Land Tier Fees one year later

We are quickly approaching the 1 year anniversary of version 1.2, and all the changes it has brought about. Second Life is a much different place now, larger on an exponential scale. The 512m allotment to premium accounts and the tiers have remained constant (along with the prim limits), yet land is not the scarce resource it once was. I think that across the board, Linden Lab should lower tier fees and readjust the tier boundaries.

512m of land is not adequate for anyone really, given the ridiculously low prim limit - the base premium account tier should be bumped to 1024m or even higher. At the same time, tiers should be restructured into smaller groupings since the tiers go up so exponentially fast that many people feel the need to get more land than they really want, because once you are in a new tier, it seems silly to not fill the tier since you are paying the same price, when often they only wanted a little bit more land. This is a significant problem in higher tiers - you can't own 4100m of land without suddenly having to really own 8192m, with nothing in between, and it gets worse from there. You can't go above 1 sim without going up to another half sim - I am sure the tiers get worse after that.

Over the past few months, all players in SL have endured significant, often show stopping problems with the system, while at the same time Linden Lab was quick to add a no refund policy to the TOS for poor quality of service. As we move forward, for the continued growth of SL and the involvement of players in larger projects, land tier fee reduction would be a nice gesture on Linden Lab's part to help foster continued interest and momentum in what has become the most expensive of all online environments.

I'd like to see tier fees that are somewhat finer grained. I have a pretty huge amount of land left in my tier but can't tier down. I think the tier prices themselves are fair though, as is the no refund addition to the TOS. LL is not a very large company and really shouldn't be expected to offer refunds for service interruptions like a cable company. ISP's and cable providers are static technology. SL is not. It's in a constant state of development and it's not really realistic to expect there not to be problems now and then. It's the nature of the beast.

Chip,

I agree with you to a point about the refund clause. However, the timing was pretty bad on it from a user perspective. When you are paying $10 a a month for something, it's not as much of an issue, but when you are paying $200 a month or more and you can't use the system without significant problems for a week or more, it does become an issue. Hopefully we will not experience another period as bad as the 1.5 upgrade.

I don't think the tier prices are necessarily fair still - technology gets less expensive over time - my cell phone plan contains a lot more minutes for $40 a month than it did a year or two years ago, but we have experienced no upgrade in the amount of prims available or the amount of land allowed in that price tier. There is no reason at least that a reevaluation of what the tier includes should not happen.

I have always felt that 512m plot was pretty small. I fully endorse base tier at 1024m.

Less emphasis on initial purchase price of land and adjust tiers to encourage owning more land above the base.

Happy customers = long term tier = steady income = healthy world.

i agree that a base tier of 1024sm is best. i enjoy the pre1.2 nonlifer bonus of having a 1024sm base tier now but i wouldn't begrudge it someone who opened an account today. if they want to continue rewarding my early involvement, they can raise mine to 1536sm. but i won't kick and scream over it, in public, ha. i will always support lower fees. it's brilliant that we get discounts as we add tier. but knocking the overall rates down a bit will always be welcome.

we've discussed smaller tier increments at higher levels since january. we've been told "no" every time in the nicest way possible. it ain't gonna happen. after a year, we have no more prims but we do have far more area available, much faster servers, fewer server side lag issues, live help et cetera. the point is, the services have improved and increased.

adding the refund clause when they did was poor timing but also quite necessary. beyond fairness, individual outage refunds would be a nightmare to administer. remember that we end up paying for the support that we demand. serious, long time, world wide, problems can be comensated across the board. but not while the software is still being developed. that kind of thing will have to wait until it's in production.

I'd agree on the base tier bump to 1024.

In addition, after the 16384 tier, charge on a percentage basis. Let people own 22,222 if they wish, or 61,123. Give a scaled discount based on total land owned, just like now, where 65,536 will cost $195 - but allow us to own 70,000 square meters for about $205!

I'll let the Lindens decide how much land for how much. The current structure, including the 512 as the base is OK by me.

But I agree that exponential tier increases need to be modified. When one wants to acquire (AND pay for) more land, it shouldn't always have to be double what they currently have.

I own several thousand m2 that is mostly going to waste (although I do have plans) just because my tier allows me to own it.

- Ace

It is not the pricing of the tier system that is so bad, it's the huge gaps between levels, so that tiering up is a big jump in price sometimes when you have only a little bit more land. There has to be a finer gradation between the tiers to accommodate people more gradually acquiring land.

I agree 1024 as base tier would be a fine thing, especially if First Land plot size was increased to 1024 as well. A nice side-effect of that would be that land wouldn't be sub-divided as finely, and the crazy-quilt patchwork of land borders would be slightly less ugly and chaotic.

Ditto on the smaller gradations on tiers. Make the steps less expensive and therefore less painful to take, and more people will tier up more.

I've been pretty happy with my basic 1024 (not fully utilized) and building in the no-script sandbox, or other island sims.

If it becomes too much for you, neighbors, stress, events causing lag, just simplify - it really makes a difference.

My view on this currently is that I'm not nearly fully informed on the situation and the dynamics of tiering, but it looks to me like the steps are REALLY quantized and huge bounds, especially when you get up to huge chunks of land -- it doesn't scale smoothly at all.

So I am in the same thoughtline as what has been said earlier here. Right now, it's kind of like a rainbow with the "7 colors" (6 to some, whatever ) but instead of smooth shading-fading between them and a nicely gradiated blend, it's an abrupt change where you can clearly see where the rainbow is divided. That makes me uncomfortable.

I agree with basetier @ 1024 m. Given SL's expansion in the future too, this will likely lead to expanded creativity and comfort in one's own virtual home.

i hope everyone saying they think the base tier should be 1024 means they think premium accounts should get that tier for free and not that they think that should be the bottom smallest tier. if that's the smallest tier you just get the same old thing of people feeling like they have to own more land than they need. plus if you give premiums twice as much land for free it's the same as having half as much land to give. and i just thought of this, making First Land 1024 means it would cost new people L$1024 instead of L$512. there goes all your starting money and more than all your starting money if you didn't get a premium account.

i like the idea of having more tiers with smaller changes between them but i don't see a reason to suddenly give premium people more land for free, especially First Land. when i was newer i got the first land deal and back then 512 was plenty for me. nowdays i have a bigger tier and the 512 for free is a nice bonus.

I think the base (free) premium tier and First Land size would be better raised to 1024m2. However, if there were an increase in Prims per square meter, that might negate the need for a change.

It is all a matter of perspective, though. Of the last three people I helped to find First Land, their reactions at the point I told them to turn on View Property Lines were very different:

Two of them said "Oh, that's so tiny!"
One said "Oh, that's huge!"

The prim limit is definitely the main problem with the 512m allotment - a little over 100 prims is really not enough to do much at all, and I think just ends up frustrating a lot of new players who are disappointed when they realize what it means. Anything that can improve that experience would be a good thing.

Havok 2.0, should, in theory, allow the increase of Prims per server (better physics handling = less load on the server = less collision/physics calculations for avs buildings etc = more prims)

That'll be coming out soon after the new year.

LF

We have heard about the magical powers of Havok 2 for how long now? It was originally supposed to be in 1.4, then a patch of 1.4, then in 1.5, then a patch of 1.5, and I can't imagine with the current focus on stability that it will be in 1.6. LL has stated in the past that Havok 2 won't necessarily bring an increase in prim limits, especially in its first iterations, so even if a release is near the start of the year, it will still be quite awhile before any changes on that front. In the meantime, there are other things that can be done to help the problem, instead of it always being pushed off on the holy grail of Havok 2.

i dunno, about 100 prims (512 meters) was enough for me when i was newer and there's always all the sandboxes. by the time i wanted more prims i had made friends and joined groups and decided to tier up and get more land with my friends. 512 is a good amount for new players since we can cheaply get more any time we want.

I'd like to see the following changes:

1. Elimination of the bulk discount for land. It contributes to the profitability of land barons. Pass those savings on to the rest of us instead of letting them be incentives for our exploitation.
   
2. I'd like tiers to continue to exist. If it weren't for tiers, who contribute surplus land to group projects?
   
3. I'd like the tiers to be separated by 1024 m^2 instead being based on powers of two.
   

~Ulrika~

Totally agree. I still ask myself how I ended up in a $75 tier a little over a month after I started to 'play' this 'game'.

Part of the problem is, I believe, there are never enough prims, or usable terrain, or the other way around. Have to keep up buying more and more to reach that perfect balance.

Even now, I have plenty of prims, but ran out of available land to build (unless I want to build mountainside or in the water), so I am eyeing my neighbor's parcel to expand. Unfortunately that would probably throw me to the next tier. I need 800 sqm. from his land, have only 564 sqm left on my current tier, next tier would force me into an additional 8192 sqm.

A little here, a little there, and before you know it... But c'est la vie.

-Tito

You can always rent larger spaces with varying numbers of prims from several places in SL