Another day... another grid attack

Well, SL is down... again. Five minutes after I logged on I started recieving hundreds of offers of objects, as did everyone else in-world. It was another grid attack using an object replicator, trying to bring the world down. I set myself to busy, but the lag alone knocked me offline and the Lindens closed everything down in an attempt to regain control.

Unfortunately, this is neither a new nor a rare occurence. It happens almost everyday now. I love SL in many ways, but recent policy changes are destroying it. Linden Labs is so bent on getting one million avis on their rolls that they have opened the floodgates to problems. Until about six weeks ago, you were required to have some sort of payment information on file, or a verified cell phone number, in order to register. Now? Nothing. Give an anonymous email address, say you're over 18, and you're in. According to Linden Labs, this allows more Europeans, many of whom don't have credit cards that could be accepted by the SL database, in-world. However, this also allows the creation of an unlimited number of alt accounts and castrates LL as far as its ability to punish griefers. Anyone banned for griefing, grid attacks, etc., can be back online in moments, merely by creating an alt account. Grief again, banned again, create a new alt... rinse and repeat. It has drastically increased the frequency of grid attacks.

The uncontrolled, artificial growth has also seemed to wreak havoc on the servers. Linden Labs releases updates every two weeks now, which gives them almost enough time to fix the hail of bugs from the update before. When I first came online, the grid would be down for updates during the scheduled period (usually 7 a.m. to noon SL time) and bugs were rare. Now, one can expect the grid to be off and on for most of the day of each update, as bugs blow up the world as soon as it's put back online. Following an update, a variety of bugs are fixed on a triage-type priority basis, causing "non-critical" bugs such as vanishing objects, texture copying exploits, etc., to remain problems for days and weeks at a time.

I love SL, or else I wouldn't keep coming back. LL has a truly unique, wonderful product... when it works. But they are running it into the mud and filth... and that's sad.