What do others think about kitely plaza ?

[Ruby O'Degee]

...so many different themes smashed together in one place, it feels sort of messy. It reminds me of being on mainland SL, where a sci-fi region is next to a victorian region, next to a race track. It's hard to get truly immersed in the victorian surroundings when a big space station is hovering over the neighboring region, and vice versa, so everyone uses big screen prims to try to block out regions next door. As a visitor walking through, it's a bit jarring.

I had imagined kitely plaza as a single-themed clean and simple build, in which the inside of the stores (rather than the outside) would be themed according to the store owner's style.

I agree with you Sherrie, only I would say its a lot jarring. In fact the hodgepodge is one of the reasons I don't appreciate SL. So I will try to attend the meeting to discuss the plaza. Even though I contributed to only one corner behind the coffee shop, I can easily see now (and did from the start) that the plaza plan needs a rework.

I do wish that the issue was brought up at summer start. Now we are headed into a busy time of the year.

[Rikku Cosplay]

Thank you Rikku,

I'll send them an email once we know the date to see if they want to be involved in the discussion.

I think the first things on the agenda are to identify the current problems with the existing plaza and define how the solution should look.

Creating a world is a time-consuming undertaking that requires commitment on the part of all those who are involved. Creating an active greeting center also requires commitment on the part of community members to spend time in the center so new users won't feel the world is empty and existing users will have reason to visit and socialize. Without both these things the world will look like it remains under construction and won't fulfill the purpose for which it is built.

[Min Tigerpaw]

Happy to join the meeting Aug 7th for discussion of the plazza and where we should head for. As for taking part in activities - whatever help I can give (depending on time and required skills) I'm happy to contribute - however my time, experience and skills have their limits.
Guess we need to combine skills of the community to make it a place people love to come to, get an positive fisrt impression of Kitely as well as help and information and like to stay for a while.
Agree that we need to analyze first the current status - probably next step we need to have a brainstorming session. Before starting any design- and creation-work the new welcome region should be carefully planned.

Cheers Min

[Constance Peregrine]

Ruby said, "I do wish that the issue was brought up at summer start. Now we are headed into a busy time of the year."

What busy time? what did i miss? am i missing something? is there a busy time? who is in charge of this busy time? should i be doing something busy????

[Keith Selmes]

should i be doing something busy????

Instructional video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFQxob9mpeo

[Constance Peregrine]

or, rather...

[Sierra Jakob]

I'm actually quite grateful to the folks who put something here--it's nice to have some builds in the plaza. There are elements that are quite nice. But it may be time for a more purposeful and unified area. Especially since, with the opening of the market, we can likely expect a huge influx of new people.

When I land in the Kitely Plaza, I get the feeling that I've been dropped off in the bad part of town. It's just not pleasant or functional. I don't think it makes a good first impression or even a good second impression. It doesn't reflect the wonderful people here or the thought and caring that has gone into the creation of Kitely itself. I could really enjoy a plaza where I felt more comfortable. I'd love to invite friends to Kitely and have them meet me for the first time in the Plaza--but right now, I'm just a little embarrassed to do that. Frankly, right now, usually I visit the plaza only when Dundridge drags me there, absolutely insisting.

Yes, I think it could be improved.

[Dot Macchi]

I'm not sure that walking round the current plaza is going to help. Individual areas are good. It's more a case that the whole is less than the sum of the parts.

Perhaps the Plaza currently is trying to do too many things at once: it's meant to be an initial entry point for newcomers to Kitely, a potential events and meeting place, a shopping mall, a showcase for different genres, a place for training, ...

What if the functions that are similar were placed on one single-region world, and the other, wildly different functions on another? It might also help to optimise performance if smaller, focused builds are used.

If it is desired to have different genres showcased on the same world, would a layered build work with a teleport system? Then the initial entry point for newcomers could be placed at ground level and completed first, maybe with the featured merchant shops close by, and a pleasant hang-out space. At a later date the skybuild layers could be completed.

[Rikku Cosplay]

[Ilan Tochner]

Thank you Rikku for taking the initiative.

I think the design process we did with the Kitely Transfer Stations world worked well and resulted in a great world that has a good fit between form and purpose.

For those of you who weren't active in Kitely at the time you can read more about the community created transfer stations here: http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-new ... -stations/

In order to keep the new world responsive and reduce the potential for grieffing we should avoid including any Sandboxes or other areas / activities where anyone can add items to the world. Whatever we design needs to be fixed and only changed by a select group of people who know how to create low-lag builds. As this is a central hub it will need to be family friendly in its design.

As I'll only be able to attend the meeting this week for an hour we probably won't be able to finalize the design. However, I suggest everyone interested in this project visit Rikku's mockup as it can be a good basis to start the discussion from once we finalize the goals. If other people have other approaches/layouts in mind it would be great if they could mockup, sketch, or otherwise describe them as well before the meeting so people will have time to consider them as well. I'd like the goal for this week's meeting to be to finalize on what the world will include and, if possible, decide on a general layout.