Jackanory

As we're approaching Halloween I thought it might be time to tell a ghost story, however there has been enough horror in the last 48 hours to last until next Halloween. However it should be noted that Irish folklore has a story about a guy named Jack who tricked the devil, of course the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

However there is a spooky tale doing the rounds. This revolves around the mysterious two openspace sims of Mos Ainsley and Castle Valeria. Neither were open waterways or wooded areas and they used plenty of prims. Mos Ainsley was a space station, I'd visited it once after an office hour where it was mentioned by Jack Linden.

Today they are mysteriously full prim sims. This is rather spooky, how on earth could they magically become full sims? I hope those sort of magic beans can be sprinkled all over the grid.

Apparently Nero didn't actually fiddle whilst Rome burnt, which is just as well in terms of a precedent because currently Linden Lab appear to be fiddling whilst residents get burnt, but maybe they have a cunning plan. I'm not sure it can be quite as cunning as the plan they've just pulled off but there's hope yet.

The world is of course still rotating, a meteorite hasn't crashed into the side of the planet and tier is being paid as I type. However there is a burning sense of anger and I can't figure out if the blog entries being posted are planned, they do seem to have a history of posting plenty of updates when something controversial is announced. Another spooky happening I guess.

However there are some things to note. Garth Fairchang, no small land holder, has posted the following on both the blog and Jira Misc 1776 (which by the way is the fastest voting Jira entry I've ever seen) :

"We are dropping 8 OS sims and 1 full sim in November and plan many
more in the months to come…. simply put. That was the last straw.

Why are we not selling them? If we sell them we pay LL US$150 for
transfer and they still get tier. If we drop them. They get ZERO (just
what we get for the extra US$50) !!"

Then we have the very odd claims being made about "abuse". People aren't using openspaces properly you see, this is all the fault of the users. Yes that's you and me. Apparently it is all our fault that when offered to place an openspace anywhere we liked on the grid we chose not to just put an open waterway out there in the middle of nowhere. Imagine that hey? Whatever were we thinking? I mean we didn't think that suggesting that we could place an openspace anywhere we were physically allowed to might just mean we would use it as a light use residential huh? Or a little place to meet our friends?

I mean whose pud are they trying to pull with this waterways nonsense? Please, voids were being rented out in March 2007 and for some time before that and they weren't all being used as sailing areas and that was back in the day when you had to attach them to a full sim.

I've seen a few things mentioned in various blogs and forum and they aren't quite right. Bait and switch keeps getting mentioned. Bait is certainly true, but there really hasn't been a switch (with the exception of Mos Ainsley and Castle Valeria). There has been what I'd describe as "Bait and taking the piss".This isn't a nice process but it's closer to the reality of the situation.

I've seen Estoppel mentioned. Now this is closer to the situation at hand. There was an inducement and there was expectation, but in all reality with Linden Lab's history of decision making and lack of customer service we really should expect the unexpected.

The other thing I see, and although I sympathise I don't like it, is talk of a class action lawsuits. Talk of legal action will divide a united front. Maybe this is why the Lindens aren't communicating in the discussion thread they setup for discussion, divide and conquer and all that.

I purchased my openspace at the end of August, being a negative nancy I'd figured out that the profit margins were slight to say the least with VAT on my tier payments. I also expected an openspace crash in the future. However I finally bit the bullet and decided what the heck. However it now turns out that I purchased an openspace at a time when Linden Lab were having doubts about the viability of the product. I think this annoys me more than the price hike, they should have suspended selling them, but and it's a big but, they were selling so well weren't they.

I've heard some people saying Jack Linden is on holiday, if this is true then I hope someone fills in for him at his office hour tomorrow or it really will be a kick in the gonads to the community.

I'll say it again, Linden Lab desperately need people with customer service experience, you can't avoid the basic concepts of customer service and expect your platform to be taken seriously.

However let's look on the bright side, at least this time Jack hasn't offered aggrieved owners a bag of swag to dampen the blow.......well not yet anyway!