if only ...

this morning I woke up reading some interesting news in my google reader, concerning the move of the United Sailing Sims to an area east of Nautilus City and their connection to the mainland through a new Linden region called the Blake Sea. You can read about it here and here.

I was very happy at first to see that there is some growth in a period of shrinking and that this move will surely improve the sailing experience. After a while I had some doubts about the lindenization of such an important group of estates, and I see that in the forum the sual flamewars has started about favoritism toward some groups of residents vs. others.

But after a while my thoughts drifted. The United Sailing Sims are one of the biggest regions in SL, yet, looking at the map shown in the SL blog announcement, I realized how small they are with respect to the mainland landmass. And this made me think what the SL experience could have been (and it still could be) and what a lost opportunity mainland has been so far, if only the Lindens had taken a bit more care of it.

As I have posted before I love to explore, both sailing and walking through the land. And the mainland is a great place for explorations. One can chose an area or a path on the map and spend literally days going around, finding new flaces and meeting new people. Yet the experience is almost always spoiled by ugly landscapes here and there, wastelands (fortunately ad farms are mostly gone), banlines (how much I dislike banlines, especially those covering the waterways !), aggressive security devices, inconsistent settings of rezzing and script rights, even on Linden land.

I value very much the privacy of the people in their plots, yet I cant help but wonder how much better the experience on mainland might have been if some of the issues I listed had been given a consistent set of rules.

The Lindens have shown in the past months that they are somehow getting away from their laissez faire attitude and this move about the USS goes in that direction too. I hope this also mean that in due time a more consistent set of rule of behavior will be created for mainland, that save both the privacy of the residents and the possibility to explore a mainland that has a neverending potential for creativity and beauty.

Have a nice week-end and Happy Holidays

W