I'm sick of building a nice house, then ...

I feel your pain. Lukas and I decided to get land together. At the time the new sims popped up and in the shadow of the Volcano in a quiet beautiful place with a waterfall and small stream. friends came and bought land near us. we formed a small group. then the Lindens set the area around the hub for sale, It borders our sim. Ashne Chung places a god forsake ugly mall, 3 levels, open, bad wood texture, block stalls. Doesn't fit the surrounding area's theme or the low key residential area. Plus with the slope of the mountain it just hangs over us blocking the sky.

Syanin: as I have said many, many times before, as long as there are people who believe there is real money to be made in buying up cheap land in the new sims and sticking big boxes full of trash on them, it will happen. The problem with SL is that there is no such thing as an area where people live, or a commercial district. Any idiot can come along and buy land and stick whatever they want on it. Most of these mall / club builders don't care what sort of area they're moving into. If they see that the land is cheap and they can make a quick few quid, they'll do it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the bank to cash in my £18,000 from GOM this week.

Solution: Buy an entire sim. Build your dream homes in a nice little neighborhood (no streets)
and rent them out for less than what a land teir costs.

It's expensive, but you don't have shitbuilting syndrome.

Only four times? You must be new. And British isn't a race. You are right, you paid money for your piece of land to do with what you wanted and they paid money for their piece of land to do with what they wanted. No one likes being told their build looks like shit. You live in a community. Act like it. If you want to control what the world looks like on every side of you then buy an island.

The way land is handled around telehubs pisses me off more than you'd ever believe. It totally killed Janus, one of the few sims where I tried to own significant plots, but had to dump them later to get out of the sinking fps lag-hole that whole place had become. It still is, actually, which only reinforces my decision to bail.

When someone asks me "What ruins SL?" I just have to point to any telehub being 'developed' or land being auctioned around it. It always ends up being utter crap.

The amount of people ordering me to buy an island makes me wonder whether I've accidentally stepped into a virtual Sloane Square. If you want to buy £600 worth of scotch mist on credit, that's your call. I try and keep my spending on virtual things realistic. Go and buy a £200 pash or something.

If people expect me to "act like I live in a community", then I expect those around me to. I don't expect people to tell me they're going to build one thing, sell me the land and then build a shit tip in my back garden.

The people who did this to me this time were a popular couple. Everyone knows that the clique gets you everywhere in S-bloody-L, sometimes even more so than money. So I don't even know why I'm bothering to argue the toss with you. Be thankful that I'm this bored.

People keep suggesting that you buy an island because it's a solution to your problem. If you want the world to revolve around you, for the low low price of a car payment, you can get a world that will. Complaining, while free, isn't as effective. As you can clearly see, its not working.

And why would the prestige of the couple matter to me? I don't even know who you are talking about. I just believe in people's rights to build what they want on the land they pay for. As for someone putting something in YOUR garden, just hit Return Object Other, unless of course it isn't really in YOUR garden.

People keep suggesting that you buy an island because it's a solution to your problem. If you want the world to revolve around you, for the low low price of a car payment, you can get a world that will. Complaining, while free, isn't as effective. As you can clearly see, its not working.

And why would the prestige of the couple matter to me? I don't even know who you are talking about. I just believe in people's rights to build what they want on the land they pay for. As for someone putting something in YOUR garden, just hit Return Object Other, unless of course it isn't really in YOUR garden.
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YAY!!!!!!! I agree 100%!

I disagree with the glib 'go buy an island' response.

I mean, you don't do that with other stuff - "My car is dented" "Go buy a new car" "wtf?"
If anything, it only treats a symptom, not the root cause. Increased isolation is the answer to having a good SL experience? I doubt it, there's got to be a better way, $195 a month over just working things out with each other?

I also know there are untractable situations where either side won't compromise, but there are small communities within SL that still do. Buying an island just says "I give up on you all." and this saddens me.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

~Robert Frost

Well there are also people who get together and build in a theme. Thats also an option for people that want that. But I wasn't going to suggest that to this poster. They don't come off as a team player and if it's going to be all about you, then buy a bloody island.

People build tripe next to me all the time. So what? I didn't buy the view. "Buy an island" is our standard reply because the main poster comes off as a neighbor that no one wants. So I WAS thinking about the community. I know if someone came onto MY land and told me MY house was not up to THEIR standards, I'd show them the dangerous end of MY grenade launcher. So I sympathize. With the people this person moves next door to.

Words fail me.

Go back to your gold-plated ivory tower.

"The low low price of a car payment?" You have no idea ...

You see that quote button ...

Oh, fuck it.

If that's what you call community, you can stick it.

That was the best you could do? No wonder you are losing fights with your neighbors.

I needed say no more. If your idea of "community" is showing anyone who disagrees with your aesthetics "the dangerous end of your grenade launcher", I despair for you.

Hey, it happened to me recently, too. :D I built this amazing, ultra-mod, 3-floor, round-cornered, 70%-opacity-windowed Psychology HQ for our group and what happens? Well, Suburbia moves in next door! :D

No offense to those people, but.. XD I mean, at least they didn't try to build it themselves, (they used a prefab), but they had this dark-brown, suburban, large-porched whatnot on, like, a fake, grass-textured, 0.25m-thick "ground" jutting out over the water about a meter too high.. and a barn and prim animals in the back.

BUNNIES AND HORSIES!! *SQUEEEL*

It was ridiculous. XD And we were thinking of renting that land right before they moved in.

Anyway, we just moved to another sim for various reasons, and now WE own the ugly, unfinished neighborhood build. :D At least it's not plywood!

Actually, the neighborhood we moved into is very strict about no ugly builds that don't fit the wooded theme of the sim and no malls/clubs/whatnot. It's really nice. I think more sims should have communities like that. The one we moved out of, I only met one person who lived nearby. She was the only one who actually took the time to fly over and say hello. Because of that lack of community, the sim was basically just a bunch of builds on tree-less land that had nothing in common whatsoever. It looked horrible.

We haven't even been in the new sim that long, and already I've met a whole bunch of really nice people! And, from what I've seen, the builds don't all look completely weird next to one another. Some do, but that's to be expected. At least the forest theme helps.

My advice? Only move in next to land that is already owned and built on. Or buy up a large tract of land and only sell to people you know won't make the area ugly.

It sucks when you love the area and one person comes in and messes it up with crappy plywood monstrocities. Best of luck in the future, Charlotte. :\

wow. thanks Reitsuki. that was amazing.

Charlotte, I know how you feel. I've been running from lag and ugly builds. Sometimes even planned communites don't help because of one's perception of what is nice.

I moved into a wooded sim and placed what I thought was nice lawn but the organizer replaced it with rocks. I tried and tried to make it acceptable, but was told I wasn't quite close. So I moved my builds up in the air and put trees on the land.

The irony is that while my builds "weren't quite right", someones else plunked an enormous unfinished build with a rotating "under construction" sign on top of it a few plots over and it seems to be okay with everyone.

So I've decided not to worry or complain anymore. All that happens is a flame war. I'm up in the sky where I can see the sunset and one day I will buy an island or something.

Good luck Charlotte.

Things I do to avoid bad buildings by neighbours:

1. I help them build, or build something for them for a small fee or for free. Best way to avoid bad looking buildings is actually build the stuff yourself.
There are a lot of people out there, just learning to build, and trying hard. They don't expect these early results to look spectacular. So, commenting on their builds and giving constructive criticism helps a lot.

2. Build and integrate with the neighbours. I often try to integrate the scenery of my land with that of the neighbours that do have a nice looking plot. That way the sim starts to look more like a planned community, without actually being one. Often new people coming in are actually looking for places with that kind of athmosphere, and are happy to join in.

3. Offer cuts of land in other places. If somebody joins in a place that's not completely convenient, bordering my land. I sometimes try to persuade them to move to another part by offering them another plot for the same price or cheaper as they bought their land. This is only useful when you have a larger plot though, and some L$ to spare.

4. Don't build residential plots in Telehub sims. This often just doesn't work out. As there's malls and other commercial buildings popping up there all the time.

5. Be patient. Often people learn in the long run. And don't forget, sometimes a building in itself isn't ugly, but one just needs to get used to it being there.

I hold the opinion of Kasandra, in the sense that you only own the land that you own. And people are free to build whatever they want. My way of dealing with this is just diametrically opposed to hers
I just try to make the best of it, try to talk with the neighbours, and never try to get annoyed or irritated about their buildings, but just try to find ways together with them to find solutions. Once you become hostile, it's almost impossible to ever get back.

But maybe i've just been lucky...

Sage advice. If you have an issue with your neighbor's build, talk to them and offer helpful suggestions (note: "I don't like your build because it doesn't mesh with mine. Can you change it?" is not a helpful suggestion). If they're set in their ways and just want to do what they want to do, let them. If you can't accept it that's not their problem. Once your relationship with your neighbor becomes adversarial you're guaranteed to not get what you want. Personally I don't understand why people have such a problem living next door to something they don't find attractive. It's just prims. It's not going to call you names or push you down and kick you whenever you glance in that direction.

This happened to me everytime I bought land...except when I lived next to Urusula. I recently gave away my 2468sqm to my very nice neighbor, Allya, because she was so cool and built a house for me and wanted me to stay. But I have finally decided to go with a one time no land membership. I can hang out just about anywhere.

I basically gave up. I had grown tired of having no say or control over what happened in my environment.

You have complete control over what happens in your environment. You just have to accept that your environment ends at your property line.

AllyA is a great person. :) And that house she built you was awesome!

Chase and I had a neighbor in hawthorne that didn't care for our New York City build. One day he put up a huge wall between us. On his side of the wall he had a lovely sunset so he didnt have to look at our city. On our side, he had screenshots of OUR build so our city looked even bigger

It was a really charming solution and I was delighted. These things don't always have to come to fisticuffs.