Linden Department of Public Works Update
Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 7:44 PM by: BlueWork has begun on Bay City, home of the “Fighting Moles” also known as The City by the Void.
LDPW is getting in touch with, and getting signed contracts from, our first set of resident builders and we expect to have our first team meeting in the upcoming week to discuss allocation of tasks, share reference materials, and hand out trowels & grout bags. These skilled contractors will be given project-specific accounts so should you run into a very small avatar with a hardhat, bearing the last name “Mole” be sure to say say hi!
In the meantime, Michael and I have been organizing the layout of the Regions and parcels. You can expect to see…
– Four different “tilable” Region templates, with canals and roads crossing boundaries at pre-defined points. There will be three of each template Region, thus twelve in all (for now). They will all be set to have an Object Bonus of 2 which is to say that the number of prims available per square meter is twice that of a regular Region. To handle this, Linden Lab (in the person of Governor Linden) will need to retain over half of the land in each Region. We’re aiming for at least 56%, which is typical of existing city regions.
– Two sets of Void Regions. One set will run along the Barcola-Sistiana-Luna edge, and the other set generally west from the Cape Haven Region. Placement in Teen Second Life is still to be determined.
– Unique builds. Likely one per region, hopefully useful, definitely cool.
The style is the American urban experience, between 1940 and 1965, perhaps best typified by Chicago circa 1950 and marked by a distinct deco influence. Most parcels will be around 1024 square meters and “join and divide parcels” will be turned off at the estate level. Residents can still build across parcel boundaries if they own, or have permission to build on, adjacent parcels; but by not allowing parcels to be joined or divided, we hope to influence the “scale” of builds in Bay City. A preliminary map of Bay City can be found at on the wiki HERE.
Most of the Linden-owned content in each non-Void Region will be infrastructure - the canals, roads, bridges (including scripted drawbridges), and street furniture. Some of this other content will be “mandatory” — a bridge from Barcola, an infohub, etc. Other content will be chosen to some extent by asking the Moles what they’d like to build from a long list of ideas — amphitheatres, parks, yacht harbor, etc. Michael and I will contribute some content also.
The Bay City Regions will be named in the format “Bay City - <name>” and we could use some good suggestions for the twelve Regions’ names. The Void names are already chosen. If this project is successful, we’ll extend the city Regions west and north (we eventually might have to ask some private Estate owners if they’d like to have their Regions moved).
If you have questions or comments on the program, LDPW Lindens all have office hours and they all happen to be on Wednesdays, curiously enough, so mark your calendar! Jack can be found at 1pm SLTime in the Linden Estate Services region, Michael will be available at 3 pm SLT in the Adriatic region, and Blue is found immediately thereafter at 4pm SLT in Linden Village.
A LDPW page has already been created on the public wiki (appropriately enough by an enterprising resident!) and we will be contributing to it going forward. If you are interested in applying for molehood and joining us in our efforts to improve the Mainland, please check that page for more information. If you’d like to suggest names for the city sims, there’s a place for that as well.
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:22 PM
Bravo DPW… sounds like a great start!
I hope that your sucesses outshine the critics and demonstrate the merits of planning and cooperation as to effect the overall preservation of this metaverse. I, for one, welcome cooperative, grassroots intervention that will address the clutter and squallor of some of the mainlands. Thanks also to all the volunteers that have stepped-up to support this venture.
Albeit wholly libertarian, unchecked and undirected growth in organic systems is also sometimes called cancer. What you have described does not seem to me to hinder any of the creative freedoms this ‘verse supports. Rather, I see that some order and investment in infrastructure will provide a rich substrate for further growth and will foster creativity in our residents through inspiring environments.
Can I say it again… Yay! Bravo! Well done!
Now get to work!
*peace*
Hula
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:52 PM
“Most parcels will be around 1024 square meters and “join and divide parcels” will be turned off ”
Excellent idea. This will hopefully solve many of the eysore problems we see on “old mainland”.
I imagine though that many current mainland owners will not be pleased with this. Won’t this eventually drive old mainland prices down since it can’t compete with the eye-appeal of the new? Are there enough moles to touch-up and beautify every current mainland sim?
Also, what is the inside story on why the name Mole was chosen?
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:00 PM
Perhaps I missed something, I thought the DPW was about mainland infrastructure, not creating new mainland. We have many KM of undeveloped Linden roads, bridges, etc. Lets finish what was started years ago before new projects. Not such interesting work I grant, but much needed!
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:12 PM
As Frank Barone would say.. “Holy Crap!”
p.s. the text link in this phrase at the end of the seventh paragraph is not working correctly for me…
“A preliminary map of Bay City can be found at on the wiki HERE.”
It should be…
http://wiki.secondlife.com/w/images/8/8a/Bay_City_Map_1.jpg
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 PM
I agree with Shug, let’s clean up the mess we have now before creating a new one.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:24 PM
I applaud you for listening and responding to the residents who want zoned and themed mainland, but what about the rest of us? Please don’t give up on the existing mainland - work with us to make it better.
You will of course be naming one of the new Bay City regions Michigan, of course?
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 PM
Bravo Lindens!
Sounds great, I welcome new regions and can’t wait to cruise the streets of Bay City. I also echo other comments here however and hope that the LDPW has other projects in mind as well. A road connecting Nova Albion and the rest of Sansaras (other Old mainland) roads would also be appreciated.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 PM
I have to agree with Shug. I would like to see the existing roads and such completed before significant work is put into the new.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 PM
Keep running with the creativity, but please don’t run away from the existing mainland. Thanks for taking action on mainland ad blight and suspending two ad farmers so far.
Also please do not abandon the Resident Forum. It needs a bit of TLC right now…
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:50 PM
Sweet!
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:56 PM
Can’t wait to see, Blue!
I sorta expected y’all were going to be looking at poking at existing mainland - is that not going to happen or is it just a different phase of what you’re planning??
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 PM
Seems like LL’s trick is to get people to move off old mainland to this new thing instead of cleaning it up then LL cause auction off those old mainland then apply these new rules applied to them. Sounds like a half @ssed effort by LL.
LL must not be able to apply these rules to already bought parcels. So now the mainlands well go to hell cause everyone with a small pacel will want to move away from the 16M lots & go to this new thing that way they can’t get smaller then 1024 lots next to them.
We got told they were fixing the problems in the mainland, not building new parcels on new areas. Just shows you LL says one thing & always does the other
Why can’t these works go clean up all the 16M lots R@@# M!@#S ruined & his 16M lot pals. LL knows mainland is totally ruined & they want no part of cleaning up their mess. They rather everyone just go buy new land again.
Think if RL city goverments did this. We are no longer gonna pick up your trash or provide you with water & electricity anymore but we are gonna build a brand new city 5 miles away. You can come move there but you can’t have a white picket fence anymore. But they will provide you with your water & electricity again.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:03 PM
[...] "They will all be set to have an Object Bonus of 2 which is to say that the number of prims available per square meter is twice that of a regular Region. To handle this, Linden Lab (in the person of Governor Linden) will need to retain over half of the land in each Region. We’re aiming for at least 56%, which is typical of existing city regions." Linden Department of Public Works Update Official Linden Blog [...]
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 PM
Great job! These regions are going to be very popular I can see already. The one thing I didn’t see addressed, however, is the fact that if infrastructure is projected to occupy roughly 56% of each region, and each parcel is double prim, standard tier rate from resident parcels will NOT cover the usual region profit margin. Is LL going to eat the tier fees they would be losing to test this out, or will higher tier rates for these regions be standard?
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:31 PM
Re #12 “We got told they were fixing the problems in the mainland, not building new parcels on new areas. Just shows you LL says one thing & always does the other”
I went back and checked - the initial blog entry from Feb. 8 does say they planned to work on extending the city area first, and the placement of this new project makes it an extension of the existing city area. So this is consistent with what they told us before.
But please, Lindens, give us a little news about your plans for existing mainland, so we know you haven’t forgotten us.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 PM
i reckon i need to start paying attention to this public works stuff.
it sounds interesting.
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 PM
Map looks *very* interesting! And, yeah, as noted above, linky to worky:
https://wiki.secondlife.com/w/images/8/8a/Bay_City_Map_1.jpg
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:02 AM
I would like to see a park / outdoor museum. Have the content in it updated every so often.
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:43 AM
Dear LDPW, as many would agree the Bay City will become a historic chapter in SL and can you please consider selling the 1024sqm areas individually and by auction? As this may give the ‘average’ resident a chance of buying direct and without any additionally L$ margins.
Also, just a few thoughts for Bay City names:
1. the components of SL (e.g. Dazzle, Grid etc)
2. LSL functions (e.g. llCloud, llWind etc)
3. historic events, residents, lindens (e.g. Stellar Sunshine, Paul Zeeman (first residents) etc)
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:33 AM
Brilliant plan, and very worthwhile.
I would offer one gentle comment, if I dare: you’ll need to covenant at least one thing about this city, and enforce it. As hard as that is - it’s life or death for these regions.
New urban sim - what will happen.
1. Someone will want ‘more prims’ for their beautiful city build, and prim-farm an entire block to get it.
Result: Wasteland of empty streets with a single ‘nice’ building now and then. Looking really, really surreal.
2. Skyboxes. Causing desolation. “I got this expensive land, it won’t sell, I’m not giving it up… so I’m gonna put my skybox here” - again, desolation of empty streets and abandoned-looking blank lots below.
3. Land speculation. “I’m just here reselling - tier is nothing compared to potential lot price… so why bother to put a building on it.” Again: desolate bombed-out, leveled-city landscape.
Nova Albion never suffered this fate because SL was young, you had early adopters/oldbies, it was different then. That’s not the case any more.
Gentle suggestion: require a city build on every parcel - don’t say how big, or how good it has to be - just *something*, *anything*.
Or you are building an apocalyptic landscape, not a ‘city’, just waiting to be 70% flattened by prim farming and land speculation. An infection that spreads like crazy, and may easily collapse into the same result as the original, ill-fated Shermerville experiment, only faster and harder.
This city could be a true vision of the best of SL - if in fact, it is actually used as a city. Don’t count on people getting it, and behaving - they wont. Just one line of covenant would do wonders: “City building required on every parcel at ground level.” It’s easy to back off on covenants later; a lot harder to impose them after the fact.
I hope this was a constructive comment; it is certainly meant to be.
Desmond Shang
Independent State of Caledon
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:13 AM
The link to “A preliminary map of Bay City can be found at on the wiki HERE.” takes me to a “Secure Mortgage Rate Quotes” so I’m guessing land is going to cost a arm and an leg in these areas!!!
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:27 AM
“The Bay City Regions will be named in the format “Bay City - ” and we could use some good suggestions for the twelve Regions’ names.”
I know I can’t be the only one who’s thought of…
“Bay City - Rollers”
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:55 AM
Well said @21 - BAN SKYBOXES they have no place in a ‘city’. If people want privacy, then live somewhere else. The same is true of security orbs and banlines. This should be an open area and a public one where people can socialise.
How many avatars to a sim though? Please make it more than 40 because a city should be busy not half empty.
Where is the city Infohub btw?
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:25 AM
what would be real good is limiting the amout one can section the land , dont allow people make area’s smaller then 512m regions . would do alot to solve the problems we hare having now
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:26 AM
Someone beat me to Bay City- Rollers.. dang…
Bay City- Castro
Bay City- Haights
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:36 AM
I am very inte3rested in the public works program and have seen some wonderful “fantasy” Linden builds I have taken ideas from (wish I had double prims on my place)-I noticed a Linden road has been slowly finding it’s way through Sled towards our place in Risoul.
I often use public roads and protected land to explore in my airplane so I look forward to the day when “road trips” will allow a person to see most of the sims in SL-I encounter one problem when I travel without TP-public works do not allow the creation of objects-is there some way to create “rest stops”? areas where a person could rez a car.bicycle or boat to utilize these roads-currently I rely on the gracious land owners who allow object creation to “restart” my road trips after I have crashed into a ban line or something-the joy of travelling without TPing allows me to see the many fine creations that are being built in SL and I hope someday there is the possibility of a trans continental race in SL, I have already found a passage between continents at our northern edge- also I noticed that there are lots of islands now, perhaps ocean routes are a possibility between islands, I think it would be great adventure to be able to take to the high seas, perhaps it could be supported by some sort of nautical tier, a reasonable fee for commercial use, such as cruise ships etc.I would pay a USD to be able to get in a boat and travel between islands.I am also looking forward to the road to Risoul being completed, but it just seems to end for no reason, is there more info on this?
Lastly, I am using the windlight a lot and do not know hopw to file a proper bug report for it-I tend to crash when I TP and the friends list still does not show mostly-overall it is spectacular so it is important to me that the final bugs be worked out-as far as banning skyboxes or otherwise restricting MORE things in SL-does anyone realise the more rules there are in SL the worse it is for everybody? I would rather have an offensive ad and pink flamingos all over than to have restricted building-the previous complaints about gambling and the age thing already make it a litle more claustrophobic in SL-I do not like a lot of the suburbia builds and “little nations” that spring up, I think they lack imagination-but I think the freedom to build as you please on the land you pay for outweighs any grievance I could ever have- think about it, this is a new world too, one of the charms of this plae is the lack of supervision by overlords-or perhaps people like the idea of voluntary servitude-thanks
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:39 AM
@ 3, 5, 12 et al. Just so you know, the Bay City project is just one of numerous LDPW efforts you can expect…the tip of the megaprim as it were. Look forward to future updates here and on the wiki addressing other mainland projects like roads.
To the rest, thanks for many excellent points and suggestions (and link corrections!) made here. All are valuable and appreciated…
…especially Buck’s @22 Can’t believe I didn’t see that one coming ^_^!
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:14 AM
question 1: is the work for the LDPW benevolent, or paid?
either reply is OK, but without clear reply, I assume that it is benevolent.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:22 AM
Bay City? Moles with hardhats?
I had a dream. In it, LL had hired on a team of 2 dozen avs (who were not friends with any lindens) who dutifully went forth and built roads and bridges in the empty protected land all over SL. Also, I dreamt that simultaneously, all repossessed land and the Katja Region (which has been EMPTY for the entire YEAR I have been in SL) was sold/auctioned finally.
Then I woke up. You’re not filling in the blanks, you’re creating more content and taking land away from the residents. You’re making MORE EYE CANDY. More pretty pictures to show off on the homepage. I even volunteered for this fiasco - I’m putting in another ticket and removing my application - which I am sure doesn’t bother you a bit.
Bad, bad, bad.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:24 AM
Also, why should LDPW focuse on things like roads? Roads are basically useless in SL, unless they are part of a theme (like in Caledon sims).
Are there means to do things like parks, beaches, nature places? or meeting halls, temples, gathering places? Or experimental places, such as space, geological sims, etc?
A special sim to do large gatherings would be fine, able for instance of receiving hundreds of avatars, for concerts, meetings, etc. Such a place could be used by various groups or talkers. We could even have several architectures, and switch from the one to another with just a button.
This could be much more useful than roads. This would create new content and attract people into SL.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:30 AM
The roads are great, I love driving from my place in Cortina through to chalet linden. It’s a great little drive.
LDPW will be aesome when it kicks in.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:48 AM
ewwwww… did you guys look at that map? I would stay away from those plots. The majority are on an angle and the plots are definitely not rectangular in many cases. Building/positioning nightmare. I learned my lesson after having purchased plots with diagonals.
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:14 AM
If you’re going to set these up as “cities”, would it be possible to have “zoning laws” in place? i.e. areas that are zoned residential only, no business allowed, others zoned as a commercial district - so the residents of the “city” can go here to do all their shopping? Perhaps even have some areas reserved for “mom and pop” stores that aren’t really huge, with others for “box stores” and strip-malls where larger stores would be able to locate? Also maybe a zone for entertainment venues such as dance clubs?
Seems to me this would be a workable plan to accomodate the different types of venues that are scattered haphazardly across the existing mainland regions in a very logical manner.
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:22 AM
yes a non shop no club area would be great. clubs and shops often ruin the place for living. And how can we abuse report ad farms?
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:28 AM
lets just delete it all and start over.
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:32 AM
or will removing ad farms only happen in the ‘new’ areas?
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:46 AM
@Yngwie (33) and others…
hmmm… some already complained that Real World laws were inpinging into SL, when LL (rightly) banned gambling or paedophilia.
But if we go so far as keeping to only reproduce and imitate our real world, towns and districts, then where is the interest of SL gone??? RL, we already have it…
Well, you do what you want in your land, as it is said…
…but there is however a little problem: reproducing RL life is possible in cheaper mainland, while people who want to do something else with a better quality, are bound to buy islands. buying an island is $1600, and the monthly fee is $295, without LPDW help, while the monthly fee is $195 in RL-like mainland, with LPDW help. So that the price we pay for SL depends on our lifestyle. Find the mistake…
@Athena (26) well, your idea of travelling through SL oceans without TPing, to see everything, this idea is interesting. To be technically achievable however, it would require than LL adds thousands of computers to have ocean sims. This is not free (one computer for four ocean sims versus one for one land sim). But more, it would require that the island owners like or agree that many visitors come around and stare at them. In most case, they would not like this, for many very good reasons (privacy, themed land, mature land). Your idea could however be partly implemented, for interested island owners, to form a sailable ocean with hundreds of islands. I found such a realization (privately owned) around the Rlyeh island, with many very nice islands in a sailable ocean. (some islands were access forbidden, however, making sailing haphasardous).
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:22 AM
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:30 AM
Its really great to see a more thoughtfull approach to how regions are set out.
I would however like to make on point and that is this is not the real world do we need roads? do we even need houses? or harbours. I do understand the need to make familiar settings but would love to see a more imaginative yet still functional approach also!
SL is an amazing oppurtunity to develope new ideas and approaches to design, architecture and civic / community space lets not make it a toy town.
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:33 AM
I have been notorious for spilling forth bile on here but I’m turning over a new leaf so to speak. I discovered that one very good solution to the problems I’ve faced with ugly ad farms and the like is to spend time and research, flying around for quite some time just looking over the land below me. I’ve found that (with property lines turned on) I could drift about looking for orange (land for sale) in the midst of what I consider to be really nice sims where all the parcels are fairly large and the builders are all decent and put forth quality work. In so doing I’ve finally settled down on a couple thousand meters of land in a sim that has a large museum, a few nice quality shops and a few well-designed tance halls. No ad farms, no run-away scripts and my level of enjoyment has increased several hundred percent. The only problem I faced was the rather higher than average land prices. I found that land which usually goes for around L$17,000 or so per 1024m2 parcel had relatively no ad farms. So sometimes high prices are a good thing. So now all I have all around me are beautiful pieces of architecture and very nice, polite neighbors and NO BANLINES ANYWHERE ON THE ENTIRE SIM! That alone is more than worth the greater up-front fees I paid for the land. Oh, and this is not on a private sim either. Good old fashioned mainland. Now if I can just keep down the viewer crashes everything will be alright…
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:38 AM
#39 - about do we need roads, houses, etc.
I wholeheartedly agree. you know, when I first joined SL I became intimately aware of the unique opportunityt o simply fly from point to point and learned to love it dearly.
I once visited a piece of mainland that was breathtaking. The residents had built a whole series of arial platforms (no, not “skyboxes” per se). These were located down low toward the ground, but were deliciously open breezy multilevel living spaces that were open and very beautiful. I’ve since lost the link (darn it!) but it was very inspiring. And in keeping with “reality” all these structures were built with a series of harnesses and support struts like everything was suspended with steel cabling.
It all reminded me of a high-tech version of the Ewoks living up in three villages in Star Wars.
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:09 AM
if your being logged out between teleports or crashing, need to vote for the issue to make it a priority:
http://jira.secondlife.com/secure/ViewIssue.jspa?id=15978&vote=vote
or read whats been going on at:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-383
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:25 AM
City?roads?BOOOO
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:26 AM
I’m not sure what is going on with this project. I know I pay a lot of tier to keep my group’s part of the mainland from becoming a chaotic ugly mess and it appears that a privileged few along with some Lindens get to have fun building a planned community for free. In the case of the builders I assume they are getting paid. Who will own this land when it is done? Will it the only mainland without disfiguring Ad land extortion?
I thought the Public Works was to complete the roads in the rest of the mainland but this feels like total abandonment so the FIC can have a nice mainland area while the rest of us pay through the nose and file AR after AR because of rotating porno signs put up to extort a land sale. Geez you guys…you are living in a world of mirrors.
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:32 AM
This does sound good .
But I must say that maybe speeding up the works needed on the mainland should be high on the list, as this is where people are paying to hold land etc, Sorry to put it down to cash spent but it does make a difference. roads are not usless for travelers, to be able to follow one for a long long distance would be great . Plus they addd to the look of the land beside them .
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:32 AM
w00t! Looking cool. Give it a subway system!
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:24 AM
@ 37…..
I agree with you about reality encroaching on SL. But if you spend a lot of time in clubs, stores, etc., it doesn’t take long to find out that people who have property right next to them, and near them, who are attempting to build non-commercial uses for their property hate being near them. Why? Noise, laggy scripts, and lag from mass avatars crowded into one tiny little area.
So that much of reality is very much a part of the experience we call Second Life. Just as people in reality don’t want these things near them, neither do people in SL, from what I’ve seen in my nearly two years as a resident.
So I thought it would be worth throwing out there as a viable solution to that common complaint, since it does seem to be a big part of life in SL.
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:25 AM
Just been visiting Luna… i see a mega-mall “a la Lindens” style… woohoa… just spotted a Hippiepay machine too!
i love the way things are improving… average looking creations to stuff a sim… wonderful work! 
Kepp it up LL 
(Not…)
BTW… where are those stalls announced or how does one rent there? (Hahah)
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:30 AM
This is some really welcome news. The existing mainland in many, many cases cannot be fixed up without some kind of eminent domain. Mind you, in a lot of cases, the land owners haven’t logged in years, now, and eminent domain after a sufficient notice would be the perect solution and serve them right for their neglect. The New Albion region is one of the few multi-owner areas of the mainland that works, on the whole, so the concept and current residents deserve for it to be expanded and built upon. I can’t wait to sail in the new regions!
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:52 AM
hmmm. id think people would be more inclined to help if they actually got credit for their work. i mean, to do a piece in a way that would give promising new builders a very public display for their talents is a great idea. that would help the lindens get much better caliber work, and give the new people a way to show what they can do. having the creator listed as “mole” is a real shame.
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:01 AM
So this is just for the adult grid? or will this effect the teen grid as well?
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:09 AM
What about existing mainland unpaved roads? Will these be built or forgotten about?
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 AM
see Flopsy McArdle (50)
as we must work ANONYMOUSLY and with a derogatory AV??? !!!!
I assume it is well paid…
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:36 AM
I do hope that the existing mainland will be kept under interest of
Linden Lab. And I do suggest that parcels under 512 would simply
be made impossible. I have read that proposal often on this Blog
and it is an exellent idea.
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 AM
I like this idea. I don’t think I’ll be buying into it, but I’ll be visiting for sure.
I wouldn’t worry about empty lots, whether prim-farmed or skyboxed. Real cities have empty areas… plazas, parks, and so on. Just require that there be a credible build at ground level, whatever it is… whether it’s Hyde Park, the Empire State Building, or something transplanted from Star Trek or Permutation City.
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 AM
Stacey: they’ve started up roadbuilding again.
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 PM
@ Aeper Jie: Seeing as Blue Linden, one of the most active Lindens on the Teen Grid, appears involved in this, I would think that the LDPW is going to be active in some capacity in TSL.
I hope this is the case, being that I’m also on the Teen Grid. It would be exciting to see more Linden involvement in TSL, especially in partnership with the Residents like this.
Go LDPW!
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:54 PM
Do a TG work D:
That way we can have more epic over here!!
Don’t forget us blue!
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:00 PM
While I appreciate the freedom and creativity that SL has to offer, I tend to agree with the idea of a themed sim. Otherwise you end up with a cluster@!*k of crap that exists in so much of the existing mainland; much like the frame of a puzzle with the wrong pieces in the middle. Not kind on the eyes to me. If this project turns out well, perhaps they could focus on different ‘themes’?… space, cave dwellers, gothic…on and on…Anyway, you can’t please everybody all of the time, just glad LL is focusing on some kind of improvement. Go Moles!!!
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:09 PM
The chaos of a city is what is beautiful about a city. I lived in Brooklyn for a long time and what I liked about it was the constant transition from block to block, from the beautiful to the ugly and from the sense of the ugly to the discovery of what is beautiful in the ugly. For this reason, in my virtual life, I moved into a mainland sim rather than buying into a covenant controlled private island. There were adfarms where I put down my roots and a furniture store that was a giant box with almost nothing in it and a beautiful garden/art gallery set up by someone in France who knows when. It reminded me of a real city, developed over time, haphazardly, in ways one would never expect.
The LDPW project sounds good to me in some ways. Linden infrastructure and the mainland was one of the things that appealed to me first about Second Life. I spent my initial weeks just wandering the roads and looking around at what seemed to me to be a great junkyard of the mind, all of the failures and successes heaped atop one another.
All I really want to say here is that we not forget the spirit of the thing and the strangeness of the thing that we have here. We can be miniaturists of a different sort than the historically obsessed model railroader. We can have breezy, unanchored walkways up into the sky and trains that don’t run on any discernible timetable or predictable tracks.
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 PM
Most of the complaint about mainland people have, is solved by buying island sim land with a convenant and sim owner who enforces them. Buying mainland is like buying RL land in an area with no zoning. You have no way to control what is built where which is part of what makes SL fun
Stephe Ehrler
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:22 PM
Interesting map, all those little parcels blocked out. But if you sell ALL of those little colored rectangles to residents, how can you possibly hold back 56% for Linden ownership, to provide double tier? Will some of those spaces remain empty? Or will this be one of the rare double-prim sims?
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:54 PM
Two things I think how this could be successful:
1. In order to fix the mainland I think we’d have to suffer some buyouts of some residents. The US government does this I don’t see why not Linden Lab can’t. This is in order to preserve the landscape and view or perhaps add to it.
2. It needs a lot of public support for it to be workable. Otherwise.. it’ll tank in the end like the rest of the projects. So advertising it every now and then wouldn’t hurt.
Good luck on the project.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:15 PM
Streets would be really nice. But even having no trees on the road parcels would be a start… This should take less time than to spell Akhsharumova which is the name of the sim I’m especially interested in:)
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:04 PM
@62 Max
Count the water sims, add the canals and you should realize that takes care of 56% of the land
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:19 PM
@62 Max Desoto,
I’m pretty sure they are doing a 56%/44% split of the land, such that on the larger, 56% area there are few prims: just some roadways and light infrastructure. Comprising of maybe 1000 prims or so.
That leaves the remaining 14000-odd prims available for ‘double primming’ the parcels of the remaining 44%.
The only drawback is that the larger ‘infrastructure’ area will read like it may have more prims than it should, on its huge parcel in “About Land” - but this is a minor thing. Easily managed with no-build, or just a reasonable autoreturn time so prims aren’t pilfered from the residential parcels due to the simwide 15,000 prim hard limit.
Double primming / parceling is a strategy that works well for themed areas. I’ve adopted it for urban, wilderness and maritime themed environments since early 2007 and never looked back, it’s been so successful.
There are a lot of other handy tricks, like disallowing parcel join/subdivide which maintains the lots and kills microplot nightmares, but hey, it seems from the parcel maps that the team has clearly put a significant amount of thought into this. So I think they will do a home-run on the regional tech details - as for the social details, well, we all struggle with those.
Desmond Shang
Independent State of Caledon
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:28 PM
Again I ask, why moles? Why not an avatar more common ? Most SL avatars seem to unfortunately look like this->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxxy_Love
(chic from Drawn Together)
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:35 PM
Oh you screwed up? Again? Why am i not surprised?
Why is anything you do so amateuristic?
One Year with sl now and my conclusion: You are not able to learn anything. IT people managing the biz…Bad trap. Too bad i am so addicted to the game. But guess what. The first competitor hitting the market is gonna find a new customer in me. And guess who loses one?
Where did Corey go again? I wanna go there too!
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:06 PM
There are two obvious issues I see within the DPW.
First, and probably foremost, is Linden Lab again hears what it wants to hear and disregards the rest. While just about everyone was excited when this project was announced, everyone talked about fixing the roads, the waterways, etc. Instead of listening to what the Community wants, Linden Lab wants to “dazzle” us with a pretty new SIM.
Second, while it’s wonderful to see communities being developed, I would have thought Linden Lab would have learned the lessons from Boardman by now. Building a Community and HAVING a Community is totally different. You can BUILD all you want, but unless well-meaning and passionate people take up the cause, it will fall into disrepair and not be used; much like Boardman became.
It appears that the NEW people at Linden Lab have not paid attention to Second Life History, or they just think they are better then their predecessor’s, but this project is DOOMED to failure because you don’t have the CORE of a Community that will carry this new build forward and wrap itself around it.
You need only look back on previous Communities to see what is needed to survive and grow. First, you need a Community that has vision. A City without Vision is condemned to stagnation without some sort of Vision for it’s future, something all the Residents of that Community reach for, work together to achieve, can hope for. Second, you need a leader who is passionate. Someone that can inspire others, someone that knows the heart of the Community and knows when to push and when to pullback. Third you need people who will commit their time and efforts to the Community. You DO NOT need some outsiders who will come in a BUILD your structures and infrastructures.
If Linden Lab truly wanted Communities to exist on a larger scale, they would need only to pick the most active communities and grant them these new SIM’s, to build for themselves, to build areas that would reach out to the Greater Resident Community, that would be used to further the Communities goals, that would commit to themselves to the Community and work to see it succeeds.
Until Linden Lab learns this lesson, the only thing they are doing is painting pretty pictures on the landscape, that people will oooh and ahh at, but that’s it. Learn from your own HISTORY Linden Lab, Communities can work, the only real thing they need from you is the land on which to build.
We were lucky in the Slate Community that we were able to purchase most of Slate early on, and had members who believed in the common good of the Community when they all donated their land to the group along with their land rights. Most can’t do that anymore, as the cost of land is wildly inflated these days, and only the “richest” people in RL can afford to spend money on a Virtual Land and Virtual Community. Linden Lab, if you want to see Communities make a strong come-back, then please don’t paint the pictures for them, give them the blank canvas and let them paint what they want, and sit back and watch what happens.
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:23 PM
Having spent a great deal of time, effort and L$ to acquire parcels around the convergence of two Linden Protected throughways in Lusca, it is distressing to learn the “roads” effort will NOT be focused in this area. Perhaps LL would swap my current land for land where the roads will be - not on a sq.m. bases, but on a L$ paid basis as I have bought many small parcels as well as several of the ad farm rip-offs (just before the announcement and resulting price collapse). LL could do more to support people trying to fix the mess (like needing only 2 sides to purchase Linden maintenance land vs. 3 - and - priority roads for those owning both sides of the path).
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:40 PM
@ 65 Dekka, you cannot count the water sims, I believe they are the void sims mentioned in the original post; they would have fewer prims to start with than a regular sim. And besides, you cannot share prims across different sims.
@66 Desmond, I do hope they have planned this accordingly, it just doesn’t look like it to the naked eye. Plus they will have to use some prims for that public infrastructure. Oh well, build it, and I will at least come and look at it.
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:07 PM
[...] Linden says that the Linden Department of Public Works has commenced work on their first big project, and offers a bit more information about the [...]
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:31 PM
Miguel: Luna has been there for at least two and a half years, so you’re looking at an old design there. The stalls in Luna are made available by lottery every year.
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:42 PM
Re. #39: “I would however like to make on point and that is this is not the real world do we need roads? do we even need houses? or harbours.”
SL is still also a game. It can be fun to fly, swim, boat, drive, ride, or walk around and see what there is to see. If anything, the existing “roads” are too narrow to get around easily without slamming into a banline or getting bounced by a security bot.
Do we need houses? No. Not everyone puts together a house, or even wants one, but it’s a good way to learn building in SL.
Harbors? They’re one of many themes that some people enjoy working with. It would be interesting to see what could be done with deepwater sims and orbital/deep space sims - appropriate ships are already being built and sold.
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:53 PM
Hooray!! I love this experiment. I hope it turns out beautifully. As a builder, I’m already drooling over that double-prim land.
I hope the no sub-division rules keep out the ads and ad farms. If it is successful, perhaps the old mainland can be slowly reclaimed and converted to the larger plot sizes.
I wholeheartedly agree with Hern in #39! We need more imagination, not more copies of real life junk. So many fanciful, wonderous, lovely things could be made if we weren’t so tied to RL.
I had a lovely grassy road next to my property, and then some well-meaning Linden came along and put an ugly gray road there. At the time the road was built, most of the houses in our sim were mountain cottage type homes. A nice cobblestone or brick road would have been lovely. I can’t think of anything uglier than gray asphalt road. Why o why would we take one of the ugliest things from real life and bring it into SL? Ah well…
Suggestion for public land use — more parks and green spaces.
I have high hopes for Bay City. Good luck!
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:57 PM
@69
My dear Bob, you forget that Linden Lab employees play Second Life just like we do. They manage their estate any way they please. Our option is to deal with another estate owner if we don’t like the way LL operate the Mainland. It’s entertainment for them too; let the children play.
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:12 PM
re: “why roads”;
Go for a walk some day, no telling what amazing things you may discover between the ad farms
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:44 PM
Again re roads in existing mainland. Using the Linden texture I built a road coming off of the public road that goes through Tethea. I frequently see people come tearing down the public road in cars or on motorcycles. Some of them take the turnoff onto my parcel & look around because the roadway matches; they enjoy exploring. PLEASE pave/finish existing mainland roadways because people enjoy touring in cars, bikes etc. Thank you.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:53 PM
My suggestion: If all the people in a sim want roads, and they come to you requesting roads, please put them in or let the people in the sim who want them put them in.
My corollary suggestion: If you are residents in such a sim, ask them to let you put roads in.
coco
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 PM
When will those who applied know if they were successful or not - and will you break with Linden tradition and actually have the courtesy to tell those that weren’t, rather than just binning their applications?
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:20 PM
Cocoanut;
we have asked and asked and asked, LL: “when we get to it”
I have built roads using my own prims, and putting a transparent root on my land!
February 24th, 2008 at 2:27 AM
I also see this as an about-face. First we were promised PUBLIC WORKS and now it’s PRIVATE LINDEN CITY BUILDING.
Leave building cities up to sim owners and residents. Fix the roads and parks and clean up the mainland’s PUBLIC SPACE. Enough room for creativity there.
February 24th, 2008 at 2:47 AM
I have done the same as Shug and build a road river in Numbat till it was removed by a linden. Even thou several residents liked it and one with road side land let be use a root prim on her land.
I think that not being able to make smaller arias is helpful at all rather it be a pest. I use 16^2m to make TP hubs and pointers on my land. However, a ban on selling land that is smaller then 512^2m will do exactly what we want. Preventing bill board hell.
Maybe a good start would be to have a directive on a billboard. Small ones that are low to the ground with no sexual content would help. No I don’t have a billboard company but a sign for my night club is a billboard too. Not sure many shops and clubs realise that.
February 24th, 2008 at 5:08 AM
If people get fed-up and abandon their lands - who benefits? Perhaps LL should pay one-half the average land price to those who abandon from now on… You know the saying about throwing good money after bad… I have 20K of land now. Wonder what I could get if I tried to sell after this news. Also - I filed an abuse against MGK billboards. Took my 8K - no ads… No ads, no customers - closed the business… Take MGK’s land and auction it - and give me my 8K back.
February 24th, 2008 at 5:27 AM
The way to get rid of billboard hell is to get http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1017 implemented.
If their victims could mute ad-farmer’s billboards by parcel or owner for everyone on their land, how long would they keep being able to pull games like that?
Fish: sorry to hear about the roads in Numbat. I liked the river. I wonder who complained? If nobody complained, they should just leave things be until they’re ready to finish the job.
February 24th, 2008 at 5:51 AM
@81 and 83:
Yup. You bet the lindens remove them. Yet, we have a call to residents to join this “LDPW” fiasco to - ostensibly - build roads. You have the prims and the textures, and the permission and yea, approval of your fellow sim residents, you build a nice road and they remove it.
I’d like you, BLUE, to respond to this conundrum. Let’s see what a real live Linden has to say about resident-built roads. I can give you the slurl for a spot in which Michael Linden built a road in the sim I own land in and STOPPED.
I’m going to this Bay City place just to make fun of the “moles”.
February 24th, 2008 at 6:14 AM
Mole people have always lived under the grid. How are they going to stand the light of day?
I think the Hippos will eat them all for breakfast.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:21 AM
Thanks for heads-up re: broken links, I fixed them!
February 24th, 2008 at 7:35 AM
ha ha Those blinders must be made of megaprims.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:40 AM
/me rips the megaprim blinders off
The “End of The Road”, as it were:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cipactli/238/45/72
Send me a mole will ya
February 24th, 2008 at 7:58 AM
hmmm….
Roads mean a given theme or way of life: imitating occidental way of life.
After all, whose who want that are free to do so, as much as we are free to live into sims with no roads, or flowers and forests instead.
But the point is, why the Lindens would help a given way of life or theme, and not the others? Why only roads? Could you not build foot paths, paved roads, flight paths, sailing roads, silk roads, channels, forests, flowers, rocks, wadis, stargates, spaceship roads, tunnels, caves, swamps, dune fields, wood paths, railways, roman tracks, and any other thing you would be welcome to build in places where people pay $295 a month in place of $195.
Remember that There.com is nearby out of the game, now. Find the mistake.
February 24th, 2008 at 8:31 AM
Anyone ever calculate the person-hours required to create roads for all sims?
February 24th, 2008 at 9:06 AM
Will you also do something about the old mainland or will this be ignored? Seeing the common way you handle thing it will probably be the last.
The mainland is full of adfarms but who cares? when will we get the post of how to abuse report them? or is that cancelled all of a sudden?
February 24th, 2008 at 12:06 PM
Two days ago (22nd Feb) I saw slums in SL whose bill-boarded mess would have disgraced anything seen anywhere in RL.
Until you (LL? Board of Works?) effectively tackles all of these, the