Gigs

Fleshed out the legal reasoning: Gigs Shrugged » Blog Archive » Linden Lab Screws Estate Owners, Again

I'm not a lawyer, but I sometimes put Esq after my name so that I can pretend to be nobility.

-Gigs Esq.

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"It is the paramount duty of governments and of politicians to secure the wellbeing of the community under the case in the present, and not to run risks overmuch for the future" - JM Keynes

Joodle Fadoodle

Somehow I'm not that surprised. LL doesn't give a crap about its customers for along time now, so if they can dream up a way to rape us while we quietly say no-no-please-no, you bet they will.

I feel terrible for all of those people that bought OS and people that work with lands and will take a huge hit. But after reading the official forum and so many people saying they will sell or abandon their OS, I hope they go through with their promises. You see, we're with LL in relationship that very closely resembles the abusive husband and the battered wife. They abuse the crap out of us and we scream and cry and complain to all our friends, but we don't leave the asshole.

I think is may be time for us to do something about this situation. It's very clear that this company will only understand their clientele once they start to feel the pain in their pockets. Is there another way to make them listen? Either that or we should start planning an online revolution.

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"That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment." ---Dorothy Parker

Aki Shichiroji

On a personal level, I've got a great deal of disappointment.

I'd only just this past month managed to tier down to 3096sqm after taking on my OS back mid July. I was looking forward to paying $50 less a month, and looking forward to developing my interests more with the extra leeway.

I should have guessed I wouldn't get away with spending less that easily.

I'm tired. really really tired. Being stressed from other things and ending the day on this note is really disheartening.

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Siyu Suen

I really love my job, I really love what I do every day, I love the freedom of working in SL and how I feel doing it. But things like this make me feel trapped. I feel like my dreams are held hostage almost by a constant fear that they're about to take everything away from me. I was thinking of tiering down to an open space but now there's no point, hardly any money saved. If they raise tier at all on normal estates I'm going to be dealing with some difficult decisions. I know in a few days I'm going to be hearing from a lot of my friends and how they'll be unable to afford their homes, and I really don't want that to be me.

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"Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever" -Baron Munchausen

I'm attempting to bring about the end of the world to usher in a new era of mask wielding overlords. This is how!

Cocoanut Koala

I went to the forums for the continuation of the discussion, and jumped to the next to the last page. What a cluster****.

One poor girl crying (literally) because she had JUST ordered her open space today, then read of how they would cost more.

Another story, rather telling, of LL's attitude in general:
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"I purchased my very first OS at $425 when they became available singly. Shortly thereafter, LL lowered the price to $250 and told people who purchased them at full price that they could return them for a full refund. I also had a chat conversation with LL stating the same, so I submitted the ticket to have it sent back. LL took back the OS. A few weeks later my sim was gone and I still had not received my refund, so I contacted LL wand was told 'we're very sorry, but there was a mistake in telling you that you could get a refund. You may not get a refund.'

"So my sim was gone, and I was out the money. Every other person I contacted through concierge just told me how sorry they were, that it must be very frustrating to me, but yes, it was in the TOS and there was nothing I could do.

"Eventually I talked to Spike Linden, who gave my money back. I vowed at that time not to continue purchasing from LL and I have remained true to that promise."
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Cooler heads are stating that this is probably just LL's first volley, and they will offer something better after everyone hollers.

But - people are also noting that perhaps that's what they intended all along. My question: How many times are we going to be fooled and then mollified by that?

Someone else pointed out that when LL lowers prices, people say, "You're killing our businesses!" and when they raise prices, people say, "You're killing our businesses!"

Which is true and kind of funny, but misses the point. The point is a person can't even try to run a business when the rug is always being pulled out from under, in whichever direction. Or even decide what they can reasonably afford for land for their personal use and pleasure.

And what I really don't get is - why are some people all of a sudden acting like putting houses on these spaces was supposedly wrong? Not to mention a business.

I mean, why did they increase the prims not that long ago, if they didn't want people using them????

And what the heck are the open spaces for, if you're not supposed to put houses on them, or your business, or whatever?

coco

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Gigs

No, that's a gross oversimplification.

When LL lowers initial prices it hurts existing landowners (lower barrier to entry, reduced secondary market value). When LL raises recurring prices (without grandfathering) it hurts existing landowners. It's not rocket science and it's not a double standard.

WarKirby Magojiro

You're somewhat missing the point here

there are 3 general kinds of lag.

Clientside lag is what you're experiencing here. Slow framerates, freezing, crashing, et al. This is problems with your computer, and/or the viewer. You get this on the mainland because most mainland sims have 8 others around them, which are being rendered. Try turning down your draw distance. I find it's generally better to have two seperate draw distances, one for isolated islands, and one for mainland sims, or anywhere else there's lots of contigious sims.

Network lag is your connection, problems with ISP, etc. that's unimportant to this.

Serverside lag, is the main issue here. This is things like havok slowing down, causing you to bounce backwards when you try to walk, things falling in slow motion, etc, scripts running slowly and taking longer to respond. Openspaces suffer from this a lot more, mainly due to having 1/4 of the CPu time of a normal sim.

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Wounds, both physical and mental, heal in time. bones reknit, therapy and drugs make you forget. Life goes on.
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Gabriele Graves

Hmmm complete lack of empathy? Did you miss these then? Of course that is not anywhere as fun as trying to make it look as though I have no empathy is it ?

WarKirby Magojiro

Has Jack, or any linden, Responded in that thread yet ?

I'm trying to look myself, but it was 28 pages last time I checked, and it's growing faster than I can read

Toritoys Tigerpaw

Jack likes to launch his blog bombs at his bedtime, so I wouldn't expect any Linden responses until later today.

caroline ra

I have 5 open space sims which I just rent out at a huge profit to me of approx $20 a month. Each of these are one residential renter, no sub-letting, no reselling all responsibe use.

I might as well have screwed everyone over that I could and let them all rack up scripts with clubs and malls full of sploders and 100 campers.

As each open space becomes vacant I shall just raise a ticket to have it closed down. It really is not worth the hassle any longer.

Soooo anyone know any good PC games for someone who doesnt like shoot em up stuff but preferrs to work out clues and go on a treasure hunt sort of game?

Walker

I thought that too.

I dumped a little over 3/4 of a private sim I was renting back then, and lost my enthusiasm for SL overnight.

Until that point, I was logging in daily for an unhealthy number of hours, but in the two years (almost to the day?) since, I've rarely logged in more than three/four times a week.

I think they relieved me of my passion for SL back then because it suddenly dawned that they could price me out of my escapist little world overnight.

Back then, the number of landowners choosing to bail didn't matter because the population was exploding at an incredible rate. Not so now... and people all over the world are tightening their belts to cope with a difficult financial climate to boot.

Eirik

I've made my decision. Fuck Linden Labs. I spent close to 1500 US$ on SL last year. Those who judge me by my NPIOF may be surprised, but in the end NPIOF only means I have no credit card. I currently have 250 L$ left on my account, and those will be the last pennies SL will ever see from me.

At this point it's not about the price anymore (I'm sure I could afford 125 US$ a month, especially if the $ stays low vs the €), it's about their whole principles. I've been saving up for all these months and trying to get a permanent job contract just so I could buy myself an OpenSpace sim. And suddenly I'm told it'll be 50 % more expensive.

Right now I am saving money to fix my gaming PC first of all, but secondary upgrade my spare PC to be worthy of hosting an OpenSim. What OpenSim grid does SLU recommend? Or alternatively, if it's cheaper/better/easier (since I'm not whizkid regarding the compilation of all this stuff) than upgrading my secondary PC, what OpenSim Grids offer their own sim hosting packages?

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Eata

I don't understand.

This seems like a bad move. Pricing is a control but will be an incredibly unpopular one. They should have tried policy first like no renting.

Eirik

They're Lindens. The Lab obviously recruits their employees in special needs schools. Unless you're an autist yourself there's no way to understand these people.

I hope the Linden cunts all die in a fire. I already slept over it a night, and I don't even get this angry at politicians.

caroline ra

While doing the hoovering I was thinking about this latest bit of reasoning from LL.
Im not the sharpest knife in the box but I dont get how making fees for open space sims more expensive will ensure ppl dont use them so heavily. In fact, I would think it would have the exact opposite result as ppl will be pressured to get more income from them.
I bet someones thought this already heh, oh well, back to defrosting the freezer.

JennL

it has nothing to do with with fixing the issue, its about how to make another $10 million usd a year.

Khamon

I didn't miss your affectionate leads into lavish explanations designed to beat people when they're down. In fact, my subtlety was meant to be complimentary of your passive-aggressive skill. Now you've spoiled the game by defending your empathy as though we're too stupid to see through you.

Do you really think we're that stupid?

So I'm sorry if my post insulted you and made you feel bad but <insert loads of facts and figures here> and hope we can still be friends.

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Gabriele Graves

Well you must be that stupid, because I genuinely do feel for people like Sarah and others who are hurting right now. I am not playing any games or trying to use any "passive-aggressive skills". I just have different opinions where the blame lies for the problems.
Sorry you cannot handle that.
I don't really care if you believe me at all but you don't know me or what I feel for others and until you can authoritatively say what I feel for others then it would be wise to not even assume, it only makes you look stupid.

Sarah, I hope you *do* know that I have empathy and sympathy for what you are going through and I hope you don't take anything in my posts as a personal attack, it certainly is not meant that way at all despite what Khamon says to the contrary. Fortunately he does not speak nor interpret for me.

Khamon

<<< looks stupid

ha ha ha

Did you miss this then?

Ann Launay

Is anyone else starting to suspect that LL has a list entitled 'People Who Have Contributed to Our Success and How to Piss Them Off'?

Who ever shall be next?

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Dancien Graves

Wait there may be a bright side.

SL Forums

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Jarod Godel

I'm hoping our pennies will be worth something by at least 2010. At least that's when they'll be worth something, according the news I've read.

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Portal: Andy
Basement Pirates
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Gabriele Graves

Considering the full thing was:

I thought you were paraphrasing what you thought was my general approach in my previous posts.
Even if it is not paraphrasing me, it certainly did not seem very sincere.

However if I have misread it then fair enough, I have no animosity or agenda against you or anyone. Despite what you might think I do understand how everyone is pissed off right now but it just seemed that we were discussing the issues and I discuss bluntly I admit, however I mean no harm by it.

Isablan Neva

He is right. What they should do is make the price changes immediate, grandfather existing owners in and find a way to throttle back usage to what the sims were designed for. Making the openspaces unusable for those are abusing them should put a fair number of out of business.