Roslin Petion surprised me earlier today with a new set of gothic themed skins, and I ended up agreeing to DJ a couple of last minute sets, so here’s the outfit i put together around the skin…

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Wow. Just.

Wow.

If you’re an Estate owner of any kind and have Openspaces (or rent them out) at all, this latest blog posting will knock your socks off.

And when I say knock your socks off, i mean seriously make you wanna throw up your hands and give up on LL completely.

Openspace Pricing and Policy Changes

A little background, if I may?

Back in May of this year, Jack Linden announced that Openspaces would be made available for purchase to existing Estate owners individually, rather than in groups of four. Additionally, it was mentioned that prim alottments would also be raised to double what they were originally - so from 1/8 region prim alottment to 1/4.

So of course that very month, there was a *huge* jump in Openspaces.. and from that point onward, many private estate owners began marketing use of those low prim islands for rental use.

Since then, opinions have emerged either for or against.

One problem that is part and parcel of the use of Openspaces has to do with the reduced ability to run many scripts, or time-dependant scripts. As such, many content creators who make products dependant on
high script time tend to be against this usage. Additionally, Openspace sims that are rented to many tenants and which are home to heavily scripted clubs, etc, end up aggrevating user experiences for
neighbors.

On the other hand, Openspaces allow, for the cost of 1/4 region’s tier, a full region’s space, privacy, control over terrain texture and terrain map upload capability. This allows for a much more customizable environment for a low script home or nature area for personal use. This is a very powerful alternative from the atrocious condition of the SL Mainland as it currently stands.

For years, Linden Lab has allowed adfarmers and extortionists to riddle the Mainland with useless ad lots and spinning ‘for sale’ signs, adding hover-text, particles, shouting text chat spammers, as well as any other sort of visual griefing imaginable. This alone has driven people off the mainland to private estates. The Mainland would never have been in such a pinch if Linden Lab had actually done something about the parcel-cutting situation long ago, and done something to keep folks interested in keeping a cohesive community running there.

By making Openspaces more accessible with individual purchase and additional prims, they practically DROVE people off the mainland and left a ghost town behind.

It’s not as though they can really claim they weren’t complicit either;
Darien Caldwell mentions:

and goes on to post a chat log with an unnamed Linden from back in July of 2007, mentioning the possibility for Estate Owners to market Openspaces to tenants as rental property.

*sighs*

I guess there’s really not much more for me to say except to mention how I feel about this.

I took on ownership of Sylvan in mid-July, and opened Organica for business August 3.

Since then, I’ve been slowly recovering from changing my location from off the mainland, dealing with the slight increase in Openspace sales (but also the stark decrease in value and overall usage of land - especially on the mainland). Land values have been plummetting lately. I was lucky enough last month to drop my mainland land usage from about 14.5K sqm down to 3096. I was thinking that might give me a leg up on promoting my business a bit more, and as a result generate more sales… and maybe lead to a full-fledged sim.

But Organica, at best, pays for its own rent, some advertising, and a little personal pocket change in world. I don’t cash out anymore, and what money I do make gets kept in my account so I don’t have to worry about losing my land because I can’t afford it.

I no longer have to pay for both Tier and rental to Azure, and that’s about a $50 reduction in my overall costs, but this recent announcement has basically shot that cost right back at me with a vengeance.

Ultimately, I understand that my personal in-world businesses will probably never make ‘real money’ beyond supporting the land they are hosted on. But it’s becoming increasingly evident that it will be more and more difficult to do even that. The increased cost is totally coming out of nowhere and if it’s a measure to increase the marketability of the Mainland, I certainly don’t believe this is the way to do it.

I don’t often agree with what Khamon Fate has to say, but here he hits the nail on the head;

Which basically says it all about how well this effort to make the Mainland more attractive will ultimately screw over everyone.

This has been a tiring and stressful day, and this latest announcement really hasn’t been the best news to end it with. All I can really say is I will try my best to make things work.

But what LL pulled today is incredibly hurtful and totally without merit.

In two years of being a resident of SL, I’ve not attended one of these. So when Lily Joliat posted an invitation to SLU-ers to attend hers, I decided ‘What the heck, i need a change! And i’ve never been to one of these before - it could be interesting!

Indeed it was The build is beautiful and looks even more wonderful with KirstenLee Cinquetti’s Shadowdraft running. We laid out lanterns to float on water and Japanese geishas danced to the beat of a Taiko drum. Their outfits were truly wonderful and made for a great, relaxing afternoon.

For the uninitiated, Hair Fair is a charity event, whose proceeds go towards Locks of Love, which is a charity which works towards providing hair replacements for those who are in need. Hair designers in Second Life come together to offer a number of styles exclusively for the duration of the event, and a portion of their profits go to the charity. This year, four sims were set aside for the event, featuring over 90 designers, and everything was geared towards a Mayan ruin theme.

Fairly straightforward, right?

Well, unfortunately, as with any fashion related event, there will always be drama.

I should disclose that a week before the event, one of the vendors was participating in a ‘content creator show and tell’ party. She’d been scratching her head wondering just how to make her bland, ultra basic booth, more interesting and enticing for the event. I happened to be around and suggested a few options - which as it turns out many people thought of as well - involving vegetation, which might fit in with the Mayan theme. Little did I know that spiffing up of booths would be such a point of contention for those who had a finger to point. Read more…

Ah, Hair Fair.

Overall, I was really impressed with the demos I picked up. A lot of them were really nicely done, but just didn’t fit what I had in mind for my av.

I’m particularly impressed with the Argrace styles - nice texture changing functionality and the underlying hair is top notch. Also enjoyed some Wonderhair, as well as Kin.

Hair makers also did very well in providing freebies for purchase. There were quite a few who provided reasonable freebies, but here’s the real eyecatcher…

Takeli-ki - Eve GenII

Really classy, different, probably not anything i’d wear on a regular basis, but still very pretty to look at

Here are a few of the styles that finally worked out for me:

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Okay. I’ve been putting together a new website that will seperate my SL stuff from my Illustration stuff and perhaps better represent my interests in virtual worlds overall.

I was thinking about how to do that and not leave it to be specific to Second Life, because ultimately with the way intergrid operability is happening, the focus for virtual worlds will shift to the ability for users to go from domain to domain, yet retain one central identity as much as possible. Read more…