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Ciaran Laval

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Everything posted by Ciaran Laval

  1. Voice was introduced in 2007 and it wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms, there were concerns that it would kill roleplaying, for example.
  2. Perrie Juran wrote: Consider food commodities. We have over the years improved yields per acre. All the technology is in place now. But we don't see food prices going down. Why is that? A farmer gets more out of an acre than he did twenty years ago. We can talk about relative prices all day long but you can not apply it across the board with out considering all the factors involved. Food prices have come down over the years in plenty of cases when adjustments are made for inflation and costs of living.
  3. Drake1 Nightfire wrote: I love how people compare tech from ten years ago with todays and say LL should lower prices. Food prices keep ging up, as does rent, cars, clothing, schooling, books, gasoline and many other things.. but itech is better so it should all be cheaper!! That's largely because tech has become cheaper over the years, which is good for a whole range of industries, not so good for some, bricks and mortar shops have felt the pinch. Private regions are at their lowest level since June 2008, LL need to get more creative with their income streams.
  4. Deltango Vale wrote: Crudely, £10 = US$15 = 12 euros. The separate UK price was introduced about a year ago. Before that, UK residents paid in euros. CCP does not add tax to these prices; the tax is included in the price. Yes, the euro price is slightly out of line with UK and US prices, but it has more to do with choosing a psychological price-point base (9.99 v 14.99, one or the other) and fluctuating exchange rates than deliberate price discrimination. I believe CCP anticipated that the euro would approach parity with the US dollar (which it is slowly doing). In which case, I understand why they would have left the euro price unchanged (because it would fall in line with US and UK prices). The goal is broad uniformity, not price discrimination. The US dollar is not approaching parity with the Euro, 1 Euro is 1.33 dollars. You're correct about the psychological price points, it would be foolhardy for CCP to raise the US price due to the Euro strenghtening against the dollar.
  5. Unfortunately I only have a link to the mp3 recording and I don't know how far in he said it, it's a long recording: http://lecs.opensource.secondlife.com/tpvd/meeting/2012-02-24.mp3
  6. Amethyst Jetaime wrote: I always hear that LL lost a lot of European business when they started to charge the VAT, but never saw any proof of that only some Europeans saying it is so. But I know a lot of Europeans that still own sims and don't complain. In fact some of the largest estates in SL are owned by Europeans. I don't know where most large estate owners are based, I know some are US based. I know there's one in Germany, but I believe her business is registered in China.
  7. Maelstrom Janus wrote: ..and in my opinion tiers are too high WHEREVER you live... the tiers remain the same while the service seems to decline continually. Instead of the useless 'premium baubles' that keep been proferred how about a tier cut or an increase in free land. And how about increasing the tier points so that people dont have to make massive leaps to increase their land. Its about time long term customers were rewarded for loyalty despite the continual bollocks ( a nice english word for you) they keep being offered as service.... The tier is too damn high, far too high. Linden Lab's only tier cut has been for educational and non-profits and that's a return to the discounts they previously enjoyed, they have done virtually nothing for long term customers. Maelstrom Janus wrote: As for being in the uk admittedly Lindens cant do anything about v.a.t. but they could set the fees and tier amounts in native currency and let us pay through pay pal rather than having to pay in dollars and have the added inconvenience of having to deal with exchange rates - which ever way they go. This is a double edged sword but other companies do it, for example Eve-Online have rates of: 1-month-plan € 14.95 1-month-plan £ 9.99 1-month-plan $ 14.95 The sterling option is quite a recent addition and it works out cheaper than 14.95 Euros. There has been controversy about their pricing structure, when Eve-Online launched the Euro and US dollar were pretty much on par, they no longer are and have not been for quite some time. However CCP have not increased their pricing for customers who pay in US dollars, despite the fact that the US dollar is now a lot weaker against the Euro, which therefore hits their bottom line. It should also be noted that those in Europe are paying VAT, so initially the Americans would have been technically paying more, now due to the exchange rate, they're paying less to CCP as they are in Europe and therefore need to convert US dollars.
  8. Cully Andel wrote: I'm not basing it so much on their turnover, I'm quite sure that they're way over the threshhold. More on the fact they they are not registered here, and no longer have a UK office. (At least I dont think they do any more.) Im not aware that HMRC ask overseas based companies to pay their UK VAT. My understanding is that VAT in this country is paid by customers how have income in this country paid in pounds sterling. I'm not sure they can take VAT on payments made to an overseas company paid in their own currency. Even if the UK office were still here, they themselves would not have an income, so would have no VAT to pay. I could be wrong, having only dealt with VAT returns for companies here, but knowing the way they make the rules, they've probably come up with a requirement to charge it without working out how they're actually going to claim it. The other Worlds - Avination, I believe Inworldz and I did come across another but I totally forgot what it was. No matter where you are in the World, you all pay the same. They would have to pay the VAT in sterling. Whereas HMRC cannot force overseas companies to charge VAT, it's better for them to comply with the regulations.
  9. Oz Linden said of parcel windlight : "If Parcel Windlight didn’t already exist, this parcel windlight that you guys are doing and have been doing for a while now would be a good example of violating this rule." However as LL were supposed to be developing it too, it was given a free pass, so it's not in violation.
  10. Sy Beck wrote: Gawd this ol' chestnut again. This was brought about by the enactment of an EU law, which was an honest attempt to stop US companies (primarily digital sales/services) who sold their wares in Europe VAT free and basing their nominal company's HQ in the lowest sales tax states in the US while European companies sellling in the US had a blanket (I forget the big % figure) imposed upon them. Obviously not fair and another US trade barrier that had to be countered. The issue was that US companies could sell VAT free in Europe. Things came to a head when an ISP started making a fuss about it. If they had a charge of £10 a month for internet access, the cost to the consumer would be £11.50, an American company could charge £11 a month and the cost to the consumer would be £11. Clearly this was a disadvantage to European based business, so a new law was enacted. The problem with how it applies to Second Life is that it creates the very discrepancy it was intended to prevent. Sy Beck wrote: So the losers are European SL users, but it's reassuring to know that US businesses and citizens are paying into the fund that provides Europeans with FREE healthcare while US SL users have to spend their profits (if any) on keeping themselves alive. I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion, VAT is a tax on goods and services used within the EU, if you're ordering an item from a European company, but it's being delivered to a country such as the USA, no VAT should be charged.
  11. Charly Muggins wrote: It is possible to reclaim the VAT on SL fees if you can make a case that it contributes to the marketing effort of a business, or if your business is focused on services provided to virtual worlds. And before Phil turns up to say "piffle", I have succeeded in doing so. Mind you, you're not likely to get it back if selling cheap virtual furniture IS your business. Although I'd back myself to convince the HMCE even then. I contacted HMRC and the government when all this came about. HMRC told me that transactions that take place within a virtual world are outside the scope of VAT, so I doubt that you'd be able to convince them otherwise. If you did convince them otherwise I suspect people with pitchforks and torches would be on your doorstep because that would be a nightmare.
  12. Land impact is the only score that matters and all rezzed objects have a land impact score, some older viewers will show prim count, rather than land impact score when you view an object, but the only score that matters with regards to parcel capacity is land impact.
  13. Innula Zenovka wrote: I wasn't complaining about the educational discounts, or the charity ones. I was, though, questioning the wisdom of the suggestion that LL should consider providing discounts to private sims on the basis of their being valuable parts of most people's SL experience. While we can all think of plenty of sims run by residents, as opposed to educational institutions or charities, that contribute lots more to most people's SL than do many educational institutions or charities, I think giving the resident-run sims, no matter how deserving, discounts would end in a massive row. To my mind, the only question that makes any sense is "will this measure create a net increase in LL's income vs expenditure?". That's what I'd be asking if I worked there, anyway. I didn't mean to imply you were complaining about the edu discounts, and I agree with you that some sort of discount based on LL's opinion would be divisive. However we already have discounts on land costs when it comes to mainland and we see very few complaints about that. The cost per metre if you own a full sim is much lower than if you own a smaller parcel. When a discount is easy to follow, it causes less controversy. I'm surprised there's no obviously advertised discount for those who own x amount of private regions. LL could be more creative in their land offerings though, they could offer more billing choices. Some virtual worlds give you a choice of being charged by usage or a flat fee.
  14. Innula Zenovka wrote: This is going to sound really horrible and hard-hearted, but I am very dubious about giving discounts to sims for their value to SL, no matter how great. We've seen the grumbling and complaints when -- not unreasonably, it seems to me -- the large land barons get discounts on their sim pricing. I can't think of many contexts other than SL where the proposition that someone leasing 100 units of something normally leased in much smaller quantities might reasonably expect a discount would be particularly contentious, but it is here. So if LL start giving people discounts on their tier because of the sim's educational, artistic or social merits, I guarantee there will be a commotion the like of which you've not heard since the last time someone inadvertantly sat on the cat. It's hard, but, to my mind, if people can make their sims pay, or if the public want to support them, or if they have the means and desire to fund them out of their own resources, then great. Otherwise, they will go. So enjoy places while you can, and support them in whatever way you can if you want to keep them. That's my policy. The reason people complain about discounts for leasing 100 sims is more to do with the hush hush nature of the deal. Very few people complained about educational discounts when they were here before and I see very few complaining about them now, it's a clear, transparent and easy to understand criteria. As for LL offering other kinds of discounts, it really depends upon how they'd apply them. A discount based on someone's opinion would be more controversial than the discounts for large land owners. However a discount because your sim is only open weekends or 12 hours a day, would be less controversial, because it's a set criteria. LL could do more to encourage people to own sims, private regions fell below the 20K mark at the weekend and I don't see the trend changing much, even with this boost for non-profits and educational sims.
  15. I don't know about the other viewers but Firestorm needs to be 4.4.2 to work.
  16. Motor Loon wrote: I've had issue (mabye this past week, but never before that). I'm running Firefox - as it turned out telling AdBlock to allow ad's for the second life website seems to solve the issues I've had. . Saw this mentioned on another website, someone said unticking "Allow some non-intrusive advertising" it works too, I think that's a new feature that has been added to adblock, I don't use it myself but saw the discussion elsewhere.
  17. Pamela Galli wrote: I tried a floor. In sunlight, no effect. With a light on it, shiny and bumpy. Maybe I have the wrong windlight. Try the four main day cycles, one will probably work quite well and then take it from there messing around with the spinners.
  18. Cheers Sy for the clarification, I was just wondering whether the removal of that feature had introduced some borkage with viewers that still had it, even though obviously, flipping still works.
  19. Flip has gone, which viewer were you using it or did you just flip it by removing the minus sign?
  20. I get this, usually after ramping up my graphics settings to take a few photos, in Firestorm I'll see texture memory errors, in the ofifical viewer I just end up crashing or not being able to save any more photos, although I don't see the texture memory error, it seems to be the same thing.
  21. Amethyst Jetaime wrote: I am very aware of the international population of SL as my friends in SL live in places all over the world. You are wrong about it not being a US vs Non US company website promotion. This is not a SL event. It is a contest run by a separate company who set the rules. LL has no control over that. You don't enter on a SL website. You have to go to another website entirely. The contest is an obvious marketing promotion for Alienware not SL. You don't even have to be a SL resident to enter. . It's cross promotional, but the reason people will think that it's done via Linden Lab is because it appears as a message of the day link on login with the official Second Life viewer and there is no indication that it's restricted to USA residents only, until of course you get to the details via said link.
  22. No idea what's causing the problem, but I have duelling banjos in my head now. Do you get the same issue if you teleport elsewhere?
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