Is it time to End the 10% group tier bonus

I agree with you Prokofy, I don't see a problem with the 10% bonus for having your land in group. I think its a great idea, because I use it too! I am tiered up to 1/4 sim, and bought a full 1/4 sim maxing out my tier level. I am building a castle in Baird, and I needed just a little more land to up my prims, and to have a larger section to set up the campgrounds for free public use. Thanks to the extra 10% I was able to get by starting a small group with some close friends, I was able to make that campground a reality, and many people will be happy with that. So why is everyone trying to take away a bonus when they can use it to thier advantage themselves, and like you said, even the person who started this thread is utilizing the 10% group bonus.

We sit here in the forums all day and whine and complain that we don't get this or we don't get that. But when we have something to help us all out without having to jump to an extremely higher tier level for that extra 1024 plot we need, we complain about it and try to abolish it? I don't get it people. Are we all that desperate to start an argument just for the sake of having an argument in the forums?

just wanted a quick addendum to this... yes... the longer a group can be viable, often it can grow out to sustain more tier over time... but there is still a really discernable 'transition' period to new groups.. where someone is really taking a gamble that what they have to offer might be somethin SL needs or wants...

for luskwood it took honestly about a year before we were finally able to make our area 'pay' for itself.. and during that year, that 10% was pretty critical to us... now its good we're past that specific point now... and at least month on month are relatively stable, tier versus income wise.. tossing another $100 ontop of that will probably hurt us alot, but it wont 'kill' luskwood, it'll jus make our dream that much harder to sustain... we will find a way, somehow though...

but theres *ALOT* of other budding groups that aren't there yet, and yanking out that small bonus may very well be the straw that breaks their proverbial camels' backs.



mainland in SL in general has a sort of interesting 'fire storm' ecology...

a new area is announced, and people flock to it, burning the 'raw' nature to the ground and turning it eventually into a kinda charred out ash pile of a sim that isn't that usable...

but out of those ashes, very often after a few months go by, several people in a sim begin to want more, and they begin to grow, branch out a little, form alliances, make friends with the remaining people around them, and slowly come in with an idea/theme/interest that can bind them, and their area together...

using that small bonus, and slow growth.. they buy out what plots do become available, and slowly grow up into an interesting, entertaining, and valuable for SL kinda productive area...

what was once a charred ruin of a forest becomes a manicured garden, with doting care-takers...

this ecology though, especially in the formative stages, soon after a sim is 'wasted' via tiny sub plots and bad neighbors.. is very slow to grow, and fragile... and with just a little more hardship, could easily be snuffed out...

all the big group builds except the several 'linden sponsored' ones of darkwood, venice, and nexcorp, arose via this basic process... the aerodrome was once a 4096 spit that barely could even hold a runway..

luskwood was once 600 sqm, with a one day old newbie and a treehouse..

tehama was a mostly wasted pile of random abandoned plots

every big player-founded group build has a similar story... and i don't want to even think what would have happened if there hadn't been just that little extra reward for working together, for taking on that risk of trusting everything to someone you mebbe have never met face to face, or shaken hands with...

I really hope they do something so dumb as 'trim this 10 percent subsidy fat'. If there are 5,000 land owners my guess is that significantly more than 200 use the 10% and they would all be very annoyed at such a move. If there are only 200, more need to be educated on the features of the game.

Optimally I think the Linden's want to rent enough islands that there is no need for a massive subsidized mainland area. If so the private island tier change will be a good way to increase revenue as less and less people are eligible for the cut who own land or live off the main grid. At the moment, people join up to the game and are able to effectively pay 10% less a month for mainland plots than established players that own fewer than 10 private sims. Most n00bs are scared at first of virtual goods having value so this is probably a good thing, at least until they foolishly get into the game and decide to graduate to a full island where they can actually contribute something worthwhile. People that fall into that catagory obviously have money and are hooked so... thats when they want to hit you with the full property tax. A 10+ sim bonus allows for the large scale land barons to continue survival, which the linden's couldn't do without.

Its really amazing the work this player base will do for them when given the illusion of profit.

Eggy, why am I not surprised, you with "Bolshevik" in your name lol?

I guess I'd like to see SL have some game left to it that is really a game, and a platform of games-within-games, something along the lines of which Coco and others have discussed, but also right in the same space or verse, have the capacity to be RL-oriented too and have more serious enterprises in it. I don't see that they need to have a firewall between them, however.

I'm thinking that the Lindens are going to have to keep having this be a game game, with incentives like game cash and game land, etc. because otherwise it becomes a very select bastion of tekkies and a salon of talking heads about tekkies. And we keep coming back to this: who's going to pay for a wiki and a salon? When the ebay guy's money runs out, for example.

There's no reason for them not to open the doors to 30,000 TSO players or 30,000 bored WoW players or older Runescape players or whatever. Why not? They have something to attract people, enough gaming and creativity and enterprise, so why not let them try?

If it fills up with the sex trade, casinos and lotteries, fancy vehicles, exclusive clubs and designers, like Russia did in the 1990s, well, what of it? Let it even support a chattering dissident class that isn't in jail, it adds to the entertainment factor on TV. Let is have drive-by shootings, ministers in the hot tub with mistresses on the public dole, and pyramid schemes -- this is all normal for third-world countries in transition.

On the one hand, you crow when it makes the GNP of a Suriname or a Belarus. On the other hand, you don't want to realize that it *is* a Suriname or a Belarus.

In RL, government have incentives all the time. Like a landowner might get a tax break if he builds middle or low income apartments instead of luxury condos, and if he creates a large plaza for the middle class people to have a playground for babies and space for open-air jazz concerts and flea markets instead of just fewer condos with private balconies. In exchange for his addition to the "content" of this neighbourhood, he gets a tax break. We see these kinds of state-funded programs all over even in "capitalist America" that Europeans think is ruthless and cruel and socially injust. The city just realizes that having 200 people live in a space and spend their discretionary income on goods and services is maybe better for the economy and city than just have 10 people who hide their assets offshore anyway.

In using things like bulk discount or 10 percent of land taxes, the Lindens aren't making a toy, they are just copying stuff they probably have right there in San Francisco where they live. I'm positive they must have some kind of tax-break, low-income type of neighbourhoods or buildings, and they must have city council arts grants that people can get to do arts progrms not-for-profit, and all kinds of other things like that which constitute the breaks and incentives of RL in a mixed economy. Example: you can check off one percent of your taxes to go to the Wild Life Fund. Or at some jobs, you can have your employer match the donation you make to charity.

What the Lindens might do, come to think of it, since they've been egged on in this enterprise by some of their favourites, is to say, "Let's get rid of the 10 percent bonus for those just using alts and only give it to bona-fide non-profit projects. Or, let's give it to businesses and land dealers too but only if they have groups with real people in them, not alts."

Since they aren't going to be able to police this effectively, even using the IP grab system and scouring through their data base trying to weed out alts, I'm thinking they'll use their friend the little red button. All groups will now come equipped with an automatic informant system, a la the KGB "knock" system.

A great game sport will develop with people scouring sims to see landed groups and out alts, and blowing them into the Lindens. A whole self-righteous and indignant class will emerge to kill the 10 percenters who exploit teh ppl with their ebil land groups with themselves. Some people will have hell to pay proving that they are separate people, as they do here on the forums, but at least the Lindens will be able to tell. Others will have their ebil empires collapsed.

In fact, it will be hard to adjudicate the non-profit content-rich groups that eltee is willing to preserve from some businesses where the people just used alts because they don't want strangers as officers will sell land out from under them.

I wonder if the Lindens will make this proposition to group land owners: "We'll fix the tools that make it possible for anyone to steal your land, but you're going to have to pay us your ten percent incentive to do that."

Would I be willing to part with the 10 percent if the Lindens fixed all the tools in the land groups? I might. That would mean not only dumping officer recall but dumping the equal-circulation of profits, etc. -- the suggested features already has lots of suggestions for how to fix these tools.

What I'd still hope to see tho is some kind of Community Chest that creates incentives for business and non-profits.

Boardman needs the 10% fat. Crap! I hope they don't consider trimming it either.

Declax, but where will they find the customers for the private islands? People need somewhere to get acclimatized and to meet others to form the islands with.

yeah have you ever tried making meatloaf out of 95% lean... bleh not even worth the effort


mmm... meatloaf

</nonsequitor>

Excellent analogy!

I may have just missed it, but where did Linden Labs say that they don't count the 512 owners? Does that also mean they don't count the lifers that get 4,048 free? If it is, I think the LL is making a huge error. Also, if they are not counting these people, can these people win the bonuses? I am just trying to get the facts. I would think that a land owner is a land owner is a land owner.

nono everyone uses tier on the mainland, its just for the statistics LL may not count 512sqm plot owners as part of the 'total' number of land owners in SL that you can see

Well I'm just guessing here, but I would assume that problem is why they've begun the process the way they did.

There are already probably 100 islands out there (i just pulled that # out of my ass) and growing. If they can get enough out there that the land barons own 10-20+ private islands in flux between permanent owners at any given time, there will be a large mass of land out there for basic accts / n00bs to rent on a somewhat temporary basis before joining a real community.

Over time, groups of island owners could come together to form even larger areas of interest. Temporarily I could see a spike in land values IW but it would be much more market oriented than the auction system they have now and probably level off at a reasonable level due to compitition rather than the timing of new land releases. Just some thoughts.

Main land, and private islands should be treated more of the same. its easy to want the best of both worlds, each side has its draws. mainland is a bit more expensive to obtain (typically), but if grouped it will slowely become a better deal over time (through tier). But it lacks a good deal of private editing tools. Private islands are a set price which is cheaper (typically) but the tier cost can add up over time to beat maingrid. you are also lacking main grid traffic. I am too lazy to do the math but i know its true! trust meeee

each side has its draw, but the mix can make you loose out like deklax mentioned.

a full sim private and a full sim maingrid you loose out on tier. but it is easily arguable that the cost difference is worth it.

the problem is there is no evolution of islands to form communities... since NO ONE there owns them, or can own them.. its just a series of small plots that people can rent, for a little while, and then either move on or quit SL.. there is essentially no foreward mobility, no way to merge and expand and grow, no way to really *become* more than just little spits of land, that someone can rent...

in fact they *HURT* ll's bottom line since someone renting out 64 sub plots on an island will pay LL $195, where as if LL rented out a sim with 64 sub plots on the mainland they will get about $360 a month, almost double... plus the owners actually OWN the land, and can expand, sell, or do anything else with it

Trifen, I have this instinctive feel that the mainland is going to be the better buy over time, but only if you can solve the problem of rampant ugly build-terrorism and griefer-lagging on certain sims. I think you can here and there, but it's hard work.

But I don't see your point about tier. Tier is tier. Paying tier on an island, paying tier on the mainland, it only devalues the land in a sense the longer you do it because if you don't get income from it, then your purchase price has no hope of getting paid back ever, and you retreat farther and farther from making up the loss.

My feeling is that getting stuck with an island that you are the sole owner of with no recourse, no ability to get help with tier, no ability to sell of pieces, is a huge millstone on your neck. I wouldn't want to take it on. But land barons with loads of land and cash stream can take it on and provide effective residences for people. They are not just spits of land but people's homes they can go on renting. I think that will plague, the islands, however, and I already see it, is the expectation that building codes and antidotes to "ugly" are going to be more effective on islands, and so far, all you can see is that people brought their ugly-building problems with them to the islands.

I agree with eltee that you might never get a "community" out of an island of 64 subplots run by one landbaron. But...then again you might. You'd be surprised, sometimes all people want is a firm hand to organize their lives, then they are happy. Other people want freedom. On the mainland, they'll have more freedom if they can own outright yet still protect their views. You'll find that just as in RL, some people want to give up their freedom to build themselves in certain ways for the right to have an ugly-free view zone by their lights. Others will be so repulsed by the Trumanville nature of these communities that they'll run screaming.

its not that you can't get some form of community, you can, but what you cannot get is a land sharing group evolving and repurposing an area, with an idea... and thats a real shame, because thats one'f the greatest things that has happened in SL for us, and i wish it would be able to happen to more other people

This is true. Island sims are fleeting, if the owner bails, the people living on the island have to bail too unless they get together to buy the island. Something I haven't seen so far. Sims on the grid are permanent. I like that idea. People come and go ...or stay for ages and form communities. I'm hoping this will happen in Boardman. So far so good, i have some great neighbours there.

Hmm, Good points, but I ask you this.

If you were running a subscription service which would you rather have: 64 customers paying $5 a month ($320) sharing finite resources together "permanently" or ~1.64 customers / developers paying $195 a month for a development platform that is big enough to contribute to the good of the economy. Comparitively you would make the same money with each, except there would be more land out there per dollar earned. If you scale that from 1 to 100 times a current sims profit it becomes even more striking; would it be easier or harder to attract and maintain 164 customers that pay $195 a month or 6400 that pay $5. How about 1000x? 1640 or 64000. Really I don't have a clue, never done either.

As for forward mobility... no idea. If the community was well developed I don't see why players that were interested in an island wouldn't snap it right up if the owner left and gave them that option.

I rarely notice direct address to myself.

prok, I was referring to the tier bonus 10% maingrid sims recieve when grouped. and like I said its easy to argue either side, I have aspects of both I like and dislike. and they will both be profitable in the end if done right.

I've now understood what a brilliant maneuver it is to put your post up in Hotline to the Lindens. There, you can be sure that your post lies completely untouched except by Lindens. No other player can correct it, comment on it, or point out to busy Lindens just how tendentious this is.

I'm beginnign to see more and more that far from being just some off-the-cuff debate, Jauani, who posted this and said she was going away for 2 weeks (then came back to get the upper hand up in the Hotline to the Lindens), is running really hard with this because she must sense it is popular with Lindens and the moment is right in the popular imagination to really whack hard against land owners -- especially land owners in businesses different than my own.

Let's see what she says -- so much more concentratedly nasty that in the regular forums!:



This is an extraordinarily self-serving statement, and one can only hope the Lindens and other serious players have the sense to see this. Jauani positions herself as just "a land trader" -- as if this is some normal, non-controversial function to be performing in the game LOL.

She then next ellides over to "those others" who run "various tier skimming operations which are not entirely disimilar to pyramind schemes of magical offshore bank accounting"

This is a direct slam against me and my business, and a lie, since my business is NOT a "skimmer" operation nor any kind of "pyramind scheme".

Any one who runs a rentals operations collects rent -- rent more than what he pays to the Lindens. Jauani herself does this. It is perfectly fine to ask players to pay either direct tier donations at the level they'd be willing to pay as individuals, or at the level they'd be willing to pay in cash which would be roughly the same as the tier on the land.

There's nothing "pyramidy" about this because these are the normal prices that people pay themselves. How else does a rental agent get a profit? Given that his margins are very difficult, he has vacant lots, turnovers, house costs -- not to mention purchase price for the land! -- he has to charge *something* duh. Some people like to play non-profit, but not everone has that luxury or wishes to have that experience in SL.

To imply that this is a pyramid is to mistakenly liken such a normal collection of rent in any RL situation (collect some more than what your costs are) to what is done in scams which is -- collect a payment from one party, use it to make payments to another party, and just let the thing collapse if you run out of money.

IF you gain ten percent in tier coverage in such a plan, what of it? That's a normal profit, even less than normal LOL. Getting 10 percent is not some big some, and doesn't give you loads of free land to rent out in any pyramid -- it just gives you a bit extra to buy prims. So you have cut costs a bit -- your costs in buying land, houses, etc. were so great that you're unlikely to see any kind of ROI in SL ever lol. Honestly, it's as if Jauani wasn't in the land business, saying stuff like this.



This is something that Jauani herself does -- uses alts and only the most trusted friends. And that's because your land can be sold out from under you. When the Lindens fix that horrid gap in the land tools, well, they can then try to force people to stop using their alts in groups. But I'd be inclined to let people go on doing that if they wish.



Jauani, as I've stated now literally hundreds and hundreds of times, my business does not operate in this fashion. I do not have most of my customers in any kind of "regressive tier leveraging system" -- most pay ordinary cash rent. You were an officer in my group, as was Gwyn, and you could look in my group, see who donates tier, and do the math. Gwyn herself is a donor. Is Gwyn the victim of a pyramid scheme and a victim of a tier-skimming operation? Of course not. She's paying the same tier to get the same land she'd get from LL. Big deal. To portray my business falsely in this manner is utter bullshit. Most people are led to fear tier precisely because of this scarifying that people like Jauani do around the issue, trying to con people into thinking they are abused and used precisely because they don't want them to be empowered and freed to get the value out of sims in other ways instead of paying off huge soms to wholesale land dealers. That's what is REALLY doing on with this attack no doubt.

Another false statement is to say that "more group projects are moving to islands". Well, they're not. Because people are uneasy about the island set up with its SINGLE OWNER who OWNS THE WHOLE ISLAND which can ONLY BE SOLD AS A WHOLE. Communes on the grid can be divvied up -- in a pinch someone could sell out to another, even outside the commune completely. That's not possible on an island, i.e. only one deeded parcel that is not owned fully can be sold to someone else who agrees by the terms but the single owner has to stay in charge of the whole sim, then sell it as a whole. That's a lot for a commune to take on.



Ugh. Yet another more self-serving, misleading, and pernicious statement. It is an incentive, not a subsidy. And I'll be goddamned if I can see how incentives to people in the land business providing services, incentives to people going through the intensive labour and cost of rentals groups, as well as private residents, are now to be called "not socially useful" or "world-building" like some Soviet expression about a collective farm and an empire.

I'm afraid I can't concede Jauani Wu to be the sole arbiter of what is "socially constructive" and "world-building". Those are public goods that require a great deal of fair and impartial discussion. There's nothing "destructive" about the land business that creates the opportunity for numerous people to find homes and stabilize sims and SL in general.

It is indeed socially constructive and world building to allow people to rent, to have for-profit rental businesses. Any effort to portay this work otherwise is just a blatant attempt to install the kind of socialist systems that are rejected in RL in SL.



The socialism that has gone wrong here is in Jauani's whole approach which involves slamming a competitor in the land business. Ah, I see what this is really about now fully. It's small wonder that people in SL don't open up their businesses to others. That they do not give out proprietary information. That they are careful about what they say to others. Because they'll be savagely attacked, and with the Lindens help.

There is nothing wrong with having 5 sim tiers (I actually don't have that many, and it's Jauani's mistaken understanding about this that is at the heart of this post.). But what if I did or anybody did? It's allowed! If you wish to rent out all or part of these sims, that's fine. It's to be encouraged. Ben Linden and Philip Linden and many other Lindens have encouraged the rentals business.

How is the rental economy "monopolized" just because one person starts a business? Anshe Chung and Hiro Queso have WAY more sims and tier and rentals than I do. I therefore constitute an alternative to them that helps diversify the economy and makes it possible for many other people to break into business without paying hugely costly mall rents.

There is no way that any business that one player has can be construed as "exploiting" other players. We all have the same access to the same assets and features. Anyone can start a business. A ten percent incentive for those who put in the investment of money to land and pay tier is not taken away from other players -- they could have it too. Anyone can find 2 friends or 2 alts and group their land -- and would if it were not a risky enterprise.



Theres' nothing "free market" about such a blatant attack on someone running a business in SL. In fact, it's a blatant anti-business approach -- and an oligarchic approach that says "anti-business-except-my-business".



For Robin Linden to sanction an attack on a resident's business like this, praising them for a "well said" and "not unnoticed" post is hugely troubling. It's like her infamous statement "Anshe Chung has become a symbol of a lot of what's wrong with this game."



Could we PLEASE make a distinction between "large projects" which are often non-profit and businesses? LL has not given a lot of thought to businesses outside the content-king empires, but there are plenty of niches for land-related busineses some of which are unexplored.

I chose to explore the possibiliies of creating a rentals business. Like many new businesses in SL, it only involves risk and loss and never any big profits whatsoever -- it is run on a break-even basis much of the time. In fact, tuning in as she is at the 11th hour ofter months and months of back-breaking work, Jauani Wu isn't grasping a hugely important point: it was only in the last 2 weeks that I was able to reach the tier level discounts I did above $195 because of new investments in land as mainland land becames significantly chaper, and because I consolidated tier on a few accounts. I used to spread it over multiple accounts precisely to avoid the kinds of vicious attacks I'm experiencing now, and to hold land groups and keep them from being devastated by malicious 2/3 votes to remove the officers who pay tier.

Linden Labs needs to think hard about how they protect people from these kinds of attacks -- in the forums and the games. Investors will not come in this game and put up money to do projects, profit or non-profit, with this kind of petty anti-business or "anti-any-business-but-my-business" climate.



What's wrong primarily with the existing model isn't a 10 percent bonus for the work and risk of purchasing land and developing it. What's wrong is the system of flawed group tools which put that land at risk.

If Linden Labs removes the 10 percent bonus, it's going to be yet another nasty hardship we'll have to face in this game, but I certainly am determined to continue on. It sounds to me, however, that land barons would like to completely dismantle anybody else's landholdings but their own, to make sure that they can handily dominate the private islands market and the mainland market.

I do hope Linden Lab has the courage to see through this and not be swayed by such petty and jealous maneuvering.

There are quite a few people in the rentals business. I follow this area closely and I think Linden Lab and most residents have no idea how widespread these businesses are, helping to sustain many sims, and many small businesses, and working as a supplement to many struggling content creation efforts. All of these people will be harmed by an abrupt departure from the existing policy.

Jauani Wu became an officer in my land group and saw my land holdings and studied my business. She was invited in on an emergency basis due to the threat of seizure of my land both in malicious officer recall attacks done by griefers, and otherwise.

She decided that this land holding constituted some kind of threat to her own very much unrelated business and decided to attack.

Using a generic discussion of 10 percent bonuses and the land business, Jauani Wu has opened me up to vicious attack by misrepresenting my business.

To set the record straight (one any Linden can easily ascertain with a glance at my account and my transactions histories)

o I do not have very many tier donors in the group so there is no "regressive tier skimming" operation to put it in Jauani's lurid terms. Indeed, thanks to Jauani, no doubt, several people have pulled out of tier donation.
o Those paying cash pay either exactly what they pay the Lindens for tier, or even much less.
o There is no "scam of newbies" (this was the refrain trumpeted by Traxx Hathor and then picked up by Hiro Pendragon and Cubey Terra, sight unseen, although it bears absolutely no resemblance to reality)
o Only recently was I able to take advantage of major bulk tier donations as it has been growing over time, so I couldn't run this business at the maximum profit-making hilt that Jauani and others run their businesses
o I provide an important service to hundreds of people who gain access to land with many rights and privileges. They aren't the kind of people to post on forums or they'd tell you how happy their are.

The attempt to slander and savage me in this kind of attack has to be reviewed carefully because it means anyone starting a business in SL could expect this kind of trouble and insecurity.

Linden Lab should disassociate themselves from these kind of competition-driven and jealous-driven attacks one resident makes on another, and not hide behind statements that "she's not talking about you" when all the facts of the case prove otherwise.

burp!

'looks around feigning innocence', says, 'hey what to you expect? Can i have a glass of water?'

looks to me like jauni is trying to get your goat and youre enabling him.

\

Oh, of course Jauani's trying to get my goat, in spades, and my response to a situation like that is to play it to the max and rebut it to the hilt because ultimately when you have a public record it can serve as a hedge, especially when the goal was to destroy your business and force you from the game.

The current inconsistent system is certainly not ideal. It would be more fair to remove this group thing and in return generally reduce tier fees a little. And for us land developers it would be more helpful if there would be some discount beyond the one region tier size that somehow correlate to Linden Lab's savings in customer support work and also includes island sims.

prok is pretty much right.. jauani has it in for mainland theme/group builds, and has been pushing hard on more than one front to try an make it look like the rest of SL agrees, or that somehow its *good* for SL as a whole and not just some particular people's bottom line... but ooh well people figured it out.. darn.. better to retreat for a little and let the lynch mob pass by

Hasn't anyone here learned from the U.S. Congress lately? If the rules don't benifit you, change them. It really does work.

I'm amazed Jauani is so spiteful though. Its a verifiable fact that the 10% has been used in the same exact manner since its inception so the idea that someone would suddenly go to such lengths just to hurt a few others they've come to dislike is something to look at more closely.

It's time to open up a Linden Lobbying shop out near Ambleside to influence/buy the Lindens through political spin so they will alter legislation (code) as we see fit. Obviously Jauani has a jump start on us.