Spring Road Construction in the Metaverse
by Pixeleen Mistral on 17/04/07 at 9:28 pm
by Tillery Woodhen
Linden Lab takes pot-holes to a new level
The other day I was driving down on of the roads on the southern continent, just trying out my new car. When this little accident happened. I had thought it was just the server taking its time to load in the road, like usual. Until I went in nose first. Only the fact that the pylon was just close enough kept me from sliding down the cliff the road ran across. Earlier, the car had sunk through the road. As in right through the asphalt. I should have gotten a photo of that too. I was able to fly the car out of the chasm and lift it out of the quickasphalt. I eventually flew it back home on the northern continent. Which brings me to another nice little detail.
There is a strip of land through the middle of the sim I live in that is Linden-owned and supposed to be a road. It has yet to be paved. you have to go about five sims to the south to get even cobblestoned roads. To the north? I lost count. Here’s a pic of the “road” in Burnet to give you an idea. You can’t even tell it is a road.
Inigo Chamerberlin
Apr 18th, 2007
Yes, well, seeing border crossings and pathetically slow rezing make roads a useless blot on the SL landscape I really do wonder why LL bother with them.
I can only assume that it makes Phil and his minions feel right at home, on the rare occasions they go inworld, to see a SoCal Suburbia Replica Highway System – sans of course that SoCal Traffic!
Another good reason for living on an island and avoiding the mainland IMO.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 18th, 2007
I’m fascinated to see the Lindens building roads again. How to understand this? They had abandoned their public works duty a year ago with the southern sims, just selling more land as a result. We have to remember that every road they don’t sell to a user is tier they have to eat. That’s why they gave it up.
I wish that we could remove some of the ugly Linden roads, like the one running through the *water* blocking the *waterfront view* through Cub-Wakeley-Brownlee etc. That was really insane planning and just some Linden’s resume polishing exercise. A bunch of us living along the way there staged protests back then and got this high-rise aquaduct that completely devalued our view and property mitigated down to a flat road in the water, but the entire thing should be scrapped, no cars EVER go on it, and why should they? They’d only sink at the sim seam. They’d be better off adding interest by putting in a scripted ferry that could portage the cars to the Sutherland dam. Of course they don’t do stuff like that anymore, I realize.
I’ve always asked the question why, in this world where imagination is the limit, the Lindens would be putting down macadam of all things. I mean, it looks like hell on most sims and ruins the immersion. The cobblestone and wooden walkways in the atoll continent work a bit better, but you wonder why they can’t just conceive of a program of public works to let residents build roads, it would be a great job for newbies.
shockwave yareach
Apr 18th, 2007
Roads exist for a couple of reasons. They form Open Access pathways between peoples’ properties, and to support various land vehicles that people already own. Thus your neighbors can’t force you out of your property by restricting access to it. And yes, I know that’s against the TOS, but so are lots of other things that don’t seem to be enforced nowdays.
But as all vehicles in SL are of little practical use due to simcrossing problems, I’d rather see the roads changed into something more imaginative than asphalt. Surely a cobblestone or red brick road would look more attractive than cement. For foot traffic (all the roads are good for) that’s more than sufficient. Like everyone else, I teleport directly to destinations and fly anytime I have to move 1/2Km or more.
Tavasha_Martynov
Apr 18th, 2007
I wish the roads were more usable, really. The few times I’ve gotten my camaro out cruising semi lag-free without getting it warped back to my inventory or through the ground, etc. have been a lot of fun!
Tiessa Montgolfier
Apr 18th, 2007
I haven’t been able to use a vehicle successfully in SL yet due to the problems with sim border crossing. It’s not much use to have a vehicle that can fly when you can only go in a small circle over a single sim.
At least with ground transportation you don’t have to deal with all the red-fence issues. But if the sim crossing problem was ever fixed, I would love to go riding around and sight-seeing.
Inigo Chamerberlin
Apr 19th, 2007
A while back – months, not years – I witnessed a fascinating conversation between a vehicle maker and Philip. The theme of the conversation was Philip’s flat denial of, and refusal to believe that there was any problem crossing a sim border with a vehicle – this only days after I’d found that I could neither walk not fly across mainland sim borders without either crashing or winding up a couple of sims away from where I ought to have been, frequently with attachments jammed up my ass.
It was drawn to his attention that at the time of the conversation you didn’t even need a vehicle to encounter sim border mayhem, but this too was glossed over – ‘Have you reported this to support?’…
With that sort of wilful refusal to even consider the existence of a problem, the CEO of Linden Lab made it abundantly clear that if HE says there isn’t a problem – well, there isn’t a problem!
I guess that was as good a demonstration as any of why things are as they are. And are unlikely to improve while LL is run by the current management.
Gaius Goodliffe
Apr 20th, 2007
“I’m fascinated to see the Lindens building roads again. How to understand this? They had abandoned their public works duty a year ago with the southern sims, just selling more land as a result. We have to remember that every road they don’t sell to a user is tier they have to eat. That’s why they gave it up.”
Um, they have to eat the tier whether they build the road or not, if they set the land aside for it, which they did. The southern continent is criss-crossed by protected land strips where there ought to be road, but isn’t. But don’t let the facts interfere with another one of your wonderful theories… :p
Inigo Chamerberlin
Apr 20th, 2007
I thought the original plan on the southern continent was to build a railway system?