Time for Mainland 2.0

[Sparkle Bunny]

On 12/24/2023 at 8:48 PM, animats said:

I'd like to see the southeast quadrant of Zindra filled in. There's a hole where four roads dead-end and, if you cam off-sim, you can see the raw edge of the world. The western edge of Bay City has a similar raw edge. Both of those would be high-value real estate if created, and it would be interesting to see how they are used.

Land barons would buy them, and set them for sale/rent at stupid prices. No great mystery there, though it would certainly be more aesthetically pleasing if all the unfinished continents were completed. Perhaps if Nascera went Atlantis they'd finally have the resources to do so?

If the Lindens were to experiment with more restrictive covenants for mainland, those areas would need to be physically separate from existing mainland, or enforcement would be a nightmare. Actually enforcement would be a nightmare anyway, which is yet another reason why it won't happen.

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 12/21/2023 at 12:12 PM, BilliJo Aldrin said:

having to purchase mainland is the biggest impediment to people getting land.

What are you basing this statement on?

[BilliJo Aldrin]

22 hours ago, Sparkle Bunny said:

Land barons would buy them, and set them for sale/rent at stupid prices. No great mystery there, though it would certainly be more aesthetically pleasing if all the unfinished continents were completed. Perhaps if Nascera went Atlantis they'd finally have the resources to do so?

If the Lindens were to experiment with more restrictive covenants for mainland, those areas would need to be physically separate from existing mainland, or enforcement would be a nightmare. Actually enforcement would be a nightmare anyway, which is yet another reason why it won't happen.

 

If Land barons buy all the new Zindra sims, then let LL keep rezzing more and more sims untill the barons are bled white. Once they can no longer scoop up all the land, and people can buy from LL just as on M and G sims, land flipper prices will have to drop. 

Actually there is no reason mainland and mainland 2.0 couldnt be interspersed. There would be enough differences that one would not be confused which was which.

And if you are unsure, check the covenant.

Edited January 5 by BilliJo Aldrin
added stuff

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

On 12/21/2023 at 12:12 PM, BilliJo Aldrin said:

having to purchase mainland is the biggest impediment to people getting land.

What are you basing this statement on?

It makes a kind of sense if you take out the word "mainland" and replace it with "land". 

[Diablo Lioncourt]

On 1/4/2024 at 6:18 PM, Sparkle Bunny said:

Land barons would buy them, and set them for sale/rent

and the creators of SL would call that "working as intended".

 

 

Edited January 6 by Diablo Lioncourt

[Jason1 Draconia]

Second Life has changed a lot over the years. Not enough 'interest' in it. From my SL experience as a land 'Baron' .. having tenants moveing out for various reasons... With little to do in world, need to shop open the market place (no more need for an inworld shop or exploring to find that cool item). But once they have it not many to show it too as everyone has it also. 

I've gone from a high of 20 Mainland Regions worth of rentals plus 6-8 Homesteads, 6 or so Estates.. Now I'm down to about 4 regions of Mainland rentals.  Over the course of about 13 years.

IF SL was doing well, I would think that just mainland and rentals would be a lot and I mean a lot busier...

People left the lands for a number of reasons; the marketplace, lack of 'jobs' in world, costs vs RL issues, TOS changes skill games. I won't say much on the casino scene. I'll just call it another vampire bleeding SL dry for specific people who could afford lawyers etc. When you start removing the majority rule, stagnation becomes rampant. 

I would suggest if you want a good SL, remove the Marketplace or rework it (just sends you to their inworld store, enhanced list in search idea maybe...) . Make people want and need to explore in world again. that would be a start. Instead of LL getting some income from the Marketplace, they could make Mainland more of a feature than having replaced it with the marketplace.

I would also recommend another look thru gameing in SL. Not for or against it, but when you hear some are making 5 digit a Month profits. I'd go so far as to call gameing in SL a form of monopoly. 

I'll stop there. I created my land company along time back after my first wife passed away with the idea of making SL fun and as cost effective for anyone who needed it, as the years rolled around I could say, more and more people are no longer in need of our services. So you could even say I maybe wrong in all this. A grain of salt, a penny for a thought....

 

-J1 and the Zen crew

 

     

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

I think "greenlanes" can solve the "I don't want roadside" issue while still making interior plots valuable to 'the general public'.

A greenlane is a just a gap of protected land between parcel A and B.

For me - this whole thing would need a lot of water land that is 80m or MORE deep.

 

That said... I'm not sure I see the value in the concept, but maybe it's there. The only real differences between this whole idea and Belli is:

• banlines
• no-warning instance security orbs with autoban
• commercial plots
• premade build already on the land
• some respect for the local theme in your build.
• lights that cover over other people's land
• Height limits

So... which of those are the "deal breakers"? The things that could NOT be in this Mainland 2 concept?

For me, if there was a mainland 2.0, I would still want it to have these rules:

• No lights that cover over other people's land
• No banlines
• Some respect for the local theme in your build.
• no-warning instance security orbs allowed only above 1000m
• No privacy screens below 1000m
• Walls / fence must be high resolution objects (no prim with a texture)
• No fullbright /glow below 1000m visible from outside the plot unless on an active light source
• Hight limits - maybe. This would need to be refined. Giant builds have their place. This rule is usually triggered in Belli when something else is also an issue but not a 'to the letter' violation. Like a 40m tall glowing prim. Glow isn't a violation... but I've seen tall prims get ignored until they started being a visual nuisance.

- That last one is where I know I want some rule, but can't put my finger on just what.

The thing I'd want this to also have, that even Belli lacks, is a rule that says "some subjective judgement if something 'is a problem' in the ability of neighbors to use and / or enjoy their land, the moles have authority to zap it."

 

Of course I think at this point, my idea of what I'd want is no longer compatible with the rest of the thread's participants. Which is kind of why I mostly stick to Belli and always struggle with enjoying my mainland parcels.

 

 

[diamond Marchant]

3 hours ago, Jason1 Draconia said:

Second Life has changed a lot over the years. Not enough 'interest' in it. From my SL experience as a land 'Baron' .. having tenants moveing out for various reasons

Thanks for your post. Nice to get a perspective from a land baron. I also notice things slowing down, such as vacant beach rentals near my mainland beach parcel and vacant abandonned land near protected water.

I shop (alot) primarily at inworld events. But I like Marketplace for finding occasional specific items and often go inworld to check them out first. I also sell vehicle textures on Marketplace and that works because it allows people to find them.

Edited March 11 by diamond Marchant

[Qie Niangao]

6 hours ago, Jason1 Draconia said:

IF SL was doing well, I would think that just mainland and rentals would be a lot and I mean a lot busier...

Have you looked at the map? That space between the old Mainland continents, remember that? It's full of Bellisseria.

Private Mainland is an anachronism. Residential Estates are next.

Ideally there'd be so much expanded demand that it would fill all that new capacity with enough to spare to still fill the old Mainland and Estate models. But that would be asking an awful lot. Really, just look at all that added land.

Maybe eventually the Mobile Viewer will fill the obvious gap. Or maybe not, but that viewer doesn't exist yet, so yeah: obvious gap.

Why does Bellisseria trounce the older SL Mainland product, and why are Estates less affected? Gosh, what could they have in common?

[Love Zhaoying]

17 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Private Mainland is an anachronism.

I like being a DanAykroydism. 

I mean, an anechoic chamber. 

I mean, an acorntism.

Aww, shucks, I can't say it!

I like being OLD!

 

[Kylie Jaxxon]

I think enforcing VAT had a lot to do with people dropping inworld regions/parcels and just going with a MP store....

Edited March 12 by Kylie Jaxxon
spelling

[Persephone Emerald]

20 hours ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

I think "greenlanes" can solve the "I don't want roadside" issue while still making interior plots valuable to 'the general public'.

A greenlane is a just a gap of protected land between parcel A and B.

For me - this whole thing would need a lot of water land that is 80m or MORE deep.

 

That said... I'm not sure I see the value in the concept, but maybe it's there. The only real differences between this whole idea and Belli is:

• banlines
• no-warning instance security orbs with autoban
• commercial plots
• premade build already on the land
• some respect for the local theme in your build.
• lights that cover over other people's land
• Height limits

So... which of those are the "deal breakers"? The things that could NOT be in this Mainland 2 concept?

For me, if there was a mainland 2.0, I would still want it to have these rules:

• No lights that cover over other people's land
• No banlines
• Some respect for the local theme in your build.
• no-warning instance security orbs allowed only above 1000m
• No privacy screens below 1000m
• Walls / fence must be high resolution objects (no prim with a texture)
• No fullbright /glow below 1000m visible from outside the plot unless on an active light source
• Hight limits - maybe. This would need to be refined. Giant builds have their place. This rule is usually triggered in Belli when something else is also an issue but not a 'to the letter' violation. Like a 40m tall glowing prim. Glow isn't a violation... but I've seen tall prims get ignored until they started being a visual nuisance.

- That last one is where I know I want some rule, but can't put my finger on just what.

The thing I'd want this to also have, that even Belli lacks, is a rule that says "some subjective judgement if something 'is a problem' in the ability of neighbors to use and / or enjoy their land, the moles have authority to zap it."

 

Of course I think at this point, my idea of what I'd want is no longer compatible with the rest of the thread's participants. Which is kind of why I mostly stick to Belli and always struggle with enjoying my mainland parcels.

What's the difference between 1000m vs. 2000m? I think objects don't show on the world map above 2000m. At what height does a skybox not create a shadow?

At whichever height objects don't appear on the map seems to me to be where skyboxes and platforms should be allowed. This would allow for more privacy, since people couldn't see anything on the map that they might be tempted to explore. There would also be less lag up there because nothing on the ground would be rendered. For Mainland 2.0 then, I'd like to have only the space below this height restricted to public-friendly rules.

My assumption would be that Mainland 2.0 would be better for stores, clubs and explorers than current mainland is, but landowners there could still expect privacy above 2000m. People could continue to use I'll say 1 second security orbs (since I think all 0 second expulsions should be eliminated). People could have banlines at this height too, because strangers shouldn't be going up there.

Between maybe 300m and 2000m should be considered a safe flying zone. Balloonists will probably want to fly lower than planes would. Ground level Linden roads should be made safe to drive by having wide enough shoulders and making banlines bounce avatars and their vehicles off them, rather than teleporting them home. Teleporting avatars to their home point as punishment for trying to enter a region or parcel where they are not wanted should only be enabled on private regions, imo. 

All structures below 1000m could be limited in height to maybe 80m. How tall does a building need to be in a city build? Everyone in SL should be able to derender objects from their viewer and border walls should not be required to be invisible on the side facing their neighbors, because people could easily derender them anyway. Objects below 2000m might be expected to be connected to the ground in some way - a balloon with a tether for instance - but a floating island might still be allowed. - I think making floating structures below 2000m against the rules would be hard to enforce, unless it's just very large ones that are disallowed, such as those larger than 32 m in 2 or more directions. 

Commercial builds and activity needs to be allowed on Mainland 2.0, but owners of commercial properties also need to be able to have private, restricted space if they want this. If they want their store to be up in the sky, rather than on the ground, they can do this and still have a private level protected by a security orb as well.

Edited March 12 by Persephone Emerald

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

Objects above 400 metres altitude aren't visible on the world map. Otherwise the map would have every single skybox, lost aircraft and old griefer debris pasted all over it.

Edited March 12 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Objects above 400 metres altitude aren't visible on the world map. Otherwise the map would have every single skybox, lost aircraft and old griefer debris pasted all over it.

Ok, so why is the skybox height limit in Bellisseria 2000m instead of 1000m? How much height space do planes really need to have in SL?

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Objects above 400 metres altitude aren't visible on the world map. Otherwise the map would have every single skybox, lost aircraft and old griefer debris pasted all over it.

That would make the map less boring, IMHO.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

21 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Have you looked at the map? That space between the old Mainland continents, remember that? It's full of Bellisseria.

Private Mainland is an anachronism. Residential Estates are next.

Ideally there'd be so much expanded demand that it would fill all that new capacity with enough to spare to still fill the old Mainland and Estate models. But that would be asking an awful lot. Really, just look at all that added land.

Maybe eventually the Mobile Viewer will fill the obvious gap. Or maybe not, but that viewer doesn't exist yet, so yeah: obvious gap.

Why does Bellisseria trounce the older SL Mainland product, and why are Estates less affected? Gosh, what could they have in common?

People that are not premium live on estates. There is no competition between Estates and Belli. Belli is sucking the life out of mainland because so many people are tired of the anarchy of mainland.

 

[Persephone Emerald]

1 minute ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

People that are not premium live on estates. There is no competition between Estates and Belli. Belli is sucking the life out of mainland because so many people are tired of the anarchy of mainland.

 

I agree that many people are dissatisfied with mainland. Many were moving to residential estates and private islands for their stores long before Bellisseria was created. LL saw this and created Belli to help new user retention. Maybe they didn't expect older users to prefer Belli to mainland, but many did. Belli didn't create the problem of mainland attrition though.

Mainland attrition has been going on for years and is still continuing. LL would probably love for more people to buy and pay recurring tier payments for land that is now empty. But how can they encourage this without chasing away those who still enjoy mainland?

People who want more privacy might want to migrate to private estates if mainland were more popular, but if they did, LL would still get their money. It would just go through the hands of estate owners first.

The only ways SL loses money is when newbies don't stay or oldbies leave. They can't stop oldbies attrition from natural causes, so they have to encourage newbie retention. 

Maybe they should have a comment box at the Welcome Hub that only works for users under 30 days old? They could even pay those newbies $L 10 for the first time they drop in a notecard.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

20 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I agree that many people are dissatisfied with mainland. Many were moving to residential estates and private islands for their stores long before Bellisseria was created. LL saw this and created Belli to help new user retention. Maybe they didn't expect older users to prefer Belli to mainland, but many did. Belli didn't create the problem of mainland attrition though.

Mainland attrition has been going on for years and is still continuing. LL would probably love for more people to buy and pay recurring tier payments for land that is now empty. But how can they encourage this without chasing away those who still enjoy mainland?

People who want more privacy might want to migrate to private estates if mainland were more popular, but if they did, LL would still get their money. It would just go through the hands of estate owners first.

The only ways SL loses money is when newbies don't stay or oldbies leave. They can't stop oldbies attrition from natural causes, so they have to encourage newbie retention. 

Maybe they should have a comment box at the Welcome Hub that only works for users under 30 days old? They could even pay those newbies $L 10 for the first time they drop in a notecard.

I've said it over and over and over, there is a place for Mainland 2.0 in LL's offerings that would be welcomed by many.

Perhaps a picture will illustrate it better

 

 

Edited March 12 by BilliJo Aldrin
fixed the picture

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

People that are not premium live on estates. There is no competition between Estates and Belli. Belli is sucking the life out of mainland because so many people are tired of the anarchy of mainland.

Yeah, but before Belli, many folks who were sick of Mainland anarchy abandoned their Premium subscriptions and moved to Estates. Now many of them have another option. Any Estate owner who serves the lower end of residential cannot possibly miss the competition from Belli.

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yeah, but before Belli, many folks who were sick of Mainland anarchy abandoned their Premium subscriptions and moved to Estates. Now many of them have another option. Any Estate owner who serves the lower end of residential cannot possibly miss the competition from Belli.

I was premium for 12 years and always rented on estates until 2021 when I bought double prim on Horizons.  I'd never want plain old mainland since your house would count against your measly prim allowance.  Then, if someone moved in next to you with an abomination, I'd be wanting to find a new place.  It was too much of a gamble to me.  I was considering Belli before.I found an affordable spot and you can't beat double prims!

[Love Zhaoying]

30 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I was premium for 12 years and always rented on estates until 2021 when I bought double prim on Horizons.  I'd never want plain old mainland since your house would count against your measly prim allowance.  Then, if someone moved in next to you with an abomination, I'd be wanting to find a new place.  It was too much of a gamble to me.  I was considering Belli before.I found an affordable spot and you can't beat double prims!

+1 for x2!

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

14 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

What's the difference between 1000m vs. 2000m? I think objects don't show on the world map above 2000m. At what height does a skybox not create a shadow?

Historically no matter how high you set your camera 1000m (or maybe 1025m?) up could not be seen from ground and vice versa. So it was basically the "lag cut off point".

Anything above 1000m will not effect render lag of anyone at ground and anyone in a skybox won't have their computer trying to do math on things at ground. That at least was true a decade or so ago. All the changes in SL since might have made things different.

There's no reason for anything 'flying' to want to have access to your land up that high. BUT there is value for a skybox to be lower and lower. Some mesh items still 'break apart with tiny seams' as you go up - and the higher up you go the more noticeable this becomes.

I'd say this is my only complaint with Belli. The perfect height for a skybox is basically 1025m up. But Belli restricts that. And yet no 'flyer' needs to be that high. If you're a flyer above 1000m - you're basically RPing as a space ship because you can't render the scenery of the ground - and at that point you can fly anywhere as all SL land will be the same for you.

 

Edited March 13 by UnilWay SpiritWeaver

[BilliJo Aldrin]

6 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yeah, but before Belli, many folks who were sick of Mainland anarchy abandoned their Premium subscriptions and moved to Estates. Now many of them have another option. Any Estate owner who serves the lower end of residential cannot possibly miss the competition from Belli.

And yet you claim that many people would refuse the opportunity to receive free of charge (with standard tier applied)  from LL a 4096 parcel on mainland 2.0 which will be free of the worst excesses of original mainland:  no land cutting, ad farms, networked advertising, low hanging skyboxes, and overly tall privacy screens.

People would line up for available parcels if this product was offered, and Belli would slowly become the physical wasteland that it already is from a metaphysical point of view

 

[Qie Niangao]

7 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

And yet you claim that many people would refuse the opportunity to receive free of charge (with standard tier applied)  from LL a 4096 parcel on mainland 2.0 which will be free of the worst excesses of original mainland:  no land cutting, ad farms, networked advertising, low hanging skyboxes, and overly tall privacy screens.

I don't recall saying that, although I'm not entirely sold on the idea. And I suppose I do think technically "many people" would refuse this opportunity because not everybody is ever going to go Premium at all, or tier-up to the level needed to support a 4096.

What I tried to explain before is that 4096 is a particularly difficult size for Premium subscribers with the standard 1024 m² bonus tier. It may be a popular size on Estates, but I assume most Mainland and Belli owners are at the 1024 level, many with no other holdings. Tiering up from 1024 to 4096 leaves that whole 1024 "left over" in the current tier structure.

Crap. So now I need to break out the spreadsheet to see if this makes Premium Plus super attractive:

Well, sort of, I guess, so maybe the Lab could market these 4096s as an incentive for stepping up to Premium Plus, maybe offer some special pricing for Premium Plus tiers in general. (E.g., if Premium Plus got that extra 2048 for $9.50 per month instead of $13, they'd pay $363 per year for 4096, same as Premium, with all PP's extra benefits instead of the spare 1024.)

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

5 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I don't recall saying that, although I'm not entirely sold on the idea. And I suppose I do think technically "many people" would refuse this opportunity because not everybody is ever going to go Premium at all, or tier-up to the level needed to support a 4096.

What I tried to explain before is that 4096 is a particularly difficult size for Premium subscribers with the standard 1024 m² bonus tier. It may be a popular size on Estates, but I assume most Mainland and Belli owners are at the 1024 level, many with no other holdings. Tiering up from 1024 to 4096 leaves that whole 1024 "left over" in the current tier structure.

Crap. So now I need to break out the spreadsheet to see if this makes Premium Plus super attractive:

Well, sort of, I guess, so maybe the Lab could market these 4096s as an incentive for stepping up to Premium Plus, maybe offer some special pricing for Premium Plus tiers in general. (E.g., if Premium Plus got that extra 2048 for $9.50 per month instead of $13, they'd pay $363 per year for 4096, same as Premium, with all PP's extra benefits instead of the spare 1024.)

 

You assume too much, MOST mainland parcels are NOT 1024's. People get premium, not for the measly 1024, but so they can pay tier on a larger parcel.

I'm not suggesting any special tier deals on LL 4096's. The only deal is that you get it for free and pay standard tier rates. Of course, you didn't buy it, so you can't sell it, you can only abandon it, just like on Belli or the 512 LL home sims.

I personally am at the 8192 level, own about 5 homes, and have tier to spare to flip micro marcels