M has posted to the blog and the Wiki has a bit more detail.

(Hopefully people actually read those, ponder for a bit, and ask some questions instead of beating the crap out of the customer-facing folks or screaming I AM GOING TO LEAVE over and over, drowning out the ability for anyone to think.)

I figured there would be two types of lesser sim product as a result of the outcry from both heavy users and sailors/fliers. Jack was telegraphing that move in the blog post and office hour.

There will be performance limits imposed, something they are loath to do, but technically possible. And as long as they virtualize resources, well, sometimes you have to make sure that people in the same bed don't thrash around and ruin anybody's sleep.

I'm watching the Concierge list flow... now Metanomics... and there's already one person trying to find a way to trick the system, thinking up 750 prim tiki huts and torches and such.

Sheesh. They never learn.

Here's the interesting phrase most folks will overlook:

"We have some thoughts on how to bring Residents into the dialog earlier."

Is this a formalization of the FIC?

And based on past behavior, how will residents know that the dialog actually took place and was among a group of residents that represented the affected population of a proposed change?

How open will the forecasting and planning of major moves be?

Pondering Harper's thought:

Joe rented to sploder-lovers, got his residents on his butt, called Concierge OR filed a lot of tickets and cost Linden Labs a lot of money, just as I suspected.

Similar thoughts are in my Virts post where the ten dollar accounts chew up any revenue on their site with a single call a month, then cause havoc to other accounts on the box when they get out of control.

I still think they could have done a better job of testing the demand for these, so maybe it wasn't "bait and switch" out of intent, but ended up just as damaging to those that saw the equivalent of the marketing glossies and jumped in with both feet.

Unfortunately, the ocean-lovers who never filed a ticket and sailed along peacefully got smacked for Joe's or Joe's resident's ignorance and Linden's not-so-great product offering.

With the carry-forward of the $75 true low-performance Openspace, it looks like that's the backpedal, but not a complete one. The prim count for those... that's less than the original OpenSpace/Void, right? 1875 to 750.... so the sailors and aviators end up punished for this mislaunch and the people who truly abused the system. Here's hoping there haven't been too many dedicated flying and sailing areas already vanished because people jumped the gun.

And I guess we'll see how many of these sights (including Harbour) survive as homesteads or sink.

Another thought, after thinking about "We have some thoughts on how to bring Residents into the dialog earlier." through on Plurk...

in this case, they're aiming the cut-back openspace/void to the sailing and flying communities, right?

did M or Jack or others actually have those communities test this lesser offering to see if they'd actually use such 750 prim/20 av sims?

or are they, once again, tossing something out without involving residents in the development of the product/beta-ing of it prelaunch?

Also, after watching Intlibber paste Nexeus on MBC, I'm wondering if folks are going to flee to the alternate conference in Portland as representative of resident sentiment as opposed to wherever SLCC ends up. Nex is courting backlash big time on this one, and he's aware of it.

Hey, I, for one, kinda want to see Portland. I know a few folks up there and would be cool to see them as well because it would be easy for them to attent this thing.

Of course, if SLCC ends up in Boston, well, there's folks up there too I'd want to see.

I figure I should work up a podcasting presentation as part of some Arts track to justify the expense. Not that I'd ever get a sponsor for it even with a cold day in Hell... HAH!