Time for Mainland 2.0

[Qie Niangao]

31 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

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.

Be that as it may, it's no accident that Belli parcels are sized to the bonus tier of the subscription levels eligible for them.

(Well, I'm not sure who the 512 Belli trailers are supposed to target. I don't think they're particularly successful anyway, but it's weird that they apparently aren't available to Plus members, a subscription level I don't really understand either.)

[BilliJo Aldrin]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

Be that as it may, it's no accident that Belli parcels are sized to the bonus tier of the subscription levels eligible for them.

(Well, I'm not sure who the 512 Belli trailers are supposed to target. I don't think they're particularly successful anyway, but it's weird that they apparently aren't available to Plus members, a subscription level I don't really understand either.)

They are targeted to those members that dont want to squander their entire free tier in the dead zone known as Belli.

And of course the parcels in Belli are set to the size of the free tier.

They should let premium members claim  a 2048 and pay tier for the excess square meters.

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

You assume too much

 

6 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

 

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

Again, what are you basing this on?

[Rowan Amore]

5 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

People get premium, not for the measly 1024, but so they can pay tier on a larger parcel.

No one I've known in all my years in SL has gone premium for the ability to own mainland.  Not a single one.  A couple have recently claimed a Belli home but only as a secondary spot to rez when their rented estate parcel is offline/restarting.   

[BilliJo Aldrin]

12 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

 

Again, what are you basing this on?

Im basing it on the number of people who say they would love to own mainland  if it wasn’t such a dumpster fire. 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

10 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

No one I've known in all my years in SL has gone premium for the ability to own mainland.  Not a single one.  

I did 😂

[Persephone Emerald]

17 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

No one I've known in all my years in SL has gone premium for the ability to own mainland.  Not a single one.  A couple have recently claimed a Belli home but only as a secondary spot to rez when their rented estate parcel is offline/restarting.   

Before Belli and the old Linden Homes regions this was common. How else could one own land? One of my friends owned a mall area on mainland, then later gave it to a group we were part of. I owned land, first with my boyfriend and then with my landlady, and rented out parcels to other people. Maybe you didn't know people who owned mainland, but if your friends ever had a home or shop on mainland, their landlords owned mainland.

Edited March 13 by Persephone Emerald

[BilliJo Aldrin]

On 3/11/2024 at 5:03 PM, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

 

• No lights that cover over other people's land

 

 

My neighbor in RL has a streetlight in his backyard illuminating his parking area.

It also lights up half my backyard.

I hate it.

I want to sit outside in the dark, perhaps with candles or oil lamps creating a gentle glow, or even just under the light of a full moon, not sit under the glare of his streetlight.

[Persephone Emerald]

15 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

My neighbor in RL has a streetlight in his backyard illuminating his parking area.

It also lights up half my backyard.

I hate it.

I want to sit outside in the dark, perhaps with candles or oil lamps creating a gentle glow, or even just under the light of a full moon, not sit under the glare of his streetlight.

In Firestorm you can derender the lamp. Derendering an object also removes it as a light source, its particles and sounds.

[Sid Nagy]

I've only went premium because of Bellisseria.
It would never have come to my mind to get one of the plus or premium plans just to have the ability to buy land near a dumpster on Mainland.
A sort of Mainland 2.0 might. I simply don't like the anarchy of Mainland.

[Sid Nagy]

37 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

In Firestorm you can derender the lamp. Derendering an object also removes it as a light source, its particles and sounds.

Firestorm only derenders your own view.
So if you have guests, people still have to enjoy the dumpsters, walls, full bright houses, flying objects.
IMHO a very poor solution.
Mainland 2.0 with a somewhat enforced covenant like in Bellisseria could really be a solution IMHO.

Edited March 13 by Sid Nagy

[Rowan Amore]

22 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

 Maybe you didn't know people who owned mainland, but if your friends ever had a home or shop on mainland, their landlords owned mainland.

My friends all owned (rented) parcels on private estates.  I've lived on them almost my entire Premium SL.  Almost every single store I shop at is on a private estate either using the entire estate or sharing it with other stores.

That there is almost twice as much land mass for private estates compared to mainland speaks volumes.

[Persephone Emerald]

12 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

That there is almost twice as much land mass for private estates compared to mainland speaks volumes.

Yes. This along with the popularity of Bellisseria shows that there would be a demand for a more controlled kind of Mainland 2.0.

When users were making money by renting homes and parcels on private estates and mainland, LL created Linden Homes and directed that money into its own coffers. Private estates are now more popular for commercial property than mainland is, so why wouldn't LL emulate them for a better controled mixed use mainland as well?

I'm not saying they should try to kill off the private estate market, because they obviously make money from this. I'm just saying they could create public space land that would be more appealing to newbies than the current Mainland mess must be.

[Katherine Heartsong]

I'd pack up and move to Belli or a Mainland 2.0 in a second with my PP account (and my male alt's P account) if two things happened.

First, the homes LL offered on them could include at least a handful of other approved builders because compared to Scarlet Creative and Trompe, I think LL home designs are dreadfully boring and not good looking.

And second, LL offered Belli commercial zones where what you rendered was a storefront/shop and not a residential home. Create shopping districts to wander around in. Then again, apply point one. I'm uncertain that LL could design a range of decent looking commercial buildings that would compete well with most other architecture/builders here, so the first point applies to this as well.

(Honestly, if I could put together another $50/month? I'd most like just do the Homestead thing with my PP account.)

Edited March 13 by Katherine Heartsong

[Persephone Emerald]

2 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I'd pack up and move to Belli or a Mainland 2.0 in a second with my PP account (and my male alt's P account) if two things happened.

First, the homes LL offered on them could include at least a handful of other approved builders because compared to Scarlet Creative and Trompe, I think LL home designs are dreadfully boring and not good looking.

And second, LL offered Belli commercial zones where what you rendered was a storefront/shop and not a residential home. Create shopping districts to wander around in. Then again, apply point one. I'm uncertain that LL could design a range of decent looking commercial buildings that would compete well with most other architecture/builders here, so the first point applies to this as well.

I like Bellisseria in general, but most of the objects have lower land impact versions that have been made by user-creators. 

I wish there were RP shopping areas in Belli, but I think Mainland 2.0 should allow users to choose their own buildings and landscaping.

[Raspberry Crystal]

1 hour ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I'd pack up and move to Belli or a Mainland 2.0 in a second with my PP account (and my male alt's P account) if two things happened.

First, the homes LL offered on them could include at least a handful of other approved builders because compared to Scarlet Creative and Trompe, I think LL home designs are dreadfully boring and not good looking.

And second, LL offered Belli commercial zones where what you rendered was a storefront/shop and not a residential home. Create shopping districts to wander around in. Then again, apply point one. I'm uncertain that LL could design a range of decent looking commercial buildings that would compete well with most other architecture/builders here, so the first point applies to this as well.

(Honestly, if I could put together another $50/month? I'd most like just do the Homestead thing with my PP account.)

The big win for the Linden homes from my point of view is the stable LOD at distance, there are so many houses available to buy commerically  which collapse into 'triangles' at quite a short distance away.
Anything which tries to cram too much detail into not really enough prims is particularly prone to this unfortunately. This factor has got to be a factor in the aesthetic. The moles had a mission statement that they wanted to create a whole environment that looked good even for those with lower powered PCs and at smaller LOD settings.

[Katherine Heartsong]

42 minutes ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

The big win for the Linden homes from my point of view is the stable LOD at distance, there are so many houses available to buy commerically  which collapse into 'triangles' at quite a short distance away.
Anything which tries to cram too much detail into not really enough prims is particularly prone to this unfortunately. This factor has got to be a factor in the aesthetic. The moles had a mission statement that they wanted to create a whole environment that looked good even for those with lower powered PCs and at smaller LOD settings.

Agreed. That's why I used the word "approved". I'm imagining that certain builders would submit house designs that fit theme XYZ to LL for inclusion, and LL could judge based on LI, LOD, aesthetics etc which handful to allow to be part of the parcel's house list, and reject the others. Even 3–4 outside home designers whose names I have mentioned would help the bland LL looks that exist currently.

[Yorkie Bardeen]

Covenants need someone, being paid a salary, to go through all the abuse reports. Unless it's a built-in system, like tphome failing vs avatars between certain Z positions, or having a built in 10 second delay- that's just an example, I'm not campaigning for function changes. More covenants means more employee time dealing with them.

Nobody is going to agree on what looks good or acceptable. Bellisseria mostly works because the Lindens imposed their own Stepford, beige, milquetoast mid-century aesthetic on almost all of it, so anyone turning their garage into a hot rod chop shop sticks out and there's probably some self-censorship that goes on there. Or else they really are all empty houses or just used by premium account owners as a place to drop a pose stand.

It would be nice I think if LL would allocate some of the bigger wastelands of the mainland and let some group of enthusiasts (there are probably hundreds of us) to decorate them as public spaces. Set the LI limit to 0.1 of usual so they don't lag out everyone, but it would improve things a bit.

If more mainland starts looking "nice" people seem to be attracted to that and to add to it. This is how a few mainland communities have grown over time. I would not like to enforce restrictions on mainland. I have my aesthetic preferences, but other people have theirs and we have to get along somehow.

[Persephone Emerald]

17 minutes ago, Yorkie Bardeen said:

Covenants need someone, being paid a salary, to go through all the abuse reports. Unless it's a built-in system, like tphome failing vs avatars between certain Z positions, or having a built in 10 second delay- that's just an example, I'm not campaigning for function changes. More covenants means more employee time dealing with them.

In my type of workplace there are a few ways of addressing a problem, especially safety and compliance issues.

1. Telling employees to be more careful and to follow the rules. This is not very effective.

2. Firing the person who didn't follow the rules or who made a mistake. This is also not very effective, because others could do the same thing.

3. Making new, stricter rules. This is also not very effective, largely because people will circumvent rules if they seem to waste time, be inconvenient or to be stupid.

4. Putting in cameras to scare employees into thinking they're constantly being watched. This is fairly effective, but wouldn't work well in SL.

5. Putting in safety guards such as plastic shields. This is fairly effective, but can sometimes be circumvented. Being able to restrict who can come into a parcel or region is sort of like putting up anti-idiot safety guards.

6. Re-engineering a machine or restructuring a procedure so the potential problem no longer exists. This is the most effective way of solving a problem, especially if it's a recurrent one. 

If 0 second security devices teleporting avatars home were viewed by LL as a big enough problem, they could remove the ability for this to happen. There would be no need to report 0 second security orbs in Bellisseria and no employees would need to respond to such complaints, because the problem wouldn't exist.

If newbie griefers are a problem in some regions, region owners can age-restrict who comes into their region.

If the creation and selling of micro-parcels were viewed as a problem, LL could make it impossible to sell parcels under a certain size.

If people complain about ugly or view-restricting objects, give them the ability to derender those objects.

[Yorkie Bardeen]

idk what your work situation has to do with it. The script function thing is just an example of a thing that doesn't need constant, on-going supervision, I'm not demanding it, but I don't see "We want Bellisseria but with blackjack and hookers" getting much enthusiasm from LL looking at it as yet another covenant to police. I think they would rather people just pay up and move to Bellisseria.

 

[Sid Nagy]

Bellisseria has a covenant, it is enforced and it works. There is no reason to believe that it could not work in Mainland 2.0 too.
Traditional Mainland should stay too, for people who love that type of land with no covenant.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

5 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

My neighbor in RL has a streetlight in his backyard illuminating his parking area.

It also lights up half my backyard.

I hate it.

It's actually in the Belli covenant that you can't broadcast light into another person's land.

For me, that'd be one of the things that ought to be in a mainland set of rules too. Technically you could AR over it under existing mainland as object littering - which often gets it's definition stretched.

Belli covenant is of course the way it is because it's designed solely for "homes". Zoning residential away from all other kinds of property is a uniquely USA thing. Most of the world favors mixed use, and many US cities that had most of their development prior to the automobile have 'exceptions' for mixed use in 'historic areas' - though many such areas were torn down in the mid-20ths century because the auto industry didn't want people being able to walk.

- So a lot of Belli's weird covenant is actually made to support the desires of long dead Chevrolet and Ford CEOs.

BUT... remove some of those pieces and you have the starting concept for a mainland 2.0 - that then just needs to be "freed up" a bit more and have some AR categories expanded.

 

[Clem Marques]

6 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I did 😂

Me too!

[Qie Niangao]

9 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

My neighbor in RL has a streetlight in his backyard illuminating his parking area.

It also lights up half my backyard.

I hate it.

I want to sit outside in the dark, perhaps with candles or oil lamps creating a gentle glow, or even just under the light of a full moon, not sit under the glare of his streetlight.

If you're still using a viewer without Advanced Lighting Model (so it's doing forward rendering), I think it will still have a nearest single-digit limit on light sources (like six or something). If so, you can stack a bunch of lights along the border, all emitting black, so avatars on your side of those emitters won't see lights emitted on the other side.

It's been years since I've actually done that, but back then "nearest" was based on distance from the avatar, not the cam; that would be good in this case, if it still works that way.

[UnilWay SpiritWeaver]

20 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

If you're still using a viewer without Advanced Lighting Model (so it's doing forward rendering), I think it will still have a nearest single-digit limit on light sources (like six or something). If so, you can stack a bunch of lights along the border, all emitting black, so avatars on your side of those emitters won't see lights emitted on the other side.

You'd also want to measure them all to be sure you didn't thus cast light onto your neighbor's lot.

I've got light sources by the truckload on most of my parcels.

I like to use the default daylight (I hate seeing the world spin when I walk onto or off of a parcel), but then use lights all over my land with a texture in the shade part to aim them or give them... textures (this is a neat way to paint an image onto a wall that... only shows when it's dark enough).

So I am usually walking through a few dozen light sources and there seems to be no limit under the modern advanced lighting.

But since there might still be one without advanced lighting - this makes an unreliable way to block outside light.