November 5, 2008 by Ciaran Laval
When is a 67% price hike not a 67% price hike? When M Linden blogs! People are falling for this waffle. I'm staggered at how easily pleased people are.
We now have new products:
Openspace - the original void sim, only with a lot less prims it supports just 750, 10 avatars and will have script and cpu limits that haven't yet been defined. No events, classifieds or rentals allowed.
Homestead - The product people have generally been using, the product Linden Lab knew was being used. Keeps its 3750 prim limit, restricted to 20 avatars. As above, will have script and cpu limits that haven't been defined. Can be used for rentals and events. However light use only, not suitable for malls.
On January 5th most openspaces will be converted to homesteads and tier will rise to USD$95. Then in July tier will rise to USD$125.
There will be free conversions to full sims if you own four openspaces between now and January. If you own less than four openspaces you can pay USD$250 for each missing openspace and convert free of charge after that until January. So for example if you own two openspaces, for a cost of USD$500 you could convert to a full island.
Basically this changes very little. Interestingly in the knowledgebase article it now says:
"If you are using your Openspace as a rental, or other unapproved use such as habitation, you are really using what we call a homestead".
Linden Lab still refuse to accept their share of the blame in the fiasco, they still won't apologise and for me that makes this whole thing all the more shameful. Linden Lab knew how this product was being used and they knew the reason behind the explosive growth. There can be no denying this and their steadfast refusal to acknowledge this is shady in the extreme.
People are going to accept these changes whilst thinking their little home with three or four avatars visiting means they have an Openspace, they're in for a rude awakening but that's their own fault.
The heinous price rise is being delayed but this whole shoddy episode does not reflect well on Linden Lab and could have been avoided had Linden Lab responded to the umpteen questions about their usage, but they were too busy counting the dollars from the sales of the product to give a damn for all those months and now they've got people by the short and curlies they're trying to exrtract more for less. Good work whilst you can get it I guess.
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Re: M pulls the wool over people's eyes
Ciaran,
You've pretty much reiterated what I posted within minutes of Kingdon's annoucement. To be honest, I'm not at all surprised by this outcome - as I've said in my post, I actually think this was LL's aim all along; the "immediate" 67% hike was a ploy - they knew people would not go for it, and by putting it out there they effectively opened the door to let them usher in this "solution" and present it as a "compromise".
The sad fact remains, people will see this as a "positive" move. Some will even, god help us, claim it as a "victory" in being "listened to".
For myself I can only say, "Thanks, Mark, but i usually like to kiss before getting f***ed."
LL uses petroleum jelly to help the pain.
I agree Ciaran, we still get screwed in the long run, but it does make the pain a little less for some. All it does is give us a slap now and a slap later. Rather then getting the knock out punch. My plans will not change, just cause LL 's plan has now.
I was talking to my alt today and he said:
We get abducted by LL, LL tells us they are going to rape us and kill us. That is the worst new we can get. So to make it easy on us, LL tells us they are just going to rape us and let us go. Atleast we are still alive. I think thats good.
PS off topic but, I miss the math test that Y2P use to give to post a comment. LOL
Re: LL uses petroleum jelly to help the pain.
lol - nice analogy Bart.
I totally agree with your post Ciaran - I read the announcement today, and like Bart, just felt a little less fucked than before. This latest announcement is essentially a clarification of exactly how we would get less for more. The apparent concessions are window dressing, and a blatant attempt to appear to be listening - while no doubt clapping each other on the backs that they have been so damned clever about it all. The only people that benefit from these false concessions are the incredibly small numbers of people that really do own sims that they just want to use for trees and water. Wooot for them.
In the end, there's only one thing that LL will get, that will make them listen to residents and not take us for granted. Spending less in SL. The day before the original announcement, I had 34 Openspace sims. Today I have 23. Within two weeks, I will probably have fewer than a dozen. Any more that I get rid of I will abandon - not sell - I don't just want someone else picking up the tier cost. Maybe a futile gesture - but the $50 i might get for the Openspace in today's market is little more than a gesture as well...
Before the announcement, I had a monthly tier of almost $8,000 a month to LL. Within two weeks, it will be down to half that. The only reason I don;'t go farther is that I have people living on the sims, and people that have invested in the business to consider. But eventually - over time, I will make my exit - I have lost any desire to build anything of substance in SL - I just want to make sure I dismantle in a responsible fashion.
Hey, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a lot - but it's $50,000 less a year for LL right away, and $100,000 less a year later. And I am not alone - I have heard similar rumblings from a number of much larger landowners.
I considered posting my thoughts on some of the forums, but it's just the usual silly drama on all of them. Residents sniping at each other and talking with authority about things they don't understand and haven't taken the time to research properly. The few clarion voices of reason are typically ignored (not that I'm saying I would be one of them - I am too pissed to be rational) So I came back to Y2P - where i just KNEW Ciaran would have had something pithy to say!
The Lindens will claim, and may even actually believe, that they listened to residents on this issue. But they did it in a small and manipulative way. "How can we get what we want, and make them feel like they've been listened to." Which is a far cry from actually listening - it's handling. I hate being handled.
dd
Re: LL uses petroleum jelly to help the pain.
A bit more anecdota, but don't think it's just the large landowners dropping their sims.
My landlord had 4 full sims and 4 openspaces, and after the openspaces dropped in price, he added 8 more openspace sims. They were set up so that the renter got half the sim and most of the prims, and the rest of the sim was open water or forest land with the remainder of the prims. That was true of the first 4 openspaces, and that plan continued for the 8 new ones. These were clearly not heavy-use sims, as they hardly had anyone in them. I guess this would be the new "homestead" sim now.
Last week he announced that he was abandoning all 12 openspace sims as tier came due. 4 immediately, 4 more this week, and the last 4 next week. People who had houses on those sims are being offered empty lots on the full sims in exchange. He actually sold off the remaining full sims to some of the renters who want to keep the area going, and he's out of the land business entirely now.
If LL was so concerned about homes on the openspace sims -- something that's been going on at least as long as I've been in SL (a whole year!) -- they really should've said something before now. Surely there's no way they didn't know this was going on, and they could've hardcoded in the limits long before now.
(And yet, we keep going back, because there's nothing out there quite like SL. And LL knows this.)
Vortmax Mumfuzz