Community/Project Sim Region Pricing
under review
Aliton Firehawk
I believe that, with the economy in the way it is, it would be beneficial towards the health and longevity of Second Life for Linden Labs to offer discounted incentives for private regions who run not-for-profit communities on this game, much like educational Institutions and charitable institutions are able to do. These should be regions that do not monetize or commercialize their estates, and also not be a private region (family/personal residence). They must have a focus on a community/project. This would be a great incentive to bring back exploration sims, more roleplay regions, combat/game sims, as the price of these regions is large and entirely unforgiving towards people's passions. Especially with how the economy is right now. To apply to this, the project would need to be pitched to a team to ensure the project does not encroach upon IP and would meet the standards needed for the discount to be approved. I have seen many sims vanish due to a lack of sufficient funding, and this would help in the long run of things. There would likely need to be rules on store vendors, rentals, and donations, but that is manageable.
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Kyrah Abattoir
Doesn't Linden Lab already sponsor community projects?
ST33LDI9ITAL Resident
I've been saying the same thing for quite awhile now.. having only been on SL for about 4 years now, and already witness to several of my favorite sims and friends going under due to unsustainable sim cost for popular non profit community content. It's an issue. A big one. I can only imagine all the awesome sims and communities that have died out over the years due to the same...
People that run non profit sims for entertainment like racing sims, combat sims, dj and music sims, etc etc... they provide regular content for others and that's important to keep people and communities active. It's a huge part of what keeps SL alive. As is, many sims have already gone down over the years and they will continue to as well sadly.. And when those sims go down, it fractures communities and sometimes takes people with it. Can only do that so many times before it's completely dissolved.
There needs to be a means for non profit communities to exist and thrive... I don't know what the solution is, but it's needed. As is, they can only exist through labor of love and depending on donations for an unsustainable cost. And that doesn't provide very much or last long...
Zy Butcher
The costs of land are simply too high and it’s killing some communities because on top of paying for the land costs, you also have the burden of moderating it on the daily which can often make the owner’s experience a hell and it’s not contributing to the development of communities in SL. Sims close as soon as they realize the experience add to the costs of land.
I also noticed that plenty of people are confused and think this would apply to mainland because of a miss-interpretation of the term “private regions” what Aliton refers to, or what I think he does, is that regions closed to the public should not apply to this program; which is essential given the aim of this request.
I support this, or alternatively a discounted price on land costs for these types of communities. It is unreasonable that each avatar slot for a full sim costs this much.
Alwin Alcott
no
Aethelwine Resident
I might be missing something here. All my mainland (and infact my investment in private regions are on public spaces - (aside from 200 prims of sky box on an otherwise open parcel, that houses my pose stand). I am far from alone in this, a lot of high value land bordering water are used as open public spaces, similar along roads.
I and those land owners in similar situations, I am sure would welcome a reduction in costs, but I am not asking for that or expecting it. There is no obvious need.
I certainly wouldn't want to be in a position where it felt like people wanting their own private homes were paying more and effectively subsidising me.
Aliton Firehawk
Aethelwine Resident
You are correct that you are missing something.
This isn't for private residences. This is for regions that have been privately rented from Linden Labs (Not the Estate Barons) and are not closed off to just a small group of people. You have to have a community growing there, that has no commercial interests. It needs to be a joinable community, with rules and tenants that match TOS, and the concept of it needs to be pitched to a team in order to get approved. Then, on top of that, likely the region owners have to report demographics, or LL has a way to check demographics and keep accountability.
This isn't about an overall reduction of costs. I am aware there is a push for overall reduction, which is far more unlikely due to the complications of the politics with Land Barons and the Labs, as well as server costs for the Labs (Even if it is minimalized with Cloud-based servers). This is an initiative to allow people to build communities or small regions on this platform that is intended to draw people in, without being a major financial burden on the owner to either continue to pay those costly payments in this economy, or rely on supplementary income from the sim (donations, rentals, shared store space, etc.).
Clem Marques
No way.
Prokofy Neva
I don't believe you know the actual facts of Mainland because you don't inhabit it or explore it of every kind, from art galleries to wiccan to motorcycle buffs -- you name it. A lot is outside the US/Anglosphere. I regularly see 50+ sims and I see plenty of RP and nonprofit efforts. But more to the point, I dare say most SL residents are NOT into RP; that's why there's Bellisseria -- and regular "normie" Mainland owned land or rentals.
There is no evidence that Second Life needs even more RP or combat sims (all online MMORPs are simply better in every way than SL) -- especially not given away for free. If a sim vanishes, it's because it cannot earn enough in tips or content sales, let alone admission fees or rentals, so that in itself is a telling comment. Again, if you already have a commercial activity in SL on any account, there does not seem to be a valid reason for the Lindens to provide you with a free or reduced sim.
Bunni OwO
Or you know, we could just see a decrease in the price of land for everyone across the board regardless of what their sim is used for.
A full region cost about 260 USD (or more depending on where you live!) per month. That's more than most peoples phone bill, that's more than most peoples weekly grocery budget. You make a hard point that I hope LL will listen to in that, in this economy this sort of pricing cannot sustain this game.
Sims are dying out. Communities are drying up and as they continue to do so, many of us go to find our community in other spaces. I love SL and the freedom of creativity it's always allowed me to have, but eventually someone will come along and do even that better than they have. The price of these sims will ensure that SL will be long in the internet graveyard, before that even happens.
When there are no more places to hang out that arnt' shopping events, things pushing you to spend lindens to enjoy the experience, and just the mainland and safehubs are all that is left - how many players will remain dedicated to this game? And how many of those players will continue to spend money on their premium, money on linden uploads, money on land, etc?
I'd personally like to see a return to pricing that reflects the fact that we are now on cloud servers and there's no more
limited space
to encourage the inflation of prices to slowdown the creation of new sims. Maybe even a return to pricing that the land barons received when they purchased their 16+ sims. However, if we don't see at least something reasonable in pricing it will inevitably be the slow death of this game.
Ghoul Waifu
Bunni OwO I am 100% with you on this one. The sim prices are just way too high. It is a slippery slope from here.
Prices are too high ----> regions go out of business ----> less entertainment ----> people have nothing to do ----> people do not buy things because they have no reason to ----> people leave because of boredom
offering much lower prices makes it more affordable to get land and offer entertainment again ----> roleplay, hangouts, other projects
new users are more inclined on getting land when the prices are lower - creators are also struggling right now and can hardly uphold their lands, that they had for years.
I think lowering th eprices severely would really help SL to sustain during this financial crisis era.
Eric Stuart
While I agree prices should absolutely not be at the rate they are any more, I hope this conversation doesn't take away from the original one. Tier is not the only cost for sims and lands that operate through a non- or low-profit scheme. For these event and experience lands, even at half the price, they're still spending upwards of $1200-1800 a year on top of any costs to build, upgrade, etc, just to keep the land maintained. Stores may have an easier time making that money by the nature of what they are, but they'd be one of the only types of land that could see a return at all, much less enough to offset continued costs.
So yes, the conversation of land prices in general should be one to consider, but also offering ways for people to have non-commercial-specialized land subsidized would go a long way to keeping these places alive. They can still have a store or make some money to offset the other costs associated, as long as that's not all it is. I agree though that if we don't curb this fast, we risk it just becoming a "shopping mall", and people will lose interest naturally from the loss of other things to do.
Prokofy Neva
Bunni OwO The monthly tier of US $109 is not an unrealistic or impossible sum for a homestead, and if you have nothing more than a tip jar, let alone content sales, you should be able to live your RP dream. Many do!
Eric Stuart
Homestead for RP sims is a terrible idea. Homestead for literally anything other than being a homestead is a terrible idea. A limit of 20 people maximum on sim, far lower usage allowances and rates. Also, you have to already own a full private region (again, $200+ per month) or pay for Premium Plus ($30 a month), bringing your total still up to $1500 a year for a sim that has a fraction of the capabilities.
There's a reason they are even promoted as being for light commercial at the absolute most. Homesteads and mainland for experiences of almost every kind are a very bad idea.
Prokofy Neva
My problem with this proposal is that those with already-existing close ties to Linden Lab employees will be in the best position to get their project declared "non-profit" and existing creators with designing and scripting skills will be able to generate the kind of content appealing to the Lab to get this "non-profit" designation. I think therefore a requirement for this status is that the avatar or group requesting the status AND THEIR MAINS AND ALTS CANNOT have an existing business in SL or commercial operation of any type in SL. I think that is only fair. Otherwise it becomes a loss-leader to drive traffic ultimately to their business or reputation-enhancing project that helps their business. Another way to address this is to only award the non-profit status to those organizations that already have real-life non-profit status, such as 501-c-3 designation from the US Treasury Department in the US or the equivalent abroad.
There are many, many people who make beautiful sims at their own cost, sometimes by adding rentals and content sales to offset the costs. That means that this new status, awarded to just a few, will compete with those people who pay out their hard-earned money for sims, often at a loss, or will disqualify them potentially if they already run a content-sales or rentals on their sim precisely to offset the cost of the sims! We all face the high region-costs. I personally don't have any special land baron discount in SL, I only have the traditional 10% group land discount that generates more tier on Mainland. If anything like this program is put into practice, instead of awarding stand-alone islands or homesteads to this privileged class of people, they should be handed empty or half-empty MAINLAND sims to help beautify the Mainland and get more use out of it.
Eric Stuart
How would offering an easier time for people creating non-profit or low-profit experiences turn anyone into a privileged class? The reason people make those beautiful sims at their own cost is because that's their only option, either pay for resources, sim costs, and any other expenses to get the sim up for little to no return, or just don't do it at all. Also, why wouldn't those very people you mention that somehow would lose out...instead be offered the ability? This isn't just for new sims and builds, it's also for preserving old ones that keep dying out for almost the exact same reason every time: it's not worth the price people pay.
I also wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that if you have any sort of commercial presence, that you should be disallowed. A significant number of people I know that provide free entertainment and experiences at least try to offset those costs by having some sort of a store. Rarely does that ever end up being enough to cover anything substantial. I agree that massive stores shouldn't be offered free land for massive stores, but completely shutting out people creating experiences for trying to offset costs besides tier/rent creates other issues. I've put at least $500+ into resource gathering for a sim I'm helping build up that will never see a "profit" but we still have a store and some income that helps offset some of the long-term costs.
The issue that a lot of people have is the more that these non-profit (different from non-income) and low-profit places keep disappearing for the exact same reason, that being cost. It becomes more unbalanced where if you're not a store actively making profit, chances of survival are slim. Providing a way to keep experiences alive benefits literally everyone from the user to Linden Labs. More people have more to do, which keeps people more involved and interested, which can even bring in new people, which generally leads to more spending, which benefits stores and in turn LL by the fees for money in and out. There's no negative that comes from offering experience creators, regardless of if they make money on the side, a way to survive easier because they're providing much more than their money to give the entire grid something that serves as an overwhelming positive across the board.
Aliton Firehawk
Prokofy Neva
I do disagree with a lot of what you said, but I do understand why you think this way.
To clarify; the proposal is for privately-owned regions that are exclusively built for a community/project in mind. Not for a region that houses a store or a brand, even to mitigate costs. Owning a store or any business in SL should never bar you from being able to apply for this, however. They would just need to keep the separation there. Alternatively; rentals for residents on sim? Sure. However, not to the degree of every 'residential sim' being permitted this allowance.
That is why it would require a team for review. Not only for IP claims, but for questioning the direction/drive of the owner/group who wishes to get these allowances. It should only be allowed for regions that are privately owned by the person/group making the request/proposal, has a direction in mind for the sim/their community, and has a game-plan for how it'll positively affect the overall community of Second Life.
I also do not think the regions themselves should need to have non-profit status to apply, as that would effectively gatekeep it from the variety of people who would want to make a community on this platform, and would benefit from this proposal.
Mainland is a different subject. Some communities can not be on mainland, for immersive purposes, especially those of exploration, combat, and roleplay communities. I absolutely support mainland regions, though, and wish they would have a bit more upkeep and beautification, and LLPW is working on that as far as I was aware. That I do agree with you on, but that has no place in my request/statement.
sprightlysprite Resident
Prokofy Neva If someone's primary purpose in SL is to make interesting places, and they only ran limited commercial activity to offset the cost, this would give them an additional option: stop the commercial activity, and take the discount for a non-commercial region, instead. Of course, if they prefer to still do rentals or stores or such, they can do so and offset their costs the old way.
How to be sure something is non-commercial is a very reasonable question, though. If the region exists primarily to advertise a business elsewhere, that's still commercial despite no actual money changing hands on the sim. And we certainly wouldn't want to prop up a new tier of land barons who take payment off-grid where Linden Labs cannot see, and then give you land apparently-non-commercially on a discounted region.
Something similar could be considered for mainland, sure. Mainland is an entirely different thing, though. It's just not viable for immersive role play, because someone can always buy up a few square meters nearby and build something gallingly out of place. Limiting something like this to only mainland would be unfortunate.
Prokofy Neva
sprightlysprite Resident The OP is not running a "limited commercial activity" but is part of a group of thriving high-revenue commercial merchants' activity elsewhere. That's why I raise this concern in general. I'm all for offsetting costs, which is what I spend a lot of time doing. I think you need to widen your concerns not just to "land barons" (I'm not one) -- the traditional scapegoats of SL -- but to high-revenue merchants which we now know make in the 6 figures even in some cases. And that's fine. I'm not allergic to commerce. I just think to be fair, and given the Lindens' track record on giving away regions, I think there is a really obvious solution here for those aspiring to decorate a sim for the good of the public: take an empty abandoned sim. There are tons of abandoned or near-abandoned sims. This would help with visibility, traffic, and improvement overall. Look at Furvata for example, with adjacent Linden land preserves and nice builds on nearby sims. Empty, and in mature, and someone could take off with it. I see no misfortune in a creative way of using up abandoned mainland.
Prokofy Neva
Eric Stuart If you have a commercial operation in SL, you should use the proceeds from your successful business to fund your non-profit projects. That's what I do, at my modest level as a small Mainland rentals agent. Nobody is "shutting out" commercial operators from making nonprofit experiences containing possibly content sales or referrals back to their main business to offset the cost. Again, the proposition here is about
Linden Lab conferring yet another privileged status to the high-end rich content merchant class.
I think this class already has many other avenues for enrichment of themselves and the general public. People constantly ask the Lindens to save sims that...could not save themselves because they did not generate enough traffic/offset sales/interest from philanthropists. The general public whom they are supposed to serve do not think as much of their project as they themselves did, which is sad in many cases of fine art. LL already does save some artistic sims and has SLEA for show-casing art projects.
I think LL has to stay in business as a profit-making company. I think the idea of a land grant to the Mainland is the best route for improving SL for all.
Prokofy Neva
Aliton Firehawk I totally get that your request is not for a region that houses a store. But you do already HAVE a region that houses a very successful store and inevitably, your "nonprofit" project than refers back to it, directly and indirectly, and you get sales, offset or not, and reputational enhancement. [Update: I'm told Aliton is unrelated to the store in question so let me correct the record here. But he should mention whether he himself has a store.]
I think if you want to do good nonprofit work in SL, you should be a nonprofit in RL with recognized status to prevent graft and corruption, and not a merchant or land dealer on your other accounts or it becomes a loss leader to your benefit.
I think if the Lindens confer yet another perk to the merchant class of SL, it really needs to serve the public. Therefore I think having these nonprofit projects on MAINLAND is really a brilliant suggestion. They have a lot of regions sitting empty they can't give away even for $1/meter and even on the auction. Beautiful land, in mature often, not just general; even entire lakes like Laothoe which went without a bid recently.
Why not provide these land grants for areas like that which are truly seen and used by the public, and don't become yet another essentially private RP sim for a given class of people. There is no reason why you can't immerse on Mainland. With all the affordances of "group only" and ban tools and even a paywall (seldom used), this is eminently possible and indeed used by many. I'm not for having only the paid contractors struggle to keep Mainland beautiful (although I wish they did more) because frankly their hands are full in Bellisseria.
Aliton Firehawk
Prokofy Neva
While I do not know why it even matters if I am; I don't have any store on Second Life. I am a consumer entirely. While I do have a Marketplace, it is to sell old commissions I paid for (and have rights to). I am not part of any "thriving high-revenue commercial merchants", and I do not make any profit from any store on SL.
That does not change my opinion on the fact that I fully believe that just because you own a business on this platform that it should not bar you from being able to apply for the Community Region pricing if the sim in question is separate from your business. What people do for a living should not stop you from being able to build a community-based region at a discounted rate and give back to a community that you want to build and support. While, yes, the merchants would profit from this, it wouldn't be directly from the sim but on overall engagement of the platform and the re-population it may bring. More sims = More people. More people = More spending on stores. That is simple math, but does not affect this. Now, if their store was on the region in question? Absolutely they should be disallowed Community Region pricing. That would be up to the Lab to monitor.
I do disagree with your statement that people should apply for Non-Profit Status. That is making this process far more unobtainable for the average person with a dream to create, and places a deciding factor with a 3rd party entity that is not on this platform or wouldn't understand the initiative. Not to mention, depending on the region, the price of starting said non-profit could be quite high, which is what we are trying to avoid. Leave what happens on Second Life entirely in the hands of the Lab and the Community.
I do believe, based upon your comments and quite forward statements on what you believe I (the OP) am associated with (see your comment towards sprightlysprite Resident), your opinion on this subject matter is skewed and not really aimed towards the betterment of the community, but rather just some sort of misguided crusade against a group that I am not even associated with. I will set this matter straight though.
While this is filtered and suggested in a way that I believe will better the community of SL as a whole, I am also looking for something for myself and do intend to profit from this, though not monetarily. I want more roleplay sims. That is my profit. Simple as.
Aliton Firehawk
Prokofy Neva
As for the comment about mainland sims? Simple answer is: Mainland may be what you know, but it is not what the roleplay community, art community, and the majority of currently active Second Life users knows or prefers.
Simply put: Mainland is inefficient for the needs of this proposal. Again, I support a mainland initiative to make it better, but this feedback request is catered to privately owned community sims ran by someone who pays for it from the lab, and not to a land baron or rental agency.
The bulk majority of SL is events, venues, roleplay sims, hangouts, and communities that are on private regions that are not mainland, and they are thriving. Mainland is very inefficient for the high-resource requirement that these sorts of communities need. People do not want their immersion broken by seeing some random prim build 200 meters above a scene they are in, nor do they want to turn and have to render in whatever is on mainland while they explore the region, on top of the high VRAM costs of most avatars nowadays, plus 2K textures, PBR materials, blinn-phong fallback textures, etc.
There is a reason mainland isn't selling well, and that is because it is a mess. There is no regulation on build/beatification and it's rendering cost is intense on most computers because of all of items that are rezzed out there. Mainland has it's use, but this proposal isn't it in my opinion.
Prokofy Neva
Aliton Firehawk Once again, it does indeed matter if you have a viable commercial operation when you are appearing to the public asking for LL to grant you land. After all, your proposal is a generic one, to apply not just to you and your cohort but everyone. I am glad you have clarified that you personally do not make a profit in your efforts to make content for others that do make a profit.
Yet there is no way to separate business and philanthropy in the small world of SL which is also not under the rule of RL law with checks and balances, an indpendent judiciary, free press and so on. There are no ways to perform valid inspections and verify consumer claims. There is only the discretion of Linden Lab, and that means we should not open up yet another avenue where privilebge and connection reign.
If you believe a person's project will cause the overall platform to thrive and bring in more premium accounts, then they can reasonably be asked to show their track record in performance on these very metrics. Instead, what we're hearing are laments that a sim went down because people couldn't pay the tier. If their content can perform at the level claimed, they will not need any such dispensations.
It's not about whether a store is on this special project sim -- it's always a TP or profile away in these cases.
For 21 years, LL has always insisted on official nonprofit status before removing tax on their products, and that is valid and legal behaviour for companies. I see no reason why they should change this good practice.
It doesn't matter what my opinions are about you and your RP groups nor am I involved in any "crusade." The issue here is that you are requesting yet another give-away for the content creators who will make the sim, which inevitably adds to their reputational enhancement and sales, even if not directly. Good/popular content creators already make money in SL or have reputational gain an influence and enjoy other perks from Linden Lab: placement at Shop 'n Hop; content creation for the Lab on occasions like SL birthdays and other events; feature on the web site and pitches to RL media; presence in the welcome area mall shops; placement in SLEA.
Prokofy Neva
I don't think LL needs to return to the highly-criticized practice in 2004-2005 of awarding regions free of set-up charge or even free of monthly tier; they closed that program for good reasons: lack of sufficient applications to make it diverse; constant criticism from the user population of favouritism; in-fighting among the winners; poor performance by the winners. The builder on one sim ended up nuking all her buildings; a scripter found his invention ceased working with a change in LL code; it ended in tears.
Good, talented and popular content in SL gets itself paid in tips or donation from philanthropists, or is supported by the same businesses that hire the creators in the first place.
By their nature, RP communities tend to be very specific, insular, full of rules, demands for costuming/dialogue/behaviour, etc. and therefore "not for everybody" and not really a benefit to the public. As I noted, most of the SL population is not involved in RP in the way you imagine.
Prokofy Neva
Aliton Firehawk Look around the Mainland; look on the auctions. You will see completely empty regions of Mainland, some without any Linden roads or waterways; sometimes several regions empty all around; which can easily be used for the RP sim that you feel requires so much enclosure and protection of what you fear is the blight of geographical proximity.
In fact, if the RP requires such deep immersion so easily spooked, then it is possibly too specific to be justified as something really benefiting the general public. Plenty of people know how to make a build in a dome or a Mirror Box and do fine with their RP ventures and even get them paid in tips. Mainland tier is only US $166 a month and abandoned land can be purchased for $1/meter.
If the Lindens invited projects or any kind -- there is no need to limit them to RP groups which are niche by their very nature -- I think you will be surprised how many groups would be happy to take an empty Mainland sim and make something worthwhile of it, and will not have any of the complaints you are raising about textures, PBR, etc.
Aliton Firehawk
Prokofy Neva
Mainland is simply not efficient as a limiter for the type of projects that this initiative would be pushing. This is intended to draw and hook people back into the platform, and Mainland has too many flaws for it to be viable for that. I am sorry, but I will always disagree with you on Mainland push for THIS suggestion.
I don't think regions should be free, or set-up costs should be removed. That would be silly. But if you have a community running, you have the numbers to back it and the demographic to push it, you should be able to apply for the grant. There absolutely should be a lot of careful planning put into this sort of allowance, rules looked over by the Legal Team (who're far more versed in these sort of things than their 04-05 counterparts), and there should be an effort to make it a set of standards the regions much meet in order to be allowed this discount. The discount shouldn't be permanent as well. It should have time limits, reviewed for continuance.
Concerning your opinion on stores being disallowed from this project? There is no reason I see that you have listed that gives your requests any merit. I am sorry but the answer, in my mind, is simply "No". Limiting a person who brings content and life to the platform from further avenues of bringing content and life to the platform is absolutely counter-intuitive. Though I do say it shouldn't be a 'limiting factor' that stores or people with the ability to create in THAT regards are the only ones who benefit from it. In fact, most sim community owners do NOT have that ability, and simply bankroll the sim/build/systems used for it.
The economy is in a bad state. People cannot rely on the good-nature philanthropists tom support their dreams, as many of those people are getting hit too. This is why this imitative, with Linden oversight, is better in the long-run for the platform, in my honest opinion.
Prokofy Neva
Aliton Firehawk I understand why people develop antipathy to the Mainland but it is a geographically contiguous free space, it remains a viable Linden product, and in fact has large sections that are nicely maintained by organized communities or just neighbours who work together which is a great thing. But because rules against ad farming and land chopping and script hogging are not enforced, parts of it get abandoned. Yet there it is, begging to be developed, and for a song. So again, my point is that when you fashion programs for the Lindens to have a giveaway once again, I think it should involve them giving away what they have a lot of: abandoned land. There is no reason why a viable RP sim cannot be made on a full Mainland region, reducing the cost.
A program involving giveaways has to have a requirement that it be non-commercial (this may even be required by contest laws in California) and that means no commercial empire lurking on other accounts or in-groups. If a creator has a viable store, if anything, he should be the philanthropist rather than drawing down other people's philanthropy.
The Lindens
already
give away entire sims for free when they find content that helps their bottom line, in their belief, such as Draxtor's book club, for which they donated four islands. They recently closed sponsorship of the club, but apparently left the islands. This isn't a widespread type of action, but they do it when they make a determination it is warranted. In some ways it would be better to have a transparent program with clear rules and a process when giveaways are involved -- but I'm not for installing more of them because it undermines all the people who pay for their creativity and entertainment in SL
.If the set-up fee and tier isn't paid, then...what is paid? a discount is given on tier? But there's an existing discount on tier: it's called "the Mainland" for $166 per sim; if you group the land, you get an additional 10% bonus of tier coverage to be used there or elsewhere.
Prokofy Neva
Precisely because the economy is in a bad state, for companies as well as people, I don't see how the Lindens can justify a program involving giveaways. The Lindens could feature existing RP sims that try to pay for themselves on their web site, as they already do for some, to give them a boost. Again, the Lindens have many other programs to reward creators like "Shop 'n Hop".
No one is "limiting" a creator from doing what they want in the TOS. If they want to seek donations from the public at large they can do that. It isn't a "limitation" to specify that commercial operations not attempt to draw down scarce resources for free.
Eric Stuart
I think there is a vast misunderstanding of the differences between private region, homestead, and mainland. The issue isn't just immersion, and treating it as if most of these things can simply exist on mainland is confusing at best. Mainland suffers from significant issues with rendering, usage limits, a lack of estate management options, drastically increased lag and load, etc.
Simply put, mainland isn't used often because it's just not possible to achieve the needs of most experiences with the limitations mainland provides, and the burdens it tends to bring.
You keep going off about commercial empires and privileged classes and free giveaways and I think that misses the significant point here...most sims that this would benefit wouldn't be just getting something for nothing. They still pay for the assets, give their time, manage the property, often with little income of any kind, and rarely with any potential for profit. Those experiences are an essential part of what brings people into Second Life, and what keeps them coming back. That stimulates the economy in a major way, and we're losing them faster than we're gaining them because people can't afford to take on a significant cost like that for little to no return.
The arguments you're making feel at best like they represent less than 1% of things that this would affect. Yes, there are venues that put their own time and money in and are fine with it. But how many have we lost that can't afford to pay thousands to provide Linden Labs another avenue for player interaction and interest? I'm not sure what specific kind of situations you're using as your point of reference here but they're feeling far from representative of the greater issue, and as one of those people that has paid for a sim out of pocket to provide an experience for free? I'd rather see people get the freedom to do more with it, especially if it saves currently existing sims from closing and leaves us feeling more and more like a lifeless shopping mall.
Gimme Morehead
I agree completely. I remember certain regions that had very creative builds and activities to do such as roleplay, exploration or minigames were always central hubs where people could socialize quite easily around something they liked.
Unlike the regions that focus on private rentals, with breedables and shopping (excluding event regions), these mentioned bring people together which is what SL is about at the end of the day.
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