price rise

Hey don't say I'm not topical! Tonight's eagerly awaited expanison pack in the openspace saga "Wrath of the Land King" produced very little in the way of constructive discussion but I was impressed as Jack sat on his couch fielding questions.

When I arrived there were two level 70 guards in the shape and form of Scout and Guy Linden, but they left early on after Jack probably contacted them on teamspeak to say he could take this crowd of noobs as there were too many low level characters in attendance. This is the problem with pickup groups, you're never quite sure if you'll be well enough equipped for the challenge. I mean we had a few level 70's like Bart Heart, Yohan Pintens and Talarus Luan the dragon but there weren't quite enough and two of those three weren't that bothered about the fight!

Jack fondly remembered the thread from 2006 where he ok'd rentals on voids. The rest of us reached for our weapons but nobody managed to crit Jack for any bonus points, despite my attempts to throw a few curses of agony at him Jack was too powerful for our group and the raid was fended off.

There were calls for refunds - Not bloody likely.

There were calls for tier to be frozen at USD$95 - Not bloody likely.

There were questions about what we're paying the increased fee for - Not at all sure. The price is right apparently, "An Openspace owner, come on down, your prize is a more expensive Openspace" - Audience goes wild.

Jack tried to use mind persuasion techniques to talk about the clean up of mainland and removal of adverts but the group were still full of hit points at this stage and repelled his attack to keep the topic on focus.
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At least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask. Conversation about the Q3 statistics finally leads to an answer regarding the Openspace fiasco and although it's not the one I wanted to hear it does at least set a line in the sand.

On the forum I asked:

"Does this mean the price rises and changes are set in stone? If it does can you ask someone to have the decency and good manners to actually say this?"

Zee Linden : "Ciaran - thanks for your message. We did change the pricing structure from Jack's original post in a post that Mark made. We are not planning to make further changes to the pricing in the post Mark made, so for now, those are final"

Thumbs up for Zee for having the balls to actually answer the issue plenty of people were hanging onto. The waste of time thread discussing the second post made by M, and it really has been a complete and utter waste of time with Linden interest hovering somewhere around ziltch, has made a mockery of residents.

In terms of customer relations Linden Lab have failed badly on this issue. The contempt that they have held the residents in has been all too clear and this comes from the very top, the guy called M. Whether these changes would have happened had he not been in charge we'll never know but his lack of communication won't be forgotten in a hurry. In a thread entitled "Open spaces announcement & Talk with M and Jack Linden" he didn't make one single post. This speaks volumes.
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After a tip off by someone I'll refer to as "Dark Baron Voice" (thanks for the chat log too) I made my way to Ruth's Retreat for an office hour that had no howling mob, largely because we couldn't move due to the major lag caused by so many residents trying to get into at least two sims. I'm not sure how many people were there as I was afraid to open the map in case I crashed. Indeed I couldn't even fully replace my wizard's outfit as I didn't want to be ejected for indecent exposure as it was taking so long to change clothing.

Jack cleared a couple of points up about my previous blog post regarding Mos Ainsley. Apparently they weren't Openspaces, no they were full sims but the moles initially created them on voids and when they moved them they still had the 3750 prim limit. So they were always full sims. This was one of the most convincing answers by the way.

I like Jack and it's not just because he comes from the same country as me. I mean he has an awful taste in football teams but he's generally a straight forward guy, despite constant eyebrow raising over his average mainland price statistics he trots out. However today Jack was the King of spin, more evasive than an evasive thing from evasiveland.

One of the most curious points was that Jack said that grandfathering doesn't deal with the load issue, but not selling them means that people who want them can't get them. Odd logic there Jack and you really should have stopped selling them in August when problems were being identified but I think the reasons why Linden Lab kept selling them have been highlighted enough and no amount of spin can get around that fact.

Jack again weakly pointed to the knowledgebase article that says they are for open waterways or forests ......yes Jack a forest in the middle of nowhere is a great addition to an estate, we're really buying this point. Oh yes we are ....ooh hold on it's not panto season yet.
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