The Lindens have a survey out about Linden Homes that apparently has been sent to Premium members, or maybe just all Linden Home members. I have one that I converted to a site in the SL Public Land Preserve -- the wizard's castle. I like the Linden Homes concept and builds and all, it's just an unfair competition to inworld rentals businesses like mine, especially those that cater more to the low-end market and newbies. It's also competition to prefab builders for newbie lots, as the homes come with them.
The competition issue with these Lindens Homes (Coconut calls them "Linden Assisted Living" -- although she claims I called them that first) -- has been hashed to death and debated on all the forums and nobody seems to have been able to make a dent in what the Lindens are doing with it. On the face of it, I think anything that gets people easily inworld and owning land and thinking about their property with a sense of pride and privacy, which leads them to "settle in" and make the world more stable with friends and activities, and make the economy better with purchases, is all a good thing.
The Lindens seemed to get thousands and thousands of signups -- was it 50,000 or more? -- or at least get a lot of existing customers to use their free 512 with the premium up on a Linden Home, like me, or else buy the premium just to get the home -- and of course the free gifts and the nice, clean low-lag premium sandboxes.
Some people have bitched about the house selection or lack of control, but really, the house selection is about as good as it gets, for what it is, and you get more prims than you would owning a 512 outright due to the Lindens' easement plans and building strategies rooting the builds elsewhere to give you double prims.
So now the question on the surveys is this: what else do you want? I'm nervous about them a) tinkering with a good thing that seems to work (unless sales are off) and b) tinkering with it to become even MORE competitive with the rentals market, but there really is no pathway to expressing this dissent anymore. Unless I missed the memo, I don't think there is a "community" Linden for the Mainland anymore. That is, I realize that there is some kind of Linden now who I think deals with Nautilus but I haven't heard of inworld meetings or seen a blog. Maybe "those who know, know". I wrote to a few of those new community Lindens about the infohubs and never heard back except to get some boilerplate emails to apply to be in Destination, which wasn't exactly my point, since some but not all are already in Destination.
The questions on the survey ran like this -- would you like to have more control over your parcel? (what would that mean, exactly/)? Would you like to be able to remove the house and place your own? Would you like larger lots? More prims? Would you like social get-togethers?
I found myself saying "no" to all the suggestions about removing houses and making bigger lots so that at least some dissenting vote goes in to their plan to compete even more with the rentals business. One has to defend one's interests. Whatever happened to the idea that they were going to have land owners have advertising in the Linden Homes common areas for people ready to graduate up? I don't think anything like that was ever done. On the splash page for the land buying on the secondlife.com site, there are suggestions that you can buy a sim or rent an island but not rent mainland. That's often what happens. Because the Lindens don't really get anything out of people renting out mainland, especially, except one less person abandoning land. Kind of a negative. (BTW, if you think that everybody is "fleeing to the open sims," I just read somewhere that Open Sim is deleting 50 percent of their regions for non-use. We continue to keep finding out that virtuality is an acquired taste.)
I did check off "yes" to the proposition that the Lindens should hold more social occasions. I don't know why I think that's a good thing, but I think it is. There really isn't anybody in the Linden Homes set that can convene those sorts of neighbourhood barbecues, it doesn't look like any "Linden Homes Owners" groups ever got started, the way they did in Nautilus or Bayside (socialism kills civil society). While the prospect of hovering on an overcrowded sim of fellow elf-home lovers may seem a bit dismal, why not? It could be fun. The Lindens should have premium gift-givers that only go with Linden Homes, too, to sweet that pot.
The last premium gift was a bust for me because it came in mesh, so it was like some big giant blob. I did like the ones before that by Coleen Desmoulins, there was a nice bowl and lamp I put in my home -- not my Linden Home but my *real* home, so to speak, in Refugio.
Just because the Lindens do a survey doesn't mean they're actually going to do anything or change anything, but I do think somehow we should raise with them the issue again of the pathway from the Linden Homes to island rentals. Shouldn't they care about that, too?
If you were smart you would abandon all your land, tier down to zero, go basic, and effective eliminate your financial liability with LL. (As so many are currently doing)
This way, when all the big game companies sue the crap out of Linden Research Inc. for allowing a constant flow of stolen video game content into the SLM (for which LL is paid a commission thus abating their "safe harbor" under the DMCA) you won't be out anything when SL is shuttered.
Better wake up pal.
Posted by: Ann Otoole InSL | February 18, 2012 at 05:26 PM
yeah.. sue the "competition" now that LL is in the "text adventure" romance game biz...
Posted by: c3 | February 18, 2012 at 09:02 PM
Why Linden Lab doesn't offer 4096m2 tier free to premium is beyond me.
Why be beholden to an intermediary landlord when you can - as much as is possible in a virtual world run by a corporation - claim your own personal private spot of land?
The rental fees paid to estate landlords is for nothing more than a convenience fee for predictability in homeowner/landscaping rules.
Posted by: Marx Dudek | February 18, 2012 at 09:57 PM
Citing Tyche Sheperd's gridsurvey.com ...
6.7% to 7.8% of Mainland by area is abandoned parcels (details - 2nd Jan 2012)
As of December 2011 38829 Linden Homes are occupied (details - 2nd Jan 2012)
* * * * *
If they really want to drive the mainland to insolvency via abandonment, or just plain turn it into a socially desolate wasteland before that... adding bigger, fancier Linden Homes is a GREAT way to do it.
Wouldn't be surprised if it happens, though. SL Marketplace has also obliterated a huge amount of commercial land plus all the inworld experiences that encompassed. Rather than reverse that trend they are improving SL Marketplace... so I'd almost count on enhanced Linden homes!
I'd be worried, but... I'm not. If I have to cut back my economic interests in SL, that's great ~ I have other businesses where I make money, and I can devote my energies where it makes sense. Deleting regions scales back tier instantly.
What's really sad though ~ I'm *very* cognisant that Caledon and its Steamlands neighbours have been getting GREAT press lately... there are a lot of rank and file Lindens that care deeply about us.
But it's been about like being served an elegant tea, while there's a bayonet stuck in your leg. It's *wonderfully nice*... but just not counteracting the twisting blade.
Seeing mainland abandonment anywhere even *near* 7%... while another 43% is directly Linden owned already... 50%! what a mess. That tells me that they really don't have any idea how to fix things, either. Sigh.
Prok, they really need to hire you as a consultant.
Posted by: Desmond Shang | February 18, 2012 at 11:29 PM
Not only have you been getting great press lately, you got the Lindens to put you on the splash screen with some Caledon hunt. How did you do that?! Can you pay for that now or do you just have to be chosen?
Hire me as a consultant? But I could only counsel austerity measures for them -- like foregoing their greed on growing commissions from SL Marketplace for the sake of inworld stores and tier and long-term stability.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | February 19, 2012 at 11:29 AM
Ann, I don't think it's as constant a flow as your making it out to be. Yes, there are a few bad apples right now, which LL would be very wise to make examples of. Sooner than later. Surely ll can do a little research on these creators and not violate dmca. (even if they did the work for the game company that made character, it's the game companies' now, and not their's to distribute)
We will get better at recognizing rips inworld, as well. Poor lod, non SL optimized UV mapping and Material faces, etc. etc. will make them stand out.
I look to places like renderosity for examples. They still rely on dmca and safe harbor after years of uploaded 'mesh', and appear to be doing ok, still.
Because of DMCA, and safe harbor, things like this can fester. LL literialy can't be proactive. I think the best(only) thing we can do as a community, right now, is email legal departments owning the said rips. Hoping they submit their own DMCA takedowns.
On the linden home topic.. I wouldn't want to see that project expand past the 512 parcels they use now. They are a convenient limited taste of SL land ownership and(hopefully) people move up to bigger and better locations. That size limit is the Only thing seperating linden homes from private estates and mainland. Well, besides the customer service a private rental business provides. If they grow beyond 512s I feel it starts getting very unfair. But, in all reality, it's not that hard to compete against linden homes in their current form, and perhaps their proposed future form. Just answer customer IMs and you've beat them! Lol
Posted by: Alisha | February 19, 2012 at 11:42 AM
Will they make the parcels larger and/or add more prims?
Yes, they will. But it will only be for a Linden Home deal not if you own regular mainland.
The best deal for them would be to stamp out land for every premium in an instanced area. Just like regular games do. I'm surprised that they did not.
That being said, I don't think they will ever turn off mainland. If they get it all back it will be turned into something that will benefit their cronies.
Whatever.
Posted by: melponeme_k | February 19, 2012 at 06:15 PM
Honestly Prok it wasn't my idea at all, it surprised me too to see it up there.
Last I looked they are promoting New Babbage now.
Posted by: Desmond Shang | February 20, 2012 at 03:07 AM
In general I am against the Linden Home feature as it has been implemented.
As a businessman I have been in the position where my supplier also became my competitor and it is very difficult, especially when they began underselling me.
Some customers came back because of the added value services we provided, namely SUPPORT. (There is a great thread on this subject right now in the official forums http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/What-is-Live-Chat-for/td-p/1391405 ).
Linden Lab has done themselves a great dis-service by cutting the hand that feeds it with the Linden Labs. Because SL is so dependent upon the concept of a gift economy they are ill advised to ignore the contributions Land Lords make beyond just their tier payments. Many Land Lords also become the go-to person with questions for their renters, especially newbs. It is added value service that is very important to SL's stability and growth.
If anything, the Linden Home should have been a 'Time Limited' offer. Free place to live for say six months, then get them off of the government teat.
I can as a salesperson understand the concept of getting a person to take 'possession' of your product as a sales tool. So I can see the value of the Linden Homes in this sense. But again, it should have had a time limit on it.
Posted by: Perrie Juran | February 24, 2012 at 01:49 PM
Perrie, yes, that's a good idea, to make it free for 90 days or something, but then, most people would not take it. They don't like the idea of moving. I've found that to be true when I've offered people even an entire year for a low cost of a dollar a prim. They act as if they will put down roots on their 512s which of course they seldom do once they are acclimated a little more.
I think LL wouldn't have takers if they had that time limit. Would it work better this way (although not in our interest): free land when you are new, but after 90 days, the premium fee kicks in? That might work.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | February 25, 2012 at 08:49 PM