Region Idling has been announced, which is not the worst idea in the world. The basic idea is that when a region is empty,everything goes on a go slow and those saved resources are used elsewhere to improve user experience in other regions. This has potential, but like NeoBokrug Elytis of Wastelands fame, I have concerns and certainly feel that as a region owner, it should be my choice as to whether my region is part of the idling process.
This could be a step in the direction of lower tier bills, if your region is idling, maybe you won’t get charged as much for that period, one day. However I’m speculating there, I certainly like the idea of being able to turn my region off and pay less tier per month for it, but Linden Lab haven’t indicated that’s where we’re heading and that’s where the concerns come in.
My region may well be deemed to be idle, but it will be doing something, whether it’s talking to webservers,or acting as a delivery agent for remote notecard boards, generally, I have something going on and that’s what I’m signed up for. Mainland is Linden Lab’s estate, they call the shots and I have no arguments about my Mainland parcels being part of this process, because my landlord wants those regions to be part of this process, however I do strongly feel that I should have the choice as an estate owner as to whether my regions are part of this process.
Simon Linden makes a good fist of promoting the positives of this process, it’s like a modern building turning the lights off when nobody is around, I work in buildings like this and wave my arms around or hit a switch to get the lights to come back on. There is logic to this idea, however as I said earlier, this should be a choice and it should come with some sort of carrot. Estate sims are the most likely to be idle because looking into an adjacent sim keeps the sim on, Mainland is therefore less likely to be hit by this.
This concept isn’t new, Jack Linden talked of this when he was here but the barrier was always how long it takes a sim to wake up. Linden Lab appear to have gone for a compromise by slowing an idle region down rather than putting it to sleep. There is merit in these proposal but really, there should also be choice.