Seven Overdrive

Sadly, I think you are correct about the tier prices. LL will go out of business before they lower tier. It is great that they are trying to add value to private regions, but the fact remains that even if LL could make private regions sing and dance through new features, that $300 per month is a price point that will remain out of reach for a large majority of people. There is certainly room for another product between a full region and a homestead. I hope they consider something like that in the near future. It wouldn't be as great as a drop in tier prices, but would give more options for the residents budgets (as long as they don't destroy the value of owning one by forcing people to pay estate barons for them like they did with homesteads). Steam will be a good thing for SL whether it is listed as a game or a creativity tool. If they list it as a creativity tool then they will be targeting more builders and sellers. If they target gamers then they will potentially be targeting more shoppers/consumers. But, no matter how it is listed on Steam, that $300 per month price point for private building space is going to be a big turn off for many.

Griffin Ceawlin wrote: Sassy Romano wrote: You have to have pixel sex within a week or your account is automatically deleted. Which Linden is in charge of keeping track of all that? Voyeur Linden of course. :smileylol:

Innula Zenovka wrote: It's been suggested (by someone who has professional RL experience of this area) that the obvious place for SL to be listed in Steam is under the "Creative Tools" category, which would help direct it towards the people who're most likely to find it interesting. To my mind, it's a very positive move. It gives SL access to a list of some 40 million people, some of whom are surely going to find it enjoyable, and also rather undercuts all the people who've been writing it off since all the wild hype of 2006/2007 failed to materialise. I will be surprised if LL doesn't list SL under a gaming category since, even though Steam will be offering more than just games, the largest demographics are the under 18 and 18-24 age groups. With the push to upgrade the graphics of SL and the introduction of advanced creator tools, I am thinking LL will want a big slice of that pie and it would be hard to ignore. The fact is, LL needs to get themselves into a position so they are no longer so dependent on tier for their revenue and a huge influx of new people will give LL more room to do so (especially if a good portion of the new arrivals can be convinced to stay and go premium). From what I have read about the upcoming changes to Steam, people will be able to use their Steam Wallets for the other non-game offerings that are coming to their store. How LL will use this to their advantage, or not, is a big unknown.

Herry Maltz wrote: I agree but I used to run a very large gaming community that supported a number of Steam games. Look at minecraft for example, absolutely terrible graphics with building and yet its popular. Garry's mod with a similar aspect. I ran into many games that were free and on steam, that people would join just to cause problems (aka troll) because it was free and they were bored of their primary game. That's what I'm afraid of seeing here. Then say we do have masses of these individuals bored of their main game and coming on here to cause trouble? I could certainly be wrong, but spending three years dealing with these people on a daily basis... I'm willing to bet I won't be wrong and I can almost guarantee its not going to bring in much in the way of premium memberships which I feel LL is hoping to achieve by this move. Maybe sell some land through private estates but overall far more users at the expense of LL as the cost of providing the service will increase. That was one of the reasons that I ended up shutting down my servers. Another was denial of service attacks on servers that were being popular. Granted, I'm unsure if they could really touch SL with denial of service but I reckon it wouldn't be too hard to do which would be one of the many ways that our experience as paying residents could get messed with. Computer wise, with the price drop in technology its not that hard to get a machine that runs things well. Sure few years ago you'd be paying a grand or more for a decently put together machine but now... Its far easier to keep your machine up to par without spending an arm, leg and ear. (bolding is mine) I too was thinking they may offer premium memberships through Steam. Who knows.. this may actually improve the retention rate if more go premium from the start. If that is the case, I really wouldn't expect most to ever go beyond the Linden Home trap for a very long time (if at all), so I wouldn't count on private estates seeing much benefit from it.

Drew Bhalti wrote: With the "old bit of news" you do realize that nothing ever happend besides them getting ahold of it. no fraud, no misuse, nothing, go check the official steam forums out. if there was an issue with the info inside that encrypted DB being cracked, it would of caused a panic. (bolded the part I am responding to) Which is enough incentive for me to not have my SL account linked to Steam. Doesn't matter to me that they may have not done anything with the data. The fact that they did obtain it still gives me pause.

mikka Luik wrote: Good point on the demographic, brought to mind this old bit of news especially the part where it says 'Valve has advised users - or their parents' =^^= Made me smile Oh yes. THAT bit of news. Thanks for reminding me of why I probably won't be linking SL to my Steam account. On another note... I vaguely remember someone from the lab (maybe Rod?) mentioning the possible addition of gamer achievements or tags during some discussion about bringing last names back. I suppose this will be one way of implementing those and makes me wonder how deeply the Steam client will be integrated (if at all) into the SL viewer that is downloaded through Steam.

I hope the huge under 18 demographic bring their allowance with them. Just kidding. :smileytongue: Does this mean SL is officially now a game? hehe

I really do not experience much lag since I upgraded to a more than adequate computer. I only experience "lag" when I wander into unfortunate regions that are not built/optimized well (mostly mainland regions). Somehow I don't expect that to ever change no matter what new "shinies" or hardware LL throws at the problem (especially if LL insists on stuffing even more regions per server). Many residents will always push things to the breaking point with very little restraint, but that is the price of creative freedom.

Trolling the community forums for a reaction could be a sign of mental illness I suppose. PS - I wonder how long it will take for this thread to be locked or mysteriously vanish. :smileyindifferent:

jwenting wrote: "Remember First Land? It was gamed to death by land flippers" which is most likely exactly why the idea was abandoned. It was abused to fleece beginning land owners rather than empower them. Linden Homes don't suffer from that as they can't be resold or rented out. Not perfect, but protects inexperienced users from parasites who abuse the system as a get rich quick scheme by ripping off the unwary. So your idea of selling your old land for L$100 per meter no longer works that you paid L$1 for from the Lindens a few days ago. Oh the pain I feel for you NOT! I'm not sure why you chose to take that one line out of context. It was clearly not advocating a return to a failed program. It was only an example of how LL once encouraged new residents to buy mainland. The topic of the thread was about all the abandoned Mainland that is not generating revenue. Linden Homes may protect inexperienced residents from the "parasites" as you put it, but until I see some stats on how many of those new LH residents are trading their way up to Mainland or a Private estate parcel, I will reserve my judgment on if they are being empowered. Until I see equal advertising for mainland as an option for new residents, I will remain convinced that the Lab would prefer everyone be in an easily managed Linden Home or on a private estate where most of the support falls to the estate owners and not the Lab. So... Do you have any thoughts on the topic of this thread?

Bored people are boring people? Some people are just so easily amused that watching paint dry on a wall would be an exciting activity for them. Look at how popular watching an avatar dance for hours is in SL. I think it depends on what people use SL for. For example, say a person uses SL to build things. He likes to build in private and enjoys creating large immersive scenes, so sandboxes are not an option. He once had a private island to build on but the high price eventually became too much to continue to pay. $300 per month was a lot more than his family's cable bill for every channel offered including telephone and the internet connection included. To cancel all of that so he could continue enjoying his private digital space to build in would have been selfish, so of course the island had to go. Watching his avatar dance never appealed to him, nor did shopping for clothes. Exploring was ok for a little while, but he could count the places that impressed him the most on one hand. The rest all looked the same. Exploring also made him miss the freedom he once enjoyed to build whatever was in his mind when he had his own creative space. Now you would never hear him complain about being bored. He would simply log off for weeks at a time, only popping back in for a few minutes to respond to old offline IMs, before logging back out again. The one activity he enjoyed in SL was no longer an option due to the cost., but he was hardly a boring person. Boring people don't like creating their own experiences. They only like to be spoon-fed their entertainment. So yes, for some, there is literally nothing to do in SL, which would probably explain why user retention and online concurrency is low. Maybe all the bored people should just log out and never return so they aren't "wasting resources". Somehow I doubt LL would like the outcome of that though. :smileytongue:

Perhaps the owner of that avatar would disagree with you. Don't really know. I was more put off by SL being represented by giant dancing avatars. Which, IMO, is the most boring and mindless activity one can engage in, in SL. But nothing is stopping anyone else from creating their own video that represents SL from their own point of view I suppose.

bejjinks wrote: ... I believe in freedom of religion instead of freedom from religion. ... Freedom from religion is included in freedom of religion. You have the freedom to practice your own personal beliefs the same as others have the freedom to not practice those same beliefs. bejjinks wrote: ... I believe that we don't have to be brainwashed by the government to establish peace. And I will fight for the right of people to resist political brainwashing regardless of whether the political brainwashing is Christian, Muslim, or Atheist in origin. I believe in freedom of speech but that freedom meant the freedom to criticize the government. It was not meant as a freedom to bully and harass people. ... Well here is what I believe... I believe that we don't have to be brainwashed by religion to establish peace. And I will fight for my own right to resist religious brainwashing regardless of whether the religious brainwashing is Christian, Muslim, or whatever in origin. I believe in freedom of religion but that freedom means the freedom to practice, or not, the religion you believe in. It was not meant as a freedom to bully and harass people, like the constant harassment of gays and lesbians at the hands of some religious followers for example. bejjinks wrote: ...But people attack Christians thinking they can manipulate Christians. These people who attack Christianity are not being honest. We say that people who are violent against homosexuals are living in denial of their own homosexuality and I believe this is true. But I'm going to say the same thing about people who are violent against Christianity. People who are violently opposed to Christianity are trying desparately to supress the fact that deep down in their heart, they truly believe in God. ... I think those religious believers that feel "attacked" are people that tried to force their beliefs upon others and continued doing so even when they got rebuffed by the real victims that didn't share the same beliefs. The passing of laws based on a certain religion's belief system would be another reason for backlash by non-believers of that faith or of any faith. Personally I do get tired of some Christians behaving like victims when their forced sermons get rejected by the disinterested. As for the story of your cat Fred... Being gay is not some rash that needs to be fixed or cured. Sorry you feel that way and I hope you find the peace you are seeking. Just remember it is something you need to come to terms with and not something you need to save others from unless they ask you to. And... Is there freedom of religion in SL? Sure there is. Practice whatever religion you want in SL... Just expect to get ejected and banned from any place that doesn't want to hear your sermon.

Madelaine McMasters wrote: Qie Niangao wrote: I imagine they're also worried that whatever it is that's discouraging retention is also poisoning those new arrivals such that they'll never come back, so the more marketing they do, the more they're shrinking their future market. I agree, Qie. This has been my theory since LL announced crossing 20,000 new signups/day over a year ago, as if that was a positive achievement. I'd be making SL as invisible as possible until I figured out how to retain new customers. They are currently growing the population of people who will never again visit SL by 14,000/day. Good points. Among SL's successes and accomplishments, I really wouldn't consider turning thousands of people off to the platform daily (for whatever the reasons are why they never return), as a positive one. Those numbers add up fast. Best to fix user retention before doing any heavy marketing.

As the stats started to decline or stagnate, LL started removing them from the economic reports and labeling them unnecessary. It got to the point that people didn't believe what LL was reporting anymore and they would take a lot of heat on the blog for what was reported. Finally they just stopped with the reports altogether. LL gets beat up every time they announce anything, so that is probably why they no longer do so. Would be nice to know what the future holds though.