Mainlanders and Offlanders

Other discussions concerning land ownership and lag issues on teh forum) indicate very different opinions about mainland ownership as opposed to the "other places" sl offers. I have never been a fan of flat square islands, a sea of dots in teh middle of nowhere, nor the suburban landscape of other smaller land masses. When I first came to sl I landed in Mimas (by accident) and I have stayed here (as well as Chaska). That is mainland enough for me. It has a varied landscape, even a sense of "creation". Yes I did pay a fair amount for my lands but it was money well-spent.
But, that is beside the point - my question and invitation for commentary is as follows - is there a discernable difference between those who inhabit the older sims and those who cavort and create on the more recent additions to teh sl globe?
Is there a question of teh "Haves" (old craggy landscapes and scenary) and the "Have Nots" (Flatlanders and Island Kingdoms) having differences and attitudes towards sl? - that should get some comments going (lol)

I am the partner in an island and also own two plots on mainland, so I guess I come at it from both sides. I also think they both have their merits.

I like the flexibility we have with the island. We can change the time of day on a whim, terraform it however we want, control all access, and have the tools we need to see what might be wrong with their island (yay for top scripts!).

With the mainland, though, I have some community amongst neighbors, the ability to use "altrnative travel" to get to and from my locations (boats, cars, horses, blimps, etc). In spite of issues with shared resources and other things, I like the idea of a busy, random mainland. As far as the house I share with my family, I prefer it on its quiet little bit of mainland versus being on an uncertain island rental.

I dunno if it is have or have nots, but I do tink it could be different ways of looking at SL, for some. I woudl love to have more island land to play with, sure, but there's also parts of th' mainland that I'd *love* to have a stake in.

Some of that old waterway land is stunning. The high cost of entry, I suppose, keeps people from building giant toilets and the like. There's nothing else quite like it that I've seen.

I sometimes wonder what the fuss is all about when it comes to the aesthetics of mainland vs non-mainland. We can TP, we can fly.

We live out somewhere SW of the mainland, in that sea of islands. It's quiet, sandy, watery, ad-free, pretty, low-lag, private and we use it to hang out at ground level and various elevations.

If we want scenery of any sort, shopping and activities of any sort, interaction with others, we simply teleport to wherever we like. The most beautiful landscapes I've seen are generally NOT residential areas.

With all the complaints I read about the mainland (ads, ugly builds, idiot neighbours, land disputes, etc etc) I have no desire to live anywhere else.

I bought my mainland the day it rolled out from the land store in 2005. No roads were in place yet so I watched it develop around me. The only reason to move was because of the greifers. But Linden Lab has made better parcel controls for landowners on the mainland at this point.

I remember a 5 hour stand-off by the side of the Linden Road and my venue with the Voted 5, Linden Employees and my security team.

We had to finally break the rules and unsit the greifers from the road while using push security orbs on both sides of the road. After they bounced around for a hour they logged off. These days, they would have blocked the accounts in minutes.

.

Jig, I'll respond to your comments about landscapes. However, I think your effort to incite folks to become judgemental about the groups that inhabit different landscapes, and sort each other into haves and have-nots, is actually trolling.

I came to an island specifically to get a NON-flatland landscape. The 20-island archipelago I live in features mountains, hills, waterfalls and forests (prim trees, generally not Linden landscaping).

Another example of stunning visuals in an archipelago is, of course, Caledon.

Mainland has its plusses too; I'm very happy it exists, and have been trying to take excursions to get to know it better. Plus, I am VERY happy about the United Sailing Sims 126 sims of Linden-navigable waters!

That's the nice thing about SL, something for everybody.

I'm another one of those people with land in both the mainland and on an estate, and I really like ti that way.

My first land in SL was rented on an island. I pretty quickly got tired of bouncing off the invisible walls and wanted to locate somewhere that I could explore and move around, without teleporting. I love the connection to more regions than I have time to travel through that comes with the mainland.

As for new versus old mainland, I think newer stuff sometimes gets a bad rap. I was the second buyer in a sim once, and ended up with a fair bit of land there scattered around, and it and several of the adjoining sims developed into lovely, lively, diverse places. I eventually sold that land and bought land in separate sims for my home and store. Both of these areas where newer than where I moved from and remained quite nice, with little trouble with lag.

I also own a 1024 of "older" snow land adjoining some linden snow sims. My view across them is lovely, but the rest of the sim and much of what surrounds it....well....it't not really that pretty.

Eventually I decided I wanted an island. (I never wanted to have to move my store again, and an island seemed to be the only way to do that.) I love it there. I love the freedom, the guaranteed views, and the estate controls. I love that it is all my vision, and only my vision.

But, it is totally isolated, and doesn't satisfy my desire to have the SL world right out my front door. So....I just bought a little more mainland.

After all of this, I've learned what makes me the happiest in SL is both. Isolation and my view of "pretty" on an island, and the expansiveness (and often craziness) of the mainland. Neither is better or worse, in my opinion. I love them both.

I'm a nolander

I run business on private estates and have a few plots left on the mainland that I just keep for the sake of it. I've still got my first land!

I guess I am quite frirmly an "Offlander". I lived on the Mainland for a while, in the Magenta sim, and dealt with daily intrusions by clueless Noobs who crashed planes in our yard, left prim trash all over, and even tried to build a house on my front lawn!

I look at places like Bay City and Nautilus, and wonder what sort of drugs the land speculators are on, that makes them think they can profit by driving land prices to over L$98 pr M2 on an unremarkable 1024 M2 parcel. (If I were the sort to subscribe to conspiracy theories, I'd think many of those land speculators were actually Linden Employees in disguise, jacking the entry prices up so LL rakes in more dough on the initial auction sales, and who cares what it sells for later.)

I look at the trashed landscape littered with signs and incompatable builds in most Mainland areas, and I run back to my Island home, where there are no such intrusive things in sight of my home.

I will admit, it's getting somewhat better. Haven't seen as many reports of rampant hoardes of griefers tearing through the mainland. Have cheered as the casinos, banks, and now ad farms are run out of town on a rail. And yet there are still land speculators whose signs trash the skyline, even is they marginally try to obey the new ad farm limits.

Give me a nice, off-the-map private island to retreat to, where I can perma-ban any intruder at all altitudes, and not just to 50 M anove the terrain, or 768 if banning by name.

I love my Mainland parcels. Nothing wrong with private islands; I just prefer the one over the other.

One and all are invited to come visit the Isles of Fatima to see what can be done by a couple with vision... bring your boat, plane, whatever... or you could just walk Inc

I've actually done that before, and need to drop in and see the sights again soon. You've done a lovely job there.

Thank you, Nimue

Inc

Just an aside - didn't mean to get close to trolling - I am just being tongue in cheek and being a bit of a "jig-maker" as Hamlet says to Ophelia.
BUT I hope people are taking pictures of all these places for future reference years from now when we are all avatar star dust.

Nimue can attest that I was once and islander. I first met her when she was brand new and popped into our Island (Dragon Isle - The Hidden Venice) looking for a prefab. Extremely nice lady.

We loved the freedom to build our vision of venice. We loved the lack of lag. We love the estate controls. On a personal side we loved the isolation of living on a skyplatform 400m ABOVE the public parts. The move to the island was a dream come true for myself and the rest of the family.

Unfortunately the dream went sour. Our businesses for the most part never recovered from the move and repeated billing issues for island fees were litterally making my partner RL physically ill. (The billing dept couldnt seem to decide when he was supposed to be billed making it impossible to make sure the money was there ahead of time)

We moved back to the mainland and although we miss our island we have never regretted giving it up. Business has picked up at the texture shop and we are all just flat happier people. We dont have alot of trouble with griefers. Did have one small add farm for awhile but we outlasted it. Lag seems to be managable. And more important becuase we were able to tier down considerably we dont have to put 16 hours a day into new creations anymore. We can take time now and just enjoy SL, going out and doing things.

/me waves at Darkness

Your island was beautiful. I am so happy to hear that things are working out well for you and your loved ones in your new home.

Wow...

Bogus sim type class war?

Older sim vanity? LOL. I guess if you do not have rez date age you cling to the age of the sim you live in?

I guess Da Boom should be worth a bajillion Linden.

I think there may be a kernal of truth in what you type. I dont have your age, Briana. You came on in 2003. Really very old. Very VERY old ... do you feel the cold when you visit higher sky boxes these days?

^ That's the first thing I thought of when I saw the topic title

I rent two large parcels on a private estate, one for residence and one for my store (they're in seperate sims) and if all goes well I'll soon be moving my residence to a void sim. Even with the crap going on with private islands right now, I'll never buy mainland. I favor sims with at least one open edge, and don't like areas that change too much around me. I like being able to terraform exactly what I want, and have some idea of what the areas around me are going to look like. The estate I rent on has rules that are actually enforced, and the sim my home is in is themed, so the look and feel of the area is fairly predictable. Themed areas on the mainland don't give the renter complete control (as far as I know) so they're stuck with what's there even if their own build would still be in theme.

Besides, I'm an EM for this estate and have no intention of deserting the place I've served for these past couple of years.

EDIT: Also, this changing of private island prices that keep happening really feel like LL is pushing people to the mainland, and in such cases I tend to just push back

I'm going to go make some popcorn.

Its a bit like RL people where I come from.I can usually tell islanders by the slight humpty back and squinty eyes.

Watch it! I am an islander in real - which islands are YOU referring to???

These days is live at about 3800m in the sky surrounded by stars.

It is quite nice.

See, i abandoned the mainland in June 2004 when I got my first, SL's first, Mall sim. So to me the mainland has been rather a slum in comparison since I lived there when there were just 30-40 sims and did many marches & hilkes across them and saw them eventually turn to utter crap.

But now I am doing a total reversal on that way of thinking due to LL's new OS policy and now the mainland is looking mighty good.

I just do not hold any value of my living in Chartreuse like i did when i first started SL. I do not hold any mainland sims to a higher value than the next save for aesthetic reasons such as landscaping, protected sides, etc.. as those reasons seem more tangible than "this was an original SL sim", to me. In fact, the moment new sims went online I sold all my land in Olive, Hawthorne, Shipley, and moved to Limantour and Kelham - one had roads and the other had great landscaping.

No, i see no prestige in what sim a person lives in on the mainland.

anything round Cornwall lol