A few Questions /Gripes. (Asking Politely :) )

Hello all!

Absolute Newbe to SL and though I have read everything I could get my hands on so far as guidelines (and a couple of notecards) I am still confused about a few things. I also have two mild gripes that I would like to ask about. - If I am posting this in the wrong place please excuse me and let me know.

Anyway...

My two gripes are these (and it might be technical issue on my end...) - So, I join SL on a basic membership, and quickly learn I need help, don't know what I am doing and have plenty of (probably) dumb questions (Please see below) - I figure, go to the Forum here and look around for FAQ - THEN I find I can't even Get to this forum unless I pay to Upgrade my acct.

Uhm...

So, after a bit of soul searching (and problems getting my Credit Card accepted (My problem, not SL) I upgrade. Cool, I think, now I can get some quick spending money in the game, right?

Wrong.

Everytime I tried to get it I got a pop up reading that I had exceeded my daily limit of 10.00 - I DID this, apparently, from what it said, by Upgrading my acct to premium in the First place!

Uhm...

So, here I am..

Alright, I won't ask MANY questions, I can look around and get Most of the answers I need, but two things are REALLY confusing me. First, About the Money. My plan was that I would buy game money via my cc on file... I have a set amount for myself of about 50.00. But, with this 10.00 a day cap... Does this mean I have to charge my credit card Five times over five days to do what I want to do? Or is there a way around this.

Second, I want to buy land, I read that with the premium membership this is an option for about 500 (something or other - not on screen right now) section of land. Two questions, first, now that I have my premium acct, how do I go about buying it, and more importantly, is the land limit of 500 whatever enough to build a nice house on? (I read someplace else that one could buy and Island...then I saw that it was over 1,000 in Real Life money ( Is this right??? Do people spend that kind of cash on the game? Wow!) So I will stick with what my premium acct says I can get.

Please, if I am doing this wrong just point me in the right direction. I don't mean to offend anyone, I am just REALLY confused and not wanting to spend a fortune in real life money at this point.

Respectfully to all.

Brandt

Brandt, never be afraid to ask a question of any kind here. Yes, it can be pretty brutal at time to trolls and whiners, but legit questions are always answered, if we know the answer.

There is a spending limit for a certain amount of time after you first start your account. (one afterwards as well, but it is high enough it doesn't trouble most people). I will leave it to those more knowledgeable to tell you where to get your Lindens until your "probation" is over.

A 512m lot is ok for a small house, but you wont be able to decorate it. Every 512 m lot has 117 prims for your use. Prims are the building blocks of SL. This means you can put up to 117 prims worth of house and furnishing on your plot. It won't be fancy, but it will be a nice little retreat. One warning, buying land in SL is like eating potato chips, you can't stop with just one plot. One small plot and you start thinking, if I had 100 more prims I could do xxx, then you need 200 more prims, a never ending urge to buy land.

Have fun, use the forums, we have lots of knowledgeable people. Join the Forum Cartel in world. There is always someone in this group with an answer for what ever problem you are having.

For the best help you actually don't need a premium account. There are many groups in SL devoted to helping new residents. I personally like NCI, but there are lots of others: ASL, TUI Neo, and the Free Dove spring to mind. Also, the Shelter is a hangout devoted to helping noobs and providing a social, fun place to answer questions. Most of these groups offer free classes on everything from scripting to land ownership.

Click your Search button, then the events tab and select "Education". You'll find tons of help and meet some very nice folks. I would have left SL long ago if I hadn't found these groups.

One caveat: remember these people are volunteers, so treat them well and they'll reciprocate.

Welcome to SL Brandt!

money.... LL apply a limit to your Linden $ buying for the first 30 days. You can however buy Linden $ from other sites (the two I've used are SL Exchange (www.slexchange.com) and Anshe Chung (www.anshechung.com).. there are others I think, but whatever you do do NOT buy via EBay... most of the Linden $ there are apparently scammed from credit cards and if LL find your Lindens are fraudulent in origin YOU get penalised (loss of Lindens plus a half more again)


land.... the best way is to use the inworld Search, where you can specify the plot size, L$ per m you want to pay, etc. Your first 512 metres comes tier-free (i.e no monthly charge from LL).. any more than that and you start paying a monthly useage fee ("tier"; European residents pay VAT on top. A 512 plot gets you 117 prims, so your house needs to be really no more than 30 or so prims in total - and less if you can get it.

The best thing to do is to explore the continents, get a feel for where might suit you, look at the threads in the Land & Property sales & rentals and follow them up with a visit to get an idea of what's good value (to you) and what's not. If you really want somewhere to call home in the meantime, I suggest you rent - most places rent by the week so you don't need to commit yourself unduly.

And don't forget to have fun!

Best wishes..... Inc

Yes NCI is highly recommended. it's a wonderful place.

welcome to sl


the USD limit is just at the start, after a couple of days u go to the normal level wich is 2500 a month (2 weeks perhaps?)

buying land is pritty simple, finding good spot is abit more work but when u find a piece of land, u can right click on the land and choose to buy it from the pie menu when it`s for sale and buy it

the land u can have with a normal account is unlimited but with every account u get 512sqm of land tier for free
this means u don`t have to pay land tiers to LL unless u exceed 512sqm, u will still need to buy the land

islands is an complete other story, an person can buy an island from LL for themselfs or to rent out, when renting out, all residents pay the island owner instead of LL and the owner pays LL a fixed price per month
land on island don`t count in the land tier, u can rent an entire island without paying LL and still able to get 512sqm for free on the mainland, only difference is u`ll have to pay the island owner



every 512sqm can hold 117 prims, they can be individual prims or linked as 1 object (say a chair) and made out of 10prims wich is counted for 10 prims
there are some good freebie houses wich will fit on a 512 or very cheap ones but u`ll run out of prims pritty fast like all of us do

only way to get more prims is by getting more land, each step doubles the prim count, 512-117, 1024-234, 2048-468
but getting more land and u`ll have to start paying land tier to LL in incremental blocks

don`t change anything there, just scroll down where the prices are

Yes. most of our members are creators, business owners and technical experts who can answer just about any question, and will be happy to do so. Except me. Asking me a technical question will ellicit a blank stare and an invitation to go shopping for shoes.

My place there is to look pretty, and be the one thing in SL Chris will never attain, no matter how much he offers for my underwear.

Brenda, you would be shocked at how many pairs of panties I collected last night.

Not really, considering how quickly you won the "find the Xcite Part contest".

I second the land bug thing! I started with a 512 myself, then I ran out of prim and bought an adjacent 512... then 4 more. Then I bought a strip off my good neighbor to have access to the linden road, then another 1024 down the road. LOL So now I am at 4000 something.

My tip if you want a well decorated house on a 512 plot, do not buy a house that just fits your 512 plot. Try to find something that is no bigger than 2/3rds your plot, ideally single level and VERY low prim. I pretty much guaranty anything with more than one or two rooms you will be wishing you had more prims right away.

Brandt, your spending/selling limits only go up AFTER you buy $1 USD with your credit card. it's usage is determined by which day you USED the card, and goes up from there. invest $1US with your card today, and within a few days you'll see the limits rising.

buying land.... i think that has been addressed.

good luck and enjoy SL!

There's also an excellent newbie box created by Lucrezia Lamont, chock full of tips etc for people new to SL. If you check her profile, you can find out where to find it, but I'm others here have it too. Oh, I've just PMed Sally Silvera, and she has the boix too if you want it.
If you want to buy land, try to get someone less new to go along with you to have a look around and check of ad farms and the like.

As others have said, the main thing is to have fun, but also do keep coming back here if you need any help, with anything.

P.S. I've just been given the newbie box, so if you wnat it you can IM me too)

You didn't get mine....they were latex and glued to my butt!

I can also add to the land bug thing- I have "only" 2560 m2, but they did get added up quickly-I'm happy with that now, but I wasn't happy with just 512. I also rent a lovely house on a private sim that I share with my partner, just to have a totally different place to hang out at.

Too true! But I have managed to tame the beast now and I'm cutting down my land holding a bit for the time being.

Oh, for Pete's sake, do you guys have to hijack every bloody thread? Try to remember that Strife has given you leeway to banter in the cartel thread and others. No need to bring that to every thread.

Adding, that this newbie kit really pretty much covers absolutely everything you could think of and more!
And yes, feel free to IM me for a copy

I hate to tell you this, but you didn't actually have to go Premium to get in here. You could have just added payment information to your Basic account.

Billing and Trading Limits can be found in the blue column on the left side of your account page, under the Commerce header.

http://www.secondlife.com/currency/describe-limits.php

Please note, they're cumulative for the month, so if you purchased $10 yesterday and it says you're allowed $50 today, you can actually only buy $40.