Announcing changes to the Openspace product
Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 4:45 PM by: Jack LindenFor some time now we have been selling a low prim island type to existing island owners called Openspaces (often called void sims by Residents).
This blog post is to announce some important changes to Openspaces..
What is an Openspace?
An Openspace is a type of private island intended for light use countryside or ocean. Unlike normal regions that effectively get a CPU to themselves on the server, there can be up to four Openspaces on a single CPU, sharing the resource (hence them being ‘light use’).
So what is changing?
Openspaces will no longer have to be purchased in sets of four at a time, as they have been so far. They can be bought singly, for a setup fee of USD$415 followed by a fee of USD$75 per month.
All other island services are therefore available for single Openspace regions, at the usual region rates, and Openspaces will no longer have to be placed together on the grid, they can be placed apart.
To purchase an Openspace region you will still need to own a normal island already, however you will not have to anchor your Openspace to that region, it can be placed wherever you would normally be able to place an island.
Finally, we are going to increase the prim count for Openspaces. They will become exactly a quarter of the normal 15000 prim limit for a region, so they will be set at 3750 (to date they have been limited to 1875 prims).
How does this affect existing owners of Openspaces?
The main changes will be that your monthly fee will rise very slightly from USD$73.75 each to USD$75. If you purchased your Openspaces at the lower rate of USD$48.75 each your fee will rise to USD$50.00
However your prim limit for each Openspace will double to the new level of 3750.
Prices for educators and non-profit organisations will remain unchanged.
Changes to current Openspace pricing will take place no sooner than March 31st, although it is likely that the increase in prim limits will happen before then. When this happens your Openspace region will be disabled briefly then come back up in a similar way to rolling restarts.
When does this take effect?
Openspaces ordered from this point on will be charged at the new rate, and will have the new prim limit on delivery.
If you purchased Openspaces from us in the last 60 days, and are unhappy at having had to buy a set of four, please contact the Concierge team who can arrange partial refunds in exchange for taking back those Openspaces that you do not require. This only applies for those that purchased their set of Openspaces on or after 7th January 2008.
How do you buy Openspaces?
Although the new Land Store that we are currently developing will allow Openspaces to be bought in the same way that normal regions are, the current Land Store does not support them. So until then you can order them by filing a concierge support ticket through the support portal that lists the region name, estate name plus the terrain and placement details.
March 7th, 2008 at 4:54 PM
A clarification please: what are the rules for server-assignments of voids with the new single-availability? Say I buy one; before the 4 I had to buy would be running on the same server, will the one I buy now be assigned a single server waiting for me to buy 3 more (in the same estate)?
March 7th, 2008 at 4:56 PM
This is great and I suppose theoretically It could open up inter-continental sailing. Fantastic idea.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:00 PM
And another clarification please: will you still offer converting 4 voids back to a full sim running on a dedicated server?
March 7th, 2008 at 5:07 PM
@1,3 Islands are not bound to servers, you can have a set of 4 openspaces that belong to you running on 4 different servers. A full region does not run on a dedicated server, only a single CPU. There are 4 CPU’s per server (class 4 & 5). Do the math from there (4 openspaces x 4 CPU’s = 16 openspaces per server) and nothing is bound to a specific piece of hardware.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:09 PM
Woot This is cool!
March 7th, 2008 at 5:09 PM
ChatNoir: They never ran on the same server, even when you had to get four at a time.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:09 PM
@ChatNoir
Excellent question. I suspect that they will be pooled with other OpenSpace owners. Which essentially means that you, owning only one, are at the mercy of whatever scripts are running on the other three…
Can you confirm this Jack? If I’m right it sounds a bit scary, especially since we will have no way to know who we are sharing resources with.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:18 PM
Woah! Nice!
I expect that this will actually probably double the sim count in SL rather rapidly! I hope your opening up new map space for the expansion!!
March 7th, 2008 at 5:28 PM
Dear Jack,
Thank you for annoucing the Openspace changes, perhaps in the near future, would it be possible for Residents to purcahse an Openspace island (independently) without owning a normal island?
Thinking out loud, but Linden could include Resident Openspace islands attached to the primary Linden island then the average Resident could play estate manager also..or something to this effect.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:51 PM
An interesting development. Question is now what I should do about my renters renting openspaces. Suddenly they have a lot more prims than we originally agreed on. Good for them, I suppose, a quandry for me as Landlord.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:06 PM
Great news for Estate Owners! What about owners of Mainland who would love to own one of these mini-estates? Cheroville has a nice ring to it! {:o)
March 7th, 2008 at 6:16 PM
More options is good! Why even tag them to main islands?
Give the people private islands that only hold 5 or 6 avs and 2000 prims on the cheep. Sell like hotcakes.
Wonder how hard it would be to increase the size of a sim to 512M while using the same slice of CPU and use limits?
A single 512m sim using the same CPU as a C5 sim or 4 void sims. WIth the same 15000 prim limit and 100 avatar limit.
I would pay a small premium for a sim with current resources that was 512M. mmm race track
March 7th, 2008 at 6:17 PM
sweet.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:21 PM
This is absolutely fantastic. Bravo Linden Labs!!! Thanks and if I did not say “thanks”… Merci Beaucoup! Bisous..
March 7th, 2008 at 6:29 PM
I was completely going bug-eyed over this until I saw the bit about having to own a normal island first. Damn. I would so swap my $75/month tier for $75/month of my own island. Maybe even two. But I can’t do $295 for a full island.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:34 PM
This is definately gonna make openspace island covenant sales go through the roof. I just hope that greedy landlords don’t abuse this by going up to extreme prices, especially when there is less than a 2 USD increase for them.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:39 PM
WOOOOOT! I always liked the space, but not paying full tier on half the prims (with four). This is VERY good new for me!
Way to listen up, LLs!
March 7th, 2008 at 6:53 PM
Thank you Linden Research!
And Andrew especially - thank you.
Desmond Shang
Independent State of Caledon
March 7th, 2008 at 6:58 PM
This is a wonderful idea.
March 7th, 2008 at 7:03 PM
And here I was just considering adding another 4-pack of openspace sims. The increase in prims is fantastic. The price increase is negligible, I won’t be passing that on to my residents, I am sure they will be as happy for the ‘free’ prim increase as I am. Thank you Linden Lab!
Now a question - you say that this will take effect no sooner than March 31st but at the end you say that for now we can place orders by doing a support ticket — does this mean we can’t place the support ticket orders till March 31st, or if we place those orders now, we shouldn’t expect delivery till after March 31st, or… ? Just a little clarification request. Thanks again!
March 7th, 2008 at 7:03 PM
can we state the fact that island owners are renting these islands to residents at way high prices and making a bad environment for new residents in SL when we need more payment on file contributing people in SL they will leave or just chat and camp when they find how ripped off they got…
March 7th, 2008 at 7:08 PM
Oops my bad - I think I misread things and thought that nothing was changing till March 31st. Sorry - combination of tired at the end of the week, and excited by the blog entry
So we can place orders right away, by the looks of it! Great!
(Apologies for the double post.)
March 7th, 2008 at 7:48 PM
THANKYOU!
March 7th, 2008 at 7:51 PM
This is fantastic news.
Thank you Linden Lab.
March 7th, 2008 at 7:52 PM
sounds like we will be getting 4 times as much space for the same amount of money and prims.
can we convert regular sims to open space sims now? how much does that cost again?
March 7th, 2008 at 7:57 PM
Why do we have to own a regular estate to be eligible to purchase an openspace sim?
March 7th, 2008 at 9:14 PM
I’m considering to buy an openspace sim…. but i won’t until a technical matter will be explained (and assured) by Linden lab… if i may have *sure* explanation by Concierge (if they know technically) plz lemme know. The “issue” with openspace sims is explained here:
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=245053
March 7th, 2008 at 9:24 PM
Sweet, I happen to be living in an OpenSpace sim! Thanks for doubling the prims, it was unexpected but very cool : )
March 7th, 2008 at 10:02 PM
WOW Jack. Your on a roll !!
First making sense of Player to Player Island transfers and now ..
We are no longer shortchanged on prim allowance for 1/4 prim sims and can purchase one at a time !!
That gives us estate owners food for thought as to how to handle this.
Great work
March 7th, 2008 at 10:03 PM
Good grief, MORE good news?
I’m all over this.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:18 PM
oh, Buckaroo and Khamon … i feel your pain. but it’s just marketing - a little incentive for those who have money to spend more. the rest of us just have to hope that those who do buy the open sims will create beautiful things for all of us to enjoy!
March 7th, 2008 at 11:44 PM
This really is great news! I always had 2 main problems with Open Space:
1) having to pay 1/4 of the money and only getting 1/8 of the prims
2) can’t have them as stand alone SIM.
Both problems solved! Thank you very much!
March 7th, 2008 at 11:51 PM
One question: how much will moving an “old” Open Space SIM to a standalone location cost?
March 8th, 2008 at 12:07 AM
Now I’ll buy single open sims to attatch to my others, so people can sail, it seemed such a poor deal to pay full whack for 4 open sims and only get approx 1/2 the number of prims.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:21 AM
Cool, I can’t wait till I can buy an open space sim without buying an island, fould be cool and cheaper than buying 1/4 sim
March 8th, 2008 at 2:53 AM
Hi LL, this is fantastic news! Thank you and may all of you have a great weekend!
March 8th, 2008 at 3:57 AM
Yeah and not so yeah - great news about the new rules I had wanted 6 so ended up with 4 as could not justify 8 . Now I can get those extra 2 - best start thinking up some more names. The not so yeah (well ish) is those 4 were just delivered yesterday, how annoying is that
and are still under the old rules but at least I can look forward to the upgrade within the next couple of weeks.
Thanks LL
March 8th, 2008 at 4:33 AM
Just yesterday I was whinging again how those should have 1/4 the number of prims of normal sims and I wake up to this. Love you, Lindens!
PS. I wonder what to wish for next… Oh, I miss the CTRL + E shortcut for the environment editor. I have no idea why you ever took that out!
March 8th, 2008 at 5:06 AM
@38 “PS. I wonder what to wish for next… Oh, I miss the CTRL + E shortcut for the environment editor. I have no idea why you ever took that out” Because a large proportion of LL’s income is in Euros, for which that is the keyboard shortcut.
March 8th, 2008 at 5:13 AM
This is great news, I am already planning my purchase, but I could not justify the full four and possibly could not even have fitted the four in unless neighbours gave permission. That permission is why this might not allow sailing to take place. Maybe a technical LL answer on whether allowing someone to have their island bordering yours can lead to a reduction in your own island.
March 8th, 2008 at 5:46 AM
very bad for people owning mainland, they are now way screwed.
you get 4 times as much land with same prims for the money and much prettier, it would be nice to make it available to all residents and not only the rich.
March 8th, 2008 at 7:28 AM
omg this is amazing! I want one lol.
March 8th, 2008 at 7:43 AM
[...] this announcement, I would own Slate and an openspace sim. Only they won’t let Mainland sim owners purchase an [...]
March 8th, 2008 at 7:50 AM
omg this is amazing! I want one lol. how many residents can it handle? Can I have a party there?
March 8th, 2008 at 8:10 AM
Excellent! I see some expansion coming my way soon!
March 8th, 2008 at 9:04 AM
Awesome! 1000 more poseballs! W00t!
March 8th, 2008 at 9:52 AM
Jack and Linden Research,
Thanks to all of you for this wonderful news.
Alliez Mysterio
dAlliez Estates
March 8th, 2008 at 10:09 AM
I would like to ask the same question as Khamon: Why do I need to own a full Island before getting the chance to puchase an Openspace sim? This sounds like the opportunity I have been waiting for for four years except for that little detail.
March 8th, 2008 at 10:12 AM
DOUBLE prims! YAY!! /me does major happy dance. I love my void sim (helps that I have one of the best landlords in SL
and that has ever been my only complaint is the # of prims I have to play with. (It doesn’t help that the RELIC pirate ship I have for a house takes up 888 of those prims, and that’s before furnishing it, LOL. But it’s SO worth it.) THANK YOU LL!!! I might have to buy another void now. Sailing around on open water is a lot of fun. 
March 8th, 2008 at 10:23 AM
This is pretty great for estate owners. Thanks!
March 8th, 2008 at 10:27 AM
Oh… we REALLY need that new land store ASAP, please?
March 8th, 2008 at 10:48 AM
Brilliant news!!! Well done!!! I’ve been whinging abt the prim reduction for months on open spaces - really made no sense … seems someone heard me :)))
Now … if islands weren’t so expensive, the grid would grow something awesome.
March 8th, 2008 at 12:20 PM
I agree with several of the other comments: make Openspace sims available without the requirement of owning a standard sim.
P2
March 8th, 2008 at 12:34 PM
I totally agree.
Why do you need to own a normal sim before buying an openspace sim?
Are you afraid no one will buy normal sims?
March 8th, 2008 at 1:47 PM
Way to Go Jack
At least some good news 
This measure will enable some of my projects that have been “on wait”
Moreover, I completely agree with the policy of having to own a “full” island as a ticket to the Club.
All the Best
March 8th, 2008 at 2:14 PM
For all of us current, non-island owners, cozy up to your estate owning friends and see if they will let you purchase one through their account
I sure am.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:19 PM
And the people that have bought the OPEN-SPACES in the last 30 days will be getting a refund; right?
Oh wait, how silly of me to suggest you do something in the best interest of your customer.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:40 PM
‘If you purchased Openspaces from us in the last 60 days, and are unhappy at having had to buy a set of four, please contact the Concierge team who can arrange partial refunds in exchange for taking back those Openspaces that you do not require. This only applies for those that purchased their set of Openspaces on or after 7th January 2008.’
Which part of the above did you not understand Bob? Seems that in your eagerness to get a dig in you shot yourself in the foot!
March 8th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
Yup, shot myself this time.
It was bound to happen eventually. But don’t worry, one time wrong in a hundred still leaves me with a better operating percentage then Linden Lab has had all year.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:11 PM
I wonder if Linden Labs is going to start auctioning off mainland openspace sims next…
March 8th, 2008 at 4:17 PM
Where the hell have you been Bob?
March 8th, 2008 at 4:50 PM
Bob is taking a sabbatical from Second Life before I decide to throw in the towel.
Linden Lab is still not listening to the Customer, still can’t fix anything, and continues to fall short of an appropriate customer support system.
Quite frankly, why am I not just quitting?
March 8th, 2008 at 5:17 PM
[...] Labs FINALLY announced a more reasonable open-sim policy which will help Los Arboles develop its second sim, a space for surf, sailing and more trees!!! A [...]
March 8th, 2008 at 6:02 PM
Nice! I agree.. why force a full island first? Let us order open space sims without that restriction please.
Estate owners.. please don’t consider charging more than the already high prices i have seen. At $75 tier why do so many charge $100+ per month and $500+ for the land. Its not like it takes *that* much extra effort and the risk of having to buy 4 at a time is now over. We should see tier come DOWN, not go up.
March 8th, 2008 at 6:59 PM
i lower my initals for that present ..
… LL thats a hellofa Job ..
wORDFROMTHE wISE
.. and btw. some people can switch off some Rezzboxes now ..
for a less laggier future ..
March 8th, 2008 at 7:36 PM
Bob Bunderfeld, because SL isn’t just about Linden Labs, it’s about the people who live here. Maybe the Linden’s have god powers but they are not God. This new world needs people who care.
March 8th, 2008 at 7:48 PM
[...] Click para más información [...]
March 8th, 2008 at 8:07 PM
Why on earth is this limited to people who already own an island?
This is terribly discouraging. Maybe it’s time I sold my land and got out of this.
coco
March 8th, 2008 at 8:36 PM
I’m gonna echo a lot of the comments made hear already and flat out state that if these new Openspace sims were to be made available for purchase without needing to own an island already….I’d buy one.
Though now I’m wondering if I can have someone who DOES own a island purchase one…then transfer it to me……
March 9th, 2008 at 12:11 AM
I suspect that the requirement to already own a regular region is something to do with how the accounts system is set up. Effectively, Openspaces are a kind of “region lite”, and I suspect that there’s no easy way of creating a “lightweight” Concierge. The system probably demands a regular region be associated with an estate owner, and barfs if there isn’t one.
Which is obviously a damn shame, since I too would like to be able to purchase an Openspace isle of my own… but can’t afford a full-blown region on my salary.
Hopefully the Lab has noticed that there are non-estate owners interested in Openspaces, and will move to make them available to anyone who can foot the bill. Eventually.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:13 AM
Yes it is a shame that those of us who can not afford there 295.00 a month tier or there 1600.00 buy price can not purchase one of these small sims. i went looking the other day and found a nice little 65k with 1875 prim. but the person wanted 150.00 usd a month and a buy price of 120k lindens. I would so be getting one of these smaller voids if you offered it, but I can not get a big 1600.00 usd sim. so little food for thought void sims will sell and so will the big ones. Time to open up the land market and flood it so everybody can get in on the island owning. more $$$ for your pockets lindens. ^.^
March 9th, 2008 at 1:50 AM
Screwed again it seems by *the system* so why didnt LL sort *the system* out so all could buy such sims.
Mainland and not enough income to even dream of owning an Island seems I am screwed again and to top it I get charged 17.5 % more than the rest just for the pleasure *not* of living in the over taxed and underprivelidged UK.
Talk about kicking mainland landowners in the nethers! Nice one LL I suppose I have to start a business, rip people off to get rich so I can afford some space then do I?
March 9th, 2008 at 1:53 AM
Oh and by the way, 33600 ppl online and its running sh@t as usual
March 9th, 2008 at 4:33 AM
Please, please, please make this available to people who dont own an island as well?
March 9th, 2008 at 7:26 AM
Another vote for removing the requirement to own a full island. I know a number of people who would love more land but don’t need the prims - and the high price involved.
I’m assuming that it could be part of the cost of providing a concierge service, which is probably covered in the $295 region but would not be in a $75 island.
Having said that, what you consider ‘concierge’ service is ’standard’ access customer service to paying users in other games, so perhaps that is something that needs looking at too?
Thank you Linden Lab for listening so far - now if you can only just listen to this one little request for removing a small hurdle, you can make a lot of people very, very happy. Just think how much the grid can grow because many people want to own more land but the cost is the hurdle - let creativity and non-commercial activity loose and you’ll really begin to see the potential that your residents have in making things, rather than the boxy cookiecutter malls and rentals where beauty is sacrificed for profit.
March 9th, 2008 at 7:42 AM
I also vote for allowing the purchase of an Open Space sim without owning a full 15k prim estate. I have owned full sims but the time and financial commitment is too much and I sold. I would snap up an open space sim even paying a slight premium over what full estate owners pay. Please LL, make these available to everyone!
March 9th, 2008 at 10:22 AM
[quote]So until then you can order them by filing a concierge support ticket through the support portal that lists the region name, estate name plus the terrain and placement details.[/quote]
How do you go about ordering such a sim when you’re not concierge level? Cause I’d like to get one for SLCI. thanks..
March 9th, 2008 at 10:23 AM
I agree on making the openspace sims available to everyone, a full regular sim is just TOO EXPENSIVE, period… - i would buy an openspace up in a second - instead, i am considering selling all my mainland space and giving up on owning land in sl cause the neighbors have made the area look like crap - I made a really nice build and it is just ruined by the surrounding butt-ugliness of the rest of the sim - I WANT MY OWN SIM! GIMMIE! GIMMIE! GIMMIE! - please?
March 9th, 2008 at 10:41 AM
LINDEN LABS - U WANNA MAKE A QUICK $400? - SELL ME AN OPENSPACE SIM! -I promise to make it look like nothing in sl, arnt u tired of new residents coming into second life and leaving because it looks like some downtown Los Angeles strip mall? -make openspaces available to everyone and sl will start to look like a place someone would want to go instead of the vomit inducing place 90% of it is now….
March 9th, 2008 at 10:59 AM
@12 Les: sim dimensions over 256×256 would break a lot of content… scripts that assume a max of 256 for x and y.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:25 AM
So does this advice from 2006 on void sims still hold?
“It is therefore important to understand what these regions are; they are provided for light use only, not for building, living in, renting as homes or use for events. As a stretch of open water for boating or a scenic wooded area they are fine, but we do not advise more serious use than this and will not respond to performance issues reported should you not use them in this way.”
March 9th, 2008 at 11:50 AM
Forgive me for posting twice on the same blog entry; I have never before done that. But:
1. I would like to hear from a Linden why a person must already own an island to buy one of these - not from another resident thinking he knows the answer why and helpfully providing it for them. That does not close the issue.
2. I’d like to point out that you CAN be eligible for concierge service and be on the mainland, and even without owning a whole mainland sim. All you have to do is pay $125 or more in tier fees.
3. I would also like the answer to Jen’s post number 81.
4. What is the reason why only people who already own an island can purchase one of these openspace sims?
Surely there is a good and valid reason for it that doesn’t revolve around, “Well, it will save us five minutes of work that way,” or, “We don’t like mainland people anyhow,” or, “We want this to be available only to people wealthy enough to afford an island in the first place, because we believe it is right and just that the rich get richer and the poor get the short end of the stick.”
Even an answer such as, “We won’t make enough money from this unless each person is also buying a full, regular sim from us” would be a better answer.
coco
March 9th, 2008 at 11:51 AM
Argent, yeah. Some things would break, and more things would become possible. I don’t think it would slow me down a second if it was possible to order one.
Give me a Havok4 512m sim running mono. If nothing works i’ll build new stuff
March 9th, 2008 at 11:53 AM
I just asked Concierge — good news, thank you LL!
Jen_Shikami: I mean, I understand that it’s still sharing 1/4 of a server… but is the performance now basically like one region spread over 4x the space?
TJ: Essentially- it has 1/4 the prims, and can handle about 1/4 the load of a normal sim
Jen_Shikami: Excellent! That’s how I’d hoped they would always be.
Thank you for the information!
March 9th, 2008 at 12:34 PM
Two things…
1) I can see why they want to limit to current Sim owners at the moment. They are making three major changes as is: a) detached from ‘parent’ region, b) dont have to order 4, c) double the prims
So I can see that they want to observe how this goes before opening the floodgates. Know that in a week there will be backlog as people get hip to this and start pinging their sim-owning friends. Believe it, mon!
2) Load Balancing! It’s one thing to have 4 Sims on one physical machine that are all under the domain of one owner. Now that changes. What happens when you have 3 truly light users, but a 4th that is running lots of heavyweight scripts. How much impact will that have on the other 3 islands sharing the same machine?
That’s going to be an interesting one.. who are your 3 ‘neighbors’, and can the actions on their islands affect you?
March 9th, 2008 at 1:19 PM
I too want to chime in and add my vote to open this up to at least to all premium members. I am more than sure they would sell like hotcakes
Give the ‘lil guy a break too hows about??
March 9th, 2008 at 2:29 PM
@85: The 4 open space SIMs from an old 4pack didn’t share the same server, so this always was a possible problem.
March 9th, 2008 at 4:01 PM
A good thumbs up for the listed changes. I’m sure those who are allowed to own one will be happy.
Complete and utter thumbs down for continuing the elitist “must own an island” attachment to this. Once again premium account holders (yes, even concierge level ones) get kicked in the teeth while private island holders get ALL the options. Thanks LL…
March 10th, 2008 at 1:46 AM
I think this is a great idea, sometimes you don’t need (or you can’t afford) a full sim and the monthly tier of it. This is a good way people can have a full sim, with all the estate owner powers and not having to spend BIG money.
The solution will be perfect for medium size business.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:47 AM
@Zed, if I bought an openspace region and sold it on to you, I would definitely charge you 500+ for it. Once Irish VAT of 21% is added it costs me 505USD. My tier would probably have to be near 100 as I would be paying LL 90.75USD per month.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:25 AM
Can anyone tell me - if one of these open sims is brought by a private island owner can they then sell it to a premium member as a single sim - and how would that affect tier (for example I already own the equivalent of a sim in mainland - paying $195 USD pm - would my tier go up by the $75 for the open sim or by $125 as the rest of the tier is mainland) ?
Like others, I would love one of these open sims to expand my rental operation but can not afford the cost of a full sim 1st. Hence the question about buying one from an existing private island owner.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:26 AM
If this was opened up to all premium account holders, as many people are asking, would a significant number of people who hold large chunks of mainland abandon the mainland for the opportunity to own their own sim? If one of these is equivalent to 1/4 regular sim, I would think people who own 1/4 of a mainland sim or more may want to jump ship and have an island of their own, where they could completely control access and their view.
If the ‘anchors’ of mainland sims abandon the mainland for their own islands, would the mainland become a vast and worthless wasteland of scattered small plots (for the poor people who can’t afford $75 in tier a month) and adfarms?
If LL wants to give more power to the estate owners, and spend less time investigating various abuses, having tons of “mini-estates” with individuals each owning their own void sims would be a good way to do that. However, I fear the mainland would become even more of a mess than it already is.
March 10th, 2008 at 6:59 AM
@91 No, you can’t own such a SIM without owning a full prim one, so you can’t transfer a “used” one to someone who doesn’t fit this requirement.
@92 Yes, that is something I would expect about mainland too. In the end, mainland as we know it now would only be for those who can only afford smaller parcels. Very messy, even more than now.
March 10th, 2008 at 7:32 AM
@92 “the poor people who can’t afford $75 in tier a month” it’s not the tier, with 65k+ of mainland I passed that a long while ago. It’s the $1600+ set up costs and the $295 per month needed for the full sim. My partner and I already have too much invested with nearly 3 mainland sims between us to jump ship but the idea of an open space sim for $75 per month is very attractive.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:24 AM
Lets see if I understand this correctly…
Originally void sims were created to allow existing estate owners additional land for recreational and/or landscaping features. One had to simply purchase 4 (in a pack) and join them to an
existing sim ….. this is understandable as these are “low performance” sims which is intended on “light use” and add value to current estates.
With this announcement it appears these sims have enough resources to perform reliably as a standalone sim. Surely they are not “full sims …we all know this. But since the prerequisite of not having to attach them to an existing estate is now removed, why keep these sims strictly for current estate owners only? It just doesn’t make any sense for those of us who have enough disposable income to own one (or two) of these sims but don’t want to commit $295/month in tiers. There appears to be no middle ground here and a lack of understanding.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:34 PM
This is cash cow in waiting if hand is played right.
March 10th, 2008 at 7:58 PM
Please, please LL. Make this available to people who do not currently own an island. I’ve owned two islands in the past, and gave them up due to first life financial hardships, but I can tell you truly that I would be willing to buy 2 of these babies within the next 2-3 months if you would lift that restriction.
*makes puppy dog eyes*
Please?
March 11th, 2008 at 12:49 AM
I have mixed feelings about this, first, its awesome to have the extra prims available, but since these will be running 16 to a server Im concerned about the effect on connected regions. As Windlite estates is designed for intra-sim sailing and, even at 1875, crossing a sim border can be treacherous, what does doubling the prim count do ?
My second concern is that if these are EVER sold individually, without the requirement for a standard sim first, as suggested by someone above, it will decimate the investment by many landlords, including myself.
My existing tenants will bolt in favor of buying their own sim, and I will be left with empty sims that will have to be relegated to commercial use. Instead of building a sailing community for everyone to enjoy.
Where was the discussion of this so we can make informed decisions while spending thousands of dollars a month on full prim islands? and is this discussion ongoing anywhere that I can have a look at it, see where its going from here?
March 11th, 2008 at 1:25 AM
98@
My second concern is that if these are EVER sold individually, without the requirement for a standard sim first, as suggested by someone above, it will decimate the investment by many landlords, including myself.
Um, This is why I have not bought anything or rented anything. Because of land prices being over what they should be. Landlords and land sellers really should think about the ones like myself who are unable to get things because of price guouing (ie: 65k sim with 1874 prims for 120k and 95.00 us a month for tier) There is no way that the majority of us who love sl can afford that.
March 11th, 2008 at 6:54 AM
@99 That sounds high, but I wouldnt call it gouging, I do see gouging at much higher rates But then its more then you have to pay, if you look. personally i sell water sims for much less then that atm, $250 + $96/mo, with the proviso that water is a shared resource and that it cannot be sold for more then i sell it for.
Now if you are saying the monthly tier is the problem, then you need a lesson in economics
March 11th, 2008 at 9:22 AM
I say you should be able to buy an open space island without the need of a standard island. I know the concerns of the landlords of standard islands but I cant afford a standard island and tier on a standard is usually not something I wish to pay. Yes you need to re-coup your tier and make some profit off of it, but I want and island of my own and want it to be something I can afford. I dont even care if it comes with concierge level support. Maybe thats a way to make it so regular island customer are protected.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:03 AM
Sweet move, now if you will drop the 295 tier on Class 5 Sims to 250 a month and charge the 195 tiers 250. you really level the playing field.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:00 PM
WOW THIS IS SUPER :)))
I own this kind of low-prim land and will go from 937 to 1875 prims ???
I can hardly believe it. Best present I had ever :))
THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU LINDEN.
My Estate owner has already told me that she he will not change the prices
on us.
THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU DA…….
(swallowed that as I am not allowed to advertise here lol)
I am very very happy with this :))
March 11th, 2008 at 8:25 PM
Why not offer it to people who pay over a certain amount in land tier direct to LL such as people who own half a mainland sim or above as well as the owners of private islands
March 11th, 2008 at 9:52 PM
@81 They are indeed light usage sims. When running lots of scripts, responmding to lots of events, delivering data to lots of avatars, they lag more easily because they are running 16 to a quad core server, where fullprim sims run 4 to a server.
Of course they have a lesser prim allowance, but prims, once rezzed, dont really increase the load on the server very much, scripts do, in particular things like collision events and vehicles tearing across a sim border.
That said a person can live on them just fine if you treat them with respect and dont expect them to perform like a full prim sim that has the attemtion of the cpu all to itself. The best result is to put out a few trees, cut out a nice cove, build a shack with a dock and sail, slowly
March 11th, 2008 at 10:05 PM
@85 thats already the case. the low prim sims, bought as a 4pack or not, do not share a server, and since they DO share a cpu, with no real control over how the resources are divied up between them, one hog of a sim can/will/does affect your sims performance. It’s water. it’s trees. it’s one guy and a friend.
Make that 4 people and a physical ball to kick around (tried it) and your fps drops from 44 to 9. Havok4 should help. Reminds me… can I have a havok4 with that 4pack please?
March 12th, 2008 at 11:24 AM
I suppose this is going to round off the list sans any further comment from a Linden Lab employee.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:37 PM
[...] All these comments, and not one Linden response among them. wait Am I in the wrong thread? __________________ "I think the cutting is my favorite part of writing, so I find it hard to imagine writing anything very long." - Jack Pendarvis Don’t Throck the Khamon [...]
March 13th, 2008 at 1:20 AM
Cash Cow *~Moos~*
March 16th, 2008 at 12:18 PM
GREAT improvement guys and gals! Thank you very much for this. ^^
March 17th, 2008 at 5:16 AM
[...] or at least know an estate owner who would do it for you and lease it to you at cost. ———— Announcing changes to the Openspace product Official Second Life Blog What is an Openspace? An Openspace is a type of private island intended for light use countryside [...]
March 20th, 2008 at 4:28 PM
This is awsome news. thank you very much. good work Lindens. this is good news.
March 29th, 2008 at 5:44 PM
…good news…but excuse me for missing this, but did LL respond to these questions? and if so where are the responses posted??
March 29th, 2008 at 8:05 PM
This is great for a feeling of open areas like it was intended but I have already seen the consequences of what many folks are doing in these sims, packing them full, selling/renting like normal sims but with less prim totals.
Script lag is horrendous, and many renters dont understand why there scripted items are running poorly. Some dont even know what “normal” feels like with scripts.
Ive seen this effect first hand on what appears to be a nicely spread out estate on an open space sim. The effects of either loading from 1 or more of the “other 3″ sims, or “time slicing”, I dont know which, was bogging that sim WAY down for a running scripts. You couldnt tell walking around as the load was clearly affecting only scripts.
REMEMBER… this is supposed to be for open space and asthetics… not loading them up with renters, malls, etc… Even if the prim count is reduced people will still load up on scripted itmes.
-Phid
April 28th, 2008 at 8:12 AM
I would like to know, please, if anyone that has an Openspace SIM had any feedback on performance.
I am planning to share a Openspace SIM with 3 friends, and I understand that we need also to be worried about the other 3 Openspace SIMs that are running on the same CPU as we do not have control over the other owners.
I understood by the previous replies:
Server (Hardware) : 4 CPUS
4 Openspace SIM runs on one single CPU
Thanks,
May 7th, 2008 at 7:25 AM
[...] 1000USD to buy it will be 500.. Its a rumour but pretty interesting to wait for perhaps.. [EDIT] Announcing changes to the Openspace product Official Second Life Blog Official info about openspace sim’s ATM. __________________ Rastafariah stand’s [...]
July 8th, 2008 at 11:35 AM
[...] 44.2% over Q1 to just over 1.5 billion square meters. Our growth was due to the popularity of our newly launched “Openspace” land product along with a change in pricing to make the purchase of land more accessible to first time buyers. [...]
July 8th, 2008 at 12:14 PM
[...] 44.2% over Q1 to just over 1.5 billion square meters. Our growth was due to the popularity of our newly launched Openspace land product along with a change in pricing to make the purchase of land more accessible to first time buyers. [...]
July 8th, 2008 at 5:34 PM
Echoing Khamon and others..
You’ve now removed the requirement that openspace regions need be attached to full service regions. Why retain the requirement of owning a full service region? Supply challenges? Concerns of revenue dilution?
This would be a perfect opportunity for those of us who either can’t afford, or can’t justify the cost of a full region to enter into island ownership.
July 12th, 2008 at 11:15 AM
It bothers me that people are so short-sighted as to what they want, now, that they fail to see the incredibly sane business cases for the fullsim requirement. They have given us lots of addons that are due to new technical capabilities — virtual placement vs adjacent, more prims due to better server tech — but the *business* requirements haven’t changed. If you have more orders than you know how to process (huge demand), and those orders have an average level of support, then your average revenue stream per customer needs to pay for that level of support or quality erodes. Quality erodes, those same “gimme”-ers now say “you suck”, the entire system collapses under its weight, people flee like rats, and the grid hemorrhages.
Please, people. They did something nice. Stop attacking them for it and acting like seven year olds. “I WANT MY CANDY NOW” is not a way to endear yourself to anyone, nor is threatening to bite the hand if it doesn’t feed you so much candy that you make yourself sick.