You Do Need Land To Enjoy SL

Certain oldbies and their midbie and newbie groupies often harp on this idea that "you don't need land to have fun in SL".

I'm here as usual to give the contrarian opinion on that notion. I think they harp on that idea out of a deep-seated hatred and allergy to land, commerce, and business, for one, and for another, because they are spoiled brats who live in sandboxes and goof around, or mooch off friends, or already have the tier-free 4096 plots given to the beta/charter players.

When people tell you that you don't need land to have fun in this game, you should ask yourself why they are intruding on your game with their monkish asceticism, what their agenda is, and how they came to that odd view.

Here's why you'll have more fun if you buy land in this game -- and you don't have to buy it from me, or sell it to me, because I'm in the rentals business pretty much, not in the land business:

1. Where are you going to have av sex? This is probably the most fundamental, burning question. If you are the kind of person who wants to lead a mature rather than a PG game, you'll need a private place to flop on the balls with your favorite partner. This isn't for everybody, but if it's for you, you need a place for it. And what better place than your own land?

2. Buying a premium account is only $9.95. You say you just want to spend $9.95 once "for life". But why not spend just $9.95 *this month* and get $500 a week Lindens in your box, and a free 512 tier allocation and the ability to buy first-land plots for just $512, and resell them? You can always buy that land, collect those Lindens, sell that land, and then next month, move to that "for life" stuff if you want. It's really pathetic being on an account with only $50 a week in your stipend. You're really going to feel cramped.

Of course, all sorts of people will tell you 101 ways you can make interesting and cool things out of, I dunno, rolled up newspapers (back copies of the Herald lol?) but you know better. You know that the sexay av skins, the cars, the prefabs, the bling, all the stuff, costs money, and lots of it. Why be stuck with only $50 in your pocket which doesn't hardly even buy you a lottery ticket in many sims?

3. If you own land you can build your house in peace. In sandboxes, people sometimes grief you, they shoot you, they push you, and of course, they watch you while you're building, and they can be merciless. So don't give them that opportunity!

4. When you own land, you can put your own music on, and put yourself in FIND PLACES. You can then advertise your services, shop, or just plain chill space. Other likeminded people can find you that way.

5. When you own land, you have a base from which to make money. Either you sell that land at a profit to a land dealer or anybody who wants to buy your land for a good price (study the market first before setting to sale, read the LAND SALES list for your sim, talk to people, and put out a realistic price). Or you keep it -- you don't lose a thing by keeping it, and it is free! Rent it out, maybe. Use it to have activities on. Land is great. You get a place to log in of your very own!

6. If you buy on the auction or in-world to get larger lots, a lot of opportunities open up for you. You can create a beautiful home and decorate it -- and it need not cost a fortune. Even a mere $5 more a month or $8 more gives you 1024 or 1536 more land, and that is a significantly greater number of prims. Start a land group with 2 friends or 2 alts (make those other alts be on the landless basic account if you must -- they can just hold the group together for you while the main account puts in the tier). That way, you get the 10 percent tier bonus to apply to 10 percent more land. That isn't really so much, but it's a nice little tip, and you can parley it into more, and do things like have some smaller amounts of land available for donating tier in a group to get a shop, or buying a small bit of land for a sign or shop.

7. When you have land, you have something significant to swap to someone else, or just make a big present. It's a great thing to have in the game, for business, or for that special someone.

8. If you buy and sell land by studying the market, you can make a profit, but generally, most people in this business don't make very much. Only by throwing a huge amount of hours at it, and dealing in volume, could you make anything really approaching a RL salary. But meanwhile, it's a fun game to see how you can do on the market.

9. When you buy land, you tend to become more responsible in the game. You are grounded, literally. You tend to grief less. You tend to fly around aimlessly less. You tend to nest more, build, invite friends over more, etc. You are then part of a greater building block of civilization that makes the world a better place. When you have land, you begin to care about how a sim looks. When you don't have land, things like the FPS on a sim, or griefer builds, or issues with neighbours and Lindens and so on mean nothing to you, or you can take the luxury of having some extremist, utopian position on the matter. As a landowner, however, you begin to take a more pragmatic, common sense on matters, and that overall helps the civil and political climate in SL.

10. When you buy land, you have a space of your own on the Linden's server. It's kind of like a share in their company. It's a thing they can measure to determine how they are growing, and how they are doing. Buying land is your way to show your vote of confidence in their overall project.

But we don't need you.

Just because you can think of lots of advantages to owning land does not mean that can't have fun in SL without owning land.

You should recast your explanation so that it is more clearly labeled why *YOU* can't have fun in SL without owning land. There are people out there who enjoy many kinds of activities, like experimenting with building in a sandbox, socializing, playing games, helping friends with projects, etc.

Do we have go on and on and on about people's dasterdly motives. I mean really.

Buster

I don't own land and I have fun. I stay on a friend's lot. I don't have a house or anything, I just hang out there and go to places where other friends happen to be.

If it was "you can't have fun without a central base of operations" then I might agree generally.

Prokofy should retitle this thread, "You can't have fun without villainizing a segment of SL". Is it so hard to believe that SL can be enjoyed without spending money on land?

Maybe I should watch what I say. I don't want to be be triple neg rated again for pointing out the obvious.

I don't mind the triple neg rate, so I will point out the obvious. Why the hell would anyone listen to a land baron who claims that everyone NEEDS land? It's so blatantly biased... especially when people have already stated that they really DON'T need land, and when the sandboxes are constantly populated with dozens of players who DON'T need land.

You don't need land, but *everyone* needs a thneed!

Maybe that's been our problem all along, talking to the hyper-abrassive, land barron thread starter who cheated me out of my first land without using Dr. Seuss language. After that, I'm all out of guesses.

Well, I think there is enough reasons why land is fun that we don't need to go around telling people they don't need it.

I mean, you don't need to be logged into SecondLife either. Should we include that in the notecards?

Just once, I'd love to hear a naysayer express their opinions as just that - opinions from personal experience - rather than a blanket statement that's boldly incorrect.

Plenty of people have fun without land. I can specifically think of many examples, though technically all it takes is one to disprove.

Jarod Godel: What do the Lindens think of the "techie/wiki" community? Or the Feted/Fetid Inner Core?
Robin Linden: I think it's an interesting myth.

I think that it is stated that you don't need a lot of things to have fun in SL. However, there are many reasons why you would want to have those things to better enjoy SL. Land is a prime example. I have more fun with land because it is a place of my own, I can do what I want with it, and I just like it better. That does not mean I don't have fun anywhere but my land. I think land adds to the experience of SL. When you are starting out, owning land is not that important. As time goes on, you will see the value in land and that is why most people buy land. I still know you can have fun without land... I have had fun before I owned land, and I have fun now that I do own land.

I hear life is lots of fun without playing SecondLife.

I suggest we pre-empt everything we say with "You don't need to be logged into SecondLife!!"

So 10 reasons to support an argument thats different than the one you put in your first 2 paragraphs of trash talk?

Intersting mode of arguing....

Lets see if I have this right... "Saying you don't need land to enjoy SL is bollocks because you'll have more fun if you do.... here's 10 reasons...."

Siggy.

This eructation of obviously tongue-in-cheek propaganda Prok just posted has convinced me in and of itself that THERE IS AN FIC. There is at least one long-time SL player (dating from a time when there were 1000-2000 users in SL) who took on a name that can be rephrased "The Contrary Pedagogue." As an alt.

Perhaps by now, he or she has passed on the password to some close associates, and they're taking turns writing diatribe-like propaganda on the forums, while using the alt as a business account on the grid.

Then again, maybe this account belongs to a Linden--a freelancer, perhaps a liason who has met the office staff, or Phillip at least, on several occasions. That seems most likely. Believing it the masters' will, he or she does everything possible to stir activity from the community of the forums while simultaneously working at expanding the economy of the grid, using a younger, midbie everyman account.

It is clear to me in any case, that this is someone's idea of a joke.

As such I endorse it whole-heartedly. Many of the account's frequent repliers (both supporting and dissenting) are obviously in on the joke, and perhaps even take a turn at the keyboard from both sides. It's a grand farce, one of the better RPGs SL has generated. Of course there are those on both sides who are earnest, "the butt of the joke," so to speak. For them, I can only suggest they take a step back and observe the humor of the whole thing, and how it serves the game in the long run. Be glad of your unwitting part and join in with knowing zeal.

poo too weet

where's the poll? I wanna vote!


fen-

Tounge-in-cheek?

Prok?

HAHAHAHAHAH HA HA HA HA ha ha ha that's pretty funny

<slaps knee>

<doubles over>

that's hilarious! BAH ha haha HA HA HA!!

<wipes tears from eyes>

oh my, you must be new or something. That's really funny, had me going there for a sec.

Underneath the subversive sarcasm, you are actually right - none of us needs to be, and would probably improve the quality of our RL immensely if we stopped putting forth so much energy here. That said, it is true that land ownership is not a requirement to enjoy SL, especially now that there are viable options available that don't involve land ownership. Prokofy's post is the textbook example of biased (and consipiracy theory, and all the other things Prokofy's posts always are textbook examples of).

You don't need skins, animations, vehicles, or anything else. You don't need to spend another dime in SL to have fun - there is a wealth of stuff available for free, and you can make things yourself. Everything in SL is a luxury, including land, the most expensive of luxuries (well other than that crappy tiara that was being sold for 25k), and one that often includes a monthly fee.

It amazes me all the machinations that Prokofy goes through when it comes to trying to portray the land market as open and uncontrolled. It is the most controlled of any of the markets in SL - it is dominated by one player, with a few smaller players following up the rear (and several with their heads up said leader's rear). As Anshe so chillingly put it in another thread (this is paraphrased), it doesn't matter if you buy from Anshe on a private island or mainland. One way or another, you will most likely do business with her. That is the way it is, game over, she has won that market. Everyone else is just competing for scraps and angling for something - Prokofy included.

That should read "players who bought Lifetime Accounts prior to December 31, 2003". Beta/Charter status (which are identical) is unrelated. The accounts were available to anyone playing during part of Beta and for approximately six months following launch.

Where have you been Mr Wu???

You never present the entire truth, just enough to make it sound lurid and unjust. Lifetime accounts were offered for purchase during beta, at a time when it was unclear if SL would even survive beta (as it was teh suck in a lot of ways), and yet players invested hundreds of dollars to buy lifetime accounts. Those accounts were available to any player to purchase until late December 2003, I believe - a full 6 months after the end of beta, but a full year before you of course so yes, wildly unfair because you weren't elligible while fucking around in TSO. People who bought liketime accounts get 4096m of land allocation for no additional monthly fees - essentially a premium account plus 3584m of land. This was an offer Linden Lab made at the 1.2 transition from monthly fees to land tiers. Additionally, thousands of players at the time also received an extra 512m of land for their premium account - any account before the cutoff date has 1024m for $9.95 a month, not 512.

Honestly, Prokofy, get the fuck over it already, good lord, your penis envy is showing. Companies make special offers all the time - I have rates from my cable company that a customer calling today cannot get, because I have been a customer for several years and signed up with a special package. Some players who started SL through MMORPG.com got a 14 day trial instead of 7. Wow, that is so wildly unfair. Your fixation on all things being equal is odd - very few businesses operate that way. I know you are used to the flat 9.95 a month you paid to Maxis, but people got special deals in TSO too - when I wanted to cancel my account, they gave me 6 months for free. I still have my account to this day. Wildly unfair? Nope, part of business, that thing you claim to know so much about but don't seem to have any kind of a clue about the realities of.

All name calling aside - the statement is:

You *NEED* land to enjoy Second Life.

I would like to see this proven - or at least backed up with an argument.

The examples given show 'It is enjoyable to own land in Second Life'

Which while sounding similar - is not the same thing.



Siggy.

And the way the RL real estate market is going, here is the greater truth:

You need Second Life to enjoy land.

I work harder and take higher risk for less money than other people would do same for. People end up buying from me because I am willing to put in all this effort for what you call "scraps". Yes, I earn the same "scraps" as every other land trader, there is no magic secret "Anshe Chung golden margin". It is all about volume and the incredible workload that go into dealing with this volume. In the end it isn't even clear if I will earn one penny because tomorrow land price could drop again and those 10000 US$ per month tier fee plus salaries and all kindsa other costs could break me.

You want compete in this market? Your challenge won't be Anshe Chung. It will be the endless number of riffs, icebergs and thunderstorms of the land market that sunk so many others before. Many tried but made wrong assumption, false prediction and failed manage to stir the right course. If tomorrow I start become lazy or stop pay attention my ship on mainland land market can easily crash too. It is one race and it is tough, highly competitive and there is absolutely nothing that shield me from this.

I was a ”baglady” for weeks sin Sl... living at friends places.. or in the wood. ) Its hard to leave an AVa ”somewhere” and come back a day later,.. sounds nuts but I feel like that.

No fun.. but of course that must depend on what ”you” want to get out from being in SL...

In my case I now own an Island in Dreamland (yes I pay to a real person/company IRL) and had a lot fun and have fun taking care of that.. and as irl you go home every day (I hope) I want to do the same in SL.. and do!

I am also living at my SL BF' s home and right now developing that together with him = New fun. Also learning to build... Overall ON!

I must say I dident feel complete until I got my own home.. in SL... GO for it..

AND.. all of you.. out there - NOW ITS BIG time to develop the European styles/design in SL..