1 / 52 - Cityscape

I have had comments and talks in-world that I really did not expect, and feel deeply humbled, touched and inspired by them. Delivering the final blow to this piece of electronic paper by pressing Delete Blog now seems to be as hard as it was to continue writing it.

But, truth is, "Lefavre's Life" just could not go on, for several reasons, so I decided to try again with a slightly different theme. I have republished prior posts that still seems relevant, including some I know others have linked to.

I was wondering about jumping the 365 bandwagon, but that seems a bit over the edge when I wanted to close down shop only 2 weeks ago. So I will make it a bit easier on myself and try one post a week instead.

Typical Bay City (Tanelorn) - Did someone just say City?

Today I want to talk about cities. I guess I am inspired by spending this week in a large RL city, something that I absolutely love. And as I walk the well-lit Holiday-season decorated streets in the evening, I wonder why SL have no true cities. Sure, we have Bay City, but thats more of a ghost-like village. Even the nice Staten Island Street is just these low deserted buildings. Where are the 10 story malls, apartment buildings and skyscrapers hovering above crowded streets?

The answer is of course the low prim density of SL. 15.000 prims per sim. Just too little. If I could have one wish for the next big mainland thing after Nautilus, it would be a true city continent:

• 12 times the prim density, that is 180.000 prims / sim, 4 full 4-core CPU-s dedicated to that one SIM (instead of one core running a sim as they do today)
  
• 16 times the tier, that is a 1024 should count as 16K mainland (US$75/month)
  
• 47 plots per sim
• 80 avatar's on sim limit
  

This would give 3750 prims for each 1024, and since the common areas with streets and lights and sidewalks would not need 12 times as many prims, there would even be room to put in a few extra parcels. 47 parcels would still leave 3750 prims for roads and decorations. By comparison, Bay City has only has room for about 30 double-primmed parcels.

When you cram the prim equivalent of an entire openspace into a single 1k parcel, you force people to build in several levels. Also, to be able to justify the tier if you run a mall or rentals, you have to make tall buildings with room for many tenants. Tier should be high to discourage the property speculation that is making Bay City even more empty than it ought to be.

Yeah, and the street sims should have the water level set at 0 meters, parcel ground should be at 12 meter to allow a floor beneath street level (streets just being prims after all; they don't actually need to rest on land:-)

With several times the number of shops in one sim, chances are also much higher to actually meet other people when out shopping. The "emptiness" of SL is one of the major obstacles to acceptance by RL businesses; high-density sims may be able to rectify that.

Of course, these kinds of "super sims" should be available to estates as well, should anyone have the courage to commit themselves to the kind of increased tier LL would want to charge:-)

Would it be technically feasible? I can't see why not; It would require high bandwidth to the server, AND not the least lots of house walls hiding most of the prims to make sure the viewer is never exposed to 180.000 visible prims at once... LOL, now THAT would be a lag worth complaining about:-)

Probably the biggest obstacle is the business and governance side of it. And maybe its a dream not really shared by many other people in a world where beaches and protected sea-front parcels are among the most expensive.

But Christmas is the time for dreams, is it not?