Says he never gets hit on and is very lonely. Needs some attention and he’ll take off his mask….
posted by Veyron Supercharge on Eliza using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

When the Facelight 3000 is not enough, you need the generator powered Facelight 7000.
posted by Veyron Supercharge on Rampart using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

New home in Rampart – a house barge. Nice and dingy and dirty… Hmmm, might need some cleaning and some furniture…
posted by Veyron Supercharge on Rampart using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Trying out a new outfit I suggested…. Just’s pretty darn cute..
posted by Veyron Supercharge on Olive using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Looks like a new prototype homepage is being setup by Linden Labs….

This explains a lot…

-Veyron

Vint Falken and I in Rampart in front of the Neko Towers… telling me how she’s beeng a working girl since she was 18….
posted by Veyron Supercharge on Rampart using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Much has been made about the price increases on the Openspace err Homestead sims, but not a lot as to why.  An obvious reason that everyone would jump to is greed, which is probably wrong.  While greed I’m sure is a factor, it’s probably only a small factor.  The real reason is far far worse.  Second Life is at an architectual dead end.  We all sense it, but we don’t really notice it.  It just doesn’t scale.  It’s not going to scale either, ever.  My guess is that the explosion of Openspace sims was stretching the limits of the entire grid and nearing a maximum size at which it will functionally work.  They needed to stop that growth and pull it back to save the entire grid.  I also fear this is sort of a permanent thing.

The Second Life server and client are getting old and crufty.  They are doing much more than they were designed to do and they were designed years and years ago based on imperfect knowledge that now is hobbling thing.  Let’s do some reality checks here….

The computer I use for SL is four times faster than the same one I used to play with SL 18 months ago.  SL runs slower on it than ever.

Inventory loss.  Still loose things.  Just two weeks ago, lost this really cool burning car – just disappeared out of my inventory.  All I have left of it is a picture I took of it.

Mono.  Basically no impact, probably a net negative as scripts will get less memory efficient.

Teleports.  Fail about 1/3 of the time, still.

Grid crossings, I love the mindless crawl 100meters into another sim on crossing.  Real genius prefected this.

Lag.  Second Life has managed to add the word lag to the lexicon of dozens of languages world wide now….

I play in one of the most heavily trafficed Sims in Second Life, City of Lost Angels.  It’s been a dog for performance since the day it opened a sim a year ago.  The Lindens themselves have tried to analyze why.  When there’s a fight there it’s is like a bunch of blind pantomimes have a street show.  It’s ridiculous.

But let’s not forget that computers, networks all have gotten substantially faster and cheaper in the last year.  Graphics cards are ridiculously fast now and really low prices.  Heck, my laptop alone is incredibly powerful, yet it can be a dog on Second Life.

What does this all mean?  Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s not going to get better and this is as good as it gets.  Even now you don’t hear about any new grand plans or new improvements in the pipeline.  Second Life’s problems are deep seeded in it’s designs.  Just the excuses behind not adding more than 25 groups is an indication of just how broken it is under the covers.  What we have now is all we’re going to get and if we are lucky at the same price.

Linden Labs has three choices, continue to hack away at the existing monster to improve it, build a new clean slate design or coast with minor improvements on the existing monster.  My guess with the financial environment is they are going to take the coasting choice.  Which is why you see the attack on Openspace sims.  Maximize revenue from the existing product while minimizing investment.  Which is what all of the venture capitalists have been telling their firms for the last six months.  Philip’s job was to build it.  M’s job is for maximum revenue extraction from it.

The “victory” with the Homestead sims if you look carefully at it is was no victory at all.  Just a reprive and a very temporary one at that.  Just moving to $95US a month for an Openspace sim does what they need, makes them uncompetitive with a full sim and $125 nails the coffin shut.

If you think Opensim is going to save you, think again.  It has no infrastructure, no economy and no organizanion.  I love Second Life, which makes it all the more harder to see that the light at the end of the tunnel is a brick wall lit with a primoil lamp….

-Veyron

Of her new sim… Rampart in the City of Lost Angels.
posted by Veyron Supercharge on Rampart using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Thank you Citizens of Second Life for listening to an important announcement by Big Brother.  We want to thank all of our Citizens for the outpouring of joy they have been giving our great Leader in person for keeping the pricing of the product you have been using for so long Homestead Sims down.  As you know we have been offering this product for some time now, even to the point of offering increased services on those sims about six months ago.  But it seems some hooligans have been overusing and abusing these sims.

These sims have always been priced at $125US a month, but Big Brother through the greatness of his heart has been subsidizing the cost of these sims.  Even through the great primoil shortage we have been experiencing.  Now we are unable to continue to temporarily subsidize the cost of these Homestead Sims that have always been priced at $125US per month at the temporary price of $75US a month.  To help alleviate the removal of these temporary price reductions we had in place, we will be returning prices to their former levels in stages.  Citizens who wish to voluntarily contribute to Big Brother are more than welcome to allow us to reduce the subsidies in place earlier.

At the same time we are announcing a brand new product, Open Space sims.  This is a brand new product with a temporary lower price of $75US a month than the older Homestead sims.  The Ministry of Griddom has produce this fantastic product with a fabulous prim to price ratio I’m sure you’ll all be lined up to purchase.  However, if you think this product might not be for you, we do have the old existing Homestead sims to fill the gap.

We are glad to see that so many of you are thrilled with our price changes and new Open Space products.  If you do know of any other citizens who might be less than enthusiastic about the new products, please inform the Ministry of Love to better help them understand.  Thank you for your time.

-Mistress Veyron

p.s.  We were never at war with Eurasia.

When I moved the full sim into the City of Lost Angels, I had a few land owners left.  Not wanting to completely shaft them, I moved them over to a new Openspace sim I bought (you can see where this is going).  Ahhh, altruism.  No good deed goes unpunished.  Yes, with the new pricing scheme from Linden Labs on Openspace sims I am of course screwed with the lessors I have on the sim.  I figure this fiasco will cost me between $200 and $500 US before it’s done.  Why so much?  Well, I can’t sell the damn thing as they charge you $100 US to sell a sim.  At best I will be able to sell it for a pittance.  At worst I will have to just abandon the thing.  In other words a total write off.

A massive waste of time, money and effort.  But Linden Labs comes out ahead in the short term.  And that is apparently what this is now about, a new race to the end because long term thinking is over now.  I for one have found this whole fiasco to be very demoralizing.  It’s hit me harder than almost any other form of stupidity LL has done.  While it did hit my pocket book personally, what I find to be this to be is the beginning of the end.  It’s not the end by any stretch, but it’s the beginning of the end….

With one stroke they have set in motion the straw that finally did in the SL economy.  This will probably set of a disruptive chain reaction that no one may be able to stop.  I think mostly what this finally proves is that anyone who tries to make money in Second Life is a fool (I’ve given up that idea and am looking to basically break even).  Linden Labs controls too many of the levers, controls the rule books and can act in their own interests at will with no regard to the consequences.

I am constantly amazed at their ability to move from one bungled move to another.  For example, today they have announced that are rethinking their position on this price change.  Rather than just getting it over with and posting what the latest – thing – is, the decided to let everyone know that they will announce what they are going to do (which of course they’ve already decided since they’ve made this post) until tomorrow.  As if this will increase ratings or something for the LL blog?

Usually in cases like this I’d like to make some sort of pithy prediction.  I’m going to avoid that this time because I’m sure to be wrong.  I’d base my prediction on some basis in reality, clearly somewhere that Linden Labs is not operating.  They seem to operate in a separate dimension, detached from their own Second Reality and first reality.  Where that is I’m not sure a lot of people know.

If your living depends on the Second Life economy this is your first warning shot.  Disentangle yourself now.  Don’t get dragged down by them.  Businesses want predictability and stability.  It’s pretty clear here, you’re not going to get it.

Veyron’s predicition for the next shoe to drop:  the Linden Dollar’s currency to revalue.  Probably deflate.  The Linden Dollar is currently manipulated by Linden Labs.  Once they stop doing that and let it float, all hell will break loose.  If you think inflation is bad, try deflation.  Or it could inflate as Linden Labs prints money to make money.  They have a license to do that ya know….

-Veyron

Well, I’ve been like – working!  Sorta.  So as you know I bought a sim – one of those full ones.  And as I figured the land market on it went bust more or less.  I did give it a good try, but without any luck.  Too bad as it was a nice looking sim.  So I picked it up and moved it into the City of Lost Angels.  It went from a nice quiet mountain sim with crickets, birds, fish, beaches into this sort of urban dystopian nightmare.  Oooh…  lots of fun.

Anyway, it’s been a lot of work.  I’m not even done yet.  The center of the sim is where the role playing bits happen and the rentals are, while the outlaying areas have the lots for sale.  It is part of the CCS role playing system and connected to the City through Pasademon Point and Little China.  You can almost see the blown up Hollywood sign from the sim.  Right now I’m digging tunnels and putting in sewers….  wheew!

We will have to see how things go.  Stop by and take a look around…

-Veyron