Hello!

Last week, Jack Linden announced that they are going to become more involved in the mainland.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/08/05/the-future-of-the-second-life-mainland/

The main topics he discusses are potentially zoning areas of the mainland, such as residential and commercial zones, and "professionalising" the way advertising is done in-world.

I'm not sure what I think about this. I don't spend a lot of time on the mainland anymore, but when I do visit, it can certainly be a messy, laggy, ugly experience. But on the other hand, the out-of-control nature of it all holds some appeal. You never know what you're going to run into around the next corner.

If a region of the mainland is zoned residential, why would you ever visit there? Looking at hundreds of empty pre-fabricated homes is not all that interesting, and I'm sure you wouldn't be able to move far for fear of banging your head on the ban lines.

The closest SL has had to residential zones was "First Land" regions. For those who haven't been in SL for longer than about a year, First Land used to be available to entice new users to invest in a premium account. When any avatar upgraded to premium, you could purchase exactly one 512m plot of land for 512L, just once. You couldn't buy just any land, it had to have been marked as First Land by Gov Linden. They would periodically roll out an entire region of fresh First Land. Within minutes, the empty region would be swarming with noobs desperately trying to snaffle one of the 512m plots.

So a few days later, these First Land sims would be covered in freebie pre-fab houses, pushing up against each other's borders. For the first few weeks, it was quite a social experience, meeting your fellow noob neighbours, teaching each other the basics you had picked up, negotiating about tree branches protruding into your living room, etc.


My First Land sim, Haemosu.

But then, over the next few months, people would start to realise "Hey, I bought this tiny chunk of land for 512L, but I could see it instantly for 5,000L (or more)". One day, you would log in to find that your neighbour Cheryl, the British librarian, had sold up, and her nice little cottage had been replaced by spinning FOR SALE signs, and pron and gambling ads.

Anyway, I digress. What do others think about potential zones on the mainland, and what can the Lindens do about advertising, other than outright banning it?

I'm unsure. Something does need to be done about advertising extortion, but is being told what can or can't be built moving one step closer to a "police state"? What next? Will they enforce speed limits on flight assist attachments? Ban prim cigarettes in public places?

If people want controlled residential environments, isn't that what private islands are for?

I don't care, simply because I never go there.

I dislike the idea of Islands joining together, and would have preferred if our own Eragon had remained seperate from Isle of Wyrms, but I had little say in it.

The idea of having an island is a lovely dream, why anyone would want to live in a jumbled up city, real life or secondlife, is beyond me.

Wolfie!

I dont go near the mainland all that often - firstly because of the lag, and secondly because the place is just plain bloody ugly! Zoning seems to be the way to go, and the recent announcement of a ban on adfarms will go even further towards sorting some of the issues. It should reduce the lag, make the place more attractive and cut down on the rapant extortion scams.

If something isnt done, I see a good part of the mainland becoming a valueless ghetto!

I read that post and I think they (LL) want to make the mainland more attractive for newbies and new people which signup in SL....
they will probably make some areas for gameplaying....in order to make the mainland very interesting also for people involved in mmorpgs......

I think it could be useful to gain more users and make SL mainstream......