Premium Land Con

I must admit I'm annoyed at the audacity of the secondlife company to play such a con on new players like myself. Fortunately I dug a little deeper to evade it.

In the accounts section are the prominent words "Upgrade to Premium to get land!"

That links to the upgrade account page where prices *but no other significant information* is provided. As in what you actually get for the money.

In fact it would appear you do NOT get land from the premium account without PAYING for it separately. You do NOT get land with the premium account as claimed. A fact neatly evaded by neglecting to provide any details. What you actually get is a fee reduction for a small parcel of land instead. This kind of fraud is not acceptable.

Welcome to Second Life, Argent. This is not exactly news to the owners of 29,600 map regions of SL land, you know *smile*.

In fact, you never buy land in Second Life, despite words to that effect all over the site, not in the common sense of "buy" you expect from real life. Technically you have editing rights to a large data file that describes a map region and all it's contents, and some control over who can access that data (by entering you land parcel for example). But you never own the file itself, or the servers and network it is hosted on. You retain editing rights so long as you pay the required fees.

Actually they are supplying land parcels with pre-built homes on them now to players, and mainland is running about three real dollars for as large a parcel as a premium account will support (512m), if you are not picky about location, thats fairly minor compared to the 6-10 a month the premium account runs.

Note also there are two kinds of SL land, Mainland, where you pay Linden Lab (the company name, Second Life is the product) directly, and estates, where you pay the estate owner who in turn pays Linden Lab. You do not need a premium account for estate land.

You need a premium account to buy land on mainland, only premium members can buy mainland and have full ownership. Non premium can rent land on private estates but it will always belong to the estate owner with restrictions.

Premium accounts get a weekly stipend of 300L plus no monthly tier to pay on the first 512m of land. You also get more access to help than non premium members.

If you wish to build a home or shop on mainland, this is a very good time to buy land as it's a fraction of the price it used to be and a lot more choice available.

I don't think you can call it a con or fraud, it's up to the individual if they wish to pay based on needs and read up what comes with a premium account. Many do actually have premium accounts without owning mainland because they wish to support the grid they use. We are lucky that those who don't want to put any money in at all can actually use SL totally free, not many places will let you do that.

Welcome to the Forums. (Oh lord, another Argent! )

I think the "Linden Homes" project is still in beta, but assuming it doesn't implode (and it won't), that will be a way to get your tier-free ("bonus" 512 sq.m. for free. If you don't want to wait, Mainland prices have never been lower, so you should have no trouble finding a 512 for a nominal sum--or finding a really superb 512 (or larger, if you're up for paying tier) for slightly more. Try Search / Land Sales and selecting the Mainland only option.

A few years ago, there was something called "First Land" that let you pick your 512, usually in new regions of expanding continents. It was a pretty good program until it got gamed to death; the new Linden Homes are intended to replace most of its appeal for newer Premium members.

Premium membership has a few other advantages, as Chokolate describes. You get to file support tickets (which may or may not produce customer-delighting results ). You also get L$300/wk stipend, which cuts substantially the net cost of a monthly, quarterly, or (especially) annual subscription.

I don't see anything even misleading, let alone fraud, in "Upgrade to Premium to get land!" It's the equivalent of saying, "Go through that door to get cookers" or "Go up those stairs to get suites". You don't expect a free cooker when you go through the door, or a free suite when you go up the stairs. A person *has* to upgrade to Premium to get land on mainland. There's nothing misleading about it.

You get free tier on the land. Tier is basically an upkeep fee. Think of it as HOA or land tax. You get free tier on 512 meters worth of land.

You still need to find and buy the 512 yourself. It IS a bit confusing at first. But, those are the facts.

You should also be getting a stipend weekly; check your transaction history in your account at this website to check on that. It should be 300 Lindens a week, if I recall correctly.

Land can be bought very cheap in Second Life at the moment. For a couple of real-world pounds, dollars or euros you can get a permanent, tier-free 512 sq metres.

Even cheeper. When I and some friends moved we got nearly 1/4 of a sim for free. The person that gave us our land had a minor piece that nobody wanted so she just abandoned it rather than pay tier on it, and so did another neighbor. Before I moved I just gave my land to a neighbor (except for about 100 m2 that he did not want that I sold off for 100 lindens).

Yes, their add is wrong, but as has been pointed out the linden homes are free. If you just want normal mainland you can buy a pretty good 512 for less than you spend on a cup of coffee (probably even free if one of your friends wants to get rid of land).

We gotz a new Argent? Hmmmm no pics yet, wonder if he haz paws, teefs.

(was nothing wrong with the old Argent......)

Welcome to SL Argent. Yes we know this. I don't see it as fraud though. I understand how it works, and no one is making me do it/buy it. I own both mainland and estate land, my choice, nobody is forcing my Lindens out of me. If you don't like how it works, don't buy land. What they are saying is you have to be a premium member to own mainland. Nothing fraudulent about that. If you don't care about owning mainland, and many don't, then don't go premium, no one is making you. Plenty of freebie accounts running around SL. It's an option, not a force.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Linden_Home_Help_Guide

(^_^)

Oh, yeah, right. Forgot about those. There ya go, 'Free' for premium, with an invitation of course.

yes it can - pity the hefty tiers don't encourage land purchase.....

a change in tier structure and payments is long overdue.

Don't expect that to change much anytime soon. As we calculated in other threads, land tier is by far their main source of income. At most I could see a small reduction in the lower tiers and a smoothing out of the price structure, since the near doubling in price per tier does act as a barrier once you get up past 4K. Once you have three regions or more, it becomes smoother since 3.5 regions is only 21% more cost than 3 regions. The way to smooth the jumps is to get a second premium account and for example pay for 8K + 2K and 8K + 4K before going to 16K (40, 55, 65, 75) but that is a workaround you should not have to do.

You forgot to add the exclaimation point, and other context, that shows that Linden Lab is advertising receving land as a benefit of upgrading to Premium, and not merely providing physical directions to find products. Besides, if one had to pay at the door, one might expect that the payment at the door paid for the cooker- and not expect that one has to pay all over again after paying money at the door.

It is designed to be misleading, it is misleading.

I disagree. As I said, I find nothing even misleading, let alone fraudulent, in it. It doesn't say, "Upgrade to Premium to get free land!", does it? You *have* to upgrade to Premium to get (mainland) land. I think it's pretty clear. I can understand someone misunderstanding it, by thinking that it says something that it doesn't say, but I don't see it as misleading and it certainly isn't fraudulent.

ETA:
I had a quick look and the link that the OP describes as "prominent" isn't prominent at all. It's just a link, in the page's normal size text, and it's near the bottom of the page in the Land section. Not exactly describable as "prominent", methinks.

It is annoying that a free account can't own land yet they can have L$ coming out of their ears via sales and Paypal but then ... there is always the group option and a trusted friend to get around this.

Pretty sure there is not a court around that would call it "fraud".

A free account CAN own land but they will have to buy a private island to do so. Free accounts just cannot own any mainland.