Revitalizing the mainland

I dunno. I could easily see the Lindens deciding to try a pilot program of new zoned mainland. I wonder what effect that would have on the existing island market? I'm sure of one thing: zoned mainland would sell like hotcakes.

I wish there were more of the large island estate owners active on the forums. Since they now are 4/5 of the grid, our discussions would benefit from more of their opinions.
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The one thing I can see that would prevent mainland zoning is the cost of maintaining it. I believe LL would prefer to eventually have nothing but estate land and all mainland go away. It has to be much cheaper for them to let the land barons deal with all the individual land owners rather than themselves.

Then they would still deal with ensuring that land barons weren't ripping off individuals but it'd be a lot less to deal with.

I was thinking Boardman.

Mari

What I meant was existing mainland will remain as it is. Future sims may include some form of zoning.

That thread is about the roads, which was discussed at office hours three months ago already (/327/d1/220259/1.html#post1749954).

The topic of the office hour that prompted my post wasn't about roads or ad-farms, those things were discussed and planned already, it was about potential ways of zoning (assuming residents would even want it) or other things that could increase mainland ownership.

I had my say of what I thought was important at the office hour and the only reason for the thread so that people who don't frequent them could chime in with things that matter to them *before* LL actually makes a decision either way. If they read the extra feedback, then great, if they don't, noone's any worse off .

16 people owning 4096m² of mainland vs 1 sim owner renting out 16 plots of 4096m² is $495/month vs $195 or $295/month.

1/4 sim and less is (far) more profitable to LL than having one sim owner.

Okay, to me this is the arguement against 'zoned mainland'. It would be such radical step and would step on so many different old-timer toes, that LL will be unlikely to do it soon.

Firstly, you have the private estate holders. They will scream like you wouldn't believe. The only real benefit to renting on private estates is the zoning. No adfarms, neighbors that have your vision, etc. If mainland gets zoned, the only remaining reason to rent private sim land is if you only speak a language not common in SL and thus live and do business on in a small, linguistically closed island, in RL, you live in an country that you can't pay LL from due to banking issues, or you are a privacy freak who refuses to give LL your credit information, taken all together, a small portion of the population. The higher tier on private sims already makes them less attractive than Mainland both to buy and to rent on. If LL were to create 'zoned mainland', they would have to throw the private sim owners a bone (reduce tier fees to private sims, raising them without raising mainland tier also, was unfair in the first place), otherwise, private sims, which bring in so much RL $ for LL, would be done for.

Zoned mainland would also upset mainland holders, regardless of how it was implemented. If all mainland was suddenly zoned and you were a business in a newly dubbed residential sim, are you going to be eminant domained? Are you going to have to move to some adlittered slum sim, giving up your prized, well paid for, waterfront location?

If only new mainland is zoned, then the current mainland holders are gonna cry foul. Not all mainland holders are 'land barrons'. I'd hazard MOST aren't. All those residence on current mainland sims who wouldn't be zoned would loose value in their land, land they might have spent a large amount of money on. This would seriously send many SL residents packing, maybe even more than the gambling ban, ageplay ban, and VAT taxes lumped together, particularly when old mainland becomes the ghetto of SL. Those that don't leave will soon find themselves living in the SL cesspool of extreme porn, infohub noobs and griefers, and spinning ads geared towards extreme porn seekers and infohub noobs and griefers.

Seriously, too many current residence have too much in unzoned mainland, even those that don't own any. If LL does do something zonish, it will likely be to raise the minimum parcel size. Personally, I would hope it to be 512 sq. m. Over time this would pretty much eliminate alot of problems that have stemmed from adfarms and bring about some measure of voluntary zoning. You'd have to have some sort of smaller lot trading/bartering system to rejoin adfarm land into larger surrounding lots. Adfarmers are leaving alot of damaged land in their wake.

There would be no raising of the minimum parcel size, or groups would probably never exercise their 10% landholding bonus. A group holding 1536 of land isn't going to get the benefit of the bonus if the minimum parcel size was 512. You'd have to hold 5120 AND have a significant gap in tier just to make it work. So that ain't happening.

As for the rest... I don't know.

You think that's gonna make a difference to LL? Groups holding land to get the benefit 10%, that actually DO get an actual tier benefit are few and far between. Those that do often already carry heavy tier burdens, and tend to exploit the benefit for reasons LL probably never intended when they came up with the group tier discount, like land flippers buying and selling land from groups so they can max their tier and holdings (I'm impatient, so I only do this with premium land holdings I don't want to flip quickly, but hold out for a higher price). Not that I think land flippers are wrong in using the benefit mind you, but the group benefit was created by LL to encourage group land that was to stay with the group and allow communal benefits to group members in one form or another. That is not really how it's used in practice, and likely costs LL significant tier.

Also, folks could still use their benefit, as 512 sq. m. would be the SMALLEST parcel size, but not all land would be a 512 multiple. That group you menioned, with the 1536, could still purchase and place into group a 1680 sq. meters, as they can now, but only if it came in 512 or bigger chunks to begin with.

This fact you mentioned would be a boon to LL, rather than a burden. It could allow them to raise tiers without officially raising tiers. Not to mention, you wouldn't have the membership loss you've had over these past few months with ever more agressive and inconsiderate adfarmer conduct, not to mention the mass membership loss SL would likely endure if 'zoned mainland' came into effect without first addressing some of the issues I just raised.

Who knows, there MAY be a means of creating zoned mainland without these problems, but for LL to jump in with 'zoned mainland' and then find these situations cropping up, would be bad for the community, and give LL more headaches, just when they're beginning to get responsive to community complaints again.

There are few benefits to bothering with holding land as a group. I think this is used far more than you think. For those of us who already have heavy tier burdens but use it for holding more land, it is an invaluable tool to getting more for your money's worth. There are plenty of people who hold sizable amounts of land and use this. Would LL screw us? I don't think so, because they don't need further reasons to make people tier down. They are already looking to try to add value to being premium as is.

What? They can't use their bonus. They have to tier way up before they can purchase a plot of that size as bonus land. They have to be in the 8192 tier before being able to buy any land, and even then, they could only buy ONE 512, and still have a big gap in their bonus.


Clearly, zoned mainland is something that is going to take a lot more thought and I don't see it happening any time soon.