up, because tier is tier to LL

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

2 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

In you first recent post you wonder amongst other things why people abandon land rather than selling. I don't recall ever selling land except on one occasion where I contacted a neighbour to ask if they wanted it. When I abandon land it is because I have found somewhere I want to buy, leaving me option to go up tier levels or abandon land to get the tier I need.

I understand the benefits of selling but the few thousand you would make back on a quick sale doesn't seem worth it for the risk of the land you want getting bought before you make the sale or the cost of upping your tier level.

I wonder more at people paying tier on land listed for sale and why they do that. Unless of course we are talking water access parcel worth tens or hundreds of thousands of Linden dollars, but those are exceptional.

To me personally, the price I paid for land is a sunk cost, I don't feel the need to try and get it back. I bought the land  because i liked it. If I see something I like more, I'll abandon the land and buy the new parcel.

My only exception would be my 2x protected in Zindra, and I'd  set that for a quick sale to a flipper.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

Looking at the world map, I've seen how big Belisarria has become, like an out of control cancer that will overtake everything.

And all of it offering nothing to people that don't live there, just bland sameness in each of their themed areas.. sim after sim after sim.

Some people like that though, they wanna be safe and secure in their little 1024 plot.

[Marianne Little]

21 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Disallow land cutting, divide the entire mainland into 4096's, set each parcel for sale at the same price private estates set their land for sale, and presto, watch mainland fill up.

People can still sell their land for whatever price they want, but who will pay it when u can get a parcel for $1 L.

And I have no problem if flippers buy it all up, because tier is tier to LL

 

Maybe do it on the 100 regions with most abandoned land? As an experiment.

Do it on the entire Mainland will really make people angry. What LL does with abandoned land, people have nothing to say about it. After all, it is Mainland and anything goes.

If such a region has 10 parcels of 4096 m, it is still room left to leave the one land owner in peace, and also some protected land. If the ten parcels sold, it is ten X 22 USD in tier per month.

Not so bad?

 

[Marianne Little]

2 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Looking at the world map, I've seen how big Belisarria has become, like an out of control cancer that will overtake everything.

And all of it offering nothing to people that don't live there, just bland sameness in each of their themed areas.. sim after sim after sim.

Some people like that though, they wanna be safe and secure in their little 1024 plot.

I think people overestimate the amount of people who think big and creative, compared to the huge amount of the ones who want small, safe and secure.

I have had a sky castle, I have had underwater buildings. I loved them. Then you have the financial aspect. Land in SL is expensive. Landscaping elements is expensive. You can not make land to pay for itself, as only a place of interest where people leave a tip.

Renting is an option, it is hard to cover tier with that too. I am sure roleplay land and clubs aren't making money in general.

Many people can afford just a small piece of land, and Bellisseria is the economical option. Because you get the stipend, and the house does not count against your prims.

But now I have to go shopping. Maybe I post more later.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

26 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Maybe do it on the 100 regions with most abandoned land? As an experiment.

Do it on the entire Mainland will really make people angry. What LL does with abandoned land, people have nothing to say about it. After all, it is Mainland and anything goes.

If such a region has 10 parcels of 4096 m, it is still room left to leave the one land owner in peace, and also some protected land. If the ten parcels sold, it is ten X 22 USD in tier per month.

Not so bad?

 

Its a good idea, and like I've said before, run new roads in, make all those 4096's roadfront (that would be 8 parcels, which actually almost equals the tier of a full mainland sim, leave the land in the rear as open common space, or optionally people can submit a support ticket to buy some of it if they want more than the 4096.

There are defo things LL can do with mainland, they just need to figure out if it increases their profitability or not.

😁

[Always Incognito]

Isnt it possible to have instanced housing in SL for people who require high privacy? Like a skybox But not posssible to see for anyone except invited? As in some games with housing.
Otherwise i would like nicer and not so dark default windlights on mainland and looking very much forward to new ground textures 😍

[Aethelwine]

1 hour ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Its a good idea, and like I've said before, run new roads in, make all those 4096's roadfront (that would be 8 parcels, which actually almost equals the tier of a full mainland sim, leave the land in the rear as open common space, or optionally people can submit a support ticket to buy some of it if they want more than the 4096.

There are defo things LL can do with mainland, they just need to figure out if it increases their profitability or not.

😁

That sounds a lot like horizons. In that respect they already have a pilot to learn from and evaluate.

From my perspective Horizons was a huge success, 100% ownership and high resale value.

 

[Rowan Amore]

56 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

That sounds a lot like horizons. In that respect they already have a pilot to learn from and evaluate.

From my perspective Horizons was a huge success, 100% ownership and high resale value.

 

It's the double.prim parcels that make the resell value so high but in general, I'd still say it's a success.  The theme, however, just doesn't seem to resonate with most people.  Very few places are using the provided homes and honestly, they're not that great.  There's a nice blend of homes and businesses as well.  I ride my bicycle around there quite a lot and I don't see too much 'junk' like you see on mainland proper.

Road access for almost every single parcel makes it seem more like an actual neighborhood.  Sidewalks along all the roads also give a nice cushion when driving.  Go a.little off the side and you don't automatically hit an orb or ban lines.  

[Coffee Pancake]

19 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Inara Pey's notes from the June 10 Third Party Viewer Development meeting include:

(This is shader magic I don't pretend to understand.)

It means the land will actually clash with everything rezzed on it that isn't also PBR or at least similar materials of similar intensity.

[Coffee Pancake]

6 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I feel obliged to correct the record here.

As I recall nobody was forced to move to Zindra.  There was always a choice available to everyone and that choice was to accept that Mature was being reclassified as Moderate and had more restrictive rules than Mature had about what activities people could engage in out in the open but keep their existing land or swap for an Adult Zindra parcel of at least equivalent size.

Everyone with a store or business was forced. The choice came down to ditching half the merch, operating at a competitive disadvantage, or moving.

The mass migration happened because rules at the time were being so broadly interpreted that there was significant doubt about any and all adult activities. Finding something that fell foul of the new rules was trivial, and LL failed to clarify until the end and they were attempting to staunch the flow.

For personal use, having a home with a sex bad and a couple of friends who come to play sometimes, was close enough to a public location as worded in the ToS that people decided 'better safe than sorry', all we got from LL was "owning a sex bed is fine", which was often a complete non answer.

 

The whole mess came from the better people fallacy. SL at the time was zoned into (literally) 'too G rated for Disney' (where you could be banned for swearing) and 'red light district'. They wanted the adult content gone, but still needed the income, hoping that the newly cleaned up M land would be just the thing to attract a whole new class. 

They should have just flipped M to A and G to M.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

It's the double.prim parcels that make the resell value so high but in general, I'd still say it's a success. 

Double prim regions are exactly the same as regular regions. They just fudge the numbers to make the region appear to have more Li per sqm. Which is fine .. but the overall region max remains the same. 

As such double prim (while understandably popular) is massive oops for LL as it halves occupancy / tier a region can generate. 

This is why we don't tend to see double prim private rentals.

[Rowan Amore]

8 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Double prim regions are exactly the same as regular regions. They just fudge the numbers to make the region appear to have more Li per sqm. Which is fine .. but the overall region max remains the same. 

As such double prim (while understandably popular) is massive oops for LL as it halves occupancy / tier a region can generate. 

This is why we don't tend to see double prim private rentals.

Exactly.  If the region were simply 1024 parcels with standard prim allowance, the prices would be closer (I'd assume) to normal mainland.   It's the basic infrastructure that works.  The roads between regions, no terraforming and such.  It's more like Belli but without the restrictions and required housing.