Is it time to End the 10% group tier bonus

Remember it Prok. You have a fan.

Yeah, it's good to know. I'm waiting for Jamie to come back from dinner and wake up to the fact that this entire discussion is cooked up by socialists on private islands or other private island dealers who have no need for the 10 percent bonus because it does them no good on private islands.

Just change "socialist" & "private island" to "capitalist" & "mainland", and the tactic seems very familiar...

Which campaign was run by capitalists o the mainland? Hmm, was that the one Lindhar Lehane and his alts mounted on the private islands a few weeks ago, to try to sink their ability to advertise in the "land sales" list and try to stir up a huge uproar smearing them as ripping off newbies and defrauding people? Is that the one you mean?

I know I haven't run any campaigns as a "capitalist" on the "mainland" so I'm not sure what Nolan's reference is.

When Ulrika launched her attacks against the bulk discount obtained by large land dealers on the auction, urging LL to remove this "regressive tax" blah blah, it caused a firestorm of protest. I was one of those who protested against this blatant slam against a class of people in SL -- it was like an attempt at dekulakification. So, yeah, I do respond to defend my class when there is other class warfare, sure.

Prok is right on alot of issues in this thread.

The thread was started by comparing this 10% bonus to pyramid schemes or offshore bank accounts. How absurd! This is a CLEAR rule/bonus. There is no mystery, clouds, shell game, deception, gaming the game or juggling here. LL knows how this is being used and knew it probably before they made the rule. People pay tier and form a group and get 10%. Thats it. How you use it is YOUR business. Its funny that some are saying people not using this bonus are actually subsidizing (spelling?) this bonus. More BS. The people getting the bonus are paying teir just not on that 10%. If you wanna talk about leeches talk about people with basic no teir accounts.

Just because of this stupid thread Im going to forum a group and get 10%. I cant wait to get my extra 1689m! I wish I did it earlier cause Im paying an extra $50 this month because I went over my teir by 500m for 2 days. That 1689m would have covered me. Oh but wait.. Im evil for not wanting to pay $50 for a temporary 500m! Until the land teir fees are more flexible leave this in place.

This is an interesting concept. Private island dealers have now made the tier schedule more flexible by enabling their patrons to pay in-between the steep jumps in tier levels. Not sure how widespread this is or how long it will last.

But I don't think curing the tier jumps (and I don't see LL motivated to change that) will be a reason to dump the 10 percent bonus. I believe it is an important incentive and should be kept.

I say this not only because it benefits me. If LL dumps this 10 percent incentive tomorrow because of a small but vocal minority clamoring for it to be removed on leftist or rightist ideological groups (socialists or private island oligarchs), then I"d think seriously of what to do with that 20k or more I'd have to find tier for.

If it were possible for extrem leftists or extreme rightists to so succeed in the game as to get the game devs to remove an incentive for both non-profits and for-profits who bring value to the game, I might be inclined immediately to dump that 20k back to the public and immediately fill up sims with $1/land that land vultures will swoop down and buy but then maybe get stuck selling. I won't be alone in drawing that conclusion, that it will be better to dump that extra land that suddenly have to tier up, especially at an odd level that jumps between levels, i.e. having to pay $125 suddenly for 32k just because of having 20k which is over the 16k plus level.

If you don't think I will do that, watch me.

There are too many shocks and horrors and expenses in this game to put up with *yet another*. I imagine for others, the elimination of the 10 percent incentive might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

On the other hand, one could shrug, maybe add that 20k and another 12k "investment" on the "land auction" and pay let's say $97 to an existing full-sim tier and tier up to 1.5 sims. Maybe LL is banking on people doing that if they pull out the 10 percent because experience has taught them that when they cause an abrupt change like suddenly create a giant new continent with no telehubs on it, some people respond by dumping land and leaving the game but others get into harness and begin to love their tormentor and pay him even more LOL.

Most private island dealers also have land on the mainland and quite a few have land on the mainland in groups that get the 10 percent bonus, so I'm thinking they won't be for eliminating this incentive -- and incentive it is, not subsidy because if someone gets more land, whether 1000 or 10000, they do something with it obviously -- they turn around and sell it to others, rent it, or develop it and make content on it. LL gets the advantage from their activities in other ways and they appreciate these nuances even if the hard left and hard right don't.

What I was thinking of was another incentive to LL to fix these group tools. They're going to do an important thing in 1.7, so they say, by removing officer recall.

What if we were to say, LL, get rid of the 10 percent, but make these group tools absolutely bullet-proof from harm by griefing and assholes. Let them have protection of the original founder's investment so that only he and decide the array of 24 functions on the groups. Let the proceeds of group sales go to just that individual or to others on a percentage basis or let the tools be configurable for whatever they need to be for a corporation to run successfully (or for that matter a non-profit arts association). Then the question becomes -- why be in a group? Well, to get group objects and sales and prim management jointly -- but I still think most people will want to see that grouped land gets a benefit.

LL benefits most financially from thousands of singletons buying first land, buying second land for 1024 or 8192 but always paying the top tier dollar. But what happens is that it won't stick. People leave the game. They dump tier because they don't want to pay it. They flee to new sims and buy land but then sell it for less when it is griefed. Then they go to private islands.

If LL has any notion at all in their heads about the private islands/mainland controversies and difficulties in the game (and I don't see that they are following it) they have to realize that if they are going to go on having a mainland grid which is open to all through a simple right-click and payment, they have to find incentives to keep people on that mainland.

It's in their interests not to have everyone flee to private islands where the land is cheaper for both dealer and tenant -- isn't it? Don't they have MORE to administer in making and handling private islands and their problems? I don't know the facts of the case here.

But let's assume for whater reason the Lindens need to keep the mainland -- if nothing else it is the large pool from which people find their niches and lifestyles and interests and then pair off or group off into their private islands. Even if it is to play the role of the big public swimming pool, complete with all the unattractive things you find in public swimming pools, it has to have some incentive to get people to dive in -- and 10 percent bonuses and the pride of sole ownership and resale rights will go on being that incentive.

If anything, LL needs to think about how to have MORE incentives to keep people on the mainland. Residential communities are now almost exclusively conceived in terms of private islands calfing off on their own, or exclusive color sims run by old players with an iron hand as to admissions policies or a handful of looser tenants or projects groups like mine or others.

People need to be rewarded for doing the hard job of getting in a group and cooperating. That reward is 10 percent bonus on their tier. If anything, there should be an even greater reward -- more bonuses if the groups have more numbers? Some other developers' type award for groups as distinct from individuals?

I think the island sims dont have the 10% drop in fees simply because if it 1 or 10 groups on the sim only 1 person is the owner, only one person can move it, sell it or whatever. All the groups for island sims are for is to allow others to have use of the tools, such as banning and ejecting.

Prokofy, I don't think anyone else could have said it better. I agree with you 100%! Right on!

LOL. One could point out that your rebuttal of this issue at this juncture is suspect because of your having benefited from these, yes, subsidies.

Please make sure and contact me shortly before this occurs, Prok. I will... watch

You can ask for group tools all you want, but the answer I've gotten has always been the same. "Its Too Hard". Im with you though only I've already tiered down. Eventually LL will learn their lesson when enough people lose faith in the security of their investments.

Bruno, they aren't subsidies, but incentives I benefit from them, but so does anybody else. They aren't just for me, they're for anybody who gets a group together, large or small, profit or non-profit.

And Jauani, as a land dealer on the mainland possessing land, benefits it right now himself, so it's odd to see him stirring the pot on this but that's because he either thinks it will never be changed and he will always get the advantage, yet he can appear to be thoughtful and socialistic for Nberg's sake (he's a member and a supporter) and make it seem that he is concerned about rapacious land barons exploiting teh backs of teh pples.
Whatever.

Toy, it isn't that there is something about the land itself that doesn't get 10 percent drop on islands. An island holder pays the same tier as anyone else. But he will have to buy 10 whole islands to then get a 100 percent discount or free new island. Buying one or five islands gives him nothing because he can't buy 10 percent or 50 percent of another island only with that. He could go back to the mainland of course, and that's what some island owners do. But the individual island owner, getting his ten percent out of having an island in a group, has nowhere to go but to the mainland with it -- he can't get another island right next to him or "more island".

I'm thinking as per usual, this is the usual hothouse orchids discussion, since the overwhelming number of people with land in groups will want to keep the 10 percent, and it is only the odd island dealer or island commune that won't want this.

When you 'deed' a private island, it's not group owned, so the owner does not qualify for the 10% incentive.

probably the worst, most narrow minded post i have ever seen.

.


Did jauani actually attempt to talk to *ANY* groups actually using it?

No, not a single attempt was made


..


Did jauani actually come into this with a one sided agenda to push

Yes, jauani is pushing islands, which don't benefit from this tier, only mainland residents do


...


Are a significant number of SL's longest established theme builds and areas going to be harmed by this?

Yes, Most mainland theme groups have evolved upon, and rely on this small bonus to mantain the land we currently have, darkwood, luskwood, venice, snakekiss' oriental themed tehama, nextcorp, and many *MANY* more all were founded initially with this value, and have come to rely on it in order to keep our areas sustanable, and open for everyone to enjoy.


....


Is pandering whiny one sided agendas to the lindens under the guise of 'helping' SL with essentially no research, no regards to the large number of people affected, and no regards for the SL community other than your own persoanl pocket/agenda something we should really endorse?


I don't... how about you?

How, pray tell, is it inequitable when the 10% bonus is available to all groups, and all land owners (except private sim owners - the group benefit existed before private sims and they are outside of the standard tier system anyway). The bonus is worthwhile even for a player with a small amount of land - it comes down to getting more value for the tier amount you are paying. It is not a floating scale that suddenly makes it more unfair for larger land owners - the 10% is universal, and available to ANYONE WHO OWNS LAND.

I agree with Prokofy, it is odd for Jauani, who has benefited from the very thing he is rallying against, to be suddenly raising this issue like some kind of voice of the common people. It doesn't bother me that large landowners are using it to broker even larger land deals and move land - because the same system is also allowing a player with a small amount of land to get a larger piece of land and more prims for the same money. That is a fair, balanced system.

Did jauani actually *COME* to luskwood, and announce he was 'declaring war' on us (and assumably other successful theme builds not 'rending' island spaces, shortly before starting this campaign?

Yup. . .

and thats all I have to say

I really doubt LL would consider removing the 10% bonus. Tons of people would be screwed, not just large groups.

Oh, you're wrong there, Ingrid. When I asked in the Hotline to the Lindens what their original intent was about tier donations in groups, etc. I didn't get a clear, unequivocal answer "We love that idea and we're going to keep it." Instead, I understood Robin's answer to mean "We're taking a second look at that now."

I can confirm that Jauani did this as a form of an attack on me. Its one of 4-5 threads he has started to lash out at my rentals group, you can see the other threads here and in the polysci section. But I'm sure he also enjoys stirring up a big controversial issue -- the leaving for 2 weeks (which is what I think he said, he's not here to reply).



Hiro, could you explain some more about that?

My understanding is that the person who buys a private island and pops that 65k of island into their land group generates the 10 percent land bonus. But that 10 percent land bonus doesn't do them any good -- at least not right away, at least not on that island. They'd have to get TEN such islands to then get the 11th free (or if I don't have the math right due to the m2 on islands being different than on full sims, then 12 sims and a 13th free or whatever it is).

The average single-private-sim project owner like Ulrika on Nberg has no use for a 10 percent bonus that wuold only give her 10 percent of nothing-- she can't get contiguous land with it and prims with it or space for her people. So it's more than easy for her to dump that bonus, now that she is no longer on the mainland, and campaign savagely on this to make it seem like the Linden's 10 percent bonus is a giveaway, done on the backs of the people, to ebil exploitative land barons who rape the land and SL citizens for their greed. Bah to all that.

But what I'd like to clarify, Hiro, is whether in fact buying you a private island in the Linden's system doesn't give you a 10 percent. But isn't it like any land? You put it in a group, no? Or? It does allow for groups to accept deeded access -- and I realize that THOSE deeded groups of officers do not get any 10 percent because essentially they get access to land they don't pay tier on directly from the group -- the owner pays the tier, and they reimburse the owner.

What's astounding is that Ulrika, with this very limited and sectarian viewpoint, got Jauani, a land dealer to go along with something like this (if that's her motivation, when I think it was more likely just one of several reasons, the chief of which was to harass me.) No matter that this might actually be costing me customers and harm me -- have a discussion, whatever. I'll survive.

Jauani used to benefit from the 10 percent (and still does). She is also, strangely, a member of Nberg (JWu explained to me because she "wants to support it politically" to go along with something like this (if that's what it was).

But why didn't she think of the hundreds of groups in SL that use this bonus or could use this bonus? Projects that are theme-oriented and non-profit? I guess because she either doesn't care or doesn't think that there are that many or thinks they are all moving to private islands now like the furries did and Nberg did. And she figures she'll deal now in private islands herself?

At this point you have only Ulrika, who other members of Nberg may say doesn't represent their views on this (I can think of Sudane, one member of Nberg, who surely benefits from the 10 percent bonus on her land holdings elsewhere).

And you have Jauani, one land baron who doesn't represent even island dealers, because Schwan, who deals in islands, and has no need for this evidently, and doesn't use it, says he isn't for opposing it.

So really you only have two interested parties speaking out on this, for whatever reasons, and a lot of others (finally) appearing here now and speaking against it. Surely the Lindens will be swayed by that.

Who knows if they won't set their sites on this now that the issue has been churned up. Perhaps it was even pre-churned with consultation with Lindens privately, that won't be the first time. Everyone could be screaming and hollering on the forums, but it's already precooked.

Well, what can we do but ask their policy? I'm afraid that the answer I got from Robin already about tier indicates that they are not impressed with the 10 percent tier results (not enough people used it, and they evidently could also say that they didn't get enough interesting content-risk projects?). I'm not sure how they no that. So I'd say Stand Up Tier Nation here on this one again -- if you are in a group that benefits from the 10 percent, stand up and be counted and support this. I'd hate to waste a proposition on the voter boards on this but I will.

Lindens may be looking for ways to end subsidies. I don't think this is where they should look, but they obviously look where it's convenient for them.

Well then he's attacking me as well. Because I've used the same bonus for Boardman. Which is a complete possibility. You never know what that guy will do next.

Islands do NOT qualify for the 10% group tier bonus.

prok, on island deeding, the group doesn't 'own' the land for tier purposes, the land tier is 0, and the bonus is 0. The island owner still owns the entire island, for tier purposes, and can easily kick the group out or do whatever they want with it later.

Islands themselves don't even have 'tier', they are a single 'thing' that costs $195 a month, no tier involved, aka you cannot use ownership of an island to contribute to land on the mainland, additionally if you have an old school 'lifetime' bonus of 4096 tier, either bought way back when, or earned in one of several of LL's annual contests, that tier also does not affect your island purchase/monthly fee at all

eltee is right about private islands and tier. In addition, if a group owns land on an island it cannot also own land on the mainland, or the Developer Incentive award calculation will get all screwed up. So island and mainland ownership must be done with separate groups.

Oh yeah, Fair and Balanced all right. Just like FOX news. Why is a private sim 'outside of the standard tier system'? Thats just stupid.

they were done that way by design... since a private sim can only have one actual owner, it is tacked on as a single entity onto their account, over and above whatever tier they have on the mainland.

It actually *HELPS* people in general, as it lets you mantain both an island, and a 2048 mainland plot, say for a small home in a theme area, or a store, for just $195 plus $15 extra..

whereas if you owned a *MAINLAND* sim, in its entirety, and you wanted that next 2048sqm above that, you would have to buy another *HALF SIM* tier, as once you exceed 65536 sqm tier, it goes up by half-sim increments for i believe $97.50 a month...

so thanks to this system island owners can have some residual mainland presence, without paying $300 a month to do it

Wow. That Rules. WTG Linden Lab.

What a great deal [for them].

You do relize 10% of an island that is 65k m2 is 6.5km2 right? Your losing 6.5k allocation on the deal and paying an extra $15 for your 2048.

you don't get it.. islands are *NEVER* group owned... they cannot be group owned.. someone has to PAY $195 a month for them.. the group land on an island is sort of a 'happy' accident, the group doesn't own that land, or pay tier on it, the individual does