Matthieu Quander

Stab in the dark, is your neighbor actually home and playing music through voice?

Also from Firestorm you can simply click the musical note icon in the upper right corner of your screen to toggle music streaming on and off.

Thanks for posting your vehicles. That Moped is awesome. I'm going to have to get one of those. Enclosed vehicles make me feel claustrophobic, so I prefer ones that allow me to be out in the open. My current rail explorer is a handcar. Rail Handcar SLRR

How often do you actually use media? Media, object sounds, and music streams are all different things and have their own settings. Just turn off media unless you want to watch your TV or something. I only have mine enabled when needed, which is very rare. It sounds like you may also have yours configured to automatically connect to media sources, which probably isn't helping matters.

Binary and hex are fine, but if people start posting in Klingon, I'm out of here.

01110011 01101111 01101111 01101110

I have it all scribbled down on a soggy cocktail napkin. Does that help anyone?

Perhaps Rabid meant phallic airstrip and fairgrounds.

I don't know if they are accepted terms, but I call them "finished" and "unfinished." I don't believe for a second that they intend to leave Bellisseria regions that are currently in an "edge of the world" condition in that state. The fact that some include rail makes me even more confident that they intend to complete them eventually. Unless a rail line has an obvious connecting partner somewhere along the same coastline or they intend to add more large areas of continent, I would expect the moles to simply add a turn around loop as seen on Bridle Path, or an end of the line station as seen on the currently unnamed region, SSPE1457. I would love to see them add some water regions in a few strategic places, as some of those turns along the SE Logland coast are dicey, but as you said, it is still usable, and I wouldn't hold my breath.

I'd argue that house boats are sold out most frequently, but stilts, Victorians, and traditionals are all still in very high demand, and are frequently unavailable. The good news for stilts, as you noted, is that more are being released. We'll see what happens to the supply of the others when the fantasy homes are released (more are appearing lately as people free up accounts for the land rush), but for now, the only way to get a traditional, Victorian, or house boat is through an abandon. I expect we will see more large continent pieces added eventually, assuming demand continues to exceed supply.

All Bellisseria home themes other than Chalets have been completely full at times within the past week. Demand for some may wane as new themes are released, but I would not make that assumption.

The old Linden Homes regions didn't always allow for high FPS. Having fewer residents and less objects to cause lag, along with being on servers in the cloud that perform better, have certainly improved things. Of course, if the older regions are consolidated, performance may regress, but not likely to the level it was prior to Bellisseria's existence. There is no doubt that many residents who still live in the old regions do know about Bellisseria, and are choosing to live there for many of the reasons already given. To add to one of those reasons, residents can combine a Bellisseria home with a Mainland parcel, but that can currently only be done if one opts for a camper, which as mentioned, are in short supply. I think there needs to be at least one other 512 m² theme available in Bellisseria, as people like to have options. I also think that for some, there is the sense that they can get away with activities that they can't in Bellisseria (breeding/farming, etc). LL is already struggling to police Bellisseria, I can't imagine much, if any, time is being spent in the old regions, barring an AR for something particularly egregious. I also think that there are way more people living in the old regions who have no idea that Bellisseria exists than people think. Many simply don't pay attention to the community forums or official Linden announcements, and just spend all of their SL time in their areas of interest, which may not include even thinking about that old Linden Home that they got with their premium account all those years ago. Don't be fooled by the sparsity of green dots when viewing the old regions on a map. A surprising number of homes are currently owned. Ultimately, it is up to LL whether to keep any of the old regions open. As many reasons as have been given for keeping at least some of them open, there are likely just as many to close them, most having to do with saving money. One thing to remember is that a premium account includes a Linden Home, depending on availability. It does not guarantee a specific home, or that any particular theme will be available. While many of us might feel a little sad to see them go, I don't personally believe that closing the old regions at some point would upset a significant number of customers to the extent that we would see mass premium account cancellations or people leaving SL entirely. Thus, what is the downside to closing them from LL's perspective? We'll see what happens, but I don't think there is any immediate cause for concern. The closing of any of the old residential regions, if it actually happens, is likely at least a year or two away, probably longer.

I'm not sure how long I will keep it, but it's not every day that you get an island just for yourself. I'll at least decorate it before deciding.

I don't want to trivialize anyone feeling unsafe or having their privacy violated in any way, especially since this sort of thing tends to apply more to female than male avatars, but anyone who has spent any time in Bellisseria knows that it takes an honest 15 seconds for avatars to even partially rez unless you are using the lowest graphics settings. I'm sure a determined individual could sneak onto a parcel and grab a candid photo in that amount of time, but to add props and such to make it look like something inappropriate was happening seems farfetched to me. If you have ever gone to a crowded music venue or shopping event, people have already seen you naked, as your clothes tend to rez last. If you are that concerned about someone seeing your private pixels, wear alphas under your clothing or when you are going to be afk while naked. Planes may be able to get across a parcel in 5 seconds, but hot air balloons take a little longer. In short, I don't see anything wrong with the security settings as currently stipulated in the covenant, and speaking as someone who enjoys living in Bellisseria for the vehicle playground aspect, I would hate to see banlines become a thing there.

I can see your point regarding keeping the content for premium members, but you lost me with the notion that it is done to drive people to live in Bellisseria. Anyone with a premium account can claim a home, grab the content pack, and then abandon the home. Furthermore, they can then change their account back to basic and still make use of the content. I cannot speak for everyone, or even anyone other than myself, but the draw of living in Bellisseria is not the content pack. It does not even enter into the equation for me. I've made use of a few of the textures, but that is more of a convenience than something I couldn't live without. I think the content pack is a great thing for some residents who want a few items that truly fit the theme, or for builders who want to create add-ons and need the original textures (this doesn't always work as expected, but that is another discussion). As for the trees, if they were made available, I think they would be used more on private regions than on residential parcels in Bellisseria due to the LI. As nice as they are, they simply wouldn't be an efficient use of LI if one intends to fully decorate a Linden home and parcel. This is why people would still use trees from other creators, even if they could own the mole-created trees. While I don't always agree the design choices that other home owners make, as long as they are following the covenant, I fully respect their right to do so, and would never want to see that changed. Live and let live. If I don't want to see something in my view, I can change where the camera points or derender objects as needed.

True, but the differences aren't limited to people's homes, they are all over. The Bellisseria stilt region palms all look the same, so when residents use something different, they do really stand out, and even nice quality trees can appear out of place.

This. When I lived on a homestead island, I typically ran my draw distance at ~350 meters to cover all of it from any viewed angle from any location. In Bellisseria, I keep it at close to 200 unless I am doing photography. The other thing I have recently started doing is using the stepped draw distance feature in Firestorm. It works really well as long as you don't immediately start moving your camera around all over the place when you immediately rez. Edited to add that if you are inside your home with the blinds closed, then you can set your draw distance to the minimum, but that's obviously not the OP's situation.

I'm the president of that club.

There are also thousands of new stilts being built, though I have no idea when they will be released. My guess is "soon," which, of course, doesn't really mean anything.

And if you TP out of the tunnel instead of crossing the phantom barrier?

Exactly. This line from the quoted text is the relevant part. "The move has not reduced operational costs: the servers are still running 24/7, and Amazon obviously charge for this, and financial savings were not the motivator for the move: it was about ensuring SL’s longevity."

Buy it or not, the expense of adding regions in the cloud is not trivial.

The best location is the one you enjoy. What works for you may not be ideal for me. I'm partial to my spot on Hardtack, but not everyone likes the little island groupings or mixed theme areas.

This attitude is not limited to SL. Some people are just wired with a "rules are for other people" mentality. I was married to one of them once...once.