Bay City Content Package
Saturday, May 24th, 2008 at 5:28 PM by: Michael LindenThe first auctions of Bay City parcels ended on Friday, and there are already a couple of builds going up. For Residents who want to match their builds to the municipal sidewalks, pavement, streetlamps, etc., we’ve made a content package. It’s sitting on the counter shelf in the railway station at Inner Harbor. There’s a lotta stuff in there, I’m pretty sure it’s all set to freely allow copying, modification, and transfer — reply here if we missed a permission!
(I’ll have to check with Blue Linden about where to put a copy of the content package in the TSL version of Bay City).
Hmm, in case it wasn’t clear from all the open edges, roads and canals … Bay City will expand in the future!
May 24th, 2008 at 5:39 PM
well…the box is there but you can’t get it…best way is to set it for sale for L$0
May 24th, 2008 at 5:42 PM
OIC…goyya be in the group to get it
May 24th, 2008 at 5:52 PM
So…..how do you find out which RC you are using? I have Second Life 1.19.1 but I don’t know how to tell which release candidate I have. How do you learn this kind of stuff when you are fairly new? Thanx!
May 24th, 2008 at 5:56 PM
/me is having fun watching people arrive and leave without the package. This is too funny
May 24th, 2008 at 6:03 PM
Rhonda not too sure about your question 1.19.1 is the released version. the 1.20 versions are candidates for the next release version. click help - about second life and that shows the version you are using
May 24th, 2008 at 6:04 PM
Like most windows programs, if you go to the Help menu, and choose “about second life”, it will tell you what version you are running, in this case the first line. If you are running 1.19.1, then its NOT the release candidate, the RC’s are for version 1.20.
Like other people, I believe “Release Candidate” is a shocking misuse of software development terms. Everywhere else in the software world, we use “beta test” for stuff thats known to be incomplete and buggy, and “Release Candidate” for stuff thats in the state of “we think everything is working and done, and if nobody finds a problem this becomes the official version”.
The fact that RC8 had such basic problems as not being able to buy Linden Dollars or land, which are basic to their business, shows a total lack of testing and quality control. You, my fellow players, are doing the testing and quality control, as unpaid guinea pigs.
May 24th, 2008 at 6:08 PM
I knew that question would get that rant going again
May 24th, 2008 at 6:10 PM
Michael…hurry up and fix that box before a riot breaks out
May 24th, 2008 at 6:13 PM
Thanks Cotytto and Daniel…..i was just confused of reading all the RC7, RC8 stuff and didn’t know what I have. I do know I have Second Life 1.19.1…..but to me that doesn’t say “hey, you have RC7″ lol I guess I just dont understand the terminology of these RC’s and stuff? But thanks for you answers!
May 24th, 2008 at 6:16 PM
Oh….and also, if I can find out which RC I have, if it is not the RC7 or RC8, then do any of you have it? and if so, what is the difference between those and the Second Life 1.19.1 that I have? Thank you guys
May 24th, 2008 at 6:21 PM
Th main difference is the RC has the new “Dazzle” user unterface, and it also has a number of restrictions removed to allow building at altitudes over 768 meters.
May 24th, 2008 at 6:25 PM
WOW wish Lindens worked this hard on a project like fixing money transactions as hard as they worked on Bay City…
May 24th, 2008 at 6:31 PM
Well, ty all for the help and ty especially Danielle
I understand it all now and will wait until all the bugs are worked out before trying the new RC…..(until mandatory lol)
Have a great evening all!
May 24th, 2008 at 6:40 PM
Well, no one there right now can pick it up and ono one knows what the group name is if we’re supposed to join one first. So fixing this might be a good idea.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:11 PM
Michael Linden says: “Hmm, in case it wasn’t clear from all the open edges, roads and canals … Bay City will expand in the future!”
^^^ many seems to have missed this when bidding up at those auctions prices…. O_O
May 24th, 2008 at 7:23 PM
/me gets a real life mortage to be able to afford a bay city place. Maybe if you gave a toss about the rest of mainland, we’d have stable prices across the board? Wanna try that LDWP?
May 24th, 2008 at 7:28 PM
We got to see the Governor! Governor Linden herself…this is a rare sighting indeed. its a party here…had two other lindens in too..
May 24th, 2008 at 7:45 PM
Bay City is such an original name.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:48 PM
thanx to Gov Linden the pizza box is working now!
May 24th, 2008 at 7:50 PM
I hope the box has some “For Sell” textures in it. It seems to be all the new owners of Bay City seem interested in.
Could have been a really beautiful place.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:50 PM
Free building supplies is always nice. If we can’t pick it up though, this is nothing more than an exercise in frustration.
/me grabs her pitchfork and torch.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:01 PM
/me douses Nadine’s torch with bay city water. :p
May 24th, 2008 at 8:12 PM
@18
Not only it’s an original name, also notice that the promotion for it is original too : “Welcome to Bay City, the City by the Bay” (r) (c) ™.
From a marketing and advertizing point that is simply baffling.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:42 PM
/me grumbles about stoopid do-gooder firefighters and bonks Dari over the head with a handful of acorns.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:19 PM
I think the most interesting part was when Gov Linden had to relog into the main client because of bugs in the RC
May 24th, 2008 at 9:35 PM
Good Luck unloading your over priced pieces of land. Since most of the mainland seems to be at a stand still currently; I would say ppl invested in another LL pipe dream and/or scheme. Take your pick it’s all the same bs.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:39 PM
Would anyone who has won a parcel care to justify the price you paid for a plot? Especially since land flippers are putting up ugly signs and Michael noted in the blog post above that there’s a lot more land like this coming.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:42 PM
They think because it’s popular right this min. they will get a good deal of profit if they sell it now. I hope no one buys those plots off the auction winners and they get stuck with their $200, 512m lot. Then again it could just be LL artificially inflating the price themselves. Not like they haven’t done that before.
Beta: Giving out excess L$. Fact.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:50 PM
Well, I was alert all week for news of the land auctions. I never saw any indication that auctions were being conducted. I must have been looking in the wrong places. Disappointed.
What disgusted me was those speculators reselling for outrageous prices.
May 24th, 2008 at 10:12 PM
Bay City, Double-Prim/Half-Space land at $282L per meter? Plots that’s don’t even have road frontage? Bordering small blocks with neighbours? Canals thta go nowhere? No openspace water sims joining to the rest of Linden continent waters?
No chance, I’d buy there considering half of it so far looks like it’s going to be oversized Adfarming. Good for the scammers who manage to offload it to some poor sap I suppose.
I’m glad I wasn’t one of the poor moles suckered into thinking they were building a “nice” community.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:11 PM
Here is to hope that one day LL will make some more trees and plants in the library.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:11 PM
Seems to me to be far too laggy to consider visiting again, let alone owning part of, especially at those prices.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:28 PM
By the way LL,
Have you at least been thinking of offering a parcel of land in Bay City (the city by the bay tm ) to the persons that built it up for free and … for you ?
May 24th, 2008 at 11:40 PM
“Bay City, Double-Prim/Half-Space land at $282L per meter? Plots that’s don’t even have road frontage? Bordering small blocks with neighbours? Canals thta go nowhere? No openspace water sims joining to the rest of Linden continent waters?
No chance, I’d buy there considering half of it so far looks like it’s going to be oversized Adfarming. Good for the scammers who manage to offload it to some poor sap I suppose.
I’m glad I wasn’t one of the poor moles suckered into thinking they were building a “nice” community.”
As mainland prices plummet. Hmm what’s wrong with this picture?
May 24th, 2008 at 11:41 PM
I want to say two word to you. Just two words.
Are you listening?
Snow Sims.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:32 AM
What about a Bay City Library? Can we have some land donated to the SL Library group? Non profit groups should be given a chance here too! Who can afford the land?
May 25th, 2008 at 1:28 AM
Historically LL has taken any type of funding from it’s subscription base; stippens, development bonuses, dwell funds, and has added fees for L$ transactions, classifieds, parcel directory fees, ect. I would not expect your request to be heard much less acted on.
Sad but true.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:33 AM
I can’t believe the prices these parcels are going for. It’s crazy! Just like in RL what people really need is decent AFFORDABLE land that is clean and secure. OK so LL will make a lot from these auctions. But they’d make a lot more in tier if they cleaned up the rest of the mainland. And are people really going to stick to the theme? Time will tell.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:36 AM
How about this Linden lab it seems all your effort has gone into this project at the expense of other things. Specifically a change in the way sculpted textures are interpreted. We make a series of 1 prim skul trees that use a very efficient 64 x 64 texture for a nice quick rez and low load on the system. Well to hell with that I guess now the smallest texture that will rez the trees properly is a 128 x 128 in effect doubling the texture load. Does anyone their ever look at consistency or do you just run around with your heads in your hands. The latter seems to be the norm. It is problems like this that make this game run like crap. A long time ago it was time to start making those who create the problems responsible, but then that would mean you would have to pay some pro’s.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:40 AM
Bis repetitae :
Have you at least been thinking of offering a parcel of land in Bay City (the city by the bay tm ) to the persons that built it up for free and … for you ?
May 25th, 2008 at 2:47 AM
After all the hoopla about bay city I had to go see for myself. This will be the great wasteland of second life as those who won the auctions now have 1024’s for sale at island pricing. There is no land in this toy that is worth $500.00 for a 1024. A plot size that nothing more than a basic shack or cube building can be constructed. Perhaps someone will pop for the asking prices but one might make the assumtion that there will be a lot of yellow in bay city.
May 25th, 2008 at 5:25 AM
I’ve just seen ban lines on a Bay City parcel.
The ugly things are visible even when standing on the footpath/sidewalk on the *far* side of the roadway.
Most people with loadza cash don’t experience the incredible visual blight of ban lines on the boundaries of their home ground. They either have mainland parcels large enough to leave a 10-15m deadzone inside their boundaries or they have PIs.
Some people are going get a dose of what it feels like to own a small mainland parcel with less-than-wonderful neighbours.
Bay City really should have been managed and zoned as are the better PIs.
A limit on resale intervals would have helped too.
It’s not too late to do this on the remaining unsold sims.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:59 AM
Wonder if my comments will show up this time? LL does not have the manpower to manage BayShhh… It’s a lot of work mananging properties. You don’t just buy the land subdivide and walk away. People in SL expect a lot for 2 bucks a week, I can say I am an expert on that subject. Unless LL enforces some covenant; it will just look like the rest of free range land. Meaning it will be a failure.
Now since it’s LL always saying how short they are of ppl I really have to ask besides being in direct competition with the existing residential market ie in it for profit over ppl; what exactly do they expect to accomplish by letting all those residents down; by way of non support.
Honestly I simply cannot find any good in this. I do however see LL thinking they are making an effort to zone communities. Why on earth not just give mainland estate owners the same tools as island owners. Problem solved and a better community is built. As a side bonus they didn’t need to screw their existing community in the process. And by community I do mean paying customers.
I wish they would look past their own greed.
Cat
May 25th, 2008 at 7:25 AM
As it stands, i wouldn’t touch any land on SL anymore unless you accept it as a sink cost to place your home or having a main shop on it.
Work it out….21,000 sims and rising with only 60K peak logins! There are enough suckers/speculators out there to buy into the “Bay City” hype and pay over the odds L per/sqm prices….whilst totally ignoring that mainland prices have come down as well as Estate Land….not to mention RL economy stagnation/ recession. Have you looked at your fuel, energy or food prices lately?
May 25th, 2008 at 7:26 AM
@48: Perhaps they have not given over the same controls that Private SIM ‘Owners’ have to Mainland SIM ‘owners’ because … Linden Lab owns all the hardware and they were the ones that put in the estate order!
What a concept eh? The ones that placed the order for the estate to show on the Grid in the first place get the master controls!
By the by - which class of ‘paying’ customer do you mean hmm? Are you only counting Premium Members (the ones that rather foolishly decided they were going to let Linden Lab take money from them without and real gain or reason)? Maybe you mean the Concierge Level users? The ones with at least one Private SIM? How about the users who actually had a good idea and remained Basic Accounts and instead used their money to buy Lindens (not the smartest of moves, but not as foolish as paying a monthly amount)?
Then we have a whole different form of ‘payment’ - those who have created grand content in Second Life … but remain as Basics with No Payment Information on File. They pay each and every time they create something and put it to market! Their payment comes in the form of their ideas … Ones which Linden Lab can keep for an eternity, even though the original creator gets the credit.
If you meant only one of the above types … Congrats! You are the real reason why people do not want to stay in Second Life. Talk about Class Wars.
May 25th, 2008 at 7:45 AM
I saw 356 sqm for over 140000 and banlines in near…and 512 for 270000. Somewhere at a street corner. If one fly around on east-continent, he or she can buy a half coastline, beach, waterfront mainland-region with flat juicy green back area for the same price. Too funny. Or, instead of maybe 1024 at Bay City, a whole class 5 mainland-region…or an island… - if I imagine one 512 owner in Bay City, oh, hahaha, the person can rezz then an free archer-house from orientation island, deleting the fire-place and the railing, rezzing the free weird lab lamp from the bay city pizza package, shrinking it to a fitting room size, rezzing a wood box or too, texturing it with the free crate-textures from the package, dropping one of these famous coffee-pots on it, running out of prims and enjoying the nice view on banlines in the evening sun. Idea: If someone likes mobile homes, it is maybe much more comfortable and in front of all: free, - to live in one of the trolleys wich are moving around there, or using one of the boats as house-boat. Just check in, sit there and enjoy the whole area for free.
May 25th, 2008 at 7:56 AM
Id love a plot on Bay City! Maybe one day when I have that much money to spare… hehe
Well done LDPW!
Oh and loving Bay City - Handa!
May 25th, 2008 at 8:01 AM
Quite a few of the parcels that have been bought via Bay City auctions, are being flipped! One parcel 1344 sq/m with 614 prims….the asking price is 1000 USD. Now i realise the world has truely gone mad! Haha
May 25th, 2008 at 8:16 AM
Is there some reason all this content wasn’t added to the in-world Inventory Library folder?
May 25th, 2008 at 8:19 AM
It would be so easy to end ban line blight by simply making an advanced menu render setting to turn them off. Then people sitting still in their houses need not be blighted by them while those who need them for navigation could keep them turned on while traveling.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:32 AM
Ok people have paid what they thought the parcels in Bay City were worth. I have no real objection to that but considering how much people have paid, Linden Lab have can now afford to give something back to the community, instead of auctions, raffle some plots.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:37 AM
A raffle would be most excellent.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:55 AM
Watch out the scalper already putting up for sale signs for $99,000 lindens for a small parcel of a bout 600 sq meters. Discussing to say the least.
Lindens should make sure when auctioning off the parcels that no one turns around and tries to sale it for nothing but pure bloated profits!
May 25th, 2008 at 9:03 AM
well if someone is silly enough to buy 600 sq/m for around 350 USD…..what can one say! As long as there are enough speculators out there, supply and demand rules!
Would hate to be the last in that chain though!
May 25th, 2008 at 9:22 AM
Don’t forget to take a look at the Linden Department of Public Works Wiki Page!
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Department_of_Public_Works
May 25th, 2008 at 9:30 AM
I like exclusive regions and i think its a great idea, so i look forward what will happen. Sadly i cannot efford the prices, so i have to keep my rusty lot at Delchdork, its lovely too.
May 25th, 2008 at 9:58 AM
Buyers of Bay City remind me of the buyer of Mark Maguire’s home run baseball for millions right before it lost most of its value.
May 25th, 2008 at 10:20 AM
Ok..I got the freebies and have spent some time remodeling the 3story building. I had an idea. Why not have a remodel contest..take the free building and allow use of 10 outside textures (not in the free LL pack for Bay City). Then vote to see which building would win.. give that person a parcel of land (they pay the tier). It would create interest in the area and give someone incentive to remodel. (No home builders allowed to enter).
May 25th, 2008 at 11:06 AM
like sheep to the slaughter house
May 25th, 2008 at 11:28 AM
I want to echo the suggestion to put the contents in the “Library” part of the inventory. If these are made available for public consumption, it’s only logical.
May 25th, 2008 at 11:31 AM
I have to ask a question that no on seems willing to ask, why is Linden Labs building Bay City?
Linden Labs seems highly conflicted: on one hand they wish us and the business community, the real business community, to believe that they are building a technology platform, although they barely support it they call it, “Second Life Grid.” The name intending to give the impression of a sense of weight and gravity, of seriousness. The outcome: 2 pieces of beta software, no one to call, no documentation and business partner. No OEM.
I do not think we were mistaken, that’s what they keep telling us: Open Source, licensed technology and an open back end. Without these Second Life is just another cul-de-sac and Balkanized virtual closet, not a virtual world.
Is Second Life a product or a platform? Is it end use or is it a foundation for a bigger picture?
So now we are competing with Linden Labs not paying them for a service? We have had 3 serious bugs under trouble ticket for 7 months, bugs that are threatening the very core of our business strategy. They have apparently been moved to JIRA, technical flaws nestled among feature requests, I guess they have equal weight. So now we must consider that Linden Labs would rather put their resources and energy into endeavors that compete with their customers than fix the ones that their customers, in good faith, paid for. This is a chilling conflict of interest.
Thats right, a conflict of interest, because although many residents think Linden Labs and by default Second Life’s problems are technical they are indeed judgement. Linden Labs will never be able to grow and support a 3D web in this fashion. Even the perfect company with endless resources would not be able to support such an endeavor. It would be unfair for anyone to think so.
Does one company own the internet? Even if it could be technically and resource achieved, would it be tolerated? Looking at the history of the internet and its evolution, I think not.
Reading this one would think I am against the idea of Bay City, nothing could be further from the truth. Our company is doing something very similar, some others are doing their own versions of this idea. The very big problem is WHO is building Bay City. We may not be happy having to compete with others in our sphere but it’s the reality of doing business, given an even playing field we are willing to mix it up with anyone. But we do not expect our supplier, with control over our resources, communications, search, a Draconian TOS to be that competition.
If Linden Labs thought there was an important value in having Bays Cities take place in Second Life, which I believe is the very future of virtual worlds, not “Lonely Islands” then they should have created the environment for that to be executed by their customers. That’s an example of vision and good judgement and growing the 3D web.
Is LInden Labs struggling to find a business model or is so secret from their customers because we are being used to discover it for them? They stand at the sidelines and pick and steal what they want?
At the end of a long hot summer and a feeling that Second Life was all hype and little give, in late 2007, I thought the cries for competition to Second Life and a real 3D web platform could have not been louder and more serious. But I was lulled into a cautious optimism with a rapid deployment of new technologies: Windlight, Havoc and hopefully MONO. But a return to the hold our investments hostage with new TOS, month or more of technical glitches and now Bay City the calls for a real 3D web should be louder and more intense.
The quickest way to see real competitor is to open a market wedge and not be able to deliver into it. The vision is out there, the business model is out there and the technology is off the shelf, why can’t Linden Labs find it?
May 25th, 2008 at 11:40 AM
@ 66 Loydin Tripp.
I’ve not been able to read your full post, however.
They’ve explained many time why they formed the LDPW and did Bay City, along with the other projects such as road building they are doing. And like they said, having the Linden Department of Public Works does not take recourse away from working towards Grid Stability, as none of them deal with that side of things. The Lindens and Mole’s don’t mess with code, they build. So they are working towards the Grid Stability and such, just not them Particular Lindens are doing it.
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Department_of_Public_Works
May 25th, 2008 at 12:30 PM
Bay City is a farce. Sorry Lindens. You sold to Land Flippers in the main. Your beloved city has so many spinning for sale signs, it’s not funny.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:34 PM
@66
I can see that you didnt read the whole of Loydins post, he is not saying it is taking away people from doing maintainece on the grid.
What it is doing is creating UNFAIR COMPETITION.
Linden Lab can put their own projects at the top of search, can advertise freely and without cost, can take ideas that others have worked hard on here and compete on an unfair playing field.
Linden Lab are a service provider, NOT builders of Second Life, they advertise as Your world , this is becoming Linden World , not our world any more. This is a completely unfair business practice.
What exactly IS LL business model, are they a service provider, or are they now taking over the whole of the SL world.
Will they, in time to come, finally kick out the people that built SL, and make it their world.
OK, that is probably over dramatic, however, that is the way things COULD go if LL continue to build Their World OUR imagination.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:42 PM
The heck with Bay City. When are you guys going to do something about all the crashes you’re causing? I crashed three times already in the two hours I have been on this morning and crashed at least a dozen times yesterday, three of those in a half hour period at an event I was attending.
Get it together you guys!
May 25th, 2008 at 1:42 PM
Sorry to post something actually on topic here
, but the Bay City - Wood Park Bench in the package has two sit scripts that turn no copy/no mod once the bench is rezzed.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:15 PM
@ 69
Bay City is a JOKE. Nice attempt, but hey, spoiled from the beginning. Competition? They are not really able to compete in any way with ANY serious competition on any field. Don´t worry. Another DOA.
The really sad thing about is how they even manage to spoil THIS ONE. Very sad.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:34 PM
I get so sick of reading the comments from people assuming that because some lindens work on projects that the client is being ignored. Not all lindens are applications programmers, people. Does everyone at your job do the same thing? NO? Oh no. Shut the place down.
I want them to fix their client bugs as much as anyone. But I am intelligent enough to realize they can work on multiple things with different people involved. Are you?
May 25th, 2008 at 2:36 PM
@69 “OK, that is probably over dramatic”
It is.
May 25th, 2008 at 2:41 PM
Another batch of auctions ending in a day or two, do you have any words for potential ‘investors’ on how you plan on fixing this? Or should we assume how Bay City looks now is how it’s always going to be, and just steer clear?
May 25th, 2008 at 3:29 PM
Quite a few Far East buyers of land in Bay City -Docklands auction round…that land is now back on the market for sale with those beautiful rotating “For Sale” blocks. Didn’t take very long for the Bay Region to start emulating the Mainland continents.
May 25th, 2008 at 3:31 PM
The first parcels from auctions are forsale again. For Example: Yesterday bought for 125k, now forsale for 150k. So who will buy this while auctions are still running? Nobody! But it has a side effect. More peoples who actually only wanted to buy a parcel themself are now attracted by the ‘make money fast’-psychosis: ‘eeh, when I can sell it for 150k, why should I not bid till 149k ? No risk!’ The same people who dropted out by 125k yesterday, want to bid now till 149k. And tomorrow, the same happens to the next bidder. Is 150k the border? Why should I bid more, when I can buy immediately for 150k from the landlord? Dont forget the VAT. Is there a VAT charged for that auctions?
The question is, should I bid now too and make money fast or not? What is bidden now, is not the real value for the parcels. Its a gambler-value. There is a breakevenpoint somewhere next week, when parcels are too expensive for reselling, cause there are already alot landlords, who can sell cheaper than you. Am I right?
May 25th, 2008 at 3:39 PM
@Richie Freund - It’s a mug’s game, but then again there are enough mugs out there to fuel it! I mean asking for 273,000 L (1000 USD) for 1344 sq/m piece of land that supports 614 prims. You couldn’t even build a main shop on that plot to try and recoup that kind of investment.
I suppose since the Gambling ban, this is the next best thing………..but for high rollers only!
May 25th, 2008 at 3:46 PM
@75 Disclaimer: I’m not one of the ones posting in this debate, I’m not anti-linden or pro linden. Just someone who has been following all this very closely without comment until now.
I recently sold a small piece of property. It was bought by a land flipper and the price was jacked up by a whole 60 cents USD. I recently watched as CP Costello calmly bought lots at 5.6/sq meter and jacked them to 11.0/sq meter. Buy the land, plop down a sign and a tree, resell higher price. They aren’t doing anything. They are simply holding the land for ransom. it goes right back into the same land search and reaches the same exact customer base. There is no value added.
I have seen friends accidentally set land for sale to anyone at L$1. It looked like a noob flash mob. There were so many bots so quickly it packed the sim. You can thank the Ninja land group for that with their mission to have a 16m lot for bot landing in every mainland sim. I have seen them put entire sims for sale minus one 16m cut.
But this is nothing new. Anyone remember the early days of the web. Server space was exactly the same then. High dollars to get the server then monthly charges with extra for things like email accounts and extra domain names. Even the cost of domain names was high.
But as more servers came online things got cheap in a hurry. Now you can get server space on the web with no set up fee and about $4/mo with virtually unlimited everything. This is the way things like this always go and there is no reason to imagine SL will be any different.
It should be exceedingly clear that LL is actually working to speed this process. There have been up to 20 sims for auction at a time constantly for months. They have deliberately driven the land prices down from 10 - 12/sq to 4 - 5/sq and they are still putting the pressure on. I have sold 5 plots of land lately and the only ones buying them are land flippers. The market is saturated. anyone who wants land pretty much has their fill…and still it keeps coming.
I didn’t lose a penny…because my intent was just to consolidate. I sold cheap and rebought cheap. I want the land to use, not to scalp people. Those who are really using the land aren’t being hurt much by this. The flippers are the ones who are going to get burned big and I applaud SL for that. Give them the shaft and show them the door.
But so far this has all been undeveloped communities. There is also demand here for developed areas like bay city. Michael said it straight out in this post…look around…see all the roads that just break off at the edge…there are going to be many more sims added to meet this demand. They are going to do the same thing with Bay city as they have done in the NE. Go for it land flippers…throw your money at the auctions like there is no tomorrow. But there will be a tomorrow. You will watch your ransom price drop well below what you paid as LL opens up more and more developed sims til everyone and their cat has a couple plots in them they bought at 4.8/sq. I might even buy one then - probably one of the ones the land flippers just bought when they start getting desperate to recover whatever they can before land becomes completely free. Just pay the tier and grab your fill.
May 25th, 2008 at 3:46 PM
Overall I like Bay City.
I like the feel of the open spaces, road, canals and trams. The empty sims look very ’samey’ but already we can see an eclectic flavour in the new builds.
Some of those builds are being slapped up by flippers, but there are others by end users. The Bay City Rockers dance club looks really good!!
It’s a great place to drive around in wacky vehicles. I’m really looking forward to my first SL traffic jam. Think of gangs of tinies on big Harleys, or just plain weird. The thing that makes it fun is the tight network of roads spread over a large number of sims. Jumping across half-lifted bridges has got to become a sport.
I don’t see Bay City at current price levels as competing with anyone apart from the few who have been sitting on overpriced parcels in the older rarer parts of SL. Since when did the world owe a living to anyone?
The activities of the land flippers certainly drag the whole idea down, but apart from that the place is full of potential.
If that type of environment is seen to be popular, with a demand by merchants and service providers to have a presence in such an environment, then there’s nothing much to stop anyone from setting up a bunch of sims to do a better zoned covenanted competitor.
May 25th, 2008 at 3:54 PM
I hate to say it, but city will be a total failure. Look at the auction bids these small parcels are getting up to. 189,000L for a 1024 sq meter 2x prim parcel!!! I mean come on LL. Your simply pandering to the well to do wealthy citizens of SL while the everyday folk like me simply get to watch with envy and wish we could have that which we can not have. Catering to the land barons seems to LL way. If you gonna make it fair for everyone to have a chance at owning a parcel in Bay City you need to cap the auctions at a certain price. When the final bid reaches the cap price then thats who wins. The cap price needs to be low too, cap it at like 12,000L or something. Let the common people have a chance.
May 25th, 2008 at 3:54 PM
Here’s an attempt to put a more constructive face on some of the comments that have been offered already — there’s a troubling disconnect between what I thought Bay City was supposed to be and what it seems to be shaping up to be.
My understanding was it was meant to be a region that had a a more focused design (50’s and 60’s California?) and more of a theme park feel to it.
But then, as others have mentioned — allowing a runaway land speculation market to turn it into yet-another-libertarian-zoned region completely undercuts that goal.
The project leaders should look very carefully at what’s happened and take steps to prevent it in the future - at the very least, Bay City should come with a covenant that allows a moderation team to replace content that violates the spirit of the area, take down ban lines (if they aren’t disabled), etc.
I would suggest having a process where people submit proposals for land, and not allowing resale, but that might not fit with the overall design goals of the public works project.
May 25th, 2008 at 4:00 PM
it’s bad in SL again, crashed a few times and not just like usual. bad crafic first then it crashes. or the entire game just freezes and i need to get out Task Manager to kill it, else i cant do anything at all.
For the people who like to place smart remarks, i learned IT as primary so please do not tell me what to do because i know what i am doing
May 25th, 2008 at 4:26 PM
Congrats all auction winners, you just pissed away all your money on a parcel that will never resell. WTG all. I hope your happy with your small over priced land. *claps*
May 25th, 2008 at 5:22 PM
Normal mainland is currently worth what? less than L$5 per sq meter?
Land flippers aren’t even getting that so the whole Bay City thing is a great day for LL lol. Enjoy the cash and have a great mole party with it!
<:-P
May 25th, 2008 at 6:15 PM
By the way, Linden Lab don’t advertise for free, running the Second Life Web Site, the Grid and paying staff costs money, Looot’s of money.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:33 PM
this is a big build -for smaller neighborhood feel I prefer the New Toulouse sims, one booking now, has a covenant . New Orleans theme.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:34 PM
lol my bid got beat by a bot for 10L over what i bidded, great. now if i want the parcel i can buy it for 250,000L its a nice location right next to a whole bunch of crap. this bay city idea worked otu great
May 25th, 2008 at 7:01 PM
I had designed a couple of really nice buildings and was hoping to open a business or two in Bay City. Heck, I had even followed the design dictates. But now I think I would rather not bankrupt myself to be wedge between banlines and For Sell signs. I think I shall seek another location.
May 25th, 2008 at 7:41 PM
I saw one reseller trying to flip some land L$162 per M2… for an odd-shaped parcel that was completely inaccessible. The only public access route to it was via the canal, by ascending the sea wall where there is no landing or stairs… Another parcel blocks access to the nearest road on one side, and a third parcel will no doubt wall it in on the remaining side, Insane pricing…
I may actually try to help create something nice there, however. A friend bought a parcel for a simple version of her store, and while not in an ideal location, the placement is pretty good. Facing a ferry landing courtyard, and with another end facing a port boat landing. So I’ll try to actually design something that fits the intended regional theme. It’s not much, but at least that one part should be nice.
May 25th, 2008 at 11:47 PM
I wonder how many of the winners have really forked over money to get the blocks or how many have used dummy bidders to drive prices up. Maybe they are hoping to get them sold before they actually have to pay for them.
Do you actually need payment info on file or a premium account to bid or can any disposable bot get in on the action?
May 25th, 2008 at 11:48 PM
It’s looking like Bay City is set to become SL’s biggest Adfarm
May 26th, 2008 at 2:17 AM
@82 I like that idea. Maybe for future sims like Bay City, the Lindens could ask for us to send them land proposals outlining what we want the land for. They could choose their favorites and sell to the winners for a reasonable price. They would also obviously need to check up after that we did use the land for that purpose, and if we didn’t then the land would be forfeit. This would keep out landbarons and mean that the whole regions would be full of great, creative content. Of course, tier would be payed the same so they would still make money of it, but it’d require some work for them in vetting who gets in and who doesn’t. Maybe the moles could help them do that?
HOW ABOUT IT LINDEN LAB?
May 26th, 2008 at 2:59 AM
There’s only one thing to do: untick the option “Allow the land resell” from the estate setup page.
Now it is easy to say…. but this does implify a serie of complications, because LL has to admin the resale manually via tickets (this have been ok with the SIMS = few …but it would be a pain for a certain (possibili large) number of small parcels).
The option to “transfer” the land ownership is mandatory, because there’s a lot of fair (and honest) reason because u need to sell your land.
This also would means that LL has to evaluate exclusively if the resale is a flipoff or an honest transaction, exposes the company to any sort of polemic (raised by land lords).
So there’s a solution (i’m sure there are others) but most of them requires an actively action by LL, and they have already said that won’t put their hands into the “resident decisions” so much (understandable.. since they won’t much troubles).
May 26th, 2008 at 3:12 AM
@ 81 Karl Dorance
So all the land flippers will just put their first bid at $L 12,000
May 26th, 2008 at 3:16 AM
Maybe they should have dumped all the auctions simultaneously so the flippers and their bid bots would have to committ to stupidly huge amounts of money within days, I doubt their finacial backing is infinite, unless of course they are cheating the system with fake credit cards.
May 26th, 2008 at 3:48 AM
@91. From the Auction FAQ:
“Only residents that have Premium memberships and are at least 14 days old are eligible to participate in auctions.”
Sandor
May 26th, 2008 at 4:57 AM
@91 - You can’t bid on L$ auctions unless you already have the L$ balance for the bif you are placing. If you win the L$ is instantly deducted from your account. So whoever won those had to have the L$ in their account and they paid the moment the auction was over. Try it sometime. You can get mainland 512’s for as L$2200 which is about all a 512 in sl is worth anymore. There isn’t much “land flipping” going on anymore since there is so much cheap land available now. The land market is dead. Unless, apparently, you are LL and are building Bay City that is lol.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:54 AM
@75 Totally understand your points but you need to understand that SL platform is totally driven by the land sales market as a so called land baron or flipper myself we are just investing time in keeping the market afloat and yes we do make a profit but i disagree with the holding for ransom part plenty of parcels around and dont forget land starts off as a full sim we buy it and split into 512s for others that dont want 65536 only a 512 if they bring back FIRST LAND which i think they should it would be better for new users. Just dont forget someone needs to hold land mainly land traders and pay big teir doing so if we didnt there would be no sims in sl because they need to sell sim space to exist.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:56 AM
Sorry its @79
May 26th, 2008 at 8:45 AM
Something on topic in between:
Michael, I don’t know if this happened to me only (I tried several times to be sure) but for reasons I cannot explain, if I copy the package contents to your inventory, some of them will not be transferred. I have to select and copy them manually from within the package itself. A bit boring, but at least they are all transferable.
By the way, I am not a resident of Bay City but I collect Linden products. I have the first Linden home kit (2003) in its original wrapper. I dream of a time when I will be able to showcase all Linden architecture somewhere. At Bay City Imaginario, maybe?
Sandor
May 26th, 2008 at 8:45 AM
Errata: your inventory in my previous post means MY inventory. Sorry.
Sandor
May 26th, 2008 at 10:10 AM
little crazy prices, ahhh? I bidded for a nice 1024 m2 parcel at the sea - beach walk front or so. It was sold for an incredible 300.000 L$ (not to me of course). what value goes with these parcels. I don’t understand that kind of economy from the cutomers view, LL of course I understand
May 26th, 2008 at 1:29 PM
http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/05/24/bay-city-content-package/#comment-607835
“Meghan Dench” thanks for the Wiki link. Read it again and listened to the recording of Jack Linden but I still do not see the ‘explanation’ or the ‘why’.
The elephant in the room is still there, why is Linden Lab involving themselves in user content at this level? They have gone and on about the value of end user content but here they are making it and buying it directly and giving it away, thus undermining the value of other suer content creation.
“And like they said, having the Linden Department of Public Works does not take recourse away from working towards Grid Stability, as none of them deal with that side of things. The Lindens and Mole’s don’t mess with code, they build. So they are working towards the Grid Stability and such, just not them Particular Lindens are doing it.”
This shows that you do not understand how companies work or basic economics. Businesses have a given amount of resources: money, human hours, intellectual energy and the amount of bandwidth that the outside world give it.
Anything that a company does takes from somewhere else. The most salient fact here is that who will a corporation now approach to have a project developed, a hird party developer or Linden Labs. Is Linden Labs my competitor or not?
The reaction I am hearing from the corporate community is to not to put more energy into Second Life but support the effort to create a killing competitor, a truly open platform. The Bay City action they are taking is making that prospect easier and easier.
Maybe its time for Linden Labs to justify and clarify their actions.
May 26th, 2008 at 2:31 PM
I bid for two parcels at Bay City on Friday. When I saw one of them (a 1072 sqm one) was going as high as L$ 370K, I changed my mind and thought buying a private island would be cheaper.
Good job and good service to real estate vultures, who immediately began selling parcels they got, for astronomical prices.
May 26th, 2008 at 2:35 PM
The only way to shut down the speculation that is ruining Bay City before the auction is even half-over is to announce dates for the next expansion.
May 26th, 2008 at 5:55 PM
dear LL, im sure you have heard of the saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” i love that sayin cuz it describes my MIL perfectly but it also describes this bay city stuff. i dont know alot about the figures of plot sales ect but what i do know is that this IS competeing with other creators on SL, do you think that by hiring “moles” that you can dis-associate yourselves and make out like its made by residents, true but they work for YOU.im all for SL,but SL as a platform, a service provider, nothin more, otherwise how can this be “your world your imagination” ? alot of people dont like the concept of a corporate class in SL ive noticed but the thing is without it, there would be nothin but lil private islands,when people put months into making an estate and making roads and buildings and a theme, and paying for classified and everything else and LL comes along and advertises on the blog ect? how is that fair to others that cant do that? id have no prob otherwise since this is mainland and so theirs to play with but the fact that they seem to be taking advantage of their “powers” in this manner and others cant, i see as sooo unfair,im not a hater but i hate unfairness, this on top of everything else,lag,crashing soo much, stuff missin from database,rezzin issues,laag when crossin sim lines,tps down,money issues, ECT, yes i KNOW these Lindens arent workin for grid stabilty but and i speak for myself here, i jus want SOMONE to make somthin better, while they get worse yet i see other lindens doin somthin i think welll why arent the ones who ARE suposed to make it better doin so, are they on holiday? or dont they care? dear CEO, please MAKE the ones who are suposed to fix at least SOME bugs,do it already,otherwise i dont care how nice the &#