So This is What the Lindens Were Building - My Thoughts

[Chic Aeon]

Yes I wrote that this morning and before that time. 702 is what I found which IS double the prims of a mainland 234 NOW. That was my take on what they said originally but the video must have been made earlier and they changed their minds on that. Can't think of any other reason.   

 

So much like Bay City but adult and with a Linden Experience in the middle .  Much nicer landscaping though. 

[Chic Aeon]

You are SO clever. Yes the map would have been the answer. Busy day here on many levels. That just blew by me .  

[Chic Aeon]

Well I certainly agree we can live better with mesh than when we just had 10 meter prims .  And I haven't used many of my extra 1600 land impact bonus. 

 

BUT -- if you are on a 512 lot it is pretty easy to eat up those 117 prims so those folks are the ones that will get the most use out of the bonus. Since I have a store with lots of prefabs, decor and furniture (almost no vendor) I can definitely use the extra "prims".  But many people won't need them, that is true.

 

Part of what  LL is battling is the cost here with the land impact points you get versus Opensim and other platforms. I know that you can't really compare the two, but people continually do. And the cost of land has always (well mostly always) been a complaint with lots of folks. Since they are not going to cut into their revenue stream, then giving people more (even if not always used) seems a realistic marketing plan. 

 

 

[Rolig Loon]

Take a look at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Horizons_Parcel_Ownership

[Chic Aeon]

Thanks. They still seem to be talking around things with semi-contradictory statement (note that I have no intention of buying so just a general interest thing). 

 

It says Residental Parcels as a heading but then says you can build your own home :

 

1. You may build your own house or other building on the parcel, or
2. You may use a Horizons Home.

And then it says "home" again

If you build your own home, you have freedom to choose the style and size of the building, as long as it fits on the parcel and is within your Land Impact allowance.

The video says "same rules as other mainland" except for a few things but dosn't mention any sky restrictions. So judging by that (and  who know if that is correct) someone could put a house on the ground and store (not too big of course) up in the air -- or the other way around. 

I guess we will all know soon enough.  I didn't understand that the different odd things in each sim were to set that sim apart from its neighbors. I found a blimp on one and another interesting landmark on another. So that was interesting to read.

 

Thanks.

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

Yeah, they certainly are emphasizing the "Residential" use, but I don't see where they're enforcing it (as they did with Linden Homes) and as I mentioned above, three of the six ready-to-rez prefabs are named "... Shop1" through "Shop3" so at some point some Mole or other must have at least thought they were making commercial structures.

[Koltari]

I'm quite surprised the builds are just mainly one room per floor (if two floors). I would guess most would like a few rooms to decorate. So it would leave setting up walls or your own home/build. I have a feeling most will go for the latter.

[ChinRey]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

...

and as I mentioned above, three of the six ready-to-rez prefabs are named "... Shop1" through "Shop3" so at some point some Mole or other must have at least

thought

they were making commercial structures.

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Or to put it another way: who wants to live in a fully transparent glass house in an A rated sim? I don't think that one at least was really intended as a residental building.

[Chic Aeon]

HOHO -

 

Actually some of them seem to have shutters you can pull down so likely those odd shaped windows tint for privacy and trust me as someone who lived a few months in an adult role play sim LOTS of folks are virtual exhibitionists .

 

And so far as the one room thing, these places are relatively small (not filling up the whole lot) so for walking around and not veiwing through walls, one room is better I think -- especially for anyone new. 

 

 

[Chic Aeon]

It took me awhile as I haven't looked at the auctions in years but for folks wanting to follow along, here is the page with the current ones listed. 

 

http://ld.auctions.secondlife.com/lin/catalogsearch/result/?q=horizon

There are only a handful. Many "seem" to be on "ocean" but it was stated that the ocean could easy go away if the continent gets enlarged. Prices currently  (6 hours after auction started) are running between 10,000 and 18,000 lindens.  Will be interesting to see where they end up.

 

 

[encidious Opus]

All are already above my max bid of L$12500. Maybe the guy who owns half of Zindra needs to scoop these auctions up to keep his selling prices in Zindra so high. 

[Chic Aeon]

Now at about $80 US for the top one so a good move for the lab, but I am not really seeing the draw other than "new and different". It would take a long time to make that money up (and assumably it will go much higher) with tier payments on a larger mainland parcel .  And I rent which is MUCH cheaper than paying mainland tier LOL. Silly me.

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

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Chic Aeon wrote:

Now at about $80 US for the top one so a good move for the lab, but I am not really seeing the draw other than "new and different". It would take a long time to make that money up (and assumably it will go much higher) with tier payments on a larger mainland parcel

.  And I rent which is MUCH cheaper than paying mainland tier LOL.  

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Well, double-prim Zindra (Adult mainland) is pretty expensive, so that may be a draw, and then there's the resemblance to a large Bay City parcel in a kind of sci-fi theme. But you're quite right: it would take a while to make up that much up-front cost just by the double-prim reduced tier-per-LI.

(I suppose some may be drawn by the game, too, although... does it really invite the kind of role-play that would keep people engaged for years? Otherwise the residential community would seem pretty separate from the game, except maybe in theme.)

A disappointment for me, protected land here adopts the Zindra (and Linden Homes) No Object Entry restriction, in contrast to the rest of Mainland. That means no ferries or anything, and none of the charming Bay City streetsweepers and stuff. On the plus side, that prevents "plagues" of autonomous vehicles, but that problem seems pretty much behind us now.

(Re rent being "much cheaper than paying mainland tier": Maybe, but a group of two Premium accounts could pool their tier to own one of these parcels with their 512sq.m. each "bonus" at a total cost net of stipend less than L$100/wk.*)

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* Just for fun, that's:

Premium fee = 2 accounts * US$72/yr/account * L$250/US$ = L$36,000 / yr

- Stipend = 2 accounts * L$300/wk * 52 weeks = L$31,200 / yr

= Net cost = L$4,800 / yr = L$92.3 / wk

... although now, with the bond market's reaction to the Trump Deficit, there may be some "time value of money" on that US$72 annual plan

[Prokofy Neva]

The plagues of unmanned vehicles are NOT AT ALL behind us, Qie, I don't know WHERE you get that idea!

Do you actually observe the roads every day?

I do, going around my rentals and helping my tenants.

I probably visit several dozen sims a day doing this.

And I CONSTANTLY see those unmanned pods, plus other stupid and ugly out-of-theme vehicles where NOBODY needs them. Nobody "needs a ride" on a road where they can get free vehicles everywhere (including from my offices) or get them as a premium member or simply buy the fancier ones and/or take a chance at a gatcha. NO NEED. They clutter up the highways, they look stupid, no one is EVER riding them and they exist purely for the vanity and pretend-science experiments of the arrogant few (and their Linden protectors who think such "science" experiments are useful to them, although they no longer care about or try to fix the sim seams issue)

I love that object entry is turned off. Good!

[Qie Niangao]

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

The plagues of unmanned vehicles are NOT AT ALL behind us, Qie, I don't know WHERE you get that idea!

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Well, across the street (whither I dare not link, lest Lithium throw a sprocket) they've planned an anniversary celebration of "ONE YEAR OF ROAD PEACE" tomorrow. Apparently 20 November 2015 was the day many considered the troubles at an end, finally.

Honestly, I spend a lot of time on the Atoll and see stuff passing on the roads and rails and very occasionally offshore past one of my beaches. Hasn't bothered me in the slightest, even though they're not all the very finest of build quality.

I quite like the Linden vehicles in Bay City and Nova Albion, the GSLR and ONSR on Sansara, and the ANWR and VRC ferries. In fact, I've been working on scripts for a new ferry, and have heard only encouragement 'till now.

(But I won't really lose much sleep about that ferry not visiting the Horizons regions, because they're adjacent similarly restricted Zindra which would be the only interesting place to sail anyway.)

[Chic Aeon]

Yes, I did the math as have some group mainland and yes since you can have groups in Horizons you could certainly have almost free land tier wise -- AFTER paying an exhorbitant amount for it. My figures when I did this last (maybe last month on a land post here) were a bit over a US dollar a month using the current exchange rate at the time of posting. But definitely mainland group land is the best deal monetarily. No arguments.

 

 But my SHOP is on almost a quarter of a sim and I pretty much need that land now as I have lots and lots of demos and furniture and such. That would be WAAAAAY too many avatars (although I know some folks that have 20 or more). And my rent is about half of what it would be if I was paying tier. So a big difference with the charges and such on parcel size. 

 

 

[Chic Aeon]

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ChinRey wrote:

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24

I'm wondering if it's worth the bother to make a series of houses specially to match the region. It's easy enough a style to follow and houses of this complexity shouldn't be more than 10-12 LI but there may not be big enough a market,

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I have to keep with the "probably not worth it" comment that I made last week BUT ...

 

had to smile when I started playing with a sizing "demo" of a "Victorian Orangery" which TURNED OUT to be a pretty impressive start on an ultra modern abode --- LOL. Yes, much laughter at my end.  I also tried a different building method which was WAAAAY faster ^^ so that was a plus. 

I am not sure that I will sell many models but since I am personally impressed I will at least finish it.    

So get to work!!!!! and make yours if you are going to .

 

 

[Caliandris Pendragon]

I was pointed in the direction of this thread and the mention of Numbakulla....

I haven't been to see the build, but having lived in a Linden sim for some time, I can say that I barely ever bump into any of my neighbours.  People use them as place holders mostly, they don't have enough prims for serious use as homes, even with mesh.  People don't use SL the way that LL think they do... and the emptiness of the Linden Homes sims proves that.

The reason that themed residential areas are successful where they are run by residents, is that they bring together people who have something in common.  Unfortunately you really can't manufacture community in the way that LL are trying to do it.  The 24,000 people who played Numbakulla to the end not only had SL and the game in common, but many of them were also fans of Cyan games.  Numba wasn't a copy of any Cyan game, but it was an homage to the questing games that Cyan produces. 

The problem with the way LL does games, is that the idea or vision is usually imposed from above, and the people who have to make the game reality don't actually get to decide very much. Add in the constant pressure to get things done by unreasonable deadlines and it isn't surprising that they lack cohesion and depth of backstory etc.  I was fired as a mole for asking for more money for the original music I had been making, but I longed to make an experience like Numbakulla on a bigger scale. Working on Linden Realms nearly killed me, and not just because we had so little time to put it together.  It was agonizing watching so many resources and sims be put to so little actual use.  

I've always thought that games were the very best way to teach anything, and I think a questing game with an internal logic which was fun to play and also taught new people about the way the world works could be a wonderful thing.  It's never going to be made by LL though.  It would require one creator with vision to be put in charge, and allowed to make it fit with their vision, and I don't think LL would ever hand over the creative responsibility in that way.  But you know what you get when you design things by committee... and it usually isn't art or magic.