How low will it go?

And just how do you come to that conclusion, anyway? Tier on each new mainland sim is $195/mo while tier on each new private island sim is $295/mo. Seems to me that the exact opposite is true then. For each new 64km of land introduced into game, they up their long-term cash flow by over 51% (295/195) if that new land is private island land vs. mainland land.

Factor in that the buyers of mainland plots have to be Premium, paying monthly, quarterly or annual subs direct to LL.
If the buyers hold more than 512m, they start racking up monthly tier direct to LL on top of their subs. That tier level is at a much higher rate for small plots than the tier level for a full sim.

Not expecting miracles, obviously. But if they are actually intending to keep the prices low, it will give more of the little people (Like me, and my 1500sqm) an incentive to buy into mainland rather than the push to lease out from the islands.

More end users going to mainland because it's cheap is good. Barons are always going to be there, the question is which direction the limited number of end users are being funneled in. The more end users you get in an area, generally the better the area winds up being in the long run.

i personally seriously doubt this, more likely they would want to have the floor around L$7, or maybe lower ?, i also do think prices will raise again but then SL growth dependent. (i own half a sim in sqm's, and am not worried because i dont intend to leave SL soon , actually looking forward to buy some more at "affordable" prices)

*raising the price from 1000 to 1250 is perhaps a "subtile" warning?



i said it somewhere before, i really think the more regulated private islands, deserve a higher price compared to the mainland, i described as the "wild west"

just my opinion's

Except that if the average price of a mainland sim falls significantly below the cost of an island *and* you consider the lower tier--why wouldn't a potential island owner buy an entire sim and develop that very nicely instead? It would be a lot easier to break even or maybe even turn a small profit right? I know the land controls are much more limited with a mainland sim but are they really worth an extra $100 a month?

I know a lot of the newer $295 tier islands depend at least partially on renters. How will they compete in price with all the dirt cheap mainland now that has a lower tier? I know many islands have fantastic content and so they will retain their customers, but a lot of islands are minimally developed--not unattractive but not much there to keep people. I guess content, not land, will be king with the Linden Land Factory expanding.

Because they would have no control over what godawful griefry stuff is built in the adjoining sims.
On an island, someone on the boundary has a view of water - whether void or real.
On the mainland, the view outside is uncontrollable - apart from the option of having you own very large 2D trees.

Ditto sort of issue for noise and objects, particularly when only 49.9% of an object has entered. 'No object entry' only clicks in at the 50% stage.
It is the Wild West - which, to be fair, can be wonderful at times.

Except for void sims. What are they, 800 prims? And 1/4 performance of a standard sim?

1875 prims per void sim

We will have to agree to disagree. They kept the target base price at L$10 a meter for months. To go to L$7 is too much of a drop and makes islands less desirable. I stick with my L$9-9.5 prediction for the long term.

One scary thought...maybe they are getting ready to raise mainland tier to get closer to that of islands. If that's the case, I'll be tiering down to zero and living on my free 512 with 117 prims.

Free markets = no floor, no ceiling. Profit, or suffah.

Well first off, Raymond, I'm pretty sure that when YOU say "the target base price is L$10" you mean the base price that the average user is likely to see when doing land searches. Linden Lab and the botters don't see it that way; they look at average price of real sales. Of course everything below 10L/m went to bots for several months and end users rarely if ever got land for those prices. I've seen cases in threads where you've been talking about the 'perceived base price' that you get in Land Sales search whereas others are talking in terms of 'real base price' which is always going to be lower. Not sure which number Salvador was using there.

As to your second point, Voice is the first step toward warming residents up to the hiked-up tier for mainland and older islands (because eventually any legacy sims will be charged an extra fee for voice support), and this may well be the next step: Get prices low enough so lots more people buy land and start paying the lower tier... fall in love with their homes. And then come January 2008, raise the prices.

If that was the plan, I kinda pity the planner. (Hmmm... perhaps different tier rates: Voice always on for Basic Tier; parcel/estate controls to turn voice off for Premium Tier? )

But, sure, tier could go higher for any reason or no reason at all. I don't see that it's necessary for tier to be rising for it to be greatly profitable for LL to crash land purchase prices in exchange for many more Premium accounts paying tier, even a current rates. As someone pointed out, mainland tier on small parcels is hugely profitable: for example, not counting the $9.95/mo Premium Membership "bonus" 512 (surely the most profitable monthly land fee LL offers), it's $5 for the next 512 sq.m., an area costing $2.30 at the $295/sim rate of a new island.

you would not be the only one ...i think they want more & bigger customers ...not less & smaller

I hear what you are saying about the base price. Yes, I go by the price of "sticky" land, not land that the bots grab and never sits on the list. I don't count that land because it is inaccessible to the end consumer.

The great thing about not listening to your customers is that you can do anything you want. The only reason LL gets away with what they do is that there is no competition. For now.

Just saw a $7.7 on the list. It stuck around for five minutes. Crazy times.

I'm jus' sayin': There's more than one way to get back the First Land incentive.

48 live sims on the auction page right now. Tonight's 16 should go for the lowest ending bids in months and months (of the Corsica sims, they are not the best...some have steep mountains and others have no waterfront). So for the short term at least, LL is happily and remorselessly driving mainland prices down. And it's working...

wondering if this is a good time to go from estate land to mainland?

course there is still that spinning sign problem

(maybe I will stay put after all)

1. Very few mainland sims are charged only $195/mo. Most are subdivided into parcels which in combination pay much more than just $195/mo. A sim divided up into 512m2 parcels can go to 128 Premium accounts X $9.95/mo. = $1,273.60 per month. If instead it is divided up into 4,095m2 marcels, then 16 Premium accounts X $9.95/mo. = $159 + 16 X $25/mo. in extra tier = $400 for a total of $559 per month. (Those 16 landowners would, incidentally, be paying for an extra 512m2 in unused tier.)

2. Island tier is usually $295/mo...period. On the mainland, every time a parcel of land is sold, it is charged tier again. So a resident pays tier, then decides to sell...$$$! A mini baron buys the land and marks it up a couple of L$/m2...$$$ Someone new comes along and decides it's just what they're looking for...$$$! Tier was paid three times in one month on the same parcel.

"On the mainland, every time a parcel of land is sold, it is charged tier again. "

This happens on the private estates too (I'm guessing), just a different person getting multiple tier $ when the parcels sell.

lol ...didnt look at it that way , but certainly true



hard to get a good estimate, but i think there's only some 25% left to auction, will we see the next part of corsica on the map this week ?

There are only spinning signs on 97.9% of the mainland.

I hate ad spammers with every virtual fiber of my being.

Quite aside from 16m2 cutters, mainland in general won't be revitalized because so many residents just don't care about beauty. Rather, while they may care some about beauty, they're much more interested in shaving another L$.1/m2 off the price of any land they buy. They'll pass by the last parcel in a beautiful sim or a protected waterfront lot with a stunning view in favor of living next door to some 16m2's just to save some L$.

If any new resident IS considering paying more for that beautiful property, all she has to do is drop by these forums where she'll be told something like "it's stupid to pay more than L$9/m2 for land these days." Not wanting to be perceived as stupid, she'll buy that flat green parcel tucked between the club and the rotating billboard.

I'd have to say LL is making a concerted effort to lower the base price for mainland. It wouldn't surprise me if they're trying to break the backs of at least some landbot runners while they're at it, just as the large increase in supply of mainland sims 6 months ago ran many mini-barons out of business.

Back then, I doubt most mini-barons lost money; at worst, they lost on a small percentage of their holdings, but were left with a generous profit overall. The combination of more work required, more risk perceived, and smaller profit margins is what led people like me to divest ourselves of land. Those same pressures are now being applied to landbot runners.

True, but the issue in question was LL's cash flow. From their perspective, tier is only charged twice when ownership changes--something that happens all the time on mainland, much less frequently on private estates. Renters may double-pay estate owners, but that's neither here nor there in terms of LL's cash flow.

Yes, and fortunately there are people out there who understand and appreciate that SL is like RL - be/think like a cheapskate = live like a cheapskate... hence you do get what you pay for. Each her/his own, I'd rather spend more and have quality instead of quantity...

It's like these people in RL who drive BMWs or other big cars, and live in a car park! lol
One day I saw a guy in who bought a SINGLE cigarette, yes 1 (one), because he couldn't even afford a pack of 10 ( I don't smoke myself), anyway I was just after him in the queue to buy some milk, when I went outside, I was going to "p" , myself because of what I saw! You guessed it, he was driving a black BMW! LOL and ROFL and much more...