Is there any advantage to form a group?

NO LONGER RELEVANT

A 10% bonus on your allowed land.

I would have to deed all of the Land to the group I form then correct?

"G"

You don't have to deed all the land, just whatever parcels you want to.

As Chris said, on whatever land you do deed to a group, you get a 10% bonus on the amount of land the group can own for the same amount of "donated" tier. And you can allow the other group members to set their Home location to that land, and give them parcel permissions they couldn't otherwise have. You may even decide to make your alt an Owner in the group, just in case anything ever goes wrong with your main account.

Thanks for the fast replies.

Pie for everyone. My wife just made a Blueberry Pie using berries from the Blueberry Bushes growing in my yard. (RL)

"G"

There are many advantages to form a group. I list just a few, but the benefits are a long list.
10% bonus on group land.
Delegation of powers on group land.
Group IM.
Group notices and proposals.
Cool group titles.

Just to start the list.

Be VERY careful when playing with the land options and auto-return settings if you make a group and put your land into it. I put my land into a my group and re-set auto return to 1 minute, like it was when it was in my sole ownership. A minute later all my buildings disappeared. When the bits eventually turned up in 'Lost and Found' they needed considerable sorting out and repositioning to reconstruct them.

One thing I've not spotted posted by the others is each premium account get 512 sq m tier allowance. What I did with my premium alt was deed both to my group hence avoid a monthly charge on my 1024 plot.

It might be worth investigating two half-tier charges against one big one

So how did you prevent that from happening again?





That sounds pretty good, paying yearly for each account would save you a great deal of money.

Just make sure to keep auto-return at 0 until all the objects on the parcel are Set (*not* "Deeded" to the Group. Then you can turn it on again.So, I sat in on one of Jack Linden's office hours where somebody--emphatically not Jack--ran the numbers: best value, by far, is to dice up one's holdings into chunks and make enough premium alts to cover it by donating their 512sq.m. tier. (With the 10% bonus, I suppose the chunks are actually 563sq.m.) Of course, that's no way to reach Concierge level.

I do pay my subs annually ConductorX. My comment on the half tier is the land fees.

For example if you had two premiums and your total land was only just covered by say the 2k tier on your main avatar and the 1k tier on the alt plus the two included 512's plus the 10% extra you get for a group, totalling according to my maths 4452 sq m and you wanted to buy just one more plot. It would be cheaper for you to upgrade your alt's tier by 7$ than your main by 10$

This is just for example. Savings at the higher thresholds would be greater.

Heh heh I have enough trouble these days spending just two lots of stipend

I appreciate all the input from everyone. I have never been on a forum with such a fast response time. (even my own forums)

I'm pretty much at my limit tier wise. I can personally afford more tier but I have enough land all in one sim now to pretty much enjoy myself. All I need to do now is sell that one odd piece I have on another Sim.

"G"

youd have to have annual memberships on each though, right? and have to advance into upper tier as well. because it sure wouldnt be a bargain paying $99.50/mo for 5,000 odd meters.
now alts really are useful if you are at the top of 8192m tier ($40) and want to pick up an additional 1024 without being bumped into the $75 tier bracket.
they are also useful for juggling donations in and out of groups. using this method you can effectively pay no tier at all on any given groups land.

Quite right: the calculations were based on the annual membership plan *and* on stipend reducing net cost. I'm too lazy to figure out if there's still a win if you actually cash-out the stipend and eat the 3.5% or whatever it is. It's fairly academic anyway because, well, who wants that many alts? But, for sure, a premium alt or two can help span those vast gaps between tier levels, as you describe.

Re Auto return. On the island I manage it is always set to 0. Just make sure 'create objects' & 'object entry' are left unchecked (unticked) for 'All Residents' leave Groups checked so group members can still rez, move objects. Then nothing gets returned accidently.

I'd like to hear the math behind that because my calculations don't show that at all.

65536sqm = $195USD/month

65536 divides into 128 plots of 512sqm.

If I had 128 alts who each paid 9.95 for that "free" 512sqm, I'd be paying $1,273.60 USD.

Even if all 128 of my alts paid tier annually so the monthly fee was $6, that would still be $768 USD to own the SIM.

how's my math here?
========================================
2 alts, no tier ---> $9.95 x 2 is $19.90 per month with 1024 - L$600 stipend

1 alt, small tier ---> $9.95 + $5 is $14.95 per month with 1024 - L$300 stipend
========================================
if you pay for the full year:
2 alts, no tier ---> $6 x 2 is $12.00 per month with 1024 -L$600 stipend

1 alt, small tier ---> $6.00 + $5 is $11.00 per month with 1024 - L$300 stipend
========================================

Okay, well, no rest for the wicked; here's the math:

To cover 65536sq.m. with group donated tier, it takes 117 x (512 x 110%).
117 memberships at US$72/yr * 1/12 yr/mo = US$702.
Stipend at L$300/wk/membership * 52 wk/yr * 1/12 yr/mo = L$1300/mo/membership.
Stipend for 117 members at L$275/US$/mo = US$553.09/mo.
Membership cost net of stipend = US$702 - US$553 = US$149.

(If you deduct 3.5% for the cash-out transaction fee, the net stipends total US$533.73, so the net cost is US$168.27 -- still less than the US$195.)

OK, my maths is a little slower these days but yes, the L$300 difference in the stipend (2nd premium) would cost you US$1.43 to buy alone so your monthly subs is spending $4.95 on it which is a loss, proving that the annual subs difference of $1 does show the second premium at an advantage.

I have a question about the process of switching land to group ownership.

My apolopgies if this has been explained and I just overlooked it. If I create a group it will have no tier until I donate my tier to the group. I don't have any extra tier to play with so if I donate it to the group I don't have tier to cover my land before until it gets deeded to the group. So I'm unclear on how the process actually works.

Any info would be appreciated, thanks.

In the About Land dialog, there's an "Owner Makes Contribution With Deed" checkbox that becomes available when you "Allow Deed to Group." If you check that box when Deed is pressed, then the necessary tier just goes along with the land (less the 10% discount for group-owned land).

Thanks Qie,

I should have waited to get inworld and figured that out for myself, but it so easy to just ask here.