Open Spaces Protest Closes Nautilus Sim!
by Alphaville Herald on 28/10/08 at 11:42 pm
Spontaneous resident protests fill, then crash LL’s Nautilus showcase sim
Protest overflows into neighboring regions
by Curious Rousselot
Around 1:30 SLT on October 28, 2008 the region of Nautilus – Shalim experienced something you don’t normally see on mainland regions as new as it is. Avatars, including this reporter, were unable to enter the region due to it be “full”. A group of protesters has gathered in the new regions of Nautilus to protest a new pricing structure for Openspaces SIMs on private estates. The protest was organized in response to a change in tier payments on Openspaces that was announced on October 27, 2008.
The protest over Openspaces was so big that it was split and saw a significant portion of protesters in Nautilus – Adherbal as well as Shalim and Yamm. With regions preventing others from entering more than once during the protest and at least one full region crash due to the volume of avatars present.
The protest group, -SOS- was organized by Cube Republic within hours of him finding out about this, the latests attack against estate owners and less than a day later it had grown beyond what even he expected. In his own words, “My friend, Hermit Barber sent me the link for the blog, and I was outraged at the price increase. I started the group because I feel strongly about this issue, and invited loads of people. It hovered at 24 people for about an hour and it was actually Jackson Rickenbacker who started the first protest on the estate services sim. The group from there on grew to a 1000 members plus. Although I started the group, It belongs to the second life users now who feel strongly about this.”
“I was totally overwhelmed at one point.” he said, “What have I done”?
In March 2008, Linden Lab added a low-traffic and low resource type of SIM for estate owners to allow them to create public land the same as is found on the mainland. Then intended purpose of these Openspaces is to create entire water or wilderness SIMs similar to the public spaces found on the mainland. The Lindens offered sells Openspaces through the Land Store to estate owners at a significant reduction in tier and up-front purchase costs but there is a catch. The Openspaces are run 4 to a CPU (unlike regular SIMs which have their own dedicated CPU).
The price changes move the cost of tier for an Openspace SIM from US$75 to US$125, a two-thirds increase in monthly tier. And, starting in January, all Openspaces will have an up-front purchase price of US$375 instead of US$250; again a significant price hike. the Lindens have also decided that there will be no grandfathering for existing Openspace Regions. However, all Openspace regions that are currently running on Class 4 servers will be moved to Class 5 servers to improve the user experience on those servers.
The announcement made by the Lindens on October 27, 2008 at 6:05 PM PDT does provide extensive detail and justification for their decision. However, as evidenced by the protest in Nautilus, there are many already upset estate owners who no doubt feel that this latest cost increase along with the recent influx of mainland itself is not going to help the already crippled economy of Second Life.
As the Linden’s explain in their post, they have analyzed the use of Openspaces and determined that many estate owners are not using them as the Lindens originally intended. Instead of being public parks and water spaces, a significant number of estate owners are parcelling out the Openspaces SIMs and renting or selling them off. The result is that these Openspaces are making much more use of shared resources like the asset servers and bandwidth than originally intended. As a result the Lindens need to make the price increase to better reflect the actual usage and to facilitate the upgrades needed to maintain a consistent Second Life experience.
Linden Lab has very clearly stated there intentions and summarized nicely at the end of their announcement exactly what they intend to do:
* Openspace prices and fees change on the 1st January with no grandfathering.
* Class 4 Openspaces will be upgraded to class 5 in January.
* Educator discount is no longer available for Openspaces.
* No Owner switching for Openspaces unless it’s a full transfer of Payor.
* More proactive education by support staff to prevent unfair resource use by Openspace regions.
Your money in their pocket
When Cube Republic was asked if he would be willing to answer questions for the Herald, his response was to teleport this reporter to Romantic, and Openspace water SIMs to have a voice chat. He invited a few other concerned people to the conversation and we wound up having a conversation with at one point over 20 people expressing their concerns and view points and concerns. All of them were expressive and spoke well. What follows is only a brief summary of what I was actually able to capture as I was maddly typing listening to the conversations going on.
Erik Zorger, had a very good breakdown of the cost comparison. In summary, Linden Lab actually makes a bit more money on Openspaces today (before their proposed price hikes) than they do with regular regions.
* A class 5 region runs on a single core of a quad core processor.
* An Openspace runs 4 to a core, so you get 16 open spaces on a single quad core system
* When it is broken down, the tier on the 16 open spaces at the current $75 each is $300 per core
* Compare that to the 295 per core for the full regions.
* With the new pricing this moves to $500 per core in tier alone; that’s $2000 per month per CPU.
Dave Sparrow, is the originator of Naughty Auties, a charity support group for people affected by autism. The members of this group have entrusted Dave with over L$100,000 to spend wisely withing Second Life to help them. A few weeks ago the group chose to purchase an Opensim to create their own home. The group is still small and this first home was a challenge to them. With the removal of reduced pricing, Dave is afraid not only for the survivability of his own group but what will happen to other charities, “I don’t think Linden Lab takes businesses within Second Life seriously. I can’t see Naughty Auties surviving this. It’s going to hit a lot of others as well.”
Kat Klata, owner of 4 Openspaces and one full SIM said, “this is going to kill me”. She is running her Second Life business at a break even point. It’s more for fun than profit but she can’t afford to run her estate without her renters.
Jackson Rickenbacker, a small estate owner who rents some Openspace to Cube Republic. She was kind enough to respond with text so I offer her heartfelt words right here:
[16:39] Jackson Rickenbacker: well there [is] little doubt in a global reccession that my residents that live on my opensims will have to share the burden of either paying more in fees, or allowing me to convert the opensims to full sims thus, for the meantime keeping thier normal land fees intact [at the cost of a three quarter space reduction].
Estate owner Aminom Marvin talks with the Herald in detail during the protest to explain the issues she faces and her reactions to the policy changes
[14:47] Curious Rousselot: Great. So first, tell me a bit about your estate.
[14:49] Aminom Marvin: I’m a sculpt designer, and use my main sim as a store. I first got into openspaces because when I bought my sim, it was covered by the former Linden Lab policy of providing free openspaces to people who bought a month before the price changes. I rented this out to a friend as a low-resource store. After that, I rented out three sims to a friend, who rents them. He keeps a close eye on resource use. I also rent out to two other friends who use them as stores.
[14:53] Curious Rousselot: As the Lindens explain in their announcement, they intended to offer openspaces as a sort of public space for estates. How did estate owners understand the intent at the time you purchase your openspace?
[14:58] Aminom Marvin: By offering openspaces individually, increasing prim limits, reprogramming the land store for instant delivery, and decreasing price, it seemed to obvious to almost everyone that Linden was trying to take what was formerly a luxury product and make it into a product people would use everyday. In the days between the announcement and establishment of policy, everyone from casual users I had talked to, to rental business people saw this coming. Why didn’t LL?
[14:58] Aminom Marvin: My most major problem with how Linden has dealt with this issue is that it shows an ignorance of how Second Life works. The history of all creative endeavour in SL has been users trying to squeeze as much value, creativity, and use out of SL’s often limited tools. My sculpt business is based around this same concept. We see this in megaprim use, texture art, prim torture, novel land businesses, and just about everything esle in SL. In the recent blog post, LL mentions that it failed to forsee the current way that openspaces are used- despite having actually increased prim limits on them to make users able to squeeze out more from them. Best case scenario, this shows a total lack of knowledge on a organization-wide level with how SL is used for creativity- and to top it off, blatant disreguard for its users, as the massive backlash we currently see could be seen coming a mile away. For this reason, I think that Linden’s rationale for the new policy- resource use, is a bold-faced lie.
[15:01] Curious Rousselot: You’ve already explained this a bit but what are your concerns about the planned tier and purchase price increases for Openspaces?
[15:05] Aminom Marvin: My concern is that untold numbers of users will be forced out of Openspaces. The people I rent to are already talking about it seriously, and so are many openspace renters and land barons. I was at a discussion yesterday in Caledon where Desmond Shang discussed this, and it is going to be very hard even for his business, which has high demand. It will definitely create some flight back to mainland, but at the inevitable expense of many angry, frustrated users either leaving SL completely, or going landless. In effect, it will turn openspaces back into a luxury novelty instead of what it has been- the most popular land product in SL. As a result of a massive shift in land use and a flight from openspaces, not only will land owners be hurt, but also content creators, as content sales is strongly tied to land holdings.
[15:07] Curious Rousselot: My last question, is there anything else you would like to say for the article?
[15:09] Aminom Marvin: I would like to say that the real reason for the new policy is most likely not “resource abuse”- as that argument does not hold up under scrutiny. The real reason seems to be Linden’s failure to make Mainland a competitive product with Openspaces. The first three and a half pages of mainland parcel listings in land search, ordered by price per meter, shows parcels less than L$3 a meter. L$3 a meter comes out to something around $740 USD for a sim. This is significantly below the base auction price of mainland sims, and the setup fee for private islands. We have seen Linden try to make mainland more competitive through introduction of their own value-added sims such as these Nautilus sims, and through proposals to beautify the mainland, but it strongly seems that they are trying to abandon improving existing products or adding new ones, and instead trying to force openspace users back to mainland by reducing it value and use.
[15:11] Curious Rousselot: Thank you very much for the interview.
FrazzleFrei
Oct 29th, 2008
deal with it, nerds
Coke Supply
Oct 29th, 2008
Linden Lab should be criminally charged for what they did. I was afraid to post on their blogs in case my words were too venomous to escape their retribution. I am totally disgusted that they would do this. The picture is clear – dump prices and raise prim counts on openspace sims and get those juicy startup fees, then price the owners out of the market for whatever they wanted to use them for, forcing them to abandon the land so that Linden Lab can add the shiny new servers that we all paid for to their Nautilus project before reselling them to the public. They made millions from fleecing their own customers whose only crime was to be stupid enough to trust Linden Lab not to screw them over. Well now we know better. We now know that Linden Lab cannot be trusted, and is obviously looking down on its residents as nothing more than a cash flow.
The prices, prim counts and sale conditions changed to make people rush out and buy these damn opensims, and market forces meant that everyone else on the grid had to do the same to compete, and its naive to think that this was not foreseen by LL. Now they adjust their prices, forcing the owners into poverty so that they abandon their land, so that it can all be resold to the next wave of unwitting investors that have yet to learn that Linden Lab will screw them just as hard as it did us, taking their juicy startup fees and laughing all the way to the bank as they wash, rinse and repeat the same tactic to a powerless general public that desperately waits for an alternative world in which to thrive.
I’m honestly thinking of leaving SL myself, and I don’t even have any real land to speak of. I’m just disgusted by two years of Linden Lab’s perpetual disdain for the very people that put them where they are today. Every time they make a major decision that sends shockwaves through the economy, they shatter dreams, wreck businesses, and essentially cost the residents time and money invested in a system that barely gives them enough to make it worthwhile in the first place. Linden Lab are sucking us all dry, as most of the lindens in the economy is eventually drained in land fees and has to be replaced with more lindens that requires real money to obtain – so its a perpetual flow of money to them, but the residents are damn lucky to get any back if they do – its a harsh environment to prosper in because Linden Lab simply take too damn much from us for what they give, and now they are charging even more, it makes you wonder if it was deliberate in the first place – take the extortionate startup fees, wait 6 months, increase prices by 66%, watch everyone abandon their land, laugh and count the millions of dollars you made in the biggest online land scam in history. It stinks to high heaven and there is no way to justify it. And you can take that to the bank
Obscure Doodad
Oct 29th, 2008
People, think. The credit tightening in RL has hit everyone and everything. LL manufactured whatever rationale they could to make a try for more revenue.
All you have to do is figure out how many open sims need be abandoned to render the price bump negative in money flow to LL and the policy will be reversed.
LL does not think about SL economy. It thinks about RL economy. End of year bonuses have to be funded. Where did you think that money was going to come from?
biggest
Oct 29th, 2008
“The biggest online land scam in history…”
You said it pal. Thats the exact sound-bite we need to get the word out to the media about what Linden Labs did yesterday with their bait and switch Openspace price raise.
The media perks its ears up when seedy stories about Ageplay and Child Sexual Abuse comes out of Second Life, but something more complex like them raising land prices some 75% overnight might take an easy to digest sound-bite like “The biggest online land scam in history…” to get some action from the media.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a LOT of people told Linden Labs WHERE THEY CAN SHOVE THEIR OPENSPACE SIMS or where they can shove any of their over-priced, over-tiered land for that matter.
I see this great Openspace Debacle of 2008 cutting across almost all lines in SL and pissing off a lot of people who will leave… just leave… pack up their stuff into inventory for long term storage, let their land go and close the door on SL.
But they MAY be the lucky ones because THEY will get their FIRST LIFE back, and after the pixelated brainwashing wears off they will wonder how the hell they ever got sucked into a scamjob like SL…
Rott
Oct 29th, 2008
“In the recent blog post, LL mentions that it failed to forsee the current way that openspaces are used- despite having actually increased prim limits on them to make users able to squeeze out more from them. Best case scenario, this shows a total lack of knowledge on a organization-wide level with how SL is used for creativity- and to top it off, blatant disreguard for its users, as the massive backlash we currently see could be seen coming a mile away. For this reason, I think that Linden’s rationale for the new”policy- resource use, is a bold-faced lie.”
They gave you openspace to pretty up the continents people were patching together with islands. was linden lab stupid to not see people would abuse it, just like they abuse everything else in second life like with ad farms and banks? sure. they increase the prim limit so you could add bridges and shit so it just wasnt open ocean or open desert. you say the reason is not resource abuse, i call that a bold faced lie.
lets look at what he says
“By offering openspaces individually”
this was because the previous way was in packages and people complained that they wanted to buy a set amount outside of that package. i think it was you had to buy 4 (to surround an island) but some islands were linked into continents and putting openspace around them would leave an extra or two. people complained, the lindens changed it.
“increasing prim limits,”
so you could pretty them up just a little. i think i have talked a lot about this before
“reprogramming the land store for instant delivery,”
this would have been happened whether there was open space or not. the land store needed to be fixed. people were complaining about it before openspace even existed. but then again, you guys have short memories anyway.
“and decreasing price”
decreasing it ? yet, the new upfront cost is still less than it was originally. Are you complaining about tier, tier that is still lower than islands and mainland. you use the open space for more building and more scripting than it was made forthen you are gona get charged for it per month. it is that simple.
Thomas
Oct 29th, 2008
It is about time the Open Space abuses stop! So many estate owners are abusing what was intended for light usage. Now ALL will suffer for their transgressions. Power to the Linden gods!
IntLibber Brautigan
Oct 29th, 2008
Forcing people back to the mainland is one of Harry Linden’s continuing empire building schemes. The G-team has less control on private sims. On the mainland they can force people to behave or suffer the banhammer. In private sims people are much more free to be who they want to be.
Forcing people back to the mainland gives Harry an excuse to demand more manpower and budget from management for his team. This policy is NOT in the best interests of Linden Lab or the user base.
If they truly are having issues covering expenses, there is one easy step they can make: equalize tiers across the board. Make all openspace sims cost 75 a month, all full sims, whether mainland or estate, 295 a month. We estate owners subsidize mainland sims, we cost LL less to support but pay more than mainlanders who eat up most of LL’s support and governance resources.
Frankly if LL simply got out of the estate business alltogether, made all mainland into private estates, leaving the customer support issues to the userbase with a profit motivation to drive them to provide quality service, this would cut LL’s expenses significantly, they would not need as much manpower, and have little need for a governance team (i.e. Harry would need to get a real job).
Amen
Oct 29th, 2008
I wouldn’t be surprised if a LOT of people told Linden Labs WHERE THEY CAN SHOVE THEIR OPENSPACE SIMS or where they can shove any of their over-priced, over-tiered land for that matter.
I see this great Openspace Debacle of 2008 cutting across almost all lines in SL and pissing off a lot of people who will leave… just leave… pack up their stuff into inventory for long term storage, let their land go and close the door on SL.
But they MAY be the lucky ones because THEY will get their FIRST LIFE back, and after the pixelated brainwashing wears off they will wonder how the hell they ever got sucked into a scamjob like SL…
Posted by: biggest | October 29, 2008 at 11:38 AM
Well Put!
Amen…
miffed
Oct 29th, 2008
Yeah, how dare we use the prims that were given to us. I’m leaving my OpenSim on January 1st, and I’m not going to bother getting any more land. I might still stop in to visit friends now and then, but I’m not spending one more cent in SL.
Rock Ramona
Oct 29th, 2008
I am so sick and tired of crybabys,if you cant afford it,you cant have it.Im so tired of people bawling,America has become a place where everyone thinks that they are entitled to things.Do you cry to everyone when your car insurance goes up,noooo,you shut the F**k up and pay your bill or you cancel and walk.Linden Labs doesnt owe you a thing.Grow the F**k up people.So now what,you are all gonna become griefers and protest and ruin other peoples SL goodtimes…oh ya..thats the smart thing to do.The whole reason i come to SL and not places like WOw is to avoid crybaby kids,and now everywhere i go in SL i gotta listen to you now.Either pay your bill or let yer stuff go and let us grownups exist in peace
Amen
Oct 29th, 2008
I see this great Openspace Debacle of 2008 cutting across almost all lines in SL and pissing off a lot of people who will leave… just leave… pack up their stuff into inventory for long term storage, let their land go and close the door on SL.
But they MAY be the lucky ones because THEY will get their FIRST LIFE back, and after the pixelated brainwashing wears off they will wonder how the hell they ever got sucked into a scamjob like SL…
Posted by: biggest | October 29, 2008 at 11:38 AM
Well Put!
Amen
Bunny Brickworks
Oct 29th, 2008
So let me see if I’ve got this straight. Linden Lab offered Open Space sims at a relatively cheap price so that people could have oceans or shore lines around their sims. The idea was ‘light’ usage. People abused the usage regulations by putting up homes and stores, using heavy scripts, making full use of the prims allowed and causing heavy traffic which made Linden Lab raise the usage rates on the Open Spaces to bring it more in line with private island rates. People figured out how to take advantage of Linden Lab and now that they are taking control back people get mad? What did I miss?
I am sorry for my friends and fellow business owners losing their properties cause they can’t afford the new rates but that’s the way the world turns. Screw it up and you’ll get punished, even if it’s only a small proportion of OS users abusing regulations, Open Space users as a whole will have to pay the price.
When I joined SL two years ago there were lots of Open Space sims that were actually ‘void’. You could rezz a plane or boat and sail or fly without any lag for hours. Today you are lucky if you find a place to rezz your stuff at all, not to mention the lag you face cause people have their little beach huts fully equipped with sexbeds and flickering candles. Highly romantic but surely not a ‘light’ use as once intended. Get over it people, you fucked it up and now you’re paying the price.
MachineCode
Oct 29th, 2008
This is why you guys can’t have nice things.
Witness X
Oct 29th, 2008
And once again we see a classic example of why Intlibber’s business is in the toilet – HE ACTUALLY THINKS THE HEAD OF THE GTEAM IS BEHIND THE WHOLE THING, adding further proof to the theory that he’s a paranoid psychopath.
Lol.
Ruprecht
Oct 29th, 2008
“Frankly if LL simply got out of the estate business alltogether, made all mainland into private estates”
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
delusional manboob wet dream
Curious Rousselot
Oct 29th, 2008
UPDATE: it is now 2:39 PM PDT October 29, 2008 and, not surprisingly, the protesters in Nautilus – Shalim are still going strong. Few, if any of the protesters are still wearing their -SOS- group tags any more but the banners are still present. The owner of the plot where this is happening, Kalyrra Heart, is also one of the protesters. That way they can rez more permanent objects to express their disgust with the price hike.
Carel
Oct 29th, 2008
I still can not get the fact it is justified to increase 67% with no option from LL to buy back the os areas or spare the ppl that filled their bank more then they do now but just saying, pay up or abandon.
Its understandable that because of the abuse, changes had to be made, but isn’t it LL who made this abuse available with the price reduce and the (over)promoting of the os islands? In my mind the most honest thing to do back then was to increase the prims as was asked and leave the price be, the only reason it was made attractive to people and dig into their imagination on what to do with open space (and they knew that) was the price and prims.
I hope LL will do the descent thing and this time help ppl with getting rid of their os if they cant / wont pay the new tiers anymore, by buying back the land or giving a option to convert free with no costs.
The comment made of us in need to grow up works both ways, as well for us as for LL, they need to be grownups to and understand you can never get a stable and reliable business with steady users / customers if every year a bunch of ppl walk due to mismanagement.
For me, I stopped investing my earned Linden dollars into sl and start to take them out. a small amount less to the sl economy, but hey, at least I don’t pack up my bags and leave completely as many do everything trust is hurt in SL.
We all are in Sl but with RL feelings smiles and most important RL money that me personal don’t mind to open for fair and honest usage.. but not for this kind of game play. this is not WOW were you pay for exp to level, you invest in a dream most of the time, and LL *in my eyes* ruined a lot of good dreams already…
my thoughts, a beta starting sl player
yeah baby WE started this shit ! *grins*
Obscure Doodad
Oct 30th, 2008
Look at you people. Look at your comments.
You’re missing the point.
It has nothing to do with ANYTHING in SL. It’s not about “Open Space Abuse”. It’s not about who does what with the sims. It’s not about if you already paid for it and now you don’t get what you want. It’s not about “talking to them”.
It’s about RL money. LL has problems just like everyone else from the RL market crashes (plural). They Have To Raise Money. It doesn’t matter how. They manufactured some rationale (open space abuse) to justify the particular method they settled on. If open spaces were 100% pure and no abuse anywhere, This Still Would Have Happened. They would just have manufactured a different reason. The reason is money. It’s not about anything else and it never will be — and they CAN’T admit it because at any point in time LL is probably ALWAYS negotiating with a potential buyer.
The only way to stop it is to KNOW how many sim owners you need to persuade to abandon land. Exceed the revenue input of the price increase with revenue lost from abandonment and the policy will change. There is no reason for them to change it otherwise and they won’t.
Complaints mean nothing. Protests mean nothing. Figure out how many have to abandon and that’s the number that has to be reached for this to reverse. Nothing else will do it.
Anonymous
Oct 30th, 2008
“WHAT LL DID IS CRIMINAL BLAH BLAH BLAH”
Hey, listen, the best way to best LL at their own game is to not play. Don’t play it, don’t give them a penny, take what you do have and leave quickly. there are better games to play, and give it a year if you like playing dull, boring, drama filled shit holes called “games” (Oh I’m sorry, I haven’t had the linden kool-aid yet, so I will continue to call it a game.)
snap the fuck out of it and realize that you, as a paying customer, still don’t have rights, Linden Lab doesn’t care about being a fair governing force, they just care about profit. Granted you do have some lindens who are addicted to the game and want to wield power over others and generally abuse their roles, but the company’s main interest is not you. They don’t care if you protest, they honestly don’t. When you protest inworld, it’s pointless and gives Linden Labs the comfort that you’re truly addicted to their little shitty game, and can continue to kick you around like a small defenseless puppy. They know people are addicted, so they will continue to abuse a somewhat captive audience.
I can see some justification on their end, people essentially abused a resource meant for a completely different purpose, and they realized that afterwards. However, the fucked up part is the fact they inadvertently (or intentionally, a strong possibility given their long record of bullshit and shady practices) scammed the people who bought these watered down sims, not laying any ground rules on what they’re meant for, and now they’re going to jack up the pricing on them and fuck over many people who may have been using them for legitimate purposes. Linden Labs obviously won’t do anything to stop doing this, too much new money for them to make in a dying virtual world.
good luck on FIGHTING DA MAN inworld, with LL’s own resources, own prims, and own avatars (they own your avatars, more or less. if you really did own them, you’d be able to save them to your computer)
Anonymous
Oct 30th, 2008
“That way they can rez more permanent objects to express their disgust with the price hike.”
*sings* It’s beginning to look a lot like spengbab. Diiicks everywhereee~
IntLibber Brautigan
Oct 30th, 2008
Witness X,
Shut up, Kalel’s alt, your own members hate you now.
As for what I said, I got that straight from SEVERAL Lindens. There is a massive amount of opposition to this bullshit inside the lab. The Cyn/Jack/Harry troika is destroying LL and SL. Time for M to fire them and get people running things who actually care about the customers and understand about running a business.
Gershom
Nov 9th, 2008
The thing that baffles me is that the rental Sims I frequent normally have less then 10 avatars on them. They might as well be open spaces. They might need more than the number of prims allowed in open spaces though.
Now gathering places, like schools, pubs, and beaches, etc, almost always have more avatars so they would have to be regular sims.
Suffice it to say that the bit about not renting open spaces seems a little off the wall. And if someone wants to live with the prim restrictions, why not?
The bottom line seems to be that LL is thinking they can convert all of open spaces into higher paying regualr sims and thus increase their revenue.
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