Is it time to End the 10% group tier bonus

Ok. I think you don't get it. I understand that they have chosen to limit the ability of island owners to use the group bonus and have also chosen to impliment an entirely parallel tier system.

What I'm saying is that a setup like that is stupid and greedy, even if they only did it because they are too lazy to fix the group code into something functional. If you don't understand why then enjoy the 'feature'.

I see where you are coming from. But the thing is that islands are not tierable. If they were, then I do see where you should be able to get the 10% bonus, if you place that land into a group. I also see islands as something that is different then the mainland. There is just one owner, and from what LL has said, I think that is going to be that way for a while now. If I own 65k of mainland land, all by myself, then I also don't get the 10% bonus.

I think that the real disagreement is not in the bonus, but the way privite islands are counted. If tier would be the requirement instead of of just paying for the island on a monthly basis, I think this "issue" would go away. If this change was also made, then island land could be treated just like mainland land. But if that was the case, islands would be far better for leasing then the mainland. You would have much more control, with deeding and all the bonuses that come from owning an island. I think the 10% bonus is a good thing and I would be against it being taken away.

According to the website here, an island costs $980 for the purchase price, and $195 thereafer in tier payments every month. That tier is a flat fee paid every month. So it's odd eltee to say "islands have 0 tier" when they have $195 tier, the same tier you'd pay for 65k on the mainland. The 16 acres of an island equal 65k of a mainland sim roughly, do they not? Or what is the "acre" in SL terms?

Dnate, if you have 65,000 of mainland sim in a group, you do too get the 10 percent bonus. It adds to that group. You have 10 percent, or 6500 then, that you could be buying on the sim next door to the entire sim you bought. And you can own a sim's worth of land and pay $195 a month on it, but have that land in a group spread out over different sims.

I didn't realize you couldn't group the ownership of islands, or at least if you did group them, what was in them didn't generate a 10 percent. And yet, I have to wonder, if you go to the Lindens, and ask to buy 10 islands, if they won't throw in a bonus one for free -- after all, you'll still have to pay the monthly tier on it. You can put groups ON the island to take the deeds, but those aren't land groups with tier in them, they are just groups that get to be on the land's setting and have access to it.

A land baron thus has to maintain separate groups for the island, or an individual account on the island, and a group on the mainland. Therefore I could see that someone going into the island business would see there is no extra 10 percent tier generated, so he has no reason to keep mainland sims at all, because he can extract more money out of tenants on islands than he can on the mainland -- that's Jauani's point, if he goes into the island business, I guess. I

I just think there are more aspects to a business than just the squeezing out of money, and a long term stable creation of a customer base that is happy and stable. I think the jury is still out on the island nations.

Hmm, Ingrid, you used to say you weren't going to have a group on Boardman -- remember when I offered to donate tier to Boardman? But I guess it's a group with just your alts, or just your trusted friends. You're right, of course, Jauani could be attacking me, taking a swing at anybody else accidently hit, but still be cooking up a position like "I oppose the 10 percent bonus except for my friend Ingrid in Boardman because she's cool renovating an old Linden-zoned sim." Oh, ok.

Mainland deeded to a group IS owned by the group and so qualifies for the 10% incentive.

Private estate land deeded to a group is NOT owned by the group. It's owned by the person that 'deeded' the land. Since it's not owned by a group but an individual, it doesn't qualify.

LL gave us this extra feature for private estates to allow the owner to share more access to the features of his/her land. It's basically an advanced from of 'setting' the land to group. The confusion has come from this extra tool being given the name 'deed'. I'm sure if it had been named 'grant acces to land features' (or hopefully something shorter lol), there would be a lot less confusion.

There is no way anyone can argue for having the 10% incentive being applied to private islands (at least not until a group can truly own a private sim). The incentive is meant for groups, not groups of alts. Yes people use alts to increase the amount of land they can hold. I do myself - hell why not? But we can hardly ask LL if we can now game the private sims too lol.

Wow Hiro, are you a Linden alt or just dumb?

Yeah and look at the cutrate price you got 65k m of land for in the first place - you pay a hell of a lot more for the equivalent amount of land in mainland sims. Again, the group land bonus existed before private islands. If you want the 10% bonus, then push for it - but you have a lot of things on private islands that regular land owners don't have - is that fair and equitable? Something has to give sometimes.

Well, I don't own and island or mainland sims anymore so its really all the same to me.

Personally, when I did own land I felt mainland owners should have complete access to the 'island' features if they controlled the entire sim so it would only make sense to me that 'island' owners also have the tier bonus everyone else enjoys. I don't quite approve of institutionalized inequity.

As Cristiano has pointed out, if anything the "institutionalized inequity" is in favour of the island dealer. He gets a flat-rate on a highly valuable commodity that the mainland has to offer. I might pay $1500 on the Linden auction by bidding to get a whole sim; the island dealer just pays the flat $980 -- he even custom orders its textures and gets to terraform it.

He can then turn around and sell deeds to it for less. So that means he can sell more and make a greater profit.

Really, the smart money would have to be on island dealing, and always has been. The problem is being able to muster up the capital and sustain it because you don't get to do it half way. In that sense, the mainland offers more flexibility.

Somehow favoring the island dealer makes it OK? Maybe you didn't understand my statement. Also notice where I mentioned my previous belief that 'island' powers should be shared with the mainland owners.

I've seen mainland sims go for as little as $700; granted I have neither bought nor sold lately but if your paying $1500 on the auction for a sim why don't you look into buying IW? There is more and more land out there every day. Obviously I am not still in the loop on these things

Which is why I believe some "island dealers" are behind the push getting rid of the 10% group bonus; and not for "the good of SL". It's for the good of their own pockets.

If the mainland sims no longer have -any- advantage to a group with a large project (namely the 10%); who are they going to go to after it's been cut?

For any group with, for example, the need for 1/2 a sim's land, most likely they'd go to the cut rate island dealers.

Let me just clear up for the record what I said,
I was making the point that if I didn't make a group of myself, or with friends, and have the land owned by that group, then I would not get the 10% bonus. Since islands cannot, at least as far as I know, be owned by a group, that is why the 10% bonus never applies. If this were to change, then I would most likely be thinking differently, but as it stands, I think it is a fair and balanced system. (Yes, so is Fox News Channel)

You just had to say it, didn't you.

Definitally a debate for another day.

OIC. Well, won't comment on Faux News for now...but...Of course, if you are the sole owner not in a group, you don't get a bonus, so you don't get a bonus on the island, either. But the thing is, on the mainland, you get that option. So the point is, you don't get that option on the private sim.

I'm against this.

Believe it or not the aerodrome is stretched to its limit so far as land ownership goes. The group tier SIGINIFICANTLY helps. Find addditional money per month for the tier simply may not be possible.

Cutting the 10% bonus FAR from helps SL, it impedes the growth of any group project that would be on the mainland, and for various reason does not need a private sim.

Mirrored situation for Luskwood, Chage. Same issue entirely. We are stretched to the limit as well, and this change would net us a $100/month fee just to stay as we are.

But I believe imposition of the growth of group projects on the mailand is precisely the aim behind this campaign. The island group land dealers stand to benefit when mainland incentives are removed.

I don't think there are too many island land dealers that would benefit, most have a hefty chunk of mainland too.

Yeah but on the mainland they cater to individuals... group ownership on the mainland tends to be as yet more attractive to many than group 'leasing' on the islands... and there are definately people who are frustrated/unhappy with that situation, as it looses them potential 'customers'

but if you want to talk abuot group land/risk.. why not give someone completely random the keys to literally turn off an entire group project if they so see fit... that seems *alot* more risky to me than sharing land among a group of trusted friends on the main land as most mainland theme build groups do now.

I also honestly really question the idea that 'few people are using it'... from what i've seen on the mainland pretty much all cohesive builds use it, it might not be 100% but even a cursary survey brings it well over 75%, probably closer to 90%

sure that may only be say 200 people, out of 30,000... .but those 200 people probably own/manage a *significant* portion of the actial mainland continent of SL... as we are generally the ones who own/mange entire simulators there as part of group projects

also to add, generally in these styles of groups one person actually is the one contributing to the tier for th entire group, and as such a theme build with say 6-10 people actively part of the group, like abbots, or luskwood, or venice, etc, will often only have 'one' person taking advantage of the 10% bonus, on paper, yet all 10 people benefit from it...

as well as the hundreds of people who actually *enjoy* and use that theme area on a daily basis... so even though there may only be 200 people contributing 'significant' tier to groups in SL, i would honestly say a significant fraction of SL enjoys the overall benefit having these large theme areas provides

Oh don't get me wrong, I am totally for keeping the 10% incentive. I agree with Prok, I see it as just pure spite to suggest it's removal.

eltee,

When the Lindens say there are "only" 5000 land owners in the game, they aren't counting 512 owners, evidently (they say they fluctuate too often) and I can't be sure they are counting group land. I'd like to get better numbers on that. When I tried to raise this before, I got no end of harassment from the usual anti-land bunch but it's a good number to know to understand the precise nature of the world we live in.

My guess is that your figure of 200 or something is probably about right for the number of people who have grouped their land into projects, or even just to hold their large estates. Let's say maybe just projects -- it is probably more.

I don't know *what* prompted Robin Linden to say that "not many people use the 10 percent option. EVERYBODY I know in groups uses that, obvously. I see groups all over.

Why, in fact -- one of the many land groups I see inworld, a land with very nice builds on it, is the very land group of the starter of this thread, with 3 officers and with all the tier donation on her account, and it's a considerable amount. What, she's going to be willing to part with *her* ten percent, just to support Nberg, just to ding me in an argument? Hun? Surely she see that she has gone too far.

This really should be left alone. If the Linden's are revisiting this under the pressure of one socialist and one private island dealer, then they don't have a case. Especially when that one socialist may not even represent all her socialists in Nberg (I know some of those socialists have considerable mainland land holdings they wouldn't like to be paying 10 percent more on tomorrow). And especially, as others have pointed out, that one land baron still has mainland holdings including her own group that she'd probably not like to see sliced off 10 percent of. SO honestly, there isn't a story here. If this is how changes get made in SL -- by a few hooting and hollering and trying to publicly shame the Lindens into "caring about teh ppl" and "caring about their bottom line" I can only hope the Lindens are mature enough to see past it.

Maybe the Lindens are actually needing to cut costs enough now, however, that they need to trim this 10 percent subsidy fat. In which case it's important for everyone in a group, who supports therefore residence or projects for others on land, sound off about what they are doing. We've collected quite a few stories right here about themed sims that are part of what make up SL's integral nature. If you pull the 10 percent incentive on them, some will adjust, but then...what was the replacement? What other incentives will there be?

I read this whole thread and I'm still very confused. I am so glad I don't own land.

I'm against the 10% bonus (even though i use it) on the sole premise that it's more of a game feature than a platform/hosting company feature. Besides, LL could use the extra cash.

Having land owned by a group and "using" the 10% bonus are not the same thing.

Maybe what "not many people are using" is the EXTRA land. Just because a group owns land does not mean that the group owns more land than the group members COULD own outside the group. Maybe a lot of groups own less than what is actually contributed, and/or a lot of group members have extra tier and could contribute 10% more to groups if they needed to.

its a possiblility but from what i've seen its generally not the case...

generally large group plots tend to expand out and use what tier is availble.. and often would be larger, but simply can't sustain the higher cost... with one notable exception, people are not getting *rich* in SL... generally most group/theme areas are just barely getting by, subsisting on a mix of small sales (in RL$), services, and whatever incentives they get a month...

sure running a large area sounds profitable a first, or having lots of people pay L$100 rental fees seems to be a great idea... but then you have to realize, to hold a sim, it costs $50,000 linden a month, give or take... and it takes a pretty considerable effort to be able to guarantee that every month... especially if your area is *NOT* a mall, and is designed more as a fun place for people to be