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Second Life MMO Update Creates Virtual Eviction Notices
Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting the Linden Labs press release officially announcing major pricing/allocation changes to PC 'virtual world' Second Life, as reported earlier this month. The detailed effects of the announcement include charging for property owned in-game, but allowing players "a new pricing option with no monthly fees" if they own no land, and the official 'Notes' section on the site points out that the update "...meant drastic changes for some the most creative, dedicated residents." A forum posting mentions that new limits tying "building primitives" to land allocation may mean painstakingly constructed virtual property will need to be demolished: "I have been flying around the world and seeing lots of cool builds on small plots... that are way over their prim limit and will be going away." Linden Lab employees say they are "working on a plan to address" this issue before the January 11th deadline. Elsewhere, an intriguing thread details problems with letting novice players build permanent in-game architecture, particle systems, and textures for this innovative 'virtual world'.
Not sure what you meant by "retail game". It is not boxed and sold in stores if that is what you meant. You have to download it. You don't pay for the software, but for using the service.
The changes they made had negative effects on very few people (although they are quite vocal about it). Basically the changes allow them to scale up their server hardware in a more sensible fashion by allowing people to optionally spend real dollars to buy more in-game real estate.
The old system was inflationary and allowed old users, particularly those who spend 24 hours a day online to tie up all the system resources. While some of these folk are very talented and produced some good builds, others just produced large inefficient builds that slowed things down for everyone. Bigger is not necessarily better.
It's not possible to get an economy right the first time, and those of us around for the beta were told that there would be several changes, if not continual changes to the economy. Any player who was caught by surprise on this must have been in game so much they forgot to read their e-mail.
The problem, as I understand it, is that there is no mechanism for trading prim allocations... so two people cannot club together to build something more complex. If they had just implemented that, I think half the bitching would never have happened.
Yep, i just went from a quarterly account to this new option. It means you get to play the game but only have to pay once, no monthly fee. However, you get no land. (recall that the second part of this update in economics is that the capability to build is tied directly to your ownership of the land) There are public build areas (sandboxes) where you could still build, but there may not be much point as you'll have no where to put the stuff. I suppose this is a good option for those who prefer the Events or just exploring. There is a lot of good content in Secondlife...
I suppose one could build in those areas, and sell to gamers who do have land... (i am not an expert; i'm not sure about that)
It's not a bad system (the overall changes, not just this one-time pay account). If you're good, you can build things that will earn you real money. That's US Dollars, not L$.
If you're curious, download the free trial, try it out for seven days. Talk to actual Linden people in game. Get better data than from a cranky old gamer like me.
-s