Out With Outerlands – Pt. 2 of 4: “Oops, Don’t Know What Happened”
April 12, 2011The Earth Moves
About a month ago, after I’d rezzed in at van Bleeck, I noticed something different about my place. Things just looked wrong. I found the Medieval pub model that was nestled against the side of my hill before was now half-buried into it. The line of the hill’s ridge looked different – then I saw a white marble bench suspended a good meter above the top of the hill. Hmmm… I looked further along the top of the ridge. On IcaruS HQ’s side of the hill, just behind it, a vertical slice of hill had been hacked off along the parcel border. I flew over and saw the land level had come up against the side of the castle, and halfway up the trunk of the tree in the field. Something was definitely not right.
And a Lake Goes Missing
Then, while still in mid-air, I turned round and…no lake? Adjusted my draw distance. Still an empty crater. I came down to the ground and walked to the lake shore. Dry lake bed. That lovely lake was one of the main reasons I chose to get land in van Bleeck.
I alerted Leon and sent an instant message to the rep for the land management company: “Have you got a few minutes? I need to speak with you.” If I didn’t get a reply I was going to send a notecard. A few minutes later she responded, and after I explained the problem, she asked me to teleport her. She was strangely unaware of the changes that had been made and couldn’t offer any explanation. She promised to check on it, then apologised profusely and said nothing could be done. She also mentioned we could move to a new location and they would offer a very good deal. Leon was especially unhappy about the prospect of another relocation.
Sim-edge Parcels Pop Up
While she was there I asked her about the land changes on the =IcaruS= HQ property and my own. She flew up to the hill behind the castle and I followed. I saw there was a new tenant on a tiny parcel that had been squeezed out along the sim’s edge, behind the castle. There were “for sale” signs on other small parcels that weren’t there before. Hmm, strange. I asked about them too, and commented that they seemed to have sprung up overnight.
No Clear Answers
The rep couldn’t explain any of these things, which I found puzzling. Surely there is some record of activities performed on sims, I thought. She did say the missing lake and botched parcel terrains were clearly mistakes and she would rectify them. Oddly, she was unable to repair the deformed hill behind the castle – at length I told her not to worry, we’d wait on that.
The Lake Restored, the Land Not
The next morning, the lake was back – the land was not. We did what we could – the HQ’s land was now backed up to a tiny, occupied parcel, so he couldn’t terraform the other side of the hill – he did what he could to match his side somewhat. I got the half-buried pub sorted.
Now, these kinds of problems are perplexing and annoying time wasters. Since the land management was taken over by the current company, we’re not alone with our issues. Other former landowners report similar issues. Two groups that met regularly in a nearby sim also owned by the same land company had problems too. One group relocated to a new, more suitable location. The other group’s meetings have ceased for the time being, their status is unknown. And the tiny parcel behind HQ is vacant again, after only a week or two.
I’m sure it wasn’t always like this.
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