Holy Crap!

Don't forget that the Lindens have a brand spanking new Marketplace/Mall, nearly ready to come on line. I bet the setup will have special usage rules. I am putting my furniture into boxes over the next couple days. I think we are all going to wind up doing that with anything more than a couple of prims.

OK. I posted a question here and found my answer elsewhere. For anyone else confused about the process, apparently what you're buying with a membership isn't land. It's a certain maximum allowance. You still have to buy the land in-game. If you own more land than your maximum allowance, you owe LL cash for that land. I think that's right. This still makes me feel REALLY uneasy. Someone tell me if I got all this mumbo-jumbo wrong.

Ok, my take on this is that each person is allocated a land USAGE. As prior subscription holders we are allocated 1024 meters. This is not physical in-game land. I can go out and claim as many 4x4 parcels ANYWHERE in world and it will deducto out of the "pool" If my total land claim in all sims extends beyond that pool, then I have 2 choices, pay for it in L$ or US$ as a sliding monthly fee. How is this so bad?

I may be wrong on the mechanics, but that is what it reads to me. And frankly, I like that notion.

Phoenix, yep, that is how it works.

You buy or acquire the land anyway that you like. Buying land for L$ from other residents will work just as it does today, for example.

The UI will show you a list of all the parcels you own everywhere in world, along with their size. As you said, you will pay for the number of meters above your intial allotment of 4096 meters for lifetime subscribers or 1024 meters for monthly subscribers.

You will have the option to pay for any extra land either in L$ or in $USD. These charges will be monthly.

Kats, your anwers:

1. When we receive the email on how much land we own, will we be able to buy the land in Linden dollars right away?

We aren't selling you the land you already own, we are charging montlhy fees to have up to a certain amount of land. These fees will be payable in L$ or $USD. You will get a notification of how much you will need to pay for these fees, if anything, by mail.

2. If we opt for purchasing more land with Linden dollars, will it be a one-time flat fee or will it be a monthly fee like in US dollars?

It will be a monthly fee. You may buy land anyway you like, for example from other users for L$.

As to your concerns about prim usage... the limits will be raised for the new release, and we will send email about this.

Will the Lindens be purchasing additional land in sims where they hold prim-intensive builds, like the Governor's Mansion in Clementina?

Question I don't think I've seen asked...

As a lifer I can have 4096m if I do not take 4096m but stick with say, 1000m would I be able to use the same object count on the 1000m as I would if it was 4096m, or would I have to actualy have 4096m of land to use the object amount allowed by it?

Also another thing, its been stated people will be able to convert L$ to USD, and pay for land with USD, but what about other currency's?

I know there are some people in canada in the UK, will those currencys be included? Or excluded all togheter?

Its a really bad move by the Lindens, but that said - its a more direct way for them to cover the server costs, if you use more, you quite literally PAY more.

However, my finances are not the best so I will have to scale down, this isnt too much of a problem except for what it represents to Second Life on a slightly deeper level... When you have to pay with real money, and compete for land with others in a bidding war, that makes Second Life a very sad reflection of reality, surely something that defeats the object of SL in the first place? Now SL will share with reality, a clear definition between lifes winners, and losers. Second Life should be renamed ... non-physical-extension-of-your-first-life.

I'm amazed this has just like, come out of the woodwork, just like "Oh by the way, your paying through the nose now folks...", kind of a shock when I read the email.

But with that said, I suppose it is a more fair system, so I see why the Lindens are going the way they are with it...

Anyway, thats my rant over, dissapointed.

Answers to questions, OZ:

>As a lifer I can have 4096m if I do not take 4096m but stick with say, 1000m would I be able to use the same object count on the 1000m as I would if it was 4096m, or would I have to actualy have 4096m of land to use the object amount allowed by it?

The number of objects you can build within a sim is proportional to the total amount of land you own within that sim. There is no global sharing (across sim borders) of prims, and if you must actually own land to get the prims... your allocation doesn't give you prims, owning the actual land does.

> I know there are some people in canada in the UK, will those currencys be included? Or excluded all togheter?

Minimally we will allow account credits, and we will look into supporting other currencies later.

Yes.