Ciaran Laval

April 15, 2008January 12, 2014

Utilising Inworld Mainland Services To Save Yourself Money

This post is with regards to mainland only, more pointedly mainland tier and methods of how to either lower your costs or earn a few Linden dollars from your spare tier. The subject matter here will not apply if you’re using estate land. I am not affiliated in any way, shape or form with the business names mentioned in this post and use them merely as examples.

Always ensure when buying land that you keep an eye on the message that informs you what your tier level will be after the purchase. If you intend to buy land for a group but instead buy it for yourself, you could quite easily find yourself in LL’s next tier bracket and you really don’t want to do that, especially if your group has the tier available to buy that land already. Continue reading “Utilising Inworld Mainland Services To Save Yourself Money”

April 14, 2008January 12, 2014

Do We Expect Too Much From Linden Lab?

I don’t think I’ve ever felt that the relationship between Linden Lab and their customers has been so tense. Of course I’ve only been here for just over a year and the veterans tell me that there were times when matters were much worse. I’ve been here for gambling and banking bans and the VAT debacle and yet, there seems to be a greater strain now than I’ve ever experienced.

However we seem to have hit a series of issues whereby Linden Lab simply aren’t getting their vision for the platform across.

Land pricing – Several estate owners left scratching their heads and wondering what the hell is going on. Goalposts being moved, terms being redefined, business models being reshaped, it adds strain to the relationship between business and customer. When the next price change will arrive, is unknown. Questions aren’t answered, confidence is low. Continue reading “Do We Expect Too Much From Linden Lab?”

April 9, 2008January 12, 2014

I went To See Jack Linden And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

The much awaited blog from Jack Linden is up and there’s goodish news for those who were of the opinion that at least Dick Turpin wore a mask when considering their recent estate purchases:

“For anyone that has bought a normal island in the seven days prior to Mondays announcement, including any awaiting delivery now (so any orders placed in April PST), you will be offered a choice between:

* Your order cancelled with a complete refund of the amount paid, allowing you to re-order when the price drops if you wish to, or:
* Keep your order and get a free Openspace region with it. The Openspace would have no setup fee and no monthly fees for a period of 6 months after which normal monthly fees will apply. Continue reading “I went To See Jack Linden And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt”

April 9, 2008January 12, 2014

Trademark Issues Lead to Promotion Of Alternatives

JISC is the Joint Information Systems Committee, based in the UK to help the use of ICT in education and research. They fund a series of mailing lists to benefit learning, teaching and research.

I’m on a few of these mailing lists as I work in the education sector, one of the mailing lists I’m on is the Second Life mailing list.

However today the issue that has been raised is regarding renaming the Second Life mailing list due to Linden Lab’s trademark policy. The proposal now is to rename the mailing list to “Virtual Worlds” to avoid any problems with the trademark policy and also to open the mailing list up to the discussion of other virtual worlds. Some people are piping up that this is a good idea with OpenSim based grids popping up and others are saying that they’re not sure what LL’s game is with the trademark policy. Continue reading “Trademark Issues Lead to Promotion Of Alternatives”

April 7, 2008January 12, 2014

Playing With Fire

The latest LL blog announces pricing structure changes to land. Super smashing great hey?

You can now get an island for a bargain USD$1000! Woohoo! Unless of course you’ve just ordered an island and then you have to pay the old price of USD$1675 and watch your investment fall over night.

Then of course there will have been those who ran out and purchased open space sims and now find that the super smashing value they appeared to represent, was not great value at all.

I bought my island last year so it’s not new. However I’ve been paying a shed load in tier, had VAT thrown at me and now I find LL are wiping hundreds of dollars off the value of my investment. This really isn’t encouraging. However it could be worse, I could be a land owner who placed a hell of a lot of faith in LL and has seen thousands wiped off their investment. Continue reading “Playing With Fire”