Gabriele Graves

Broke my own resolution so that didn't last very long. It was an interesting exercise but I think ultimately it was doomed just as was foretold in this very topic. Ahh well. Mea Culpa. I'm going to go forward with as much restraint as I can muster. Thanks for all the wise words to those who know what I'm talking about.

How do you feel about periodic random earthquakes that throws everyone's stuff all over the place so they have to keep moving it all back? Or is that too evil?

That's all anecdotal information at the end of the day unless you have a proper study to present. If it's one thing I've learned is companies do whatever they think will bring them in the most money. That doesn't always line up with what every customer wants as long as it fits with what enough people want. They will always follow the money.

If you don't have the data all you have is wild, rampant speculation and Ooo looky here at what we have a lot of on the forums...

Yes, we hear this a lot from people who've never had to step up and take that responsibility. If people are so sure, apply for the job and steer the ship. LL are the only ones with the current figures and the detailed historical information about what worked and what didn't. Anyone who thinks they know better cannot possible *do* better without the data to back it up.

Sure, absolutely rules sometimes need changing. It's "repeating stupid mistakes" that the issue here, the only people in a position to truly know that is LL themselves, not us. It's perfectly possible that without those "mistakes" SL wouldn't exist today. It's perfectly possible that other things are in fact mistakes and should have been addressed too. There's plenty of things to choose from. It's all very subjective and it's very arrogant to think that anyone of us residents "absolutely without a shadow of any doubt, knows what the problem is and how to fix it." It's perfectly possible that mainland is very lucrative compared to costs and nobody wants to do anything about it at LL. They clearly already assessed a need for an alternative for mainland/estates and Belli is what they came up with. Given how it's played out I expect that this has turned out very lucrative. Maybe LL are perfectly happy with the state of things if money is rolling in. Belli is their showcase, it gives them something to show the world to entice new and existing residents to a nice safe neighbourhood in the burbs with a lower support burden. They couldn't showcase mainland because of it's many issues not least of which is it's aging historical builds that would look like crap to outsiders. Sure, we love them but that's because it's also part of our history but not to new people. So with Belli now they can ignore that mostly. Perhaps they don't see any financial benefit for a Tween Belli/Mainland product, there's only so many ways to slice and dice a product line before it gets confusing and financially worthless. On top of that, they did say when Belli was announced that they were finished printing mainland regions. That seemed categorical to me and they haven't since. Belli is not mainland (in case anyone is mistaken). There are a good number of different products for customers to choose from. If mainland empties out, so be it, perhaps they'll deal with it then, or not. If it empties out then banlines and orbs will start to vanish. Surely this has already started to happen, right? If there's already less mainland residents, right? So the perceived problems will solve themselves out. Hurrah! I'm not convinced there is some kind of huge crisis from LL's perspective, perhaps there is for mainland rental agents and resellers, sure, I can believe that but LL may not really care about that if their strategy is to promote subscriptions to individuals instead and leave land resell to the estates only. This might be all part of their long term strategy already. Only they know what makes sense for them, not us.

That's one opinion only, not fact. It doesn't matter how many times you repeat it. It doesn't matter what you or I think of that, the rules allow it. Those who cannot be tolerant of the choices of others who are not breaking any rules should seek other places to play that don't trigger them and that's that. I say this as a person who has never operated white-listed banlines or orbs and has kept my mainland parcels open.

So funny how you are trying to re-characterize these things to make them sound different from the reality which is they are standard mainland region functions and features and have always been, at least, as far back as I've been here. I personally have little patience for the argument that these things shouldn't be available to all who pay for and use mainland. Luckily for both of us, our patience doesn't mean squat to anyone but ourselves.

That sounds fine on paper but that approach doesn't work well for everything. Sometimes it's just a common sense fallacy.

Nah, not really. The covenant despite being imperfect makes a huge difference. You don't find any of this over on Belli (yes, this was about 10mins ago , I just TP'd to a random region over there):

I think you mean Nautilus City and that's where my land is. Believe me, the only places that aren't chaotic like the rest are the Linden areas. Sure, just like other mainland there are pockets that are nice but most regions have crazy stuff all over and up in the air. It's just that you can't terraform which makes it less bad than it could be.

They do their best, no doubt, but Belli is too big now otherwise there wouldn't be violations left unaddressed. Selective enforcement isn't very effective.

The speculation is all over the place. One person is going on about mainland 2.0 in the middle of mainland 1.0 and you are obviously talking about something else. None of it seems to have any elements of changing what some people seem to have issues with. With the exception of Bay City, all of the other "themed" areas are as chaotic as ordinary mainland. It's not the relative few. I know because my land is in one of those areas.

@elleevelyn It's not clear to me how any of what you propose is going to "fix" mainland or even differentiate itself as mainland 2.0. Fixed size parcels are already in parts of mainland. The rest just looks like more of the same unless you are also including the idea of a covenant would be the real game changer and if you are going to do that you might as well just make mainland 2.0 as BYO Belli, especially as adult was ruled out it seems. BYO Belli: It seems, at least on this forum, some people would like a place that is Bellisseria but with empty plots of various sizes to plonk down a house. That idea might sell to some but is fraught with additional issues Bellisseria doesn't have just by allowing user's own builds on it. Bellisseria is relatively low maintenance for LL exactly because you aren't suppose to plonk down dwellings, make huge builds or anything that might extend the existing buildings, at least upwards, it's just for decorating a home and garden. This makes it easy for governance because the rules are clearer for users and it removes a lot of ambiguity of whether something crosses that line. Once you allow user dwellings/builds however it becomes way more murky and results in a governance nightmare for all kinds of reasons starting from but not limited to consistency of styles, height, whether it's a ground dwelling or qualifies as a skybox just because someone made it float a metre off the ground. For that reason I would be surprised if LL were keen on BYO Belli.

Oh I get it now, you are trying to compete with Zalificent for outrageous and florid descriptions. *check*

Top tier bodies that offer far more and that look much better are struggling to gain support or retain the support they've had. I'm not sure why Senra failing to gain traction is a huge surprise to anyone. This was as obvious as a train approaching from a distance on a straight track. I made posts to this effect when the bodies were first "accidentally" released to the Library.

LL clearly didn't think it was worth continuing with them so perhaps that's the answer.

I note sure about that. Deterrents don't really work in RL or SL. We used to have the police blotter and sending people to the cornfield but it never stopped people breaking the rules.

LL would have to put in as much effort as with Bellisseria at least or it wouldn't be limited to around the edges either.

You'd have to ask Qie what he meant as I was only referring to what he wrote. All I know is that Bellisseria sure doesn't have any.

The majority of mainland ARs are ignored, LL simply doesn't have the resources for it. You can tell this from the blatant violations of what rules we do have that go permanently unaddressed. LL doesn't even have the resources for Bellisseria now as evidenced from the violations that exist there as well, however they are far more reactive there than they are on mainland.

Conversely people often think they have all the answers when they don't have all the information to them and don't present a consistent idea. The problems don't come with one or two regions, it comes at scale. Rule enforcement is exactly an at scale problem.

I think the land flipping aspect is key though. In Bellisseria every single home that has been claimed represents at least a Premium account but on mainland that isn't anywhere close to being true. If LL are printing so many regions of Bellisseria homes, unless they've completely taken leave of their senses, they must have a reasonable assumption that demand is there which in turn means more Premium accounts. If people are moving out of mainland, it cannot be assumed they are currently only going to Bellisseria though. They could be going to estates, leaving SL entirely, no longer want or simply cannot afford land right now. We must be careful not to make too many assumptions.

I don't know the answer to that and I never implied or said that something cannot be done. I'm just pointing out the issues with what you said in the part I quoted.

And because this is adult mainland 2.0, those ARs will get treated like mainland and not like Bellisseria. A covenant requires LL to take a higher degree of responsiveness when it comes to ARs or it will be just like OG mainland after a while and if LL don't want "to take responsibility for adult Bellisseria" then they'll not want to take it for adult mainland 2.0 either.