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In March of this year, we announced improvements to our light use land product that we call Openspaces. Not long after this, the new Land Store opened allowing estate owners to buy Openspaces and have them delivered almost immediately, an enormous improvement over the old method of ordering them via support [...]

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Cristiano

And with that, LL has just killed the Openspace sim market. Increasing the price to $125 a month is ridiculous, as is the new setup fee increase to $375 (a 50% increase). Not only that, there is no grandfathering - so those with them now are going to be stuck paying $50 more a month, with only 2 months to unload them. Great job LL! Instead of finding ways to improve the technology, you just raise the prices.

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Walker

/deleted because Cristiano beat me to it.

Kristian

LL: "Hey, you guys found this product enticing in ways we hadn't imagined. Fuck you!"

Isablan Neva

Oh, my.

This is going to be the Island Price hike of 2006 all over again. Time to head to the fallout shelter and stock canned goods.

I can hear Prok typing already all way over here on the West Coast.

Macphisto Angelus

Oh, and hey.. all you people who rent out these islands and invested in this idea.. fuck you too.

My god LL could not hurt it's supporters more if it tried.

I feel bad for Sarah and all the others that have invested in these, got people to rent from them and will now likely be stuck with a bunch of them and no buyers.

WTG LL.

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Kristian

Ya know, if you could buy them without the pre-existing normal sim, it might *almost* be worth it. Ya know what? Joe Poseball doesn't need 15000 prims and 65k m2. They just want a cute little island in the middle of the ocean. OpenSpaces are as close as they come to the right product for the majority of the market.

Isablan Neva

Mac, to be fair -- they knew they weren't supposed to be using them that way.

I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but there was risk there.

I have one myself and that extra is going to hurt.

Psyke Phaeton

Why can't they limit CPU usage to 25% for each openspace??? And limit prims? (I assume prim count is limited). I applaud them making the land type more obvious to users as openspace sims were being abused for profit by scamming renters.

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Lecktor Hannibal

May I just say this once



LOL


that is all.

Lecktor Hannibal

p.s. I find this an opportune time to invite you to a vibrant and growing community where you won't get assraped for non-existant support and value.

Foundation Regions

Macphisto Angelus

I hear you. .but it is the whole wink wink, nudge nudge attitude LL had.

They knew they were being used for this, they just waited until it was widespread enough to jack up the prices and hope people would hang in there.

Lecktor Hannibal

And a large whoosh was heard as collective dreamers watched their bubble pop.

Hey LL, eff you!

Sarah Nerd

I can't begin to describe how angry I am right now. When they started the single open space thing it forced me to convert a few of my full sims to them and sell two because no one wanted full estates anymore. Now with this increase they will be worthless. No one will want to rent them and there will be no resale value. I'll probably just have to take some off the grid and lose even more than I already have (and it's been a lot). A 67% increase is fucking insane and uncalled for. I have a few slow moving open spaces. They're gone now I guess. I really feel like with this move, I am going to loose the estate end of my business. I guess I'll just stick with mainland.

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WarKirby Magojiro

They had it coming. I see openspace malls everywhere, Hell, I even rent at one, despite my strong desire not to, because my competitors do.. Since they introduced openspaces, people have been abusing them constantly. Nobody listens when you tell them they're misusing it, and lagging everyone else down.

I think it's a rather excessive package of measures to be taking all at once, specifically the not allowing owner and paor to be different any longer. But overall, I think this will trigger renewed growth in rental in normal, full size sims. Openspaces now give /4 of the prims, for more than 1/4 of the price, so they won't look too attractive to renters.


May I state for the record that I FUCKING HATE openspaces. Not a day goes by when I get customer complaints about my products not working, because they're trying to use them in a piece of shit sim where everything takes exponentially longer to respond

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Isablan Neva

I don't think it went down that way at all. The blog post said they'd run an analysis in August and September. After that they probably spent a few weeks debating what to do and how to do it. It likely wasn't an easy decision for a company faced with a declining virtual economy that is reflecting the RL economy. It's a tough question, lots of stuff is involved.

Eirik

For fuck's sake.

For months now, since I started living on an OpenSpace, I've been saving up until I can finally afford my own. Even made plans already of what it'd look like.

And now the bastards do this.

My Second Life PC is out of business for at least another 3-4 weeks. Luckily. Because right now I'm pissed off enough that I'd disappear for a few weeks anyway from the inworld.

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Lecktor Hannibal

:-( I'm sorry Sarah I really am. I hate to see this happen to one of my friends.

Come pioneer with us in Openlifegrid.com A Global Community 3D Metaverse built on Open Source Technology ??

I haz hair!!!

Macphisto Angelus

I wish you luck, Sarah. You were the first person on my mind when I saw this.


Isablan, I hope you are right. It smells of the typical greed that hits a company when they think they have a popular product.

Kristian

my crossposted reponse from the official forum thread.

Jack, this announcement makes me think that LL still does not understand the average user of SL.

A normal sim, with it's prim density and the tier costs, forces users to engage in a desperate search for a sense of space and privacy[1]. 4096 prims gives the average user more than enough prims (about 1000) to build, experiment, and entertain. However, 4k of space begins to feel cramped very quickly, because your neighbors fill up THEIR 4k with their 1000 prims, and you can very quickly become claustrophobic regardless of how well-intentioned you and your neighbors might be.

OpenSpaces, on the other hand, allow the SL user to use the land as a canvas. To create a rich, immersive environment that makes you feel like you have room to move around without running into your neighbors property lines at ever turn.



That's my 'home' in SL. It's situated on a quarter of an OpenSpace sim. It uses about 600 prims, but as you can see we've created a lush environment with sculpties and megaprims.

OpenSpaces are an incredible -- even revolutionary -- product for the SL land market. It's no wonder users flocked to them in droves. It turns SL from just a place to rez poseballs into a canvas to *really* create your own world.

I won't go back to the mainland, but I'm not sure I'll be able to continue to pay my tier when my rent is raised. It's not just the Estate Owner who's going to be missing out, Jack -- that loss is going to travel upstream to LL, eventually.

I've owned as little as 16m2 and all the way up to 20k in a single sim. It wasn't until the OpenSpace product became available as something easily rentable that SL finally hit the 'sweet spot' of price-parcel size-prims. I've remained a land owner in one form or the other for most of my 3.5 years in SL despite LL's best efforts to drive me away. With this, you may finally succeed in driving away a customer who's stayed with you despite it all.





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1. Yes, privacy in SL (and the internet) is a bit of a myth. The sensation of space and privacy is what's important here, more than the reality.

Winter Ventura

the depression/recession hasn't hit SL yet.. so LL needed to create a financial bubble of it's own to collapse.

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Sarah Nerd

If the sims weren't intended to be used, then they should not have been offered. People don't want to pay estate tier just to look at an unused sim. It's weird, this is the most angry I have ever been at Linden Labs, but at the same time I'm numb because I've gotten so used to them fucking us.

Psyke Phaeton

LL: hai gais, here are some cheap sims, please to not use them very much even tho it is possible. I know we can trust all of you to do the right thing.
People: LOL

Phoenix Psaltery

As usual, it's BOHICA time in SL.

P2

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Stroker Serpentine

Maybe it's just the conspiracy theorist in me, but does anyone else believe they are intentionally killing the rental markets so they can sell mainland?

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/bus...th-second.html