Help for a dying island............

Does anyone know if there is a haunted sim role play or whether one would be of interest to enough people?

I have a residential sim that is slowly dying, and I am trying to come up with an idea for something to save it. Sadly what ever I do has to make enough $ to just keep the tier paid, I am not in this for the profit.

Suggestions welcome.

Thanks Everyone!!!

If you find an idea that works, let me know. We've been having a hard time, financially speaking, the last two or three months ourselves.

May I humbly suggest a Mega prim tombstone???

When I arrived on the island I live on, there were 4 inhabitants including the sim owner. 6 weeks later, all space on the island aside from a couple of 4096m2 plots for group use are full. The sim owner challenged me to sell her plot for higher than any other place on the island. 3 days later, she began her new life living in a cardboard box on my beach that I bought for her.

I just sell for the fun of it but I don't come cheap

What I would ask you is, *why* is the island dying? Is it lack of interest, general churn? lack of a theme or community spirit? You can't account for someone just saying they've had enough of SL but you can build the others.

I have the role of concierge and make huge efforts to get everyone involved and chatting, rather than just being green dot neighbours. Whenever someone new comes on board, I make a personal effort to bring people over to meet and say Hi and to offer copy items and discuss how they might want to involve themselves in how the sim develops. We regularly have ad-hoc parties at someones house.

We're having a sim party at the end of this month. We're going for low lag and the costume style suggested by the sim owner (yep, not me this time!) is "Birthday Suits". Then again, we're all kinky and any that aren't will be by the end of it

So while I may not have instantly solved your problem, that's how we function where I live.

Sassy,

PM me your rates, dear. We could use an enthusiastic drum-beater such as yourself.

I love hearing stuff like this. I do a very similar thing with my store and group. There's a ton competition out there and the days of 'absentee owners' are gone. If you don't get out and do things differently you can't expect great returns. There are also a ton of tools inworld that can contribute to the success of businesses inworld. My group jumped from 90 members to more than 1350 in about 8 weeks doing the same things (with shoes lol) that you are doing with your community. My retention rated actually amazes me cause I have very very little falloff with members. My sales also multiplied TEN fold by using similiar methods -- It's out there folks -- ya gotta go get it though.

Cheers

CC

I don't know if any of you have been to tombstone. What i did there was build the rp area first on 4 sims. so a sense of community is there. NOw i have a 5th sim for shops total in western theme. plus, 6th and 7th sims full of ranches to rent (and they are, i think at the moment only 2 available ).and an eighth sim for working ranches.(people live and work from there).

In hindsight I did things the right way round

so, in effect I have 8 sims. 4 for playing and 4 that pay the tier.

In general this is the worst time for traffic, the last of the summer, long weekends and such. My traffic went to about 30-40% of normal capacity as well. Sales took a nose dive, even with a new advertising campaign. It's not necessarily just you, the grid is slow this time of year as well. But hey, perfect time to revamp your sim for the fall when the numbers pick up.

I'm up for the date auction today at 1pm somewhere in tombstone

Lily - I visited your sim and it is so sweet! You did a great job. I had the urge to ride a bike, there....but no bike.....perhaps a bike store in the village? Or a flower shop? and some dogs and cats in the yards....definitely animals.

You are thinking of turning that into a roleplay sim? The first thing that comes to mind is Desperate Housewives.....with the appropriate characters......and tons of drama......but that's a complete turnaround from your family oriented atmosphere.....would you go that far? and be comfortable with that?

The thing about the roleplay sims....is that they have to have quite a bit of people there, to keep them interesting.....and lots of props.....lost of interesting buildings.....to cover every angle.....I can think of one that I love to visit that has a diner, a hotel, a video making office, a store, a police station, movie theatre, school, apartments, park, underground sewers.......great set ups with great props.....never a dull moment and lots of traffic.......and at the moment, I'm not familiar with a Mayberry style, picket fence, roleplaying sim.......but add the right characters, some swingers and trouble makers, and bored housewives.......and that would be fun!

I picture the Plumber coming over to do repairs. And don't forget the Lawn Boy. He's doing a great job with your lawns, by the way......but his work is not done

/me stops what she's doing and curiously listens intently...hopes the plumber brings his plunger with him...

Oooh a Housewives theme... awesome!

Sassy.....can't go into detail.....but use your Imagination........I have a "friend"....and her rp gig is that of a housewife whose husband is always working....she has so many cast and characters involved in that scene.....if she brought them all over to Mayberry.....it would be an instant village.....hehe.

The Mercedes Mechanic is quite colorful......and her husband's secretary just recently moved into their home with them, which has created a little drama...(she also moonlights as an escort)........not to mention the antics of the Pool Boy and the Interior Decorator, who are often left at the home alone, during the day........and then there is the Fertility Doctor.....and the Marriage Counselor.......and the list just keeps going on and on........

Thanks Mickey, I did try hard with it, and I thought all in all it did come out well. The residentials do fluctuate. I have been in sl long enough to know that yes, summer is a killer time, not as much traffic in world. I have advertised with in the tenants for ideas to do events, as I am definetly not the event type person. But sadly I haven't been able to come up with much yet. If I do say so my self, it is a very nice sim, has a nice welcoming feel to it, but keeping renters is difficult.

As for role play, I am not exactly sure what I want to do with it, I am not much of a role player, to old school I guess. Really I guess I just need something to spark things over there, and I am just not sure who, what, where and or when.

Thanks to everyone who has replied, you have all been a great help!

Hey Lily!

As fun as the roleplay idea is, I'd advise against it. A theme is one thing; (it's becoming a must, actually), but an RP residential sim is going to reduce your customer base to a tiny minority. People love to talk up the idea, but very few of these same people will fork over the Lindens to participate. An RP sim is going to cater to enthusiastic visitors, but not cash-carrying rental-paying residents.

The biggest obstacle to rental property is simply getting the traffic there. And then, once you overcome that, your landing area is key. On all my properties around the grid, as long as I solved both those problems, I've been able to keep occupancy over 80% on the more remote places, and 100% on the popular ones. This is all in the face of summer slowdowns, land gluts, stability problems, etc.

Lily and Lindal, I snooped last night and both of you have the exact same issue: An awesome themed community that customers are looking for, but all you need is an improvement to the landing point (assuming you're getting the visitors there).

Catch me in world and I'd be happy to show either of you how to fix it, or I could send you a notecard. I hate giving away the farm in the forums, but I like helping a friend and colleague.

--Avion

The summer is not the best of times to be thinking of drastic changes, as others have stated, traffic is lower. Those who get a real summer spend more time out of doors and in the UK we spend time moaning about how crap the summer is again to our RL neighbours or down the pub.

Search for your plots or advertisements and see how easily you find them.

Consider having a small parcel with information about your rentals.

If you find it hard to find your own product, so will potential customers.

Write down the positives of your estate and shout about them, use the land rentals forum, property forum if you're renting property.

Most importantly, keep your chin up.

i think a spook ville rental might work as said mosalimus for the cemiteries and maybe like a swamp with cypris trees think yoda's house but creepier a dungen with 4 or 5 rental units a small midevil town that is burnt out and smodering

October Country I think might just be what ya want its a killer sim!

As an offshoot of this conversation, has anyone ever offered recognition to any of the renters that take an effort with their builds? It would seem that it would encourage people making open builds of interest (which cost the estate owner nothing), but of all the IMs with little or no information from estate owners, never (and as best I can recall, NEVER) have I had one that said, "This month the improvement of the month goes to Shards for the interesting trees she added to her open area. Shards has an open area and invites visitors to come and look..."

If I were a themed estate owner looking to add interest I would be doing that and throwing in maybe L$ 500 or so.

Actually Curtis, When I have sufficent numbers of tenants on Canterbury, I held a "yard of the month" contest. It was a big hit and the residents themselves voted.