March 8th 2008, the skies darkened, dark forces were at work, Jack Linden posted a blog entitled: Announcing changes to the Openspace product. This would be a post that would ultimately lead to bloody battles in the forums and blog comments, it would pit resident against resident, Linden against Linden, resident against Linden, it would get ugly, but initially everything looked sunny as Jack (AKA The Land King) made the announcement:
“An Openspace is a type of private island intended for light use countryside or ocean. Unlike normal regions that effectively get a CPU to themselves on the server, there can be up to four Openspaces on a single CPU, sharing the resource (hence them being ‘light use’).
Openspaces will no longer have to be purchased in sets of four at a time, as they have been so far. They can be bought singly, for a setup fee of USD$415 followed by a fee of USD$75 per month.
All other island services are therefore available for single Openspace regions, at the usual region rates, and Openspaces will no longer have to be placed together on the grid, they can be placed apart.”
Somewhere someone sniggered “This will be a day long remembered. It has seen the end of Jack, and will soon see the end of the rebellion.”
The Better Announcement
Another post from Jack appeared on April 10th : Details on the Q2 2008 Island Price Change. In this post Jack informed us that the setup fee for an openspace would be reduced from USD$415 to USD$250. Many people cheered, others scratched their beards and wondered what was going on. However how could we raise our concerns when there were so many happy campers, protest would be futile as someone mused: “What are we going to do? We’ll be sent to the spice mines of Kessel and smashed into who knows what.”
The Gold King Announcement
By July the boom in purchased openspace regions was well and truly booming, leading to a post from Darth Zee Linden: Second Life Virtual World Expands 44% in Q2. Darth Zee told us:
“Linden Lab is pleased to announce results for Second Life the second Quarter.
Land mass grew over 44%. The total number of regions owned by residents increased 44.2% over Q1 to just over 1.5 billion square meters. Our growth was due to the popularity of our newly launched “Openspace” land product along with a change in pricing to make the purchase of land more accessible to first time buyers. “Openspace” regions are full 65,000 square meter regions with an upfront fee of $250 and a recurring monthly fee of $75.”
However not all of us were convinced, in the comments of that blog Lando Ciaran Laval had a rant whilst doing a dance akin to Rumpelstiltskin: “You’re playing an extremely dangerous game here, devaluing assets, increasing land mass with regions that are by official Linden blurb not designed to be used for the purposes they are being used for and mainland is not recovering at the rate at which it decreased.
Lots of semi filled islands and mainland parcels is likely to lead to the mother of all crashes.
However thanks for the heads up that islands are likely to devalue again, there’s a lead balloon around somewhere.”
One of the rebels pulled me asisde and whispered in my ear: “I suggest a new strategy, Ciaran. Let the wookiee win.”
However the qustion that remained was, did Linden Lab really believe that there had been a 44% rise in land mass due to people creating forests, countryside and open waterways in the middle of nowhere? Seriously?
The Wrath Of The Land King
October 28th 2008 brought the twist, The Land King blogged: Openspace Pricing and Policy Changes. The Land King informed us: “Openspaces have been incredibly popular as a perk for estate owners, but sadly there is a twist. Unfortunately most of the Openspaces are being used for much more than light use. Based on analysis performed in August and September, Openspaces are being used about twice as much as we expected, in other words being loaded with double the content/avatar load than we’d expect for a region that is supposed to be light use.
Rather than being employed as open areas like ocean with little or no content and traffic, the majority are being rented out to residents looking for a place to live. Because they were never intended for that level of load this is causing problems.”
At this point I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if hundreds of landlords suddenly cried out in terror. A product that had had its prim count doubled and no longer needed to be tied to existing land or purchased in packs of four was being used with double the content/avatar load than expected for light use? You didn’t exactly need to be Sherlock Holmes to see that the inevitable consequence of doubling the prim count and allowing them to be placed anywhere on the grid would increase the load on them. Unfortunately Sherlock Holmes wannabes did not seem to be employed by Linden Lab.
Some of us cried out “Help me Obi-Wan Philip Linden. you’re my only hope.” Unfortunately nobody seemed to be listening.
The Land King Tries To Escape
On October 30th The Land King blogged again : Update regarding the Openspaces announcement. In this post he posted: “Thirdly, I wanted to clarify one issue. As mentioned in the post, Openspaces were intended for space, empty areas of ocean or forest. Take a look at the Knowledgebase article description. By that criteria, the large majority of Openspaces have more going on than was the original intent. We are not suggesting this is a bad thing, and of course we’re delighted that people have found them to be so useful. And we’re not saying that everyone is abusing resources. We are saying that the use has changed, and continues to do so as people find more creative ways to use them. So the revised pricing is about recognising that change of use and the additional costs and value associated with it.”
Somewhere someone queried “This is some rescue. You came in here and you didn’t have a plan for getting out?”
The use of course changed in March 2008 when Linden Lab changed the product to allow it to be purchased on its own and placed anywhere on the grid, who on earth was going to put an open waterway in the middle of nowhere? Seriously, come on. Every man and his dog knew the boom wasn’t due to open waterways and forests.
Anyway, that’s the short story of how the openspace fiasco unfolded, hopefully this fifth anniversary edition will be complimented with a tenth anniversary edition in five years time, here’s hoping for a bright future! Hurrah!
ROLL THE BLOODY CREDITS!
“These aren’t the prims you should be rezzing here…”
Oh good one Ms Pey, I should have been able to get a line like that in, or “These are not the sims you’re looking for”
The heady days when everyone knew where they stood!
Nice result yesterday Ciaran……you might scrape through!