[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

On 4/17/2021 at 1:36 AM, Alwin Alcott said:

that is for me still no answer why it has to be on such short time. If your team now knows hów to do it, it also could be implemented in about a month and give the people some time to get used to it. If you can do it in a week, you also can do it in a month.

I'm very sorry to say, but in a lot of answers we see the same old Linden customer approach. Lot of "soons" and not hard promesses or solutions. It's the first time something about the future comes out since the overtake... and "you'r gonna pay more" isn't the best start for a new route.

It makes me question the new owners of Linden Labs.  After all they are a finance company and financial company want money in the investment they bought.  It really doesn't make sense as to why they can't wait at least a month to give us a proper notice or at least stagger the increase for us.  

As I said, I want Second Life to grow and improve on the infrastructure, but doing it in a proper and timely manner.  I'm very worried in where the direction is going.  😞

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

1 minute ago, Reed Linden said:

To the first: it was a constant, static value that only had to be changed in a limited number of places and there was no logic change required. In contrast, the lindex had no concept of percentage based buy fees prior to this change, nor did it have the concept of a floor and a ceiling to fees. All of that had to be implemented from scratch.  From here on out, we can now change the static values of those fields as necessary in the much the same way as we did with Premium prices earlier.

To the second: I cannot give you an explicit answer here. We would have preferred to provide more heads up to the community about this, and in the future it is our goal to do so. In this specific case, it was not possible to do so.

I see.  Why wasn't plausible to share the information?  I assume there were talks being made and when you decided to do it and work on these changes that could have been the time to share it?  It would be great to have a transparent relationship with both staff and the community.

The reason why most consumers get upset with companies in general is because there isn't any transparency between consumer and staff.  It seems there is changes without at least notifying consumers well advance.  I've seen it happen on many online gaming companies, and I have seen the backlash it puts onto people.  I don't want to see it happen here which is kind of shocking to see it is happening because this company is great and has done a lot for community, and I want to see it continue to do so.  That's why it is shocking for me to see this short announcement to us of being informed.  

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

1 minute ago, Reed Linden said:

Since I did the work on both of those, I can say with confidence that increasing the Premium fee was actually very easy.

Ah!  So what made Premium version easy and the buyer fee difficult?
Also, since you said it took a long time to implement it on the buyer fee, why not announce it that you were planning on making the increase?

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

Since it's hard to implement on a fee change.  I assume premium fee was just as difficult to do since it is connected to everything as well.  I guess what I am confuse is why was it plausible to give us an advance notice on Premium but not on the Buyer Fee?

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

2 minutes ago, Reed Linden said:

Potentially. I don't have the information on that personally, so I can't speak to it. I do know it's actually fairly hard to quantify exactly how much it costs to run a single region. We have a general idea, but so much of SL is bespoke and each individual region has different needs and requirements that while we can say fairly confidently how much a given machine costs to rent, the rest of what goes into maintaining a region is much harder.

Is there anyone from the team that can share that information to you?  At least the cost it would need to run for 1 sim.....sorry @Patch Linden, I mean REGION! ❤️

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

2 minutes ago, Reed Linden said:

Good question! The answer is that this fee change was a lot harder to implement than we expected (so true of pretty much everything we do here) because the lindex is so intrinsically connected to so many pieces of the overall Second Life product. Pretty much every system needed to be touched in some way or another, including (to our surprise), the Viewer itself. Wrangling the expertise and manpower to get all of those pieces in motion and in the correct state without also breaking things over in, say, Profiles or Groups at the same time was a rather more monumental effort than we anticipated. We didn't want to make the announcement until we had a solid date we could pin to for go-live (none of us like missing announced dates, either), and by the time we had that, we had less flexibility with the rollout timing than we'd have liked. 

That's totally understandable for how to implement it, but why couldn't there be a 30 day notice to activate the increase? So if you announce on April 15th the changes to the fee, why not activate it on May 17th which falls on a Monday?   At least this would give the community a better chance for sharing feedback about the changes, and if down the line you found something useful form our suggestion it could be made without affecting the schedule. 

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

I'm not sure if it is possible for it to be done, but would it be possible to share the cost factors to the community.  The expenses that it takes to run on AWS server.  

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

2 minutes ago, Reed Linden said:

This. I cannot stress enough that this stuff is not easy. This is well put and illustrative of the type of challenges that leveraging the opportunities that AWS provides presents. 

I know something like this isn't easy to do.  I know the amount of work that it takes and the coding it needs for it to work.  I just thought there was something in-place already to help reduce cost when everything got transition to AWS.  😄

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

By the way, @Reed Linden  Why were we informed last minute?  The changes will take affect on April 22nd.   Which is a one week notice.  I have seen other notices that were 30 days notice or even longer than that when price changed for the Premium.

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

12 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Well being I have not seen one idea forthcoming from you in the time I have been here and you scorn the ones anyone else here has had, it does not leave much room for other options, does it? 

I agree, he's criticizing our suggestions and yet he hasn't made any.  We aren't here to tell them to not do it all, we just feel the timing isn't the best time to do it or at least break it up to get to that percentage. 

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

3 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

Congrats, you've just broken any script that is running on the region that has to communicate with any item of almost any kind elsewhere on the grid.

I'm saying when it comes to avatars, not scripts.  

 

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

7 minutes ago, Reed Linden said:

We did consider a more phased rollout. In the end, we made the decision that if the intention was to end up in the same place regardless, better to rip off the bandaid all at once, rather than prolong the pain over time. This is why we took such pains to ensure that the pain would be distributed as equitably as possible, and do our level best to leave the most vulnerable residents unaffected.

That is true it would still end up in the same.  However; it would still give users time and adjustment.  Making it easier on the consumer level since most of us are still recovering.  If this was pre-pandemic I think most of us would be okay with the 7.5 increase. It would put more pressure on us from purchasing lindens if this major jump happens now.  

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

1 minute ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

Regions already have code which allows them to throttle down and be 'slept' when no one is there. The difference between what you're thinking of is that in SL the regions are never truly 'stopped', as scripts etc. will continue to run, albeit at a much slower pace.

What you're asking for would be some kind of regionwide hibernation feature wherein the region can be dynamically started when a resident requests to be on the region, and then stopped once they leave. Obviously scripts would only be able to run while the user is there.

Not a bad idea, but would mostly be an option for the region owner with some clear downsides depending on what they want to use the land for.

That is correct.  I'm referring to region hibernation feature.  I'm sure it could be defaulted on, not sure why they would need to turn it off if no one is on the region.  The region would turn back on as soon as someone teleports to that region.  Think of it as a light switch.  There's technically power running to the light, but the switch blocked the circuit from giving it power.  When you need the light on you flick a switch and it shows up.  In retro spec it would be the same thing except no switches. 

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

9 minutes ago, Reed Linden said:

This is exactly the type of thing we're excited to reinvest in and leverage. More functionality for less! But the road from here to there takes effort and expertise. Not overnight and not free.  The future is bright for Second Life! 

I understand.  I thought it was already implemented before switching to AWS.  Also what about this comment I made.  

 

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

2 hours ago, Reed Linden said:

Okay! Good morning!  I'm back at the keys, and I'm going to try to get through everything. Starting here.

 

As mentioned above, Oz has explained that our maintenance costs have actually gone UP in AWS, not down. Running our own datacenter was fairly efficient (because we owned the hardware, rather than renting it) so long as the machines were up to date and didn't need to be replaced. However, that does mean that every so often, there's a massive expenditure required to replace all the machines. In the AWS model, that expense is defrayed over time, rather than all at once (plus a surcharge of course for the privilege). The end result from a purely financial perspective is that moving to AWS is more expensive for us month-to-month, but does not require occasional massive one-time cost spikes like running the datacenter did. From an engineering and infrastructure perspective, running Second Life in AWS opens up huge opportunities (and creates additional challenges) that we're only just now beginning to explore.  We're very excited for the future.

I can understand AWS servers are expensive, but wouldn't it reduce the cost down?  I'm sure not all users are on a region at the same time.  Isn't there some type of code that is implemented that puts that region into sleep-mode and when a user comes into that region it wakes up from being in sleep mode?  I've seen this happen in another virtual world where they reduce the cost by putting the land in sleep-mode if it isn't being used.  

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

2 hours ago, Reed Linden said:

This is a very valid question, and one we struggled with, too. The most transparent way to say it is that we didn't feel like we had a choice. The revenue associated with this fee increase is tied directly to all of our plans for the future, and our ability to keep Second Life vibrant and engaging, including right now. If we had had the ability to hold off on this increase any longer, we would have. We appreciate how important Second Life is to our residents, especially now, and we feel the critical need to reinvest in that experience and bring in NEW residents as soon as possible.

I totally understand.  I know this would be a long shot, but 7.5 increase is a big amount to go.  Would it be possible to slowly increase it overtime instead of leaping to a big amount? Not long ago the fee for premium jumped to 99 dollars a year.  At the time it was reasonable because we weren't in this pandemic and there wasn't anything to worry about us losing jobs.  Now we are in a struggle on getting jobs back and bringing back the economy the way it was pre-pandemic.  I think maybe, offer some initiatives for members.  Like maybe increase it to 3.5, then next year 5.5 then the following year to 7.5?   Also, what about giving a fee break to those who are premium members or keep it at a flat rate that it is now?

[Buy Fee Change Discussion]

Hi Reed.  I'm kind of curious....I understand that Second Life (Linden Labs) wants to improve on the infrastructure and make the virtual world great.  I want to see that happen because this world is a lot of fun and I enjoy it a lot and many others do, but do you think right now with what's going on is the right time to be changing the fee?  I mean there's still a lot of people who are unemployed due to the pandemic and we are still a crisis.  I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but I think and believe the timing for it isn't the right time right now to be making these changes.

[LINDEN RESEARCH, INC. TO BE ACQUIRED]

There's nothing wrong in getting financial support for Linden Labs as long as it is done right.  I'm sure Ebbe and the rest of the team had major discussions with the Waterfield Group of how they have certain visions for Second Life and they want to continue to keep it the way they have it.  Until you see a blog post about Second Life or Linden Labs going into a different direction continue on and have fun on Second Life.  Don't say Second Life is dying or Second Life is dead.  Right now they are continuing to improve and to develop more fun ways to make the virtual platform better for the community.  They brought back the last names,  making new linden homes, they're working on to convert the vritual world to the cloud servers so more regions can be added.  Have fun on SL and don't worry.  Don't forget, they just celebrated the Anniversary of Second Life and it was a huge hit.  Happy Anniversary Second Life!  

 

 

[Last Names - Finally Here]

I love the new name change!  although I would have loved it move if they gave premiums a free one time name change. 🙂 Covfefe is hilarious! 

[In the loop!]

1 hour ago, Patch Linden said:

Here is some more information on the communication system coming out soon:

It will be a Mailbox based system that will allow the team (Lindens and Moles involved with the LDPW) to communicate with home owners directly.  It has a few neat features that include inventory and text (IM) delivery, message expiration controls and a couple other tricks.  We'll give more information in a real update once it's ready to go.

It will not communicate with all Premium members.  I have no way to effectively do that without spinning up a high effort, several department task just to send an email through that sort of communication channel.  I'm not sure it is a good use of our time, especially in the context of sending minor updates.  We don't want to cause email fatigue.  We feel for our purposes, communicating with everyone at large is best done here in the forums, and via the update post.  

Thank you for the information.  I know it's a lot of work you all (staff and moles) are working hard getting everything set up and ready to release the regions to the public. 

I'm looking forward to this new mailbox system and the future regions upcoming releases. 🙂

[In the loop!]

I want to take the opportunity to thank @Patch Linden, Moles, and every LL staff that are working on the new Linden Homes.  Keep up the great work! 🙂

Everyone who wants to complain that the homes aren't coming out fast, think about how it would feel when people come after you for not getting your stuff done quickly.  Give them some slack. They work 7 days a week getting everything all set up and making sure that the regions are operational and that the ideal look that we want to see comes out amazing.  Rather they take their time to make sure that everything is fully functional than having them release something that might come with issues that could cause future delays in other regions. I understand everyone is eager to get the new homes, and I can see why because they are amazing!  My suggestion for everyone is to let them do their job and as soon as they are ready to release them, I'm sure they will make some announcement on the official page. So please give them the space and be patient. 🙂

[Last names nearly here - and more. Yay!]

After reading about the last names, I am excited to see the amount of progress that was made and ready to be release to the public.  Having the fee, while I understand it seems crazy to have it, I understand the reason behind it.  Maybe it's only temporary for the fee and who knows what the future will bring.  

The premium plus was brought up awhile ago when the price for premiums went up.  For those who missed the talk about it can be found on here.  

 

I think having different tiers is great because it brings more revenue to Second Life which can help product and better performance. 

[Last names nearly here - and more. Yay!]

On 11/21/2019 at 1:58 PM, Reyetta Claven said:

The only highlights of that post were the last name contest and the new linden homes themes tbh. The rest is just crap. Doubling the marketplace commission, adding a new premium tier that no one asked for (I'm calling it now: they'll try to remove features from, or add extra fees/restrictions to free and/or classic premium to make Premium Plus seem better. They'll consider taking it back when there's a huge outcry from the users.), making name changes premium-only AND charging an additional fee on top of that... Is LL having that much of a problem keeping the lights on? Oof.

So, people did ask for premium tiers awhile back when the prices for the Premiums were going up.  I even offered the idea of doing a premium tier.  

[🎁 Bellisseria Gift Hunt 🎁]

Great job Patch and Moles!

 

 

[NO Linden Home?? Please Vent Here!!]

Just give them time.  An old saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day."  I know it can be frustrating in trying to get home, but be patient.  They are working hard to get the homes release.  If they rush and release them without checking for bugs then they would have to go back and fix them which can cause delays in releasing new homes.  The new homes look amazing! Both Patch and the Moles did an incredible job.    I want to send my thanks to both Patch and the Moles for the hard work they are putting in.   Just keep checking the Linden Home page to see if there's any release.