Mainlanders and Offlanders

I am both mainlander and islander. I have a 2048 lot in snow sim adjacent to other snow sims. It is spectacular there. No griefers, lag ad-farms, nothing. My first land was in the Jeon sim, Outside my home was a beautiful water sanctuary. One day I came home and found a military fort. That was a shock. I sold it then moved into a rental on mainland. until I moved to a private sim and l loved the fact that I can come home and not find a military fort. Then I upgraded to a OS and due to the tentative price increases, I may have to downsize and return to the private sim.

I do go horseback riding on the mainland and see many wonderful things and really start to miss it. THEN I run into one of those hideous builds, posters of T & A and whatever else and I feel bad that people have to live near that. It made me appreciate my OS. Now faced with the possiblity of having to move again, I am kinda entertaining having my main reidence there. I really like to purchase 2 lots where my cabin is but that is highly unlikely. The land turnover is rare.

So to me both have their merits and disadvantages.

I like my mainland, borders a protected ocean (at least two parts of my land do) and a beautiful view. And some neighbors are building to theme

I currently surround a tiny home though I would love to get rid of that tree LOL



Yes, I love my mainland

Butter an salt, please?

Of course.

I own about 30k of a lakeside sim. I love it there. I can get into a plane and tour the coastline, or hop into a vehicle and travel the roads.

OK, so sooner or later I end up traveling underground or hanging in the middle of the air. But even THAT'S been interesting. Like the time I "became" a two seater bike. But that sort of thing has happened to me on estate land too, and there aren't many of them that are interesting enough to tour that way. (Ok, there'l Caledon, and, umm. . .well I'll add more as soon as I think of some.) Certainly none I can afford.

The one time I "bought" land on an estate, the owner took it all back and charged me a "concierge fee" to get it back after dealing with a griefer problem that happened to occur on my plot. And I consider myself lucky--The land didn't evaporate out from under me.

MY sim, has no adfarms, and virtually nothing in the way of griefers. About the only thing I've ever missed is the ability to go really high in terraforming. I'd like to build a contemplative peek like the one in Apollo.

I'm a relative newcomer to SL and and even more new to owning some Mainland.

It took about a month of shopping to find my tier-free 512 lot on terraced land in a PG area. Lovely neighbors, decent builds and yes, one eyesore in view at this point.

Then, in the area next to my lot, I found a 1024 lot (also PG) on a cliff top for a very, very reasonable price. Nice view, and decent builds.

I don't know if my two lots are on older sims. Are newer ones all flat?

Anyway, my reasons for Mainland rather than private areas at this point in time:

- I don't have a personal or business need to have a lot of land so there's no need to pay a large upfront set-up fee and a higher tier in a private area.

- I prefer paying tier directly to LL. I know there are no guarantees, but for my simple needs it suits me better than paying a landowner.

- Mainland can be such a kick! I love the variety. Or, at least I do until the next eyesore comes along

Here are some ways I think Mainland would be more attractive to people like me:

- Land zoning: I think the Naulilus model is terrific; identically sized lots with no subdividing, plenty of geographic interest near lots (ocean, canal, some raised areas) that provide a built-in demarkation , and public use and buffer zones. The inital cost is waaaaaaay too high for me, but this this type of plan may work

- Use zoning: we kinda sorta kinda have that with Mature vs. PG, but I don't think there is a technical way (or not even sure we would want this) to limit use to residential only or small business only or a combination. I'd love for LL to take some of their small or irregular lots that would go to auction and build protected public parks instead. If the land is larger, introduce the Nautilus-like model on a smaller scale.

Anyway, that's it for now. Thanks for the question Jig!

June

I've built on both Mainland and Islands, but only ever owned Mainland. I know I'm strange (in many ways ), but somehow I prefer the fact that on the Mainland, the terrain is more or less a given. Plus-or-minus 4m is just fine with me, and somehow feels more "real"--as if I'm actually designing for a real building site, not so much like making a 3D model background for a video game.

I have a little bit here and there on five continents; I find Heterocera the most interesting; coincidentally(?), it's the only land I own that's older than my account. The stuff on Jeogeot is the least aggravating but only because I'm on a "clean" sim with no microparcels (which is not that common anywhere, and certainly not true of Jeogeot in general).

I own a small/medium sized private estate, and relatively speaking an extremely large amount of mainland across a wide variety of sims.

Private estates have their benefits of course, complete control over your environment being the main one. The enforceable covenants of course are a great benefit if you like that sort of thing.

But I'm heavily biased towards the mainland. On mainland you are part of a huge landscape you can own a piece of history or help create something so much larger than yourself. Look around private estates and you'll be hard pressed to find one that contains trains running across dozens of sims, volcanoes, mountains, lakes, rivers, oceans, roads crossing hundreds of sims, vast constructions like bridges across seas, the Great Wall, the temples and canal at Nautilus and hundreds of smaller builds like Mos Ainsley and that pirate sim whatever it's called. I get such a thrill out of owning a piece of land that's part of the huge road network. It's like being connected to the other 5000 sims around you. Or owning land in the core of the first continent and being part of the history of SL.

I don't know that you can say anything special about the different people who inhabit the different places. If anything I suppose the core is mostly jaded oldbies and the outer mainland is full of clueless newbs but really the thing about ALL of SL is it has such a wide variety of people you really can't make generalities about anyone.

You certainly paint an enticing image of the mainland, but in reality it is pockets of niceness amoungst continents if crap.

I'd rather claim it is pockets of crap in a sea of niceness. And the pockets are rapidly shrinking too. The ad farm policy has been a great success and Jack says that soon there'll be a parcel cutting policy so it's only looking up from here.

Yeah I agree the future certainly looks brighter since Gambling and Ad Farms were banned. I admit i havn't explored the mainland in the last 2 month so maybe my previous comment is a bit out of date! I will explore some of my old lands in the core this weekend and see if improvements have materialised.

My only Mainland complaint right now is getting blind-sided by security orbs set to very short timers. It's annoying getting TP'd home when you're in the middle of something. And since there aren't really any right-of-ways, it's impossible to move without crossing private property.

Well I sculpted every last little inch of my Openspace by hand recently. I'd prefer to have mainland, however I want mainland I have that sort of control over. Not going to happen = no more mainland thanks. I made a place that was perfect for me and my guy but got sick of having to live walled in in a box never seeing the day/night cycle or anything else.

You're welcome to go look at my place Jig, if you wish, it is unfinished and I am in no rush to finish it.

I think Porky is closer with the pockets of niceness though, in a sea of crap.

I live in Yosu sim, on Jeogeot, the southern mainland island, beside a future Linden highway. I've lived here for most of my time in SL. It's a bit nondescript, with stony grass terrain. But I'm roadside and the neighbouring sim is coastal, so I'm only about 200 metres from the seashore, though it's sometimes obstructed by ban lines. My land adjoins Arbor Project's largest site, with a wooden visitor centre on it. I'm happy in Yosu, I don't plan to move.

I'm still doing what I can to create the social life I never had. SL and the crowd here is helping. And, for my own purposes, mainland has been the best setting. (^_^)

Islands are great for homes, stores, malls, clubs and such when you can be sure that either you're willing to accept the isolation, or anticipate being popular enough to make the top 20 in search. (^_^)

Owning mainland means having strangers for neighbors, random people flying by just to take a look, and having your surroundings in a constant state of flux. (^_^)

I don't like the idea of renting through a middleman. And, I'm still not allowed to spend monies online. I was just barely able to get away with going premium with limited RL drama. So, having a 512 mainland parcel helps me keep the appearance of my SL being free. I've had quite a few random people stop by while I was hanging out, or editing things. Some would just come by and say "hi"... Others would turn into over hour-long conversations of this, that, and the other. (^_^)

I'm able to run my little store. I have the land looking the way I want it with no covenant concerns. I'm right next door to one of my best friends. And, so far, I don't have to worry about some anonymous landlord yanking my land out from under me. (=_=)y

I like the title of this thread.

...whadda we call folks who live over 1000m in the sky? "Skylanders"?

Steampunk bagpipes for all!

I went to Nautilus today and wandered around, wondering if perhaps the mainland is better now than it was when I rented a parcel in Lusk, and owned one in Junghee. Nautilus is new, and has protected areas, and even Magellen has obviously been there (no one else would have that much alcohol on board) so it can't be that bad, right?

http://dragonkeepcreations.com/images/noblessings.jpg

Sorry, this kirin was not impressed. The mainland doesn't get blessed this time.