On Tuesday Linden Lab announced : Improved Region Capacity and Access. This involves a region now being able to support more avatars and the headline grabbing figures are :
The default limit on the number of avatars in each region type is increased
- Full Regions by 10% (100 to 110)
- Homesteads by 25% (20 to 25)
- Open Spaces by 20% (10 to 12)
The devil however is in the detail, the extra spaces are reserved for Premium Members only, as the blog post explains :
This new bonus capacity is, however, available for entry purposes only to Premium users – for Basic users the occupancy limits remain the same. For example, when a Full Region with a limit of 110 users has 105 users in it, Basic members will be unable to enter – they will see the region as full – but 5 more Premium users will still be able to enter.
The interesting aspect here is that there has long been rumour, unconfirmed rumours and suggestion that Premium Members would get priority when the grid was getting full, now Linden Lab have actually implemented a solution that does this and personally I think this is a good idea, with an exception that I will get to later.
An important thing to note is that if you are a basic member and in a region with 105 people, you won’t be booted out to make way for a Premium Member, just make sure you don’t teleport out or you may have trouble getting back in.
A very important point to note here though is that if you have a lower limit, a 10% of sorts (people may note it’s not 10% but let’s not split hairs) bonus applies based on that lower limit in a way that may catch you unawares :
The current (owner controlled) limit on each region will automatically be reserved for Premium entry by the same bonus %:
If the owner of a Full Region had reduced the default 100 avatar limit to 50, the same bonus percentage (+10%) is reserved for Premium entries, so 45 entries will be usable by Basic members, and 5 additional spaces will only be available to Premium members.
Read that carefully, this means if you are happy for 50 users to visit, basic users won’t get in when 46 people are there.
Another change and again one that I fully support, is that even if a region is full, Region owners and Estate Managers will be able to get in. That is a very sensible change.
I have approached Linden Lab with a suggestion regarding these limits, that is that during Fantasy Faire I should be able to enter any region whether it’s full or not, Xiola Linden responded with raised eyebrows, then a frown, then more raised eyebrows that were then wiggled, I’m not sure if that means yes or no.
Ebbe Altberg was unavailable for comment on my extremely sensible suggestion.
Overall, these are very sensible changes and hopefully won’t cause too many problems for basic users.
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