Socially|Mundane

I am fortunate that I never had any financing issues with Linden lab, except when they had their billing through some funky banker overseas in Europe, which apparently was known for being 'loose' with fraud enforcement and prevention. This cause me to contact my own bank by telephone to manually authorize any charge.

Fortunately Linden Lab got wise and went the 'proper' route with a more reputable financier. Unfortunately, any time you have "your people" contact "my people" things can get a bit sticky:

Leeds Metropolitan University:: "As the ongoing saga between our finance department and Linden Lab continues (I just got an email to say that one of our islands was about to get sunk due to confusion around payment), and as a result of our findings from the Open Habitat project, I am determined to make 2009 the year of OpenSim."

I don't think Linden Lab are 'careless' and neither the 'finance department' of this university. The problem comes down to communication and all the red-tape paperwork involved. And this is why the Open Sim project will gain a groundswell of support. More people are popping over there to at least experiment. I've had my own account there for... wow, is it a year, yet?

However, Opensim is not ready for prime-time just yet. Not only are the tools still in flux with regard to reliability and availability, but many of the features provided by Linden lab have yet to be implemented.

Important features. namely: and economy. I remember a report that the Opensim creators — one of them, anyway — was set against any kind of trading token, currently, economy, whatever you want to call it.

However, that is the staple which keeps most people in Linden Lab's Second Life. Open Sim is still a way off before it can be called anything close to a 'legitimate alternative to Second Life".

if you think Second Life is 'beta' software, Open sim might be consider to be in the Alpha stage.

via Virtual World Watch

Today "Openspace" sims suffer a tier rate increase from $75 a month to $95 a month. Tier-fear increases for many people, including myself.

On announcement, openspace sims were dumped en-masse by hundreds, if not thousands of people. One of the good side effects is that it cleared-up the grid a bit. A sim near one of mine was blocking the addition of another — not directly, but close enough that our shared grid borders would overlap and I didn't want to bother getting their approval to have a new sim kitty-corner to theirs, et-cetera, et-cetera...

There is no doubt Linden Lab seriously underestimated the way residents would over-push the limits of the openspace sims. A "full" sim is expensive. Not only in the initial cost of set-up, but also in the tier paid. So when openspaces were introduced to the public at large, people jumped on them and often tried to use them to the same degree as a full sim. Worse, many tried to pass them off as full sims and sell or rent-out land to others and there was no real easy way to know better.

Linen Lab had to suspect this would happen.

I am a professional media artist: video, film, photography, sound design and so on. I work very hard at long hours to ensure my video is optimized to work cleanly with pristine picture and sound when viewed through the internet. I was devastated when I read an industry report that people care far, far less about picture quality and size than they do about other aspects.

Ever since I read this report, it has been drilled into my head that people care far less about the 'quality' of anything than they do about the cost of it. This is why Apple computers are still a minority of the machines in use at large. Not everyone is willing to pay for quality, no matter if they get 'more' than they pay for. Most are "on the cheap" - hence why evil Second Life freebies are so popular and create a nasty entitlement attitude.

So with regard to the openspaces scenario, people saw an opportunity to get their own sim. Like the "American dream" of owning your own land and home, a sim is the "Second life dream" of similar aspiration.

People milked it for all they could. My openspace is used lightly, but not in the way Linden Lab proclaims is the intended purpose. It is about 20 low-prim homes with simple furnishing provided to allow a place to call 'home' for participants in my role play city. Rarely ever more than about four or five people there at any one time.

I'm willing to go the $95 tier. Not so sure about the $125 that hits in July.

In a several emails and blog articles regarding the openspaces situation some information has come out that I find exciting. It has to do with script management.

The problem with openspace sims is that one that is overused and overloaded can really kill other openspace sim on the same CPU. This can happen on full sims as well, albeit not too often. Even though a "full" sim is on it's own Central Processing Unit, there are four CPUs per machine. Even a full sim that is overloaded and wreaking havoc can bog down other full sims on the same machine - because even though there are four CPU cores, it's still the same machine. meaning the same bandwidth on the bus, the same Random Access Memory, the same hard disk drives and so on.

No, I don't know the specifics of each server Linden Lab uses, so I am assuming, based on simple experience here.

One of the things mentioned as an idea — I'm not even really sure if it's an 'intent' on Linden Lab's part at this point — is that eventually scripts can be limited based on parcels. This is one of those 'ding-dong' ideas I only wish were thought-of a long time ago. it will take months to implement such a thing.

Linden Lab will begin a form of implementation on this theme by limiting script capabilities on the openspace sims and then, hopefully, continue developing the idea further into this proposal that estate managers and owners will be able to further refine script allow-abilities per parcel on the same region.

So, the openspace fiasco creates a necessity. That necessity to better control resource usage. Thus the invention of new capabilities and management controls.

Thus, openspace fiasco: mother on invention.

Dumped one of my sims and it finally transferred this morning. The "Land of Hope" has finally run out. Thank you Lindens - I know you are absolutely and horrifically swamped with estate transfers and and openspace abandonment tickets and all this during the holidays. It happened sooner than I expected.

The reason for unloading my full class-5 private region is simply that I didn't know what to do with it. Certainly there are a lot of things I could have done with it, but preferably something that would help it sustain itself with raising tier. I already have another class-5 that supports itself plus an openspace, which raises in tier this week and again in June.

I have bought and sold 4 sims in my two years, including this one. And I must say, this time the transaction was convenient and worry-free. All because Linden Lab acts as the escrow agency now, (not really, but in a similar way,) and it was only a matter of setting support ticket and wait patiently.

Linden Lab absolutely will not become involved in resident-to-resident transactions. Period. no 'ifs', 'ands' or 'buts'. As for private region transfers, they have found a way to alleviate the nail-biting aspect while still following this self-imposed rule.

It used to be - and you still can make arrangements for the sale or purchase of a private region 100% between yourself and the other party. The selling party has almost nothing to do. Set a support ticket to transfer and then go on with their (Second) life doing whatever they usually do.

The buyer on the other hand used to have some serious nail-biting to contend with along with the forced wait before they can even begin the work of setting-up the region as needed and desired.

My first sim purchase was from another resident. Reputable to be sure. We are adults. But it goes like the old, honorable days: a deal on a handshake. I forked over something like 500,000 Linden Dollars (L$) to him in-world for the sim.

Gulp!

Talk about serious nervousness. Then I had to rely on him to set a support ticket to transfer the sim to me. Then I put in mine accepting the transfer. Then I bit my nails for two weeks. Both in excitement, but also with that nervousness that always will be there.

Will he cancel the ticket and run-off with my money? Will something go wrong and the Lindens sink the region, removing it from the grid and I'm out of my money? These and many other questions kept creeping into my head. But, as a rule I wasn't really worried about it. However, there always is anxiousness when you throw the equivalent of $1000.00 U.S. at someone when you have no idea who they really are.

As I've said, the hard part is while the seller just keeps on doing whatever they do during this two-week wait for the transfer to actually occur, the buyer is twiddling their thumbs. Whatever dream, plan, design they have for the new sim is placed on hold until they have control over it.

That's a long, anxious wait. More like the kind of wait for Christmas day to arrive as you measured and inspected presents under the tree when you were a kid.

Then the unheard-of happened: Some one sold a sim to two people at the same time, taking their money and running-off with it. It was huge news and panic struck the grid for used-region buyers. I'm not really sure why as it was a pretty stupid move and occurred only once that I personally know of.

Come-on people, Linden Lab must have your real life financial information if you own a sim. What fool would do such a thing? There is the slim possibility that it was really some accidental thing and has since been all cleared-up (seller thought first sale fell through then sold to another and eventually refunded the first buyer or something - but I doubt it.

Linden Lab is considered a small company, but they still can't turn on a dime. Several months later, they announced that region transfers can now be handled through each party's Second Life account directly, meaning that funds will be debited from one and credited to the other only upon the actual transfer.

This is a good idea and probably should have been thought-of and implemented much sooner than it was. The selling of my sim that was finally transferred this morning is my first experience with this "Linden Lab Escrow Service" since it was implemented. And I must say, it works well. Very well.

It's not really escrow as there is no third party, (including Linden Lab itself,) who holds the money until the transfer is confirmed. Rather the buyer must hold onto the money until the transfer is performed and that is when the funds transfer occurs as part of the actual process.

So this got me to thinking: Linden Lab officially calls Linden Dollars an 'in-game trading token and nothing more'. [I would have linked to the article where this is quoted by Gene Yoon (Ginsu Linden) - but that site apparently is closed down. —Ari] It is not, not should ever be considered legal tender.

However, in the new region transfer method, the seller has the option to elect funds in Legal Tender U.S. Dollars or in Linden Dollars. The transfer fee is $100 U.S. The option to use Linden Dollars was in the original announcement, it just didn't really hit me at the time.

If I sell a region for $500, Linden Lab will transfer the region, then transfer the $500 credit from the buyer to me, then deduct $100 for the transfer fee. or the buyer, it comes from any credit they have available or their credit card is charged.

However, Linden Lab offers a Linden Dollar version as well. If I sell the region for L$150,000, they debit the buyer's Second Life account and credit my Second Life account, then debit me L$28000 for the transfer fee.

This is the part that got me thinking.

The transfer fee is a real life service fee for the work of transferring the region from myself to another person - a real world service. Remember, Linden Lab must know our real life details for billing reasons and the 'transfer' of region details happens in real life through computer data entry and changes.

None of it is actually done in-world.

Thus, paying L$28,000 for these real-life services is, in effect, treating Linden Dollars as legal tender. Well, in my mind anyway. Keep in mind that what I am speaking about here is conjecture and opinion. I do not speak for Linden Lab and neither have they ever even hinted any such thing to me or anyone else I am aware of.

So, the convenience of this new region-transfer logistic that Linden Lab has created is Godsend, it's easy and completely worry-free. Okay, I admit it did cross my mind to ask myself what would happen if the buyer accidentally spent some of his Linden dollars and dipped below the amount to be transferred.

Linden Lab works hard to make the entire Second Life experience more pleasurable. I have never had a doubt about any of that. And I've always known they work hard on all the under-the-hood items and back-end stuff. Even the rarely-interracted-with services such as the support portal.

So, I'm curious what you think: Is allowing a real-life service fee to be paid to Linden Lab via Linden Dollars, (an "in-game trading token" -per Linden lab,) making Linden Dollars any kind of legal tender?

This is theory of course. Obviously it's not, as the entire transaction occurs within Linden Lab properties and one of those properties is the Linden Dollar itself.

But what do you think?

Ah philosophy is fun, aint it?