Lindentown Provokes Land Baron Outcry: Stop GOMing us!!!
by Alphaville Herald on 19/11/05 at 1:21 pm
by Dow Jonas
Sim crashes and texture upload failures, “I see grey people” and frozen avatars – all the joys of the new Second Life software update 1.7 and its patchlets have played havoc on SL’s volatile land market in recent weeks as both would-be first-land stakers and land dealers give up when they can’t even *see* the world. Serious uncertainties not only about the market but their own role in SL put the barons in a huddle again last night as rumors of a new LL zoned sim project for newbies – possibly serious competition for inworld rentals by residents — were confirmed.
Last night, word spread that a Levittown-like suburban sim, created by the Lindens using selected resident builders’ housing, would soon offer new basic subscribers a free house and land to encourage them to upgrade to premium. The protected status of the plots and houses – they cannot be sold for 3 months – mean essentially the Lindens have created another much-coveted zoned sim like Boardman or Brown.
”We’ve been GOMed,” blogged controversial rentals czar Prokofy Neva, who said he was tiering down two regions in response. “The Lindens now have non-profit rate sims they give to RL educators; they themselves have created and rent out combat sims; they have announced building contests for the creation of amphitheaters for instructors’ classes, and now they have newbie zoned suburban sims – why do they need us to make a world?”
“The urban planner in me screams and screams and screams,” says Lordfly Digeridoo in a forums comment, while acknowledging the new zoned areas could be a boon for newbies and help people make friends.
“Risk Analysis: Linden Lab Opens Realty Division,” warned Jauani Wu, a land baron who had recently unveiled ambitious plans for management of residential zoned projects on private islands at the Cyberland Equities stockholders meeting last week.
“Second Life competing with content creators? I don’t usually express myself in a vulgar way, but: WTF,” said a forums contributors, Anna Bobbysocks. “Why not give us zoning capabilities and let us do this?”
“LL is basically competing with content developers, but worse, they’re keeping key technology out of the hands of developers so they can not effectively compete with this,” said a leading forums controversialist, blaze Spinnaker.
The new suburban houses – which immediately summoned up visions on the forums of the old song about “little houses on the hillside made of ticky-tacky” — were solicited in an open bid for user content to be sold to newbies in a promotional campaign by LL’s marketing department. An email signed by Lauren Linden says new account holders will have six styles of houses to choose from.
Some of SL’s top architects hurried to Blumberg, as the suburb was dubbed, and quickly littered the area with performance art ranging from a monkey with a pet dog on a chain and a snickering kitty. Like RL government-sponsored projects in inner city ghettos, Lindentown might all too soon fill up with fire-prim attacks and blighty bling, even if the Lindens do provide standard-issue housing to avoid the “ZOMGZ my neighbor made a huge ugly black spinning box” horror of the first-land experience.
The houses appear so uniformly drab and conformist in this setting that even desperately homeless newbies could give them a pass and head straight to prettier themed private islands maintained by land barons or well-managed mainland rentals communities with more freedom of choice.
As if to illustrate the high premium people will pay to escape ugliness and griefing in their dream world, this last week also saw what may have been the highest-per-meter land auction bid in SL history, for a spot in the coveted Linden-zoned residential sim of Boardman, as a mere 512 m2 parcel – barely enough for a newbie house and dog – went for LL$100,910, or US $397.59.
Numerous curiosity-seekers and well-wishers came to see the much-coveted plot in the artists and architects enclave, surrounded by 1950s-style suburban houses with convincing props like bicycles and lawn sprinklers. Even CEO Philip Linden showed up later to congratulate the successful bidder, Boardman architect Maxx Monde, who earlier this year set the previous record for a US $262 bid in Boardman.
A volatile land market, with bodacious bidding for Boardman and greedy graffiti-griefing of the grid by anti-Bush activist Lazarus Divine causing fire-sale dumping of land nearby — and the stage is well set for the Linden’s latest takeover of resident concepts and businesses, Second Life Surrealty
The Lindens’ further intrusion into the land market comes at a time when major dealers are already very nervous about their futures. One dealer who asked not to be named told the Herald of a belief that another major dealer whom they declined to identity – but likely Anshe Chung – was busy unloading her mainland holdings, seeing the handwriting on the wall. “I think for large land holders, only one person dumped all they had quickly so the rest of us are stuck at taking big losses.”
To be sure, many mainland plots on older sims are being liquidated now at half their original purchase price inworld. With many wannabee baby barons entering the land rush now along with thousands of newbies, the price of retail land has skyrocketed.
With this stiff bidding competition, far from unloading her sims, Anshe now charges $50,000 for a 1024 parcel next to new northern continent telehubs, and is selling prime mature waterfront for more than $10/meter in many new areas.
Marsellus Wallace
Nov 19th, 2005
One thing I have quickly learned in this game is real estate is where the money is. I have been buying and selling land left and right in the game. Hell I made over $60,000 Lindens in profit this past week from various land sales without ever going over our tier of 4608m. Small in comparison to Anshe Chung or Shaun Altman (Cyberland), but I know jack about the market and I am making a ton of money off of it. I think that just shows how rocky the market has been lately… Up and down like a cowgirl on a mechanical bull.
This is the first I have heard of Zoned land. Recently some associates of mine talked to Maxx Monde, nice guy, and he was asked why he did it. We met him through a friend on the family and he said the land holds sentimental value which is why he paid so much. So may not have anything to do with the lands actual worth for the amount that was paid. Who knows?
Anyway, what is zoned land? I mean if I read this correctly in 3 months the newbie can sell the land? Does the house always stay there? I mean how does zoned land work? Someone break it down for me please. Thanks in advance!
Marsellus Wallace
Learn something new every day.
Torley Torgeson/Torley Wong
Nov 19th, 2005
I’d never heard of “Levittown” before reading this and Jau’s writing. So it’s nice to learn about it, and the sort of historical context that precedes Second Life.
I wonder how else the dynamics will change?
BTW, the sim is called Blumfield, not Blumberg.
Cocoanut
Nov 19th, 2005
1. “Some of SL’s top architects” are griefing this with monkeys and whatnot? That pisses me off.
What’s more, you make it sound like the people whose houses are there are some kind of schleps. MY house is there, and my house is a damn fine house!
“Some of SL’s top architects” ALREADY looked down their noses at this, saying it didn’t pay enough enough to be worth their effort.
And now they dare to criticize it?
Now that I think about it, it could have been too difficult for some of them, too. It wasn’t easy getting a lot of reasonable living space into a one-story 14×14 home in which at least one room had to be 10×10, with specific distances prescribed between the sides and front from the edges of the lot. And yet – we see six distinctively different renditions of livable Fifties’ surburban homes, all accomplished within those incredible constraints.
I hope none of those same architects who deemed it beneath them to build a house for it themselves, simply because they weren’t being paid what they wanted, AREN’T going over there now to grief it!
We are getting bunches of free basic members right now. They don’t KNOW what they are supposed to turn up their noses at and dislike. (And even though I already know what I’m “supposed” to like and dislike, not to mention WHO, I DON’T. I like housing communities like this and Boardman.) How dare anybody go there to tell them what they are supposed to like?
2. “The houses appear universally drab and conformist in this setting” – that pisses me off mightily, as a builder of one of those houses.
This neighborhood was SUPPOSED to look like a Fifties’ tract housing suburb. That was the IDEA. I like the idea. I would like to live there myself! It’s dang CUTE, and full of potential! You are criticizing it for being perfectly, and adorably, WHAT IT WAS DESIGNED TO BE.
I suppose I am SUPPOSED to prefer to live in some sort of glass and steel place that looks more like a store or an office building than a house. Don’t we have enough of those already? Or maybe some big blue sphere on a stalk?
Or maybe I’m supposed to prefer to take my freebie Linden cabin and go live on my little 512 First Land squished within five minutes between huge, garish builds up to the property line that dwarf my own residence?
At least in Blumberg, they get to start OUT with something fun. As far as I know, there aren’t any zoning regulations prohibiting what goes in there, like there are in Boardman. So it will be fascinating to see how this place develops. Or COULD develop, if a bunch of snooty people don’t do all they can to cut it off at its inception!
Wanna attack this place? Go attack BOARDMAN, why dontcha, where a person like me can never HOPE to live.
Or is it okay for the “artists and architects” to enjoy their little “conclave,” but God forbid any regular player can have the same sanity and normalcy where they live? Let’s go RUIN that, right away!
I get sick to death of the snooty attitudes in this game.
3. This is to turn basic members into premium. Those who are going out of their way to grief it, or to talk it down as being beneath their architectural sensitivities (which are often nothing short of godawful), need to remember that it was made so basic members would become premiums. They should be hoping for new premium accounts, rather than try their best to ruin the promotion! And THAT pisses me off.
Imagine the basic player who has upped to premium, and is happily moving into their new house and neighborhood – only to be met by a bunch of “top architects” or whoever, making fun of them and telling them they are fools.
Screw that. Go do it in Boardman.
coco
Aliasi Stonebender
Nov 19th, 2005
So… basically, it’s First Land, but with a house already on it. Much like the many free prefabs one can already get from a telehub, or Yadni’s, or the GNU store….
Sorry, don’t see how this could at all be considered a big deal. “But they’re doing the same thing I do!@#$” say the land barons and rental outfits: Well, not really.
It’s First Land with a house on it.
Cocoanut
Nov 19th, 2005
Thank you for the correction. I went in the game to see for myself this crap.
It’s not enough that a bunch of snoots with pokers up their butts gotta prove how superior they are by running everybody off the forums – by being just plain NOT NICE – they gotta now do it in the game! Wrecking the promotion the Lindens have put in place to get us more premium members!
There IS a group of people in this game who cannot stand any competition, and really do NOT want the world to grow. They really do just want it to be them widdle selves forever and ever. I’m more certain of that now than ever.
As for Levittown, I not only heard of it, I RESEARCHED it before making my build. Whole huge BUNCHES of people apparently don’t understand art from the damn get-go! Or architectural history. One can create a 50′s style suburbia, or one can NOT create it. But to criticize it for its successful creation is ludicrous and ignorant.
But to then go to the trouble of actually MOCKING THE PLAYERS WHO MOVE IN – that is the TOTAL PITS, people! I’ve never seen so many little narrow-minded, undereducated snooty little snips in my life who think they can prescribe other people’s interests as much as I have seen on this one game. All they do with these efforts is automatically reveal their own VAST insecurities.
Who the HELL are these people to try to spoil a Linden promotion to get more premium players? They are working against OUR game and its future when they do that.
The issue of whether yet another portion of the economy is being GOMed by the Lindens is a totally separate issue. I’ve given thought to that and MIGHT discuss it someday if and when I get over having things RUINED by a bunch of insecure, stuck-up little SNOTS.
pissedoffcoco
Prokofy Neva
Nov 19th, 2005
Aliasi, it’s not First Land like the 512 that you can own, and sell any time you want, because the people getting this are not premium account subscribers but basics, who will get it and then can’t sell it for 3 months (sound like all those helpful hints all the Forum FIC were making as a way to control firstland scams?). The marketing ploy is to get them to upgrade to premium, then they get this house and land for free (not the $512 that existing premium members have to pay to live in a newbie swamp).
It competes with rental agencies because many of them already *do* provide first land, even for free, or for $1 a meter, or very subsidized as loss-leaders, such as I do, in giving a 512 for $50/week. I just believe everybody can pay *something* — why should I subsidize everybody else’s game?
It competes with those pre-fab builders who are trying to sell on the open market because it means a selected stable of builders for the Lindens have what they would call in the Soviet Union “goszakazy,” or “state orders” whereby they have guaranteed business from the Lindens — the Lindens I’m presuming are paying for these houses, or if they are not, the newbies are paying for them, OR if they aren’t, they get the visibility. Because when the newbies leave, they will want the same house possibly on larger land they buy, and they’ll go and buy it.
How does that work?
Coco, it’s good that the Lindens opened up the house competition — I know that you praised them for that and it’s part of working toward a level playing-field — but now they have to rotate it. I realize this is only a marketing experiment — it may be they end it. I suspect they will only develop it further. The Lindens want to do real estate the way they want to do it, with social missions and utopian ideals — not with an open market.
Coco, I have to say you sound like you’ve been FIC’d. The Lindens feted you — at least on an equal-opportunity basis, but still, it’s feting! By feting, I mean instead of letting you go do your thing and giving you the means and tools to work at it, they’ve co-opted you into *their own* project — as if world-making isn’t really about “your world, your imagination,” but “our world, your imagination.”
Now you are trapped into a situation where you have to be loyal to them and can’t see the reason for criticism of them — because you’ve become a beneficiary of their program. I realize you are quite capable of seeing all that, and you figure this is how things have to be done — but now you are so identifying with THEIR need to make customers stick in the name of getting YOUR OWN customers that you’re forgetting that the way any good federal government encourages business is *by getting out of the way of it*.
These are tract houses — like a cliche of suburbia. You shouldn’t take it as a slam when people criticize this kind of wasteland. When Ingrid and Barnes do a tongue-in-cheek rendition of Suburbia, at least it looks good and has some more space. This looks like Levittown, full stop. Your house is very good — I know I have it in both my newbie communities and in midbie communities because people like good construction, great camera angles, comfort, nice touches — all of which you provide. Your house looks lot better without others so close to it, however, and that’s what the Lindens have done with Blumfield.
All of these things should be on the open market — and those of us who PAY THE LINDENS TIER should at least be able to do business without THEM competing with us. It’s insane. I don’t mind competing against Anshe or Hiro; I do mind competing against the Lindens. That’s why I tiered down — it’s about the 6th co-optation thing I’ve seen them do since GOM, and I’m totally done paying for that privilege.
Coco, the Lindens already do so many things to get in our way and prevent us from doing business. We could be making more people stick to the game if we could ADVERTISE to them. They give into the clamouring of a tiny minority against billboards, and a simple, ordinary, intuitive thing like clicking on a sign or a billboard as you come in a game, to get options like Ansheland, Hiroland, Prokland, is blocked from us. Worse, now they funnel newbies off to the likes of Weedy and Aimee and other mentors who can usher them into their commerce circles, as Mulch so memorably put it.
The Lindens should be helping existing premier customers buy land — many don’t due to fear of griefing and fear of getting high tier bills for land they can’t sell — because the market is constantly lurching up and down and crashing due to the Lindens own glutting of it in the name of preventing land baroning.
People value good land and good houses like yours. Let them reach their own level of value, let their be differentiations in value. I totally agree that the forum snobs should not be knocking anyone who moves into this area, but I have to wonder why we aren’t instead given tools to create it ourselves — like better group tools, better advertising capacity, better reach to newbies, better conditions of the game itself, which has been racked with lagging and crashing since 1.7
Cocoanut
Nov 19th, 2005
1.) You don’t have that house of mine. That house was created especially for this promotion. You probably have the OTHER house I created, for the previous promotion, since that promotion is over and I can now (actually always could, in the case of that promotion) distribute it.
You don’t have the house that is in Blumfield. Those houses were all exclusive to the promotion, and created in just a few days – not to MENTION that those days included the crashing of the grid and the arrival of 1.7 (now THAT was a joy to build in).
I have been in all those houses; have you? They are quite different, especially considering the requirements (and one which looks especially good actually went a bit beyond those limitations).
2.) Let us get our battles straight: Mine is for equal opportunity at all things passed out by the Lindens. It is NOT to stop the Lindens from passing out things, and has never been.
This isn’t to say I’m not open to the suggestions – on the forums – that this really isn’t that different from GOM (although I still think the primary difference there was GOM was selected, and didn’t compete for the offer they received).
It is not to say you haven’t convinced me that this was not good for the rentals. (Worse for rentals than any other sector of the economy, I think.) And I immediately copped to the fact that Help Island might well put out those who do welcoming, classes, etc., and also immediately copped to the fact that the new educational builds would step on those who do education as their main SL thing.
BUT – my thing was ALWAYS the “equal opportunity” thing; never the NO opportunity thing. I figure Lindens will always be doing things, and if they ARE, then we ALL need to be able to benefit.
YOUR thing may be that they shouldn’t be doing this at all, but I think that is a whole DIFFERENT thing. And I’m far from convinced that this is the same thing as GOM.
2. So far – there IS no selected stable of builders, in any sort of static sense. And yes, I believe they should rotate these things.
On Help Island, my build for the first promotion has been used as part of a house display. But they have SAID they are going to rotate those, and I expect them to.
3. What the HECK do people mean, when Ingrid did Boardman? And now you add Barney. I can’t help it if we weren’t given a Boardman and free rein to do whatever we wanted to in it. This was the design – people may not LIKE the design, but this design was intended to be different from Boardman in the first place. Which I thought was a Linden sim, not an “Ingrid-and-Barney” Sim. I still don’t know how it came to be an Ingrid and/or Ingrid-and-Barney sim, either. Maybe someone can explain.
4. I don’t know why anyone is comparing it to Boardman ANYWAY. Land in SL is infinite, and so should be the visions thereon. This is just one possible such vision.
5. I’m all for the better group tools and 90% of the rest of what you say. It is NOT necessary to call this effort horrible, though, as all those objections would still be valid no matter WHAT was sitting in Blumfield. *I* think it’s adorable, and my tastes and the things that charm me count TOO.
6. As for the pre-fab dealers still trying to sell on the open market, I don’t see much competition for them at ALL. I’m still making size 512 houses, and people are and will still be buying them. I think people still don’t understand how much like clothes houses are in this game. You get tired of one, you replace it – often for less than what your outfit or AV cost! People don’t just buy one house and live in it forever.
7. How it worked: The Lindens paid us 5k each for our house, which they then duplicated and retextured. The new premium member landing on his 512 can get rid of that house immediately, if he wants. They can mod it or copy it, but not give it away. They are not forced to live in it – they can put a CUCUMBER there and live in it if they want.
Nobody in their right mind (unless they are very sentimental) would want to live in the same house once they get more land. For a size 512 lot, though, they are nifty little houses, and leave enough prims left over for decoration.
IT’S A SIZE 512, PEOPLE!
8. They didn’t ASK for modern homes, or beach homes. If they had, that is what they would have gotten. They asked for fifties’ style suburban homes. I read that as “tract” homes and researched Levittown and the like. Why in God’s name some people can’t grasp the charm and the artistic integrity of recreating this sort of thing is completely beyond me.
They didn’t ASK for two-story homes, or that is what they would have gotten. Ditto, they didn’t ask for bigger homes. I think they asked for these very small, simple homes precisely BECAUSE they are giving them away. (Certainly not because such homes are easier to build.) They didn’t want them perceived as too valuable.
9. I have not been FIC’d. You, more than anyone, know I put my conscience and principles above my own best interest, no matter how it hurts, insofar as any of us humanly can. But in this case – a promotion to get more premium members – you need to know that getting more members (and in SL, that really means more premiums) has ALWAYS been one of my big concerns, as evidenced by my three-year following of Sir Bruce’s charts. Heck, I spent my time on TSO either welcoming new people in or providing them entertainment.
If I’m going to put time and effort and money into a game, I want the people THERE. And it met my requirements for equal opportunity of participation. I thought it was one fantastic promotion!
10. I know I’ve been feted. I lurve it! But that doesn’t mean I still don’t have my own mind, and my own principles. If they are going to do these things, then the things should be an opportunity open to everyone. THAT is my biggest principle. That they have done, and I’m proud of my part in it.
coco
Lewis Nerd
Nov 20th, 2005
I rather like the concept myself.
Having bought first land, and then forced to move by griefer builds all the way around me, now my new land has had a lag inducing nightclub with a shout ball that messages everyone within about 200m regularly (on an adjacent sim, I might add) sprung up 2 plots away.
Whilst there is of course infinite opportunity for the creative builder, many creations are, quite frankly, ugly. Nothing but wall prims and garish textures, and somewhat of an eyesore.
I would love to see more restrictions – especially on height – on sims so that people don’t keep building higher to be seen above their neighbours who are doing the same just to be seen.
It’s something I learnt a long time ago in TSO…. anyone can build a nice property on a size 8 lot, but try doing something on a size 4 and it takes some skill to get everything in without it looking too cluttered. I’ve got a 1024 plot in SL which is plenty for my current needs, sure I could buy a much bigger one if I wanted to spend the money, but I’d rather enjoy the challenge and show off my skills in doing something in the smaller space.
Big is not always beautiful, as the old saying goes – and some of the structures I’ve seen in SL definitely prove that.
I’d like to see more creative structures…. we have the 50′s estate…. how about trailer parks…. campgrounds… single storey properties…. log cabins… mud huts… the possibilities are endless. Make themed sims rather than just a choice between PG or Mature, and rise to the challenge rather than dismiss it as a restriction on your creativity peoples!
Lewis
Harlequin Salome
Nov 20th, 2005
I have no stake in this whole issue. I am not a land salesperson, beyond having an apparent gift for unloading land for profit whenever I need to. I can, however, see the issue. Its not so much about the land alone, really. If this were the first, or the only, then I would call it an overreaction, but its the next step in the linden’s actions.
They give us a world and let us do what we want. Then they watch, see what really works/makes money, and they jump into it. This, the combat sims, but the most scary to me recently was LindenX shoving GOM out of business. Its a spooky thing, but LL seems to almost use us as a testing ground to see what they can do to make more money.
Granted that sort of stuff happens all the time: One resident makes money in some manner, so another one copies or improves upon their method, but thats not the same as the corp that runs the game setting up something in direct competition. Its the difference between two farmers competing over the price of eggs, and then the Government, who sets laws and controls the rules of the game, getting into competition with them.
Okay, that is a flawed analogy, but I hope the spirit of what I’m trying to say gets across.
Its another case of what I see as LL’s biggest flaw. They want us to think that we are in a totally user controlled environment, and then they occasionally smack down on user-created concepts, or overrules them by changing the rules on us.
Either they should be honest about how they see the residents and the world, or they should back the hell off.
Prokofy Neva
Nov 20th, 2005
Re “you don’t have that house of mine” — it’s similar enough to be confused.
Yes, I went into a lot of them, yes I found them cramped with crappy angles, yes, I realize there are 6 (yes just six) types and sure, you and others have to work in the hardships of SL, like all of us do. So? The setting is one of bland, cramped, conformity. Some will find that a security blanket from griefing. Others will find it chafes their spirit. Each to his own.
I don’t think the Lindens should set up projects and pass out things to residents. This is too much intervention. Residents who want to create public parks or newbie communities or ampitheaters should do so, and be part of both the marketplace and the philanthropic community. The Lindens should not be intervening in this. I realize your point is different about equal opportunity. Equal opportunity to help the Lindens intervene in my game and the game of others in the marketplace though begins to seem like too
much state intervention.
If we live in a world that is so “unjust” that newbies can’t buy land and homes on day one, there’s something wrong with the set up. If it turns out they can’t do this becaues they aren’t willing to spend their own or their parents or spouses disposable income, then if the Lindens or us subsidize this, it still has to get paid from somewhere! Why should we subsidize someone’s choice not to use their disposable income? The Lindens haven’t thought through
about how they will deal with alts, freeloaders who stay for more than 3 months etc. etc. — they way the rest of us already cope with this.
I guess I can’t fight the equal opportunity fight when the fight leads to a stilted, controlled, socialist competition arena, not a marketplace. I can’t even have a tasteful small sign in a welcome area advertising, on a rotating basis, my rentals — due to the hysterical squeamishness not only of some residents but some Lindens. In its place, we have state capitalism and
cronyism, as all those beloved Mentors get to hawk their wares in more subtle ways.
In and of itself, Blumfield isn’t GOM — GOM after all was informed as it was being taken over — we haven’t been. But taken together with all the other stuff like the combat sims, the ampitheaters, the railroad builds, etc. it is.
The Ingrid-and-Barney sim used to be just old lagged out, ugly brown PG land by ugly other sims that Ingrid saw was a gem because it still retained its old nominal nomenclature as a Linden-zoned sim — abandoned because Lindens didn’t enforce it. So she bought up land there, holds it on her own tier, and went to work making a community for herself and her little friends.
At her behest, Jack Linden came and fixed up the trees, sidewalks, and replaced the ugly marketplace. He did the same for me when I asked when I went over and bought up some of Brown, the sister Linden-zoned sim, at Ingrid’s suggestion.
I have a lot of my rentals filled now there but I had to eat a lot of vacant PG tier because no one likes PG. By the time the Lindens put in the trees and it looked less barren, I got more customers. I even had Ingrid’s and Barney’s houses, but they didn’t rent for the most part so I let people build their own — that’s the key to happiness. It doesn’t look as good as Boardman but
it has less stifled conformity of uber-architecture. Ingrid puts a lot of time into making Boardman like it is, with an artists’ enclave of helpers. That’s not scalable. I try to find things that are.
Boardman and Brown are Linden-zoned sims. That’s golden. That means you can get rid of Lazarus Divine ugly anti-Bush signs; it means you can prevent your neighbourhood for building a big ugly black box club out to the property line and putting spinning crap in the sky. The Lindens’ just made one more really scarce place like that! Would they would do this FOR THE WHOLE GAME and reverse the equations — set those rules for ALL sims,
but have some percentage that are labeled experimental, sandbox, and commercial where other activities generating black boxes and spinning crap can go on free from harassment by forum fighters.
Yes, I fully understand that houses are like clothes, and long before you said this now, I made exactly that point in arguing with Jauani Wu on his architecturey blog.
You fail to see by constantly jamming on the 512 nature of this project that the Lindens will simply move on to more themes and sizes as they get rolling.
If you come to identify your success in SL as contingent with making LL succeed, if you get all teary-eyed about “our team” having to “face that big ol’ hostile Internet with all those other nasty and evil game companies” you are FIC’d, whether you believe it or not, because you haven’t
even fully bought into our state Better World religion, which is that we are supposed to be a country. In countries — countries that stand alone from the creator who spawned them — the success of even the founding father’s company can’t be the only thing determing the nature of the country. Either you sell a game, or you sell a country.
Well, maybe there has to be a new category for those who are feted but fretted. Feted, but still fretting over Linden favouritism.
Don’t forget I took part in a recent feting myself to test the system, and while it left me feeling less-than-feted, it was a feting of sorts so I’ll put it as a plus on their fete-ledger.
Cocoanut
Nov 20th, 2005
1. It is not similar enough to be confused! I will come to you in the game and put BOTH houses out for you and five other observers, and you can then decide if they are similar enough to be confused! Given, of course, that they are both 512 houses.
Heck, they’re probably both here on SLH somewhere, come to think of it!
2. Of course they are cramped, with crappy angles! They are 14 x 14 meters! With the expectation of having more than one room!
They are not GOING to give away houses that are any bigger!
3. They didn’t DO this promotion to right some injustice in the world; they just DIDN’T. They ABSOLUTELY did it simply and purely to attract basic members to become premiums, with 512′s in a pre-established neighborhood, and even a little house already there! That you can choose from! People LOVE to make a choice.
Given the restrictions, those houses are VERY livable! Try to look at it with that eye.
4. OK, that’s FINE about Ingrid and Boardman, but that is not what happened here. She has expressed an interest in the trees and whatnot in Blumfield, so maybe they would allow her to put her touch on it! God knows, I have corrections I’d like to make in it, but haven’t wanted to be pushy enough to suggest them all, though I have just offered to help with the texturing, and I did inquire about a park area (and was told that might be in the future).
You might as well go back to Boardman in the days you are talking about that were laggy and whatnot – BEFORE Ingrid and others moved in and compare it to Blumfield now – BEFORE residents who want to make something of it move in.
You will be able to make a proper comparison eventually – IF people don’t try to shut it down before it even has a chance. Making a comparison of it now to the entire history of Boardman is hardly fair. Give those new Ingrids a CHANCE to move in and make improvements. PLEASE.
5. Yes, I wish the Lindens would do a lot more of this sort of thing – or, as you say, give US the tools to do it. I wouldn’t want to see the whole grid made this way, but certainly there is a huge populace wanting something more sane than what goes on there now; hence the popularity of private islands.
I really don’t think the Lindens are going to move on to more sizes and themes as they get rolling. I think this is a promotion, and the promotion might increase, but I’m not so quick to think it is all some sort of practice ground for how they are going to do lots of things next.
6. Yes, I’m bothered by the dichotomy of the Lindens doing something versus us doing something. But if they ARE going to do something (and they are), then let us ALL have at it. Which they have done! Unlike you, I’m more worried about getting equal opportunity going, than getting the Lindens out of the way. I’m also interested – perhaps – in getting the Lindens out of the way, but as long as they are there, doing promotions and whatnot, I want to have a chance at it, too. And now I do!
To me, the equal opportunity thing was the first priority. This other – getting them out of the way – seems like a much harder thing, and also requires time and evolution, whereas equal opportunity was a no-brainer they needed right away.
7. Bear in mind, too, that these sorts of contests and things provide opportunities to those of us who can’t buy up a lot of land to do our own thing on, for what that’s worth. Don’t know what that’s worth really, lol, but it is certainly valuable to me.
8. I start ALL my games with an eye at all times to making the game succeed, because, as I say, without the people, there is no game and I’m wasting my time. I was that way with TSO, too, and there just really isn’t any sense putting in anymore time or effort there, because the people aren’t there. (I just go there to play Simball now.)
Whether you are going to entertain, or sell content, you need the people, or it’s not exciting.
And the truth is, we are far from a country yet. I’m working with what we have now, and the first order of business there was equal opportunity for everyone.
9. Yes, I’m feted but fretted, and that is a good category for me. But as the equal opportunity problem gets solved – and it IS getting solved – then I can move on to more of these long-term concerns. That isn’t to say I’m not concerned with them now. But it is to say it is not my PRIMARY concern. Just to say that when this equal opportunity thing gets more firmly in place, I can concern myself more with things like that.
And anyway, I just don’t see this promotion as being the same thing as GOM. I DO see how it hurts rentals, though. I wasn’t thinking of that when I entered the contest, and even if I had been, I would have still entered. If there are more contests I’m interested in, then I will enter those, too.
I do enjoy being feted. I want EVERYONE to have that same opportunity to put them selves in the potentially-feted pool; NOT have it be limited to talents the Lindens already happen to know of.
That’s vital, because this game is getting big. These other issues you bring up – they are valid also. But they are in a different category to me.
10. Did I include enough capitalized words in this and exclamation points in this? Just checkin’.
coco
5.
antje
Nov 20th, 2005
*MY house is there, and my house is a damn fine house!*
Hubris, it’s what’s for dinner.
Cocoanut
Nov 20th, 2005
Antje! STDU!
coco
Prokofy Neva
Nov 20th, 2005
Yes, Coco, I got it that they are 512s, like I said, and you can only do so much. I know, as I provide 512s to newbies with prefabs, too. It’s work. Yes, I do know.
Oh, I see you’re saying that those with a lot of land to do stuff on should be willing to say that those who are content creators without land should become reliant on the Lindens as an outlet for their creative content, because the Lindens can put it all on Governor Linden land. You’re buying the FIC-induced class warfare here — a warfare which I report on, and fight in, but didn’t induce — they induce it with their hatred of land and their envy of a sector utterly independent of, and non-reliant on, them.
As for becoming reliant on Lindens for content placement, well, I disagree. First of all, I don’t really have a lot of land to do stuff on, I rent it out, and other people do stuff on it, and some of it I even give people for free to do stuff on, and eat some of the tier, for what it’s worth. And content creators who don’t appreciate that, and look to the Lindens, i.e. government subsidies for placement of their creativity, undermine the market.
I think we should be making a market where we buy and sell to each other with respect, openly, at prices set openly and visibly, not haggled, and not exchanged for barter or favours or given out for free. I think that’s the modern world, the world that evolved after centuries of bloodshed over other kinds of marketplaces, and that’s the marketplace that works. I want to go into a stranger’s stall and right click and buy his wares, and not have to talk two hours with him over tea and have him give it to me for free because I’m his wife’s brother-in-law. That’s the kind of modern society I want to live in online. It doesn’t mean rapacious capitalism and alienation, it doesn’t mean that I don’t develop kind and helpful relations with suppliers and buyers, but I don’t live in a world *contingent on others in power to make a living*.
All that is happening in Second Life is that these age old power structures making people dependent on others to make a living in ways that are not equal and interdependent are being replicated. Painful process, if you ask me.
For you, it makes sense, in this rigid and hostile world, to get in with these gods, and get them to give you exposure. I don’t feel that it is ultimately helpful for the world.
Coco, when the government gets into the housing business, it often ends up with people urinating in the stairwells. Is that the setting you want your house in?
The Lindens don’t control W-Hat griefing on Ansheland left without autoreturn — are they really going to patrol Blumfield? They don’t even have autoreturn on the roads to remove these monkeys.
Civilization is made up of people taking pride in their land and keeping it up becaues they own it and pay for it.
oogles
Nov 21st, 2005
coconuts sure is turning into the self absopbed, prima donna we all knew she was. Talk about needing attention! She’s got a bigger ego than maxx monde! without 1/100 of the design sense! bravo!
Cocoanut
Nov 21st, 2005
No, that is not what I am saying, Prok.
I agree that your question – “Is this what we want for the world?” – is an important one. Wouldn’t we rather want everything to be user-created, and not Linden mediated?
I used to think that, but when they GOM’d GOM, I realized they were not about that at all, or at least not entirely. (And still, this is different from GOM in many ways.)
As for people “urinating on the walls,” we have yet to see how that unfolds. Clearly we should all be given land tools to be able to make Blumfields of our own, and have them work not only right, but better than Blumfield does.
But why aren’t you copping to the fact that only those with as much rl money as, say, Ingrid, can even have this sort of thing to begin with? Of course, they should have sims zoned residential and sims zoned commercial. But they don’t, so why begrudge people being able to live in Blumfield?
And until they do, we are reliant on places like yours, “Ingrid’s”, or Azure Islands. I like it that there is something else for people to have now, that at least starts out like something sane. (I’ve heard no one say there are any zoning regulations to keep it that way.)
Largely, I agree with you on all your points about Lindens getting into people’s businesses. I would disagree, however, that this is any significant harbinger of that – at least from what we can see now. I agree, though, that of all businesses it steps on, the rentals business is most egregiously harmed.
I would also point out that this is a promotion for premium members. NO ONE ELSE CAN DO A PROMOTION FOR PREMIUM MEMBERS! This isn’t even something we CAN do! That right there is why this is, to me, in a different category from GOM and those other situations.
And finally, I will disagree with you to my dying breath about what is acceptable artistically and what isn’t.
coco
stubblehead
Nov 21st, 2005
bitch bitch bitch
Prokofy Neva
Nov 21st, 2005
The Lindens had a program recently where they let you pay $50 US to have an ad on boing-boing.net of your business, in a group of ads with Linden advertising SL. If someone wanted, say, a skin, they’d press on Cristiano’s ad, or a house, they’d press on mine. I had people pour in for several days, and some became my customers. The only glitch was the Lindens forgot to tell me that the result of the ads wouldn’t be that someone would IM me, or come to that house location (they had originally asked me for the house landmarks so I thought that’s how it worked). Instead, they came in as bewildered newbies who had been force-friended to me. We all rose to the occasion and I figured it out after the first few and helped those that just wanted to script vehicles, with my 1.2 seconds of knowledge of scripting and referalls to my betters, and helped those who wanted a home to come in my rentals or find some other option like Azure. It was all good. It’s the sort of thing that just makes a lot more sense for me than Blumfield.
Coco, I was thinking Blumfield would sell out in days. But it’s a tough sell. And I think I know why. People want to build or bring their own, and this doesn’t let them. So…what will you say if this fails? What will you blame? You won’t blame your house or the Lindens, who you think ahve done an excellent promotional offer. So…who to blame then?
Cocoanut
Nov 21st, 2005
Well, in science it is not good to have a contaminating factor.
There was a poll, on the forums, not long ago, asking whether or not a certain TV worked for people.
By the second post, though, I think it was, the poll originator clearly named (by not directly naming) who that poll was actually about, for anyone not already in the know: you, and your critique of said TV.
I posted that he had just biased his own poll doing that. For which I was roundly condemned and immediately accused of “ruining the poll” and possibly single-handedly getting the thread closed. Mean Coco!
Same situation here. I will never be able to tell, really, how well it would have done had not a number of residents gone to a whole lot of trouble to condemn it and ridicule it, and everyone associated with it, just as it got out of the gate, and some even setting up shop next door to provide visual ridicule.
Thus, the experiment has been contaminated from the get-go.
And that pissed me off a great deal, precisely because I was interested to see how it did. But I would have prefered to see how it did without people like SLH, you, and JauaniWu busy telling everyone how it sucks.
Having said that, though, I still think the influence of the advance poor reviews from the above parties will be minimal. (On the other hand, advance poor reviews were enough to do in TSO, so I could be wrong.)
I think most what we see will be the success or failure of the promotion itself, rather than the result of poor reviews from people who have no intention of living there, and are already premium members anyway.
Unfortunately, there will be no way to know how well it would have worked if people hadn’t been busy telling everyone who would listen that it just wasn’t cool. I would have preferred a more neutral stance.
Actually, I would have prefered people to talk it UP, because I would like to see a lot more premium members.
Even so, I will be more inclined to blame the promotion itself, if “blame” is the correct term, rather than “didn’t work.”
By the way – I don’t think people have to BUY this at all. All they have to do is buy a premium membership; the land and house come free. Of course, they also no longer qualify for First Land, so I suppose you could say it costs them that.
And they CAN build or bring their own. These houses can be removed. Demolished, or put into inventory.
I will just wait and see, and hope for the best.
In any case, I’m still happy with it (except the retexturing), and what others think really doesn’t affect that part for me.
coco
chicki
Nov 22nd, 2005
coco, only a very small percent of the sl population reads the forums or these blogs. Nothing that was said about the project will probably even reach the new resident who has the choice of whether or not to buy there. So i wouldn’t worry about that.
the project will sink or swim on it’s own merit. Not because of what was said about it on the forums, which is read by 5% of the sl population at the very most. Probably even less since the population has sky rocketed in the last few months.
jauani
Nov 22nd, 2005
this is awesome! coca got feted and now she will willingly defend the ugliest linden build ever.
yes it’s a rush job. yes its an experiment. but what kind of quality is LL showing by handing out houses with flicker, camera colliding ceilings, and really drab textures?
I would have quit SL for several reasons before even getting to know what it was. one was that at the time a computer that ran SL well cost several thousand dollars. the other was it was incredibly ugly. but i had to write a paper for school and TSO just wasn’t cutting it as a public space so i persevered and checked it out long enough to appreciate that despite not being slick like most games i’ve played there is something very cool about player made content.
by pushing a noobie ghetto on new premium accounts, LL is setting noobs back in getting involved in the established community. by giving them incredibly uninspiring and defectinve housing, they are not showing off the possibilities of SL.
how dense can you be cocoa? first impressions are very important. that is why help island is a step forward. that is why bumfield is a step back.
Prokofy Neva
Nov 22nd, 2005
Jauani, Coco is right that some newbies will go for the “look” which is a familiar sort of suburban tract look. However, I think LL would do better to pitch to premiums who didn’t buy their land yet out of fear of tier and griefing, and play to them.
Chicki, this idea that “only five percent of the population reads the forums” is only a limited concept — it doesn’t mean that any random 5 percent read it so it isn’t reading the public. Those five percent, unfortunately, are the most influential because they include all the big businesses of SL — and the Lindens. The Lindens read them. So that’s why they are worth bothering with, even as we all acknowledge that they are not representative of the population as a whole.
Cocoanut
Nov 22nd, 2005
Jauani, I offered to correct the re-texturing that occured, but my offer was turned down. You surely don’t think I would put out my house with bricks on it going SIDEWAYS, do you?
And there was only one build, when I looked, that had unreasonably low ceilings.
Chicki – that’s what I figure. That’s why I think it isn’t too badly contaminated by Prok’s and Jauani’s reviews. Maybe even that RIDICULOUS DISPLAY next to the neighborhood won’t do too much harm. One does wish it could have sunk or swum on its own. But still, I’m going to assume that will be mostly the case.
Jauani, I don’t know – how dense are YOU?
By the way, Blumfield is not a first impression. It is a promotion offered to people who are ALREADY basic members, in order to get them to buy premium accounts.
Help Island – yes, that IS a terrific first impression! (Another of my “defective” houses is on display there, by the way.) No question about that.
But the problem there is its exclusivity to mentors (and maybe other helpers, I’m not sure) only. Prok’s solution (however impractical) – that they hire Linden employees who are not players to man the area – would be a good way to solve that problem. The island itself is a good idea, otherwise.
The ugliest Linden build ever was that horrible bulky, view-blocking Linden bridge that sprung up in the dark of night – and disappeared a day later. I think Blumfield is adorable. I would like to live there myself.
coco
Marsellus Wallace
Nov 22nd, 2005
Dang, the way you guys describe this area I want to have 2.3 kids and a dog named spot. lol
Marsellus Wallace
I couldn’t resist.. Sounds very quaint though. =)
jauani
Nov 22nd, 2005
cocoa, ok fine LL is responsible for your house lloking ugly. that’s ok. this whole topic was about LL anyway, not cocoanuts house. i know this is great advertising for you. you learn the FIC tricks quickly.
there’s absolutely nothing wrong with people enjoying the environment of bumfield. SL is a stageset for avatar roleplaying. we were taking advantage of bumfield juxtaposing by juxtaposing the most mundane SL project with the most surreal circumstances we could contrive with our inventory. your indignation stinks of pompousness. the “ridiculous display” i see is you playing point for linden labs reality division with your ranting spin doctoring on all the related blogs. LL throws you a bone and you become their lap dog. /rolleyes
Cocoanut
Nov 22nd, 2005
You know what, Jauani? YOU’RE the one who keeps harping on the textures.
And I’m not ANYBODY’S lap dog. You just don’t seem to be able to grant me the right to love things like this! You seem to think that no one in their right mind could possibly love a neighborhood like this!
Well, I do!
Are you telling me you are the one responsible for putting up all that stuff with Max Case’s name on it?
If so, you can juxtaposition this and juxtaposition that, but all you are REALLY doing is trying to crap on somebody’s happiness by putting up a bunch of GRIEFER STUFF right next to their house.
Talk about pomposity – it is the height of pompous to do a thing like that to other people then cover it over with all this philosophical juxtaposition stuff.
And just who WERE all these “SL top architects” who hurried to the scene to put griefer stuff around? I don’t believe you are a builder. Anyway, no “top architect” would stoop to such a thing, by definition.
coco
I wouldn’t have said a damn THING on all the various blogs if you and Prok hadn’t gotten there first bringing up all this!
You know it is really sucky for you to run around saying all these things everywhere and then get indignant that anyone should come around and take issue with it.
coco
jauani
Nov 22nd, 2005
i’m only responsible for this, all of which i deleted when i left. except the monkey which i forgot until the next day. there’s no “stooping” involved. it’s fun. SL is a game.
surreal bumsfield
i don’t keep harping anything. you keep shoving your “high quality” in our faces.
i don’t know anything about “SL’s top architects” but i recall seeing ingrid and barnesworth in the neighbourhood.
Mentor Mento
Nov 22nd, 2005
And that fine house on display on Help Island was called ‘lame’ on opening day by …. (the Horrors) a Linden.
Cocoanut
Nov 22nd, 2005
Well, it’s good to know you removed your items. And it’s good to know that maybe there weren’t ANY “top architects” engaging in griefing and littering behavior, after all.
coco
Prokofy Neva
Nov 23rd, 2005
Marsellus, I barely know who you are, having never met you in TSO or SL. I don’t know why you’re on a tear now, the entire motivations are really hazy to me, but your confidence that you will prevail in some dispute with me is only exceeded by your *need* to do that. That’s what I find sad. I find myself engaged in a struggle between what I view as good and evil often. You’re unrelated to either. Do the math.
jauani
Nov 23rd, 2005
Ticky Tacky
Time Magazine Article
Within that context, Levittown became the anti-Williamsburg: Not a re-creation of some idealized past but a living glimpse of the ticky-tacky future. The social critic Lewis Mumford called it “a low-grade uniform environment from which escape is impossible.”
Racism
PBS interview of John A. Powell
“But it’s also very racialized. Levittown required restricted covenants in its deeds. He was explicit. He was not going to rent to blacks, he was not going to sell to blacks. He’d grown up in Brooklyn, where blacks had moved in, and he didn’t want to live around blacks, and didn’t want his business to be about blacks. And so, until 1960 82,000 people lived in Levittown, supported strongly by public money – which meant not just white people’s money, but black people’s money – and there wasn’t a single black person living in Levittown. ”
Time Magazine Article
“Yet however much it may have been a triumph of free enterprise, Levittown depended on massive government assistance. The Federal Housing Administration guaranteed the loans that banks made to builders. Then the Veterans Administration gave buyers low-interest mortgages to purchase those houses. ”
[...]
“Levittown was also tainted at birth by the offhand racism of midcentury America. Though Levittown is racially mixed today, for years Levitt’s sales contracts barred resale to African Americans. He once offered to build a separate development for blacks but refused to integrate his white Levitt developments. “We can solve a housing problem, or we can try to solve a racial problem,” he once said. “But we can’t combine the two.” In 1963 his all-white policies led to civil rights demonstrations at another Levitt subdivision, in Bowie, M”
Cocoanut
Nov 23rd, 2005
Your point, Jauani?
coco
jauani
Nov 24th, 2005
coco,
you claim it’s ludicrous for anyone to criticize a succesful recreation of 50s suburbia on the merit of having been succesful. the point is why recreate it at all? 50s suburbia is the image of conformity, banality, and institutionlised racism. this is the antithesis of secondlife.
if you want to live in levittown, usa, maybe the important question is why do you find the image of conformity, mediocrity, and racism so appealing. (i’m just being theatrical. i know you don’t find racism appealing).
Patch Lamington
Nov 25th, 2005
wow, a lot of vitriol on this board. So many comments, Im afraid I couldnt be bothered reading them all.
Im a new blumfield resident – and feel I need to justify my decision, and give my reaction.
Im a noob. That much is obvious. But Ive enjoyed hanging out in the game and spending a little time starting to mess around with content creation. I’d already decided it might be nice to own land and my own build at some point – which would require an upgrage to Premium.
And then I got the ‘special offer’.
Without which I almost certainly wouldnt be a subscriber yet.
My house… does have problems with internal walls that block the camera, and is small BUT my plot is small and hey, guess what – I’ll be looking to rip it down and start over in a while, and expect most neighbours when they move in to do the same over time. Meanwhile, Ive got no complaints.
If in six months time it still looks like 50′s suburbia that will be because the residents like it like that.
Of course it isnt a desireable area by itself – there is no player content yet. And as we are all noobs, it might take a while – but you dont live here, we do. So why should you care?
Also, we are very handy for the blacklibrary and max case gave us a friendly and amusing barrier to cross.
Basically: To buy land I would have to upgrade to prem. This gave me a wee plot of land for free when I did that. A very small plot, so land barons shouldnt worry too much.
I’ll leave it there, but this could run and run (and run)
patch
Cocoanut
Nov 25th, 2005
Jauani, I’ve been thinking about your question since you posted it.
All I can say is, you might as well say to someone, “Why are you making a science fiction movie? When you could have made a western? Or a comedy? Or any of the dozens of other type movies besides science fiction?”
Or, “How could you make roast beef for dinner, when we could have had shrimp? Or pork chops, or spaghetti. Why did you make roast beef when we could have had any of hundreds of other things instead?”
Or, “You decorated the living room in an art deco theme? Why did you do that? You could have decorated Victorian, or colonial, or southwestern, Queen Anne, or any number of others. So why did you do art deco?”
See what I mean?
Also, it’s Americana.
coco
Prokofy Neva
Nov 25th, 2005
When are you going to be able to rip down the building, Patch? It was my understanding that you had to keep the house and lot the way it is for 3 months? Or? What are the terms, exactly? How will the Lindens keep the “look” of this community?
Cocoanut
Nov 25th, 2005
You can’t SELL the lot for 3 months is what I was told. You CAN tear down the building any time you want – and at least two people have already.
coco
Prokofy Neva
Nov 25th, 2005
Oh that’s fascinating! I can’t WAIT to see what they put up instead. And I BET that what they put up instead will draw even MORE fire from the uber-architecterati ROFL.
The Abusive Granny
Nov 25th, 2005
Yawwwwwwn what is the point of all this? Say somthing interesting please
Cocoanut
Nov 25th, 2005
Yes! It is fascinating! That’s why I’ve been saying, this is going to be fascinating to watch!
Already there was one industrious resident I saw putting up her new yellow brick store.
coco
Prokofy Neva
Nov 26th, 2005
Store? So they aren’t keeping it with residential zoning?
Patch Lamington
Nov 26th, 2005
Actually, all this debate has made me reconsider pulling down…
I think I’ll see if I can start a Blumfield preservation society to keep it just the way it is
Patch
Cocoanut
Nov 26th, 2005
I don’t know of any zoning restrictions in Blumfield, and that’s why it didn’t surprise me to see a store. I could be wrong.
coco
Bob the tomato
Nov 27th, 2005
I’ve been around Blumfield and I find it fascinating.
Not everyone – myself included – has an overactive imagination or strange fetish that we need SL to make ‘reality’….. in fact, I’d say it takes much more skill to build a “50′s style” house and decorate it realistically than it does to chuck some blocks together, buy some dance floor scripts, and make YET ANOTHER DAMN CLUB!
SL is all about celebrating diversity and the creativity of its players, right? So why should a development of 50′s style housing be a less valid creation than some new fetish gear or porno script? Absolutely nothing.
My guess is that the only reason people are ‘protesting’ is because they feel it ruins their gameplay by having ‘normal’ stuff in game. Well guess what? NOBODY is forcing YOU to go THERE! I’m no fan of pvp but do you know all I have to do to avoid it is not visit Jessie. Quite simple really.
I’m sure that if I looked up the properties of any of those vocal against Blumfeld I’d find plenty of things to criticise because I happen not to like them. But it doesn’t actually matter, does it? What will it achieve? Nothing. So why do people feel the need to criticise something that doesn’t affect them either?
There are some truly rancid creations that pass themselves off as properties in SL – I would have thought that a campaign against that would have been much more productive than a campaign against something that – shock horror – is actually quite pleasant, and harmless!
Given a choice between another ‘zoned development’ and another W-Hat outing…. what would you choose? I know which one I would.
Bob
Prokofy Neva
Nov 27th, 2005
I agree with what you’re saying on the aesthetic front, Bob, I just think that the Lindens shouldn’t be in the content creation business after flakking this stuff about “your world, your imagination” — it just hurts business.