Worth Going Premium? Land Question

Last night I had an "interesting" run in with the estate manager where I "own" land. The undertone seemed to be very much restrict access to my build, or prepare for the consequences. Whatever the reasons and truths behind this new development, I feel ratehr uncomfortable remaining where I am.

I am but a basic account, and use slx to buy L to cover my tiers.

My home is.. Adult, for want of a better term. I don't sell adult content or services, but I do tend to leave my doors open for friends, guests etc who might want to make use of the facilities

I've been looking at the numbers, and I can't quite work out if it's worth paying up front for 12 months premium and finding a 2048 mainland parcel. I'm currently paying about 3600 a month, and can't really afford or justify finding more than that. I'm still trying to work out if having mainland works out about the same after 512 worth of tier and 300L a week.

Also, this whole Zindra thing. I do not consider my place to be a sex club, or a business. It is however somewhere people can and do go to bump pixels. So is there any clear definition of whether I'd need adult land or not? Seeing as I've been on a private estate since I started I know I wouldn't be eligable for a swap if I did get mature mainland, but it would be nice to think I could get somewhere and not have yet more hassle! All I want is a small parcel which doesn't cost too much, and doesn't have people trying to change the terms or location every so often on apparent whims...

There are adult estates or private reigons if you don't want mainland/premium,,,,I used to like mainland because it used to be do as you please but with the whole zindra thing.........

You're paying US$166 a year for your land.

It would cost you $72 for a premium account

If you need 2048 square meters, you'll need to cough up $180 a year for the tier. If you can make do with 1920 square meters you can get that (using the premium and group bonus) for $96 a year, for a total of $168... but you'll get back $60 a year in stipend, so your net cost will be $108.

If you want your land to only be controlled by you and LL, then buying Mainland is the only way to ensure that -- otherwise you are always controlled by a third party.

As far as cost -- renting all tier over the 512m is the cheapest. If you do not feel comfortable renting the tier from a group that does that, then in many case it is actually cheaper to add an additional Premium account than bump your tier level to LL up.

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For a 2048m - here are the figures for adding premium accounts. These calcs used L$265 per US$1 and I have actually been getting L$274 per US$1 lately. Also, I did this based on Quarterly Premium payments, as that is how I was paying at the time, so yearly is even better.

One premium @ 22.50/qtr x 4 qtrs = $90.00 / yr
... L$300/wk x 52 wks (265 L$ rate) = -58.86 / yr
results in a NET cost of $31.14 per year per premium acct
.. (31.14 / 52 weeks = .60/wk usd, 31.14 / 12 = 2.60/mth usd)

@265 L$ rate, 8,252 L$ per year net cost
...(8252 / 52 weeks = 158/wk L$, 8252 / 12 = 688/mth L$).

Given the above figures, a 2048m plot will cost:
- one premium: 31.14 / yr + $180 ($15 x 12 mths) tier = $211.14 / yr
- two premiums: 62.28 / yr + $96 ($8 x 12 mths) tier = $158.28 / yr
- three premiums: 93.42 / yr + $60 ($5 x 12 mths) tier = $153.42 / yr
- four premiums: 124.56 / yr + $0 tier = $124.56 / yr

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If you rent the tier, it is .25L$ per sqm per week, so
2048 - 512 = 1536 tier needed * .25L$ per week = L$384 per week
(actually, since groups get that 10% bonus, if the land is held by a group, you really won't need to rent the full 1536m)

You'll get L$300 per week from LL for your membership, so your net cost (not counting the membership fee) is L$84 per week or L$4368 per year. Using the same L$265 per US$1 calc (which is a bit low), that is roughly US$0.32 per week or US$16.48 per year.

Add to the the cost of the premium membership in whatever form you prefer to pay that.

I tried playing with the numbers a while ago, too. But, since I have no interest in owning a piece of mainland, there is really no reason for me to go premium. So, I am a basic, and a renter - and I'm damned proud of it!

As for your "run-in", I can see your estate manager's point of view. It seems likely that your estate manager advertises his/her estates in search (how else to get prospective renters to find you?). Since your parcel contains adult content, and is - as you say - essentially open to the public, it places the estate manager at odds with the ToS, unless s/he flags the entire sim as adult - which is probably not a desirable action for a residential sim.

I knew I shouldn't have finished the wine last night - I'm too sober to get my head round those figures right now!

I'll have a sit down and read through later, but thank you for the replies

I went estate because I didn't really want to commit to vast amountos of cash when I first started in SL. It's worked fine for me so far, but last night I simply didn't feel confortable about where I am - And in the 12 months or so since I got land I've already moved 3 or 4 times due to one land issue or another (Openspace issues, then estate reshuffling, and suchlike). I'm starting to see the attraction in land that has a touch more stability about it.



The adult thing does seem to have been nearly entirely overlooked there, but there was a brief conversation about it a while ago. I didn't get the impression flagging the estate as adult would be an issue, but it may well not be helping my cause here! I'm still unsure as to the "adult" status of my place as although you would think it probably is, it's not commercial in any way which seems to mean under LL rules it either isn't, or if they said build like mine were, they'd have even more mainland residents clamouring to get swaps to Zindra.

The strange thing is, the apparent issues have only been raised with me after someone there wanted to start changing a parcel shape for a new building. I'm not saying there weren't issues prior to this, but I don't much like nobody discussing them directly with me, and the timing of it now. In many ways I like where I am, but if I'm going to have neighbours that spy and go behind my back when I'm more than ready to discuss and try and resolve any issues personably face to face, and the constant uncertainty of if i can stay where I am with things as they are, then it's time to move on.

Or I could just give up and get rid, but much as LL do nothing to make me want to continue putting money into SL, I'd miss having somewhere to share with friends when the mood takes.

It sounds to me like some of your visitors have a problem with discretion. You can't help it if the neighbors cam in, but keep your windows closed, spatialized sounds restricted to the parcel, and don't use adult keywords in your land title or description. If your parcel is residential zoned, your neighbors really shouldn't know what is going on there unless they're deliberately spying.

I had a tenant for a while...I called their place the sex house. I stay out of my residents' business, but with that place, it was impossible NOT to see what went on. There were people getting it on there 24/7 - the tenants, their friends, etc. A number of strange fetishes were involved. They never tinted their windows. A couple of times there were problems with sex sounds being audible from the other side of the sim. I couldn't keep the plots near theirs occupied because renters would get an eyeful from next door and leave. I finally had to have a chat with them about the part of the covenant that says to keep adult activities in the privacy of your home. So my suggestion would be...have a look at the sim covenant and the LL rules for Mature land, and adjust accordingly.

If you are going to go premium to buy and own your own land then now is the time to do it. I have been holding out since Zindra was announced to purchase land again. I just bought a little ol 512 for under $L2000 with protected passage to the Blake Sea. Larger lots, nice lots with water access I just saw for around $L3 per sq meter.

It would suck to be a land owner and see your land value going so far South, but it is a great time to pick up a nice lot for yourself.

When I built the place I kept the windows only about 10% transparent in the texture, plus it's not plain glass. In fact, when I was looking over it a few weeks ago I realised I might as well not have bothered, can't see anything even with my nose pressed to the glass! All sounds are restricted, and I'm very strict about keeping everything out of sight.

I do suspect some guests have maybe been a tad OTT (have managed to dig a little deeper into that this evening), but I'm still not pleased that nobody felt the need to mention this to me at the time. Instead it appears to be an issue now my parcel is slightly in the way of a desired new build on the sim.

I want to be able to maintain an open door policy, and prefer to remove freedom of access upon breaking the rules (not that I'm convinced rules have been broken in this instance, but it's too hazey to tell) rather than only grant freedom to those who have some esoteric means of proving they won't go on to break the rules. The impression I have is this is not greatly appreciated (or understood) where I currently am. But I'm still wondering why this has become an issue now, and not in the nearly a year I've been with that estate. I guess there's no smoke without at least an ember glowing away somewhere, but anyone who has seen and been offended by any goings on must almost certainly have been prying as there's next to no way anyone could misbehave in plain sight due to the position of the build on the parcel. There's not really enough room outside the walls to be naughty!

I simply don't like being where I feel I'm not wanted, or where I have eyes burning into the back of my head, so moving would seem a sensible option. I've found a rental on a very.. Interesting.. estate, but have a couple of aesthetic concerns that might see me not staying there (am waiting to get hold of the manager to see if we can work something out). But after reading through the replies here and having a bit of a think, premium seems the way to go. I detest the notion of handing cash directly to LL after being less than impressed with their policy making and treatment of residents, but less cash for more security makes a whole lot of sense



I guess that's one glimmer of optimism in all this. You're right, not so great for people selling, but might help me find somewhere to buy

/me is currently trying to justify 12 months membership upfront, and wondering why if charged VAT it appears LL still take the money in $US - Yet another £1.50 currency fee from the bank looming then...

Get a plot on mainland.

Set TP's in to happen -inside- a little cube at 1143m up, put a TP pad there, give it an access key, and turn off flying.

I think there are script-thingies that can ban anyone who enters your parcel - if they can do that to just a certain part of your parcel, set it to the ground floor and 5m up. So if any guest enters from the ground, or jumps off your skybox or something, they get parcel banned.

Turn off voice. And restrict chat and sounds to your parcel only.

Rez a skybox at 3257m, and put your sexbed, sexmachine, and xcite collection there.

Don't advertise your parcel.

Enjoy.

I did the same thing yesterday, only I couldn't find protected water that cheap, but I got protected road for 15xxL (don't remember the exact cost).

I decided that if I ever open an adult business, I will rent a shop in Zindra. And if I end up being good at it, buy a micro parcel there and set up a shop board. Most clothing that I was planning to sell on Zindra, I will sell on mainland with added panties and bras or pasties so I can safely advertise it as 'risque' rather than 'fetish'. Pretty much the same thing vendors on renderosity did back when they kicked porn off of that site.

I asked about being able to restrict normal text chat to a parcel in teh past, and it wasn't an option. Someone kindly created a Jira on it, though I don't think it's got many votes yet

Is there an existing way of doing it that I don't know about?



Chance would be a fine thing! I can see your point about having people jump through a couple of hoops, but it does seem to add complexity that it'd be nice not to have!

I never realised until tonight it was possible to "rent" tier - Being able to do that makes the running cost side of mainland incredibly attractive. However, a hop around a few places that are within my purchase budget is showing finding that not too nasty spot for not too much cash might be tricky. I'm hoping the dozen or so people that visit my home might crawl out of their malaise for long enough to voice an opinion on what to do, as this is as much about having somewhere friends and guests can unwind as it is about me having somewhere I can relax. Because you can be sure if I do it all myself I'll end up doing it all wrong!

I currently have 2048sq after divesting myself of 6536sq. My tier is $15/month and I'm on a quartley premium account so my monthly cost is $22.50. Being an older account I get L$400/week but adjusting for your situation of L$300/week, your approximate monthly cost would be $18.00 or $216/year. If you become a yearly premium it would drop to only $17/month or $204/year but you have to factor in the cost of the land too. Currently you can find, if you look hard enough, mainland for just under L$2/sq so add about $15.50 to your first years cost. So $204 is about as someone else said before around L$54,000 or L$4500/month. But be aware if your deemed adult and your on mainland you could end up being forced to move or change your life style.

Now if your determined to have 2048sq you could create 2 premium accounts and save a little. Each account would cost you $6.50/month but your tier would only be $8/month since the alt could donate its 512sq to your group (you get a 512sq bonus for group owned land). Your cost then would be $21/month minus $9.00 after selling the L$2400/month stipend or around $12/month. Now I’m no math major but I think these numbers are correct. Good luck and have fun on your new land.

Cheaper with premium I think. Please don't move next to me.

(If neighbors can see what 'adult stuff' you are doing, without camming in, then you are in violation of mature land's TOS, per the new rules. Please tell me this isn't on PG. Lol)

Turning off flying does nothing. And messing around with scripts at ground level or any other level than your skybox is just a waste of time and a way to make people wonder what you're hiding. If you want to have a skybox with interesting stuff in it, make the ground level empty, a nice piece of parkland people will pass by without stopping.

Well, that's the point I keep trying (and failing) to get across - No, nothing can be seen without camming in - You'd have to go through my walls and doors to see anything.

And no, not on PG land - I may be one of the despicable pervs of SL, but I do my best not to shove it down unwanting peoples throats!

Seems if I go premium and pay LL direct for tier it costs a little more, if I rent the tier it costs substantially less. The trick will be finding suitable land at a sensible price I guess. Some land I rented a couple of nights ago will be more expensive than the tier rent/ premium route, but there's certainly no issues about what may happen within my walls there.. Something that may see me staying as I've no interest in offending others, even others who have no respect for privacy and go out of their way to find offense. I think it's Argent who's been mentioning various methods LL could/ should implement to improve privacy for quite some time - I wish those things would happen, as if I keep everything behind closed doors people would have to actually enter to be offended rather than simply looking through x ray binoculars...

If you do it the way I suggest, and you count the stipend, it will cost substantially less for almost the same tier.

Indeed, that was another option that sort of went over my head when drowsily reading through the thread before!

I think it's mostly going to boil down to finding a suitable piece of mainland before biting the bullet with premium, but it's looking more and more attractive an option, mostly due to the help from people on this thread

Mainland and estate land aren't really so much different in cost as to make it a serious decision point. The biggest differences are in the sort of experience you get, and the specific risks.

With mainland, you pay LL directly. I would have said, that gives you more security, but LL has lately been mucking about with all those Adult Content changes and other stuff. Still, you avoid the risk of your landlord packing up and vanishing along with your sim.

You may or may not find your estate owner to be more helpful and responsive to problems than Linden Lab. Some are very pro-active. Others are not.

Mainland has few zoning restrictions, except for the aforesaid maturity rating stuff. Estates have covenants describing what you can and can't build. This can work either for or against you. You can put up nearly anything you please...but so can your neighbors and you may not agree with their taste.

Mainland requires a premium membership. If you pay yearly, in order to get the best deal, you are also locked in for that year and you lose your money if you decide to move. You are also locked in for a month at a time by the tier billing cycle. And of course, you have to buy the land in the first place, and it may take a while to sell it when you decide to leave. Many estate parcels can be rented by the week, and with no up front "purchase" cost.

Some of the prettiest builds, both scenery and structures, are on private estate land. On the other hand, no estate offers as much connected, open territory for traveling by boat or plane.

I've lived both places, and enjoyed both. I'm currently on an estate parcel, but my personal preference is for mainland. As others have pointed out, it's possible to play some cost saving games by creating alts and paying Premium account fees for them, then combining their free tier and stipend payments to reduce your out of pocket cost.

?

I think she means "if you decide to move off Mainland".

Or something.

Er.. Can you restrict chat to your parcel only??

/me did not think that was possible, though it's something I always thought was a great idea.

Right. If you move to an estate, or quit SL altogether, you don't get a refund of unused Premium account payments.

Yeah, if I'd been having this train of thought 6 months ago I would now be *very* unhappy with the Adult thing. As it is I'm pretty displeased, but more for the impact on others and LL corporate apprach than anything. But it does seem kind of wrong that I'm now considering mainland for my place given it's been built with "adult" activities in mind from the start!



The one I've been with till now has been very proactive, and is probably ideal for a lot of people. But I'm just not comfortable with it anymore. It's the way people have reacted to things, rather than that they have, that makes me uneasy. The estate owner has been generally quite good over it, but I find myself just not feeling right staying there.



I've spent quite a few hours looking around for suitable mainland, and although there's not many parcels with nasty builds near them (currently) far too many were fenced in on 3 or all sides by banlines. That bothers me, they're ugly and a pain for people who want to walk or fly in rather than tp.



I'd be hard pushed to say my build is all that pretty, but I do my best with what little aesthetic sense and photoshop skill I have Scenery never really troubled me till I upgraded my PC, with a 64m draw distance and most things on low you don't notice a lot!



The number crunching games make mainland very attractive cost wise, and I suspect I'm not quite adult enough (and certainly not commercial enough) to need worry about Zindra. But then, with adult commerce being denied, and no clear definition of what constitutes movable adult content regarding residents and none profit places, who knows? I might hold off until more is made clear there, which most likely will happen when LL start screwing over normal residents and forcing them to buy on Zindra rather than getting free swaps.

I've just about finished moving everything to a parcel on a rental where there's no purchase price and things are seemingly quite easy going. It's going to save me all of 30L a week, but the nature of the estate makes me feel more at ease with things

But I'm still going to keep mainland in mind long term, especially after learning a thing or two from here