CNN iReport

Well when I posted my first article about the dramatic price increases for Openspace sims, I thought I would wait a couple of days to see what impact there is in the virtual world.  It's plain to see that feelings are running so high inworld that there is a very unhappy portion of the community that now feel alienated from Linden Labs.   Albeit that the Lindens are keeping a close eye on the forums and trying to answer all they can on their Website at SecondLife.com.  I find it hard to believe the reasons they give for the increases, I am no expert at land ownership and the ins and outs of how the CPUs cope with the Openspace sims compared with the others.  However, if people who owned these sims were overusing them, as quoted as the reason behind the increase, surely a simple way of solving the ‘over use' would have been to restrict the amount of prims again.  By decreasing the prims and not putting the prices up surely people would have adapted to being frugal with their builds (also some sort of texture guide could have been made available, as someone told me textures also add to the problem, so some sort of pixel count on textures too would help).   Forgive me if my knowledge is limited regarding this, as I am sure someone will put me right if I am mistaken, perhaps this is not the way to go, but it seems simple to me.  Just like real life though, I doubt very much if the prices will be reversed.  Perhaps there is more to this, maybe Linden Labs have suffered too with the banks crashing in real life, who knows.

The trouble is there is real anger out there in the grid.  I have been to see a couple of the demonstrations and people are bitter and upset.  One demonstration in Dore, at the meeting area where four sims meet, had nearly 200 avatars attending and it's not good.

Personally, two of my friends, just as an example, have been badly affected.  Both of them are giving up the Openspace sims altogether.  One friend and her husband had built beautiful peaceful residential properties, taking extra care not to exceed any prim limits and making sure their tenants did the same, keeping well within the limits.  They have had to tell their tenants that they are handing the land back and the people will have to find somewhere else to live.   They worked hard putting it all together, they had happy people renting from them, and they made sure nobody exceeded any of the set limits.  

My other friend's case is even worse, it's a charity to help Autistic people.  Dave Sparrow's ‘Naughty Auties' group, who have been trying to find the money anyway to keep this wonderful group going.   When I went over to see Dave a couple of weeks ago, he had planned to hold a charity event at the beginning of November to help with the upkeep of the Openspace sim he uses for his marvellous work.  Dave finances most of the charity himself and is dedicated to helping people, who either suffer from Autism, or their friends and relatives who need assistance.  He now has to give up the sim and find another solution to keep going.  Someone has temporarily helped for a few days, letting him use their land for his meetings, but this is only temporary and I would hate to see Dave having to give it all up.   Dave is only an example, I am sure there are many charity groups who are in the same predicament.

With the growing amount of other virtual worlds coming to the fore, it would seem a bad business move to upset so many clients in Second Life.  It's such a shame as well, as people love their avatar existence or they would not be ‘inworld' in the first place.  I would like to see the Lindens think again, perhaps there is another way, without pricing their loyal customers out of the grid altogether.