LL announced their new policy on openspace(OS) sims yesterday here .   Tier prices going up, upfront cost going up, as of January 1, 2009.  Read the post… I’ll wait.  Welcome back.  So, this is what it all means.  When LL lowered the prices on OS sims and double the prim count they had to know we’d use them for other than water and landscaping sims.  If they didn’t realize it…. well I don’t believe that.

So, now that a lot of people have bought them and some use them appropriately, some don’t.  LL is going to try to rectify that situation.  The open spaces aren’t going away, the prices are just going up.  I understand LL’s point in all of this.  I’m a sim owner and I own 3 OSs.  I’ve never over used them.  Yes, i’ve had people living on them but they’ve not overused them.  Will I keep them?  That’s a good question.  I’ve got a couple months to decide what to do with them.

So the blogosphere and the forums and the in world groups are going nuts.  One thing Prokofy Neva said last night that I agree with is that instead of bitching, get a group together, make a petition, get signatures and go to the Lindens with our suggestions.  Yelling and bitching will not change the situation.  Making reasonable suggestions to LL does.  Here are mine:

1.  Instead of having the ax fall on January 1, grandfather the current OSs until March 2009.  This will do 2 things.  There won’t be a flood of abandoned sims on January 1st.  Two, it will give current OS owners and LL an opportunity to evaluate the usage on these sims accurately.  This brings me to point 2..

2.  Create 2 kinds of OS.  The water/landscape only lower prim sim at the current pricing and the higher prim/higher use sim and the higher pricing.  If you currently have a populated OS that you don’t want to lose, you keep it and pay more.  If you are ok with dropping the prim count and really using it for light use, then you pay less.

Those are my 2 suggestions.  LL knows which OS sims are abusing what they were intended for.  Instead of punishing everyone, they should go to those owners directly and deal with them. 

As an island owner though, I do see some good coming from this.  All those folks renting on OSs, will either get their rents increased or will need to find a new home.  I see island land prices going back up and the available land being snatched up.  I have land available on Angel Square.  I don’t plan to raise the prices or rents to take advantage. 

It’ll be interesting to see what happens.  As always, LL throws a curve and those of us who are really committed will work out how to deal with it.

Tags: Crown and Pearl, Linden Lab, open space, prokofy neva, second life, sl, tier