Ineffable Mote

Bellisseria and the so-called pink pound are the major parts of Second Life being someone's cash cow, no more no less. Premium subscriptions are the revenue stream. You get a minimum free 512m of mainland(and/or Belli) tier when you set up a subscription. Land itself is dirt cheap, you just have to file a support ticket, it's all pretty low effort. Years ago Linden Lab had this bright idea to shift towards a 2.0 platform called Sansar and brought in a new CEO from Yahoo to manage this, it all went nowhere. Literally. Meta and the rest are having similar issues with going nowhere, there's little public interest in virtual reality or any metaverse outside of media hype. As in zilch. LL doesn't even have a CEO now. People can still buy estate regions and run them without abilities to resell and all the other rules they want. This is included as part of LL's product offerings. LL is extremely unlikely to offer this for free, least of all as a new product.

I do recall that and now that I think of it in terms of +4/-4000m, it does have less appeal.

I'm not keeping up so no idea if this has been mentioned but mainland is/was more about exploring and camaraderie alongside the builds and creativities, and that allowing people to terraform by digging and building basements and bunkers underground in early days would have headed off a lot of tendencies and issues so-called or otherwise(and not just the abundance of skyboxes, nature of things being what they are).

SS Galaxy was in its prime when it was located on Bill Stirling's Sagittarian estate regions. When it moved closer to Blake it was basically a rescue, but then later on when it got preserved by LL it became a dead museum piece and never really recovered from that. As mentioned above the move to Belli didn't help, and I'd say it has more to do with lack of community involvement and activity than its location. Builds are easy-ish to move but foundations don't carry over, and essentially wind up getting stripped out(due to various reasons and not going into that here). Preservation doesn't really feel like the right term for it, and I don't see a fix as most SL'ers are just here for the passive entertainment. (it's my understanding that SS Galaxy is open to the user base to host events in and such, these community spaces are offered across Belli but not made much use of so it's not just the ship itself at issue) *I'll add that I still kind of miss the monorail there, connecting it to land with the home/shared apartment rentals etc and could take it back and forth to events or friends' cabin rentals. The whole place felt like a community and neighborhood both in ways that haven't especially been replicated in SL since. Experiences like that are few and far between with a lot of filler offered, which has little to do with mainland either so .. much of it does tie back to the userbase as a whole needing improvements, functionally **I'll also add that there were others besides Bill involved obviously but the names escape me; credit is due and not just for the actual build itself, truly

Sansar wasn't that many yesterdays ago, the customer base a lot closer to nothing than huge. Any notions of approaching a viable Second Life 2.0 *anything* are dead and gone, wishful thinkings like what's being pushed here are all hype and no substance. Says more about the ppl pushing them than anything else, honestly.

The immersion ruining horses of blight aren't going back in the barn, and ugliness is both eye of beholder and part of life(running your draw distance at 200m+ on mainland is just asking for it, realistically speaking). But mainland's more than adequate for people who are here to be creative(which is more than just shop and plop), socialize and explore(not just standing in front of places posing taking selfies & similar). And there's TPV's and homesteads for the portions of the userbase being marketed to that can't accept this, as well as Bellisseria for awhile now. What most people are pushing for here are less "improvements to mainland" and more "click+derender as the big and shiny new game to play" and "running a virtual land&homeowners association" to protect your own "investments".

The modern default shared environment setting on mainland is terribly low effort garbage. LL produced a lot better with Bellisseria, but that's more their cash cow. Aside from that, I'd say the biggest problem with mainland(and especially its underappreciation) lies more with LL's target market, and relatedly LL's marketing efforts and priorities there. The only way to really improve mainland is to improve the overall user base, or actively seek out a better balance for it. Which isn't likely to ever happen at this point, it's not a winner $$-wise, the focus is all quantity over quality from here on out and has been the case for many many years now. I figure that's a large part of what's kept LL's real world lights on for this long, but everything is a trade-off.

Telling people to GTFO really is the height of the average SL customer's mental, emotional and social skills. It's looong been that way and stretches far beyond the forums.

These are corporate forums for a corporate platform. Marketing is a part of running any business and so much of it is for show — far more hype than substance. And likewise some people insist on being part of the show, self-importance makes a lot of ppl's worlds go 'round. What would happen if they stopped carrying on? OP would seem smart enough to realize this, but occasionally it still needs to be pointed out.

Once again, it's time for the annual Hot Bay City Nights. This weekend, with main events being scheduled Sunday. All invited and welcome. The pageant is also open to all avatars, be it women, men, or not even human. Wear what you like, but vintage clothing(1940-1965) is preferred, including for the swimwear contest. And we all know beauty isn't just about looks, so there are pageant style questions for entrants as well. Should you win, how you choose to use your role in the best city by the Bay is up to you. Bay City Fairgrounds: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/North Channel/104/134/29

imo it would be far easier for residents to run their own stations, the licensing part of it would be the main pain in the derriere for the effort. Not to suggest just anyone could do it, but there's no shortage of people in SL who could do so reliably. I know some are already. Not to slag Soma radio but it was overused, store owners and events as well as homes. SL could use less easy reach cookie cutters and more variety, really.

Picnics! Car Washes! Games! Sharks! Races! Duck Ponds! Music! DJ's GoSpeed and Friar Don! Good & Fun Times! Plus a return of the Miss Bay City Pageant! Why yes, you can be Miss Bay City for a whole year(or more!) First weekend of September, with main events being scheduled Sunday afternoon. All invited and welcome. The pageant is also open to all avatars, be it women, men, or not even human. Wear what you like, but vintage clothing(1940-1965) is preferred, including for the swimwear contest. And we all know beauty isn't just about looks, so there are pageant style questions for entrants as well. Should you win, how you choose to use your role in the best city by the Bay is up to you. @ the Bay City Fairgrounds: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/North Channel/132/144/28

I managed to get back in after a tp & crash and but sticking to bicycle and balloon for now, not trusting teleports quite yet

I don't keep up with this stuff that closely, but from what I've read Europe is looking to crack down more on addictive gameplay(which is not quite the same as "gambling" imo), but I presume that's the regulatory climate they're referring to, and was only a matter of time. Or the regulations could be something more closely related to Tilia.

I just told you what happened to all three of us, repeatedly. If you want to argue it take it up with someone else.

I crashed both times in, as did my partner, and a friend who went through shortly ahead of us by boat.

Not sure if there's a region issue or someone with a graphics card crasher in Graff, but it's impossible to sail through there without crashing.

Springhurst island is looking excitedly wild too.

I'd say it's brave, but the first day of maintenance seemed pretty uneventful from here. I just saw a prehistoric mole afoot too, I should venture off my sofa and see what's out there.

For a home/street sign people could pick their own number and xxxxx Residence or whatever for the main text, and just have region name and x,y coords in a smaller line of text underneath it..wouldn't have to be difficult. That's not how I did my own, people can get creative with them though.

They were telling people the next batch of linden homes would be in June and they didn't know anything more, that was roughly 3 weeks ago. There has been no date set for houseboats from what I've seen, other than the "soon" and "very soon", which is why I said

I haven't seen any official road map, and wouldn't expect one to be public. I know some people asked live chat after the first ones sold out and they were told June, they didn't know anything more.

If the network maintenance is related to region handoff issues(and sim crossings did get a bit failtastic again last night, guessing some switch got flipped early in preparation) the maintenance could have been scheduled fairly recently and I'd think it should be a higher priority. I'm not under the impression the houseboat expansion was particularly planned in advance either, but that the next batch of homes was on the road map for June.

I can't imagine they'll move/copy the new ssp houseboat regions over and have people trying to grab them during(or even immediately after) the scheduled network maintenance. I'm thinking somewhere around the 24th is more likely, if not into early June. https://status.secondlifegrid.net/incidents/lr0p2wy33qh8

One of the upsides of home living..there are hermit crabs about which are Mole created, but the pathfinding in them won't work in the houseboats..seems to be ground terrain only.