Noughtilus

I decided to take a trip to Nautilus today. Boldly going where many men had gone before I found myself slap bang in the middle of what appeared to be the yellow brick road. However on second glance I discovered that it was just because so many parcels are for sale.

There's a quandry here, the hype is in the newness, but when you scratch underneath the surface you don't see being much done with the moles efforts. The landscape could be green flat fields with double prims, as far as those who have won the majority of parcels at auction are concerned.

The splattering of advertising policy violating yellow for sale boxes, coupled with a couple of other decorative (but still advertising violating) for sale signs doesn't exactly endear one to the area.

There's something wrong with this area, the opportunity is lost, the buzz is gone by the time things settle and the land isn't all yellow, I stopped by Bay City too today, the buzz is definitely gone. The only things really reminding you that it's Bay City are the high prices of the land for sale, the tram, theatre and river. Now I've heard that the the theatre will be used. That may generate some buzz again.

These places aren't the sort of places the average resident is going to have a home in. Now that's fine, that's how life works. I'd love to live in a swanky neighbourhood but I can't afford to but surely these showpiece sims should offer a little more than nice builds, there are other sims around with nice builds, mainland sims too, for example Liome built by Avion Raymaker has a lot of style, as do  all of the builds I've seen by Avion to be honest.

With the exception of double prims what do Nautilus and Bay City offer that Liome can't? The only advantage I can see in Nautilus and Bay City is some sort of residential prestige and that's fine but I don't see an advantageous business position from being in those sims. Commercially they seem overpriced, there's no draw of lots of extra traffic.

Linden Lab have of course made a lot of money from the auctions for both Nautilus and Bay City, fair play to them, that's the business they're in and improving their bottom line should be good for everyone but where's the longevity in these projects? Where's the longevity in a project that other creators can match or even exceed in terms of quality? Everything seems so short sighted.

The position is somewhat complicated by the fact that residents don't want to see Linden Lab competing with them. I'm not at all convinced this is a concern of Linden Lab's mind you, but I do believe it's a concern of residents. However what's the point of these shiny builds if they just wallow in a sea of yellow and then get forgotten about? Where is the value? This model won't keep generating high auction prices if there's only a short term buzz, there needs to be more and it should start with using the theatre in Bay City. The Moles and Blue Linden seem to be behind the theatre and there is a group to find out about forthcoming attractions, but the parcel description says it all for me:

"Bay City's premier movie palace.  Not for sale."

The land near the theatre in Bay City is largely for sale too, for very high prices but as a second hand land dealer, I don't see the value in stumping up such high fees. The name alone isn't enough for me. Good luck to those with plots there, I'd love to see both Nautilus and Bay City really come to life but the signs aren't healthy.