Class V sims are they an advantage/disadvantage

Are Class V Sims at an advantage or a disadvantage when it comes to selling/renting land? When you look at the classified ads, the earlier less expensive sims can always price themselves cheaper than the class V sims and unless the consumer is aware that they are buying/renting into more modern hardware with class V sims, the earlier versions always seem to be more attractive than their class V counterparts.

I know we are in a depressed land market right now and that makes me think that the class V sims are at a disadvantage due to their higher tiers. For more than a month I was trying to sell a 4k land parcel on a class V sim and while it could be argued that initially my asking price was high, at it's lowest point I had this corner ocean front lot down to L$6 a square meter and still not a single bite. Now I am trying to rent the same land (split into two 2k properties). I believe I have a decent product on a class V sim, a corner ocean lot, access to water, I have two quality optional fully furnished houses, nice landscaping with quality plants and trees plus I've included a security system for each property and my prices are pretty much down to my tier break even point assuming 100% occupancy 24/7 365 days a year and yet still not a single nibble. Why? Yes we are in a depressed land market, but I am also competing against a bunch of older sims that have much lower prices. At some point I should just shoot myself, chalk it up as a lesson learned that the little person can not compete in this world and abandon the land since nobody wants to buy or rent it.

So the question remains, in this market do you think class V sims are at a disadvantage with their higher tiers?

In my experience, if people are going to rent, they want Class 5.

The only difference really is the tier fee if it's a private sim, at least from the average users point of view. It's like when food companies repackage a product and call it 'NEW', and then jack up the price a buck.

However, this increase wasn't LL's intent. As I understand it, LL had to buy the newer servers because the older models had been discontinued. They had to pay the higher price for what amounts to a repackaging with a few minor upgrades that do almost nothing in regards to actual performance, and then had to pass the added expense onto their users, or absorb it. Naturally they passed it on.

While I'm often an outspoken critic of LL, I have to say, they did the best they could here. If they could have gotten the new servers at the old rate, or vastly improved servers at the new rate, they likely would have. They don't want to outprice themselves on private sims, any more than sim buyers want to overpay. They're slaves to the market as well.

Not sure really. I got lucky, last night I put three 1024M Plots up for sale or rent at around $9 per square metre, one has sold, one has been rented, the other is still available.

The person who rented and bought the plots is an existing tenant. Maybe you should consider cutting your plots into smaller plots or asking your existing tenants if they'd like more prims or land?

I'd hazard a guess that class 5 is a selling point, because I see it mentioned in so many adverts.

Well it happened before I was here, but I've read the blogs and the reason for the increase was that LL weren't making a profit out of it. Zee Linden actually said:

"The hike in fee is unrelated to any specific improvements to the current level of performance. Private Island regions have more features and control than a mainland region & therefore they probably always should have been priced differently. This increase is a recognition of the increase value that Private Islands provide to residents."

They've also hinted that the lower tier price of islands purchased before the price increase will not last forever.

Every time a new class server is rolled out, people make it a big selling point, but in the past it has been a lot more muted than it has when class 5 sims were released. The difference is there, but minimal, and not noticable at all unless you seriously load the sim up with scripts. I think this is a case where a few started to make a selling point of sim class, and the hoardes followed, with very few understanding the difference - and now it is an 'accepted' major plus. When ever a 'class 6' sim does roll out, you can expect all those who had made 'class 5' a selling point will soon wish they hadn't!

Ditto for
- LUSH GREEN
- LOVELY
- UNSPOILT
- PROTECTED
- GREAT VIEW

You forgot one....





LOW LAG!

Indeed but I don't see many ads shouting "Class 4"

Maybe people don't want to point out that it's class 4 so they can bump up their prices.

That's no good to me without

HIGH TRAFFIC!

Oh, and the other key word: PRISTINE!

One that I see sometimes that gets me giggling is

"I will buy your land for PURE lindens."

They must run them through a distillation process or something before handing them over

Wait they said awhile back tiers ( MIGHT ) go up some time 2008 Feb........This was some time ago this was told to us.

That's right. They guaranteed grandfathered tier through 2007 at least, and said they would give us 60 days notice of any charge increases in future.

Now if we know how LLABS does business on Dec 2007,We will get that notice. But how much wil those tires increases be? Scary might be across the board increases....

Well you would have thought that at some point they will do away with grandfathering, but one would be unwise to ignore the possibility of raising mainland tier inline with island tier, or a general rise across the board. All we can do is speculate!

At this point of Second Life History, how big companies are now important to LLABS, and " US" the users less important. Hence raising tiers ( spelled right this time ) makes sence. Push more and more of us out and have more room for larger companies. As you say its all speculation.

The move from class 3 to 4 was no big deal because it wasn't a performance improvement; if anything, it was a baby step backwards. So before the move to class 5, the last new class that would have been worth promoting was class 3, and their debut was a LONG time ago in SL terms. The full history:

Class 1 was the original hardware. They were all gone before my time, so I don't know what the specs were. By all accounts, they were slow.

Class 2 was a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 with 512MB RAM running a single sim. They were a substantial step up from the class 1 servers, and I think the entire grid (such as it was at the time) was switched over quickly. The last of the class 2 servers were retired about a year and a half ago, and all sims that were hosted on them were migrated to class 4 servers.

Class 3 was a dual-processor Opteron with 1GB RAM running two sims (one per CPU). They were a noticeable improvement over the class 2 sims. Some are still operating, but I suspect their days are numbered.

Class 4 was a dual-processor dual-core Opteron with 2GB RAM running four sims (one per CPU core). As each sim remained on a processor core of about the same speed and with the same amount of memory, performance was not significantly changed from class 3. But there was a big advantage for LL; they could run twice as many sims in the same amount of rack space.

Class 5, the current hardware.is a dual-processor Core 2 Xeon (dual-core) running four sims (again one per core) and 4GB RAM. The faster CPU and the doubling of RAM make them significantly faster than the class 4 servers. It makes a big difference in busy areas (stores, clubs, etc.); not so much in quiet residential neighborhoods.

I expect that we will see class 6 hardware in the near future, using dual quad-core processors and running eight sims. Like the step from class 3 to 4, the main motivation will be space and cost savings for LL, not improved performance.

One other interesting question: how much of the improvement in the class 5 hardware comes from the additional memory? If that, rather than the faster CPU, is the main difference, upgrading the existing class 4 hardware might be worthwhile.

At least one of the Lindens (formerly concierge) certainly made a big deal about class 4 being so much better in performance than class 3 - if anything more was made of that jump by LL than the jump from 4 to 5. I think the amount of promo based on the server class that is now evident is more a result of many following the few that started advertising it as a selling point at a time when growth was huge, and so now it's almost like a 'habit'.



Thanks for posting this Shirley; I've certainly learned a few new things. Personally, I never saw a performance difference between my class 4 and 5 sims, but perhaps they were never pushed to the point where the difference becomes apparent.l

Many Thanks Shirley wonderful post! I clipped it short because sum up a point here.

Class 6 servers might not be the early . since they need to get vista OS ready and the poor mac machines Clients working properly ( i know its llabs side ) but LLABs has alot more client debugging to do for then deal with a another mess of adding those new quad systems in.besides they wil increase our land prices and maintaince charges too. LLAbs doiesnt want anymore issues with the users. VAT, Tiers and such increase coming very very soon.

I have seen the performance difference. I don't fall into the ground when crossing over a class 5 sim line into another Class 5 Sim. I kept my old Class 4 Sim when we could have upgraded and paid the extra $100 USD a month. I figured I saved $1,200 USD for that year. But from what I can decipher from LL's cryptic blogging - I may be billed the higher rate in February no matter what. AND there was some posts about charging Class 4 sims a premium for being voice-enabled. So it seems that if we do not voluntarily upgrade we will be nickled and dimed to death until we give in. I guess I will have to goto my mailand parcel to use voice. Or I can buy a bunch of 16M adfarmer plots and put up phone booths.

My sims are stand alone, so I haven't experienced the sim crossing difference between the classes. I thought voice enabling was irrespective of server class? Aren't all sims voice enabled LLs end?

class 5 servers are only really 2 giga more then the older servers. ( yes i know you have more prim space ) But proformance is not that great overwise. If a heavey loaded class 5 sim with active scripts are happening the edge of performace will be no better a class 4.

I whined about this in March /327/f9/171420/1.html. The timing was uncanny. Days after the Class 4 sell off and upgrade plan ended LL blogged about voice NOT being included with Class 4 Sims.

Joe Linden blog entry



All sims are voice- enabled but I guess LL will tack charges onto whomever they want at any given time (see VAT)

OK but they haven't actually charged those with class 4 who want to use voice, have they? And if they end grandfathering, they would be hard pushed to come up with a solid reason as to why class 4 owners would have to pay while class 5 owners do not, particulary as there is no option to upgrade class 4.

Not to hiijack my own thread (since we are supposed to be talking if class V servers are at an advantage/disadvantage), but I already have done this and you would have to see the original 4k parcel to understand that subdividing it any more than splitting it into 2 as I already have would not make much sense.



Haha ... existing tenants? I can't even get one person to come to the island to look at the product let alone ask the existing tenants. I have no tenants. I am strickly small time here. Since nobody wanted to buy the 4k land (word on the street is don't buy land on private islands ... I guess I did not do my home work when I bought it back in June) and now I am not having any luck find renters either.

But stay on topic Jess ... are class V servers at an advantage/disadvantage?



I have it mentioned in the title of one of my ads and a grand total of 5 people have looked at the ad and I am at least 2 if not 3 of those people. So no I do not think class V private estate sims are at an advantage. I think they are at a disadvantage.