Well, the Linden Homes are open for viewing and... um...

Blech.

Yes, I know - I am not the demographic, target audience, sucker looking for the Egress, or prospective customer that these are aimed at.

But still... blech.

With one exception, the builds are repetitive, cramped, unimpressive, dull, and strewn about in a manner that defies both natural growth or rational planning.

They're laid out at right angles to keep things simple for arranging furniture, I'm sure, but that just amplifies the unnatural horror of the layout.

They scream frefab, awful when you cam out and even more ugly close-up.

Take the A Frame neighborhood, for instance:

I call it "Triangle Town." And it's truly, truly horrid.

The paths make no sense, the community areas are in spots that aren't natural hubs of homes, the trees provide no cover, and the builds themselves are just atrocious.

Look up the remake of "The Prisoner" for how to arrange A Frames in a proper planned community manner... and then wince that a fascist mind-control experimental town is actually done better than what LL came up with.

The boxy prefab California modern area I call "Dick in a Boxville" is even worse:

It's like there was a sale on right angles at Ikea and M bought out the lot. Building old Dingbat apartment blocks would have been nicer-looking than this haphazard dropping of stacked shipping crates across a former tree farm.

(Alex, I'll take "What if Will Wright was a Linden in 1995 for 200 dollars.")

Terrible in its own right, the "Hobbit Hole" or fantasy area of the prefab continent brings back nightmares of Mario in a rudimentary 3D world:

I'm calling this area Smurfen-Belsen, a concentration camp for fantasy avatars. I kept looking for an iron gate to the Mushroom Canning Factory with "LINDEN MACHT FREI"

It's what you'd get if Shrek had been made a few years earlier on cruder hardware and software.

If I had a place here, I know I wouldn't be able to find it if I had a map, a SLURL, a landmark, and three Lindens pointing at it.

Ugh.

Yes, I said there was an exception to this nightmare:

The Oriental Zone is a rat-warren of twisting rectangular paths among a cramped and crowded, gently-wooded neighborhood of low-lying homes. The trees have varying colors, breaking up the monotony you saw in other regions.

The flaws of the other planned areas are an advantage here. It ties it all together.

And... I like it. Because it appears to be laid out in a natural arrangement of expansion, and the back of my mind purrs "fractal."

The only way for people to distinguish between one place and another will be external indicators of a unique nature.

Which, according to the gulag-like lockdown suggested in the Covenants, may be impossible for people to do.

Oh well. The Lindens have succeeded in creating the ultimate starter home zone... people will be that much more enthusiastic to move out of these places than anywhere else. (And based on Caledon's recent announcement of a new virtual world colony, maybe into Blue Mars when things ramp up there?)

These will not steal residents from Mainland rentals or higher-quality themed communities, but will ultimately drive them there... or drive them to Refunds Linden demanding their ten bucks back.

Has anyone started Flickr groups for these areas yet?

When things get humming, I'll add details to my contest idea (broken into 4 sections per theme-realm, categories for each.).

I think all the guests from Saffia Widdershins' shows combined are going to be scratching their heads trying to figure out how to de-uglify these suckers.

UPDATE:

I've posted a few thoughts here and there to the Twitter stream.

Prokofy's put a few thoughts up there as well, and I am looking forward to what is shaping up to be a blockbuster post by them on their site.

Linden Homes appears to be another badly-managed, badly-planned attack on Mainland rentals by third parties.

I will admit that my angle on this is an aesthetic one more than political, but Prokofy has and always will have the political angle covered. I don't think I'd have anything to add beyond what they have said or will say in that regard.

And it's good to see that Saffia's looking at it from a challenge angle, and maybe that could be part of my idea for a contest somehow, but with their oompf/publicity behind them.

Radar's response:

I believe it's possible to be against both: uglification and competition.

If someone's first experience in home-ownership is this and the results are a sour one, it's going to be a harder sell for anyone trying to sell them a home elsewhere.