My Mainland ... What a Mess Now.

[Polenth Yue]

I think you have some decisions to make about what you're after. If you want stability and freedom, the mainland is a good choice. But it comes with lack of overall theme, and the possibility of living next to a build you find ugly.

If you want theme and overall attractiveness, private estates are generally a better bet. But it comes with the risk of it closing tomorrow with no warning, and the restrictions stopping you from building what you want.

You have to take the bad points of your decision with the good.

There's also the mainland decision of where you build. The ground is good if you like a bit of anarchy, and it does bring in more random visitors. But if you want isolation from your neighbours and to reduce client-side lag, the sky is better. From what you've said, I'm surprised you're not in a skybox already. Customers generally won't notice or care if you're on the ground or not.

[JoJo Aurelia]

Well, I'm getting good with derender! It's easy to move when it's just a house. After long time somewhere and building a customer base, it's hard to move. But, I've learned alot in this forum and have lots to think about. Thanks everyone.

[Rihanna Irata]

If you do want to mve, try checking out a sim next to "talgat" they are selling alot of parcels quet cheeply ands its really nce neighborhood around there,, i personally own the talgat sim

[Vesper Kling]

I hope you got this solved and found a better place for your shop. Though I looked at TeaLeaf now and it looks like a nice region. Beautyful and no lag. Muskeg was a bit worse though.... and not that pretty but iv seen worse. an awful lot of horses though

I love mainland myself  and the fact that I can travel over multiple sims via car or boat or whatever and explore. My main problem is banlines. I so wish Linden could make them illegal on mainland.... Ppl can use skyboxes for privacy. Or in worst case orbs. I also wish there was more themed regions and some regulations about building high and in the sky. No boxes lower than 600m for example. Some non protected inner parts of mainland, less attractive, could have "no covenants". As it is now 1 horrid build can ruin a whole neighbourhood and lower prices and no one benefits from that. not LL either....

[Qie Niangao]

If sensible covenant-like restrictions were to be placed on the Mainland, it would certainly make it more appealing, and surely the Lab would profit by getting more Mainland back in use and paying tier.  The problem is that enforcing any such restrictions would need to be either automated (costing developer time--and do the benefits outweigh those of some new feature or bug fix?), or manually as AR responses (again costly).

As we've seen with the automated process of setting abandoned land for sale, it's really difficult to code for every consideration.  That process, for example, is now setting for sale sliced-off and abandoned microparcels all over the grid. (I tried to get this changed to some sensible minimum size, but nothing's been done, so apparently this is how they want it.  Then I tried to monitor the areas I care about and get neighbors to pick up the cuts, but that's absurdly time-consuming and only sometimes effective.)

Back when Mainland was really a free-for-all -- adfarms and all -- some residents argued that the Lab should just admit defeat and turn over management of the continents to one or more existing Estate owners, on contract.

I think I'd support growing the ranks of the Moles and having them enforce a Mainland "covenant".  They're practically Linden employees anyway, albeit underpaid and without benefits, so "Covenant Moles" could be selected for responsibility and professionalism, and still be answerable to the Lab.  (That is, it must not establish a bunch of residents acting as building code police!)

I'm not at all sure, however, that Michael would want to manage that particular function.  Maybe nobody could, without a different corporate culture.

[JoJo Aurelia]

I just turn off viewing ban lines. That's not an issue for me. I have my property set to no enter of public, but not sure if ban lines are visable for those who have the lines viewable. I have an orb but using it elsewhere. The reason people turn them on is ppl feel very free to explore the homes of others.So my question is, why not turn them off in your viewer. I don't see them.

 PS I have contacted neighbors asking them to help clean some things up. I for one bought a nano parcel next to me. The owner at first didn't want to sell it. I wasn't "aware" it was there actually until one day a Meeros nest showed up. It was right in the path of my store. She said, no, then changed her mind. I've also contacted neighbors and asked them to work with me to clean a few areas up. Some did, some told me to go F. myself.

I have mixed feelings about a Mole running the Mainland. Would it prevent bad taste?

I swear I don't want to be petty but there is some really bad taste in Second Life. And ppl being inconsiderate. When I moved there, I made sure my store did not rise too high and block my neighbors view of the water and I spoke with her, and my other neighbors across the street about what they'd like to see in the area. But that's me.

Meantime the "chicken" is still floating in the sky, going on a year now. The owner has yet to respond to my request to remove it, and the boxes of junk. The sky there is a mess. It's wall to wall garbage. People leave everything up there.

 

[Qie Niangao]

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Faye Feldragonne wrote:

I just turn off viewing ban lines.  

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The problem isn't so much the view of banlines, as the effect they have on vehicles.  The underlying problem is that vehicles in SL simply cannot be reliably controlled, especially anywhere near a border crossing.  So even with the best intentions and the most careful driving, vehicles will veer off the road.  Banlines are like little traps for vehicles: stray even slightly, and you're stuck.  Compound that with a border crossing, and the driver may be stuck thousands of meters away with no choice but to relog, stranding the vehicle with no hope of finding it again.  So it becomes litter.

Fortunately, most Linden roadway is set to autoreturn, so those crashed vehicles go away after a while.  If a vehicle strays off the roadway first, however, onto no-autoreturn land and then crashes into a banline... well, it's likely to be there forever, because there's no Mainland Estate Manager to come tidy up on parcels owned by forever-absent residents.

The result?  Banlines are usually surrounded by junk.

[Vesper Kling]

Exactly. They are not just an eyesore. As i sail and uses vehicles a lot I always ends up stuck in banlines. And crashes or just loose my vehicle and cant rezz it again of course so I have to start over. When I was living in mainland in the grid Inworldz they decided to forbid banlines on mainland and that was a good thing. As you say Qie, they just get surrounded by litter...

[Vesper Kling]

good idea! I vote for the return of the moles =)

[161488303349]

if you looking for good neighbours on the mainland then see if you can find land by some of the established communities. in some of them like bay city is quite expensive tho

for cheaper land can look by chilbo. that an organic community. it start out on chilbo sim way back and has just grown out to quite a few sims next door now. chilbo have a community group but is all kinds of independent owners mixed in as well with them. everyone get along fine together that way

not have to be right in chilbo can just go close by in another sim and make some paths on ur land to link up with the other paths on the neigbours land. when you do that then other ppl come after u and do same on next parcel. is pretty cool how that is working there

chilbo ppl in for the longtime. they just do what they do and not worry about trashland greifers. just outwait them and let the tier kill them off. if the community is blocked that way then they just go round it and keep growing in other directions 

[161488303349]

that a good idea about the moles. they linden employees so i not have problem about them having them kinda powers

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Faye Feldragonne wrote:

I just turn off viewing ban lines. That's not an issue for me. I have my property set to no enter of public, but not sure if ban lines are visable for those who have the lines viewable. I have an orb but using it elsewhere. The reason people turn them on is ppl feel very free to explore the homes of others.So my question is, why not turn them off in your viewer. I don't see them.

 PS I have contacted neighbors asking them to help clean some things up. I for one bought a nano parcel next to me. The owner at first didn't want to sell it. I wasn't "aware" it was there actually until one day a Meeros nest showed up. It was right in the path of my store. She said, no, then changed her mind. I've also contacted neighbors and asked them to work with me to clean a few areas up. Some did, some told me to go F. myself.

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Yes this is a banline. It will be visible to most people, and it will crash vehicles.

I too cooperate with neighbors to help improve a sim, but if you were my neighbor and those lines were there, I would not cooperate with you until they were gone. That is simply because I would be looking at the mess on the sim and seeing 'the folks with banlines' as being the primary issue of concern.

I would recommend trying a security orb instead.

You can sail, drive, and fly through my land without being crashed all you want. I have a security orb, set to 0 or 3 seconds, but tightly confied to the walls of my home's top 2 floors (and the part of the balcony of the bottom of these two floors that is under a closed area).

- You have to get through the wall to be affected by it, or even warned by it.

 

In a blake sea water sim I have a house boat sitting on the water, the lot is fully open so people can pass over my plot in boats going to and from my neighor to the open sea (my neighbor owns a small channel to the sea, by leaving my lot open I provide her a wide access so she doesn't need to carefully steer through).

- Again, the inside of the house boat has a small orb, set to about 5m radius, so that only if you go inside of it will it pay attention to you.

(And I used an alt to test the configuration).

 

Another perk: I have a build platform in the sky on one lot. Way way way up there. Security orb will toss people out of it, where banlines will stop working at about 130m.

 

[JoJo Aurelia]

Thanks for posting the info about banlines. Because I don't travel oven around SL, I wasn't aware of the problem for travelers. I have since removed mine. Seriously, most folks just are clueless about the nuaunces of SL. 

[Triple Peccable]

This can be used to help with the ban line/vehicle problem:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Explorers-HUD-Essential-for-all-Vehicles-Explorers-and-Landlords/1269113

 

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Faye Feldragonne wrote:

Thanks for posting the info about banlines. Because I don't travel oven around SL, I wasn't aware of the problem for travelers. I have since removed mine. Seriously, most folks just are clueless about the nuaunces of SL. 

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Nod.

One problem you might have faced is that the banlines may have 'chased away' your better neighbors, and kept land around you unnattractive to the point that the clubs and other things noted earlier in the thread moved in.

- I know I and most I've spoken to usually won't buy land in a sim that has a banline owner if we spot them ahead of time.

(I ended up with one in Campion because it was a 16m lot midway down the cliff... but I've since sold most of my land there, and the people who moved into the lot I sold are similar to what you're experiencing here. And for possibly similar reasons - one person had a blighted ugly build by putting a flat prim over a section of the cliff that had empty air under it, so no hillside builders wanted to be in the sim.)

- that's a rough issue too, because it can only take one of your neighbors doing something likewise or worse to start chasing off the ones who care about coordination or a nice overall view or easy movement. Very easy to fall into a 'bad commons' situation.

 

[JoJo Aurelia]

My older neighbors always had them up, but being my store is deeply seated between my home and one of these, this could have been bad for customers. I never really *noticed* banlines before because I don't have them showing. I don't like running into them, and one of my neighbors property line criss crosses by my store.

I'd not even heard of this being an issue since coming into SL over 2 years ago. It's good to learn things like this and this forum is a great place. I so believe in being respectful of others around me, tho, even I have had some less than shinning moments as a neighbor, but it's all a growth. 

When I first posted this I was not aware of FPS, and end user issues. For some reason I am having problems with this, even though I've gutted my system of anything that will suck energy and stopped leaving PS up or browsers while in SL (even rebooting to be sure nothing was hanging on). After several people coming by because of this forum, I've learned that it's not just the sim, or the animals or whatever, but my end. Again, learning along the way. I thought if I had a mondo system with a fantastic video card, it would always be Linden's faught, but not so... Something is up on my end and I'm working to improve this.

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

You may be using a viewer that is not ideal for your system.

Seems to be some differences across systems with nVidia and ATI - and not always the same for people on the same brand.

But whatever you are on, try out some other choices, and see if one works better.

For some v3 is ideal, while others on like systems can't even load it. Likewise Firestorm or Phoenix or whatever.

 

Lastly.. it could be your ISP. I got a major boost in SL performance when I went from DSL to cable. But I've heard that in some places, ISPs throttle back 'gaming' traffic either in an attempt to extort money from the game companies, or because they view it as hoggy and not 'justified' (never mind that it pays their bills - I once worked for an ISP in the 90s that would throttle down traffic from its biggest customer, because they were a pron company and that was 'wasted traffic')...

- I do not believe any of the major US ISPs do this at present, though a few years ago they were threatening too. But a smaller one might, or one somewhere else (no idea where you are - none of my business either. ).

 

If several older neighbors had banlines - I dunno. My biased theory would just be that once some of them left, new folks coming by to look found it intimidating - so you ended up with the kinds of folks who don't care about what's around them, or even were 'chased out' of estates / elsewhere and found it appealing that the locals were so-situated.

My first neighbor on my first lot in Zindra, used exterior wall art of males engaged in acts of self-devotion... ( ), had misaligned prims, and lots of jarring colors. When we first met he was proud of this, and sent me a slurl to his lot on M land that he still had. It was just as garrish, minus the self-love photos... which I gathered he had recently taken down from there when told to GTFO of mainland-M.

- He was somewhat 'chasd out' to Zindra... but his build was so obscene -and- poorly setup in a color-clash way, that the sim he landed on in Zindra quickly emptied out... until he himself poofed away and it refilled.

(I was the first to move out, so that all comes as a distant "hey wonder what's happening where I used to live" observation.)

I have some censored screencaps of it on my flickr page. From the tamest angles I could get...

- Folks like that might find a sim with lots of 'secretive' people appealing in that they might think 'no jerks are going to be getting all up in my business here.'

But that's a biased theory, based just on some bad experiences I had in the past and my attempts to explain them.

The truth is its really hard to tell what other folks will do or why. A friend is a very big land reseller on mainland, and has told me that some folks will spend 'through the teeth' on extremely expensive builds, and then plop down an ugly prefab that's only have complete and textured with those obviously stolen 'free textures' that don't even match up well...

- And I just assume the other side of that is that some folks won't pay more than a dime for land, moving into the worst cut lots, and then lovingly devote to caring for it with an amazing build...

(Which I personally have seen, and have tried to be).

 

- ie: even a person who sells hundreds of lots a month can't find a pattern to it all.

 

[JoJo Aurelia]

I have cable.

An update to my area, one of the huge full bright houses that was running scripted "maids" along with other lag producing scripts, is gone. I can't beleive the performance boost! The jailer's got hold of me and plan to move up to the sky, or over to Zindra, apparently mortified I'd mentioned them in the post (they were super nice and I felt kinda bad for that mention). Horses are still there, and so are the ugly rentals, but the rentals are primarily empty. In fact during that last Linden land sale, a TON of housing rentals went up, and they're just aweful, and NOT cheap! They're all empty. I assume they'll be gone before we know it. The cars that O'Toole puts out are littering the entire area, stuck in ditches . But other than that, I am just not sticking my nose past my 128 draw distance...minding my own P's and Q's. I just realized people's is peoples and they're going to do what they want  to do, and that's what Mainland is all about! I've been there for 6 months and I'd never go back to private land. I love the road! Hop on it and go explore!

But it would be wonderful if neighbors cleaned the litter up. So many flight vehicles stuck in the sky! And general garbage. I try to notify people of the issue and have had good response with them removing them. 

[Qie Niangao]

Those cars that "are littering the entire area, stuck in ditches"... If you contact the owner, she'll tidy up, usually fairly promptly, and they might not reappear, depending on whether she's tweaked the algorithm since they got stranded.

I'm kind of hoping that, once pathfinding makes it to the main grid, she'll be able to use that to reduce the frequency of clutter.

In the meantime, I try to think of them as a constant reminder of the drawbacks of no-object-entry and no-script parcel settings.

[JoJo Aurelia]

I have spoken to her and she's sweet about it, but I'd have to contact her all the time and it's too much work.

[Chronometria]

Glad to hear that things are settling down. I remember popping by to have a look and its great that you managed to "tough it out" rather than moving to new land.

Your patience has paid off!

[161488303349]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

As if Mainland hasn't enough of its own problems, it's the dumping site for Estates' toxic waste.

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at least the unscrupulous cant anymore put up fullbright spinning flashing screaming mega signs saying:

"rent a home on xxx?xxx estate. where you dont have to put up with greifers and lowlifes ruining your view"

[Qie Niangao]

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16 wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

As if Mainland hasn't enough of its own problems, it's the dumping site for Estates' toxic waste.

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at least the unscrupulous cant anymore put up fullbright spinning flashing screaming mega signs saying:

"rent a home on xxx?xxx estate. where you dont have to put up with greifers and lowlifes ruining your view"

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Thinking back on it, that was quite possibly the most important advance in SL's history. I wish it had gone a bit further, specifically regarding microparcel abuse, but yeah: Mainland is way, way better than it was when I got my First Land, ages ago.

[161488303349]

agree