The New Continent with Free Houses for Premiums

Has any Forum regular been invited?

I suppose there are those who'd love to interpret this as paranoia. But I think it's quite possible that something like 'Number of Forum posts is greater than or equal to 200' was used as a filter in determining the First Wave of 500 avatars.

Well, define "forum regular".

Could be though. The two people that posted in this thread that they have got invites definitely do not have high post counts. Probably LL doesn't even want to think about any of US being there and poisoning others' minds.

I can understand a company wanting to avoid having someone who's actually hostile to their product participating. Or even if not actively hostile, say, predisposed to be negative.

I don't think that's a fair description of most of us here, though. I think most of us love SL and therefore want to see LL prosper. In fact, we are far more likely to give LL valuable feedback than would the Always A Fan Of All LL Decisions folks.

(Oh well, it's all probably pretty much moot at this point.^_^)

Well, I certainly admit that this is probably the first new change that doesn't have me frothing at the mouth in anger. I actually think it's a good idea for new premiums.. though aiming it at existing premium accounts seems rather silly. But, I suppose we make darn good guinea pigs.

Sadly, I didn't have the tier free. If I had, I might have helped, but I would have released the land right after Beta was over. It's just too restricting for me.

I'm guessing that current Residents who get those plum 'edge of the development' houses will keep them. You'd have to pay hundreds of US$ to get views like those, in some cases. (It would be just and ethical for those people to 'pay' for their gift-houses by putting in a good chunk of time each week answering their newbie-neighbors' questions, in my view.)

For many Residents who end up in the middle of one of those possibly-soon-to-be overcrowded sims, though, the Beta will probably be all they'll be interested in doing.

They opened it up to existing premiums? Is it still? I wouldn't mind checking it out just to see.

It's open to existing premiums who have 512 square meters of spare tier, by invitation only.

...watches mailbox expectantly....

;p

You know you can call this sour grapes if you want, but i am really dismayed over this. We have had rentals in SL for over 5 years, we get 118 prims per 512, and pay tier on all of our holdings. My biz partner and i went to see these houses today, and low and behold, the houses are 76 prims or more, but the owner still gets full use of 117-118 prims for furniture and personal items they rez.

I truly don't mind the competition, but geez because I'm not LL, i can't jerry rig the sim to have more prim usage than what they allow me.

We have worked hard never to give our customers less than they pay for, we've provided good and friendly customer service..but this may be it for us, the economy the last year had done alot of damage already.

I came upon a mentor in one of the houses, and i IMed her to ask how this all worked, and she promptly told me i was too stupid (her exact words) to read the wiki on them and because i was in the rental business, i needn't feel like i had the right to be inquiring on the prims allowed on the lots.

Shame its come to this, SL used to be an above board company, i am truly having my doubts now.

My understanding is that the total prims on the sim are the same, they are simply anchoring the houses in the open areas between the 512 plots so that the house prims are not part of that plot.

In theory, if you had the space, you could do the same. On a 2048, instead of creating and renting out 4 512 plots, you create and rent out 3. Then you use the extra 512 area to anchor all the houses. Granted, in that example each house would have to average 39 prims all three to fit in the 117 prims of the spare 512, but that is still roughly the idea of what they are doing.

The biggest problem is that when the newb is ready to move on, they will come to someone like you and want to rent a 512 and then freak when they find out the house is part of their prim count and they see how many prims houses can eat up. They will be disillusioned from the Linden Homes experience and will get quite a shocker when the venture out to the real SL world.

My feelings exactly, it does give an unrealistic view of prims etc..I doubt LL will be charging themselves any sim fees..so they can pretty much use their resources as they see fit and not have to bear in mind the cost.

My only thought that might swing the balance in the favour of private landlords is something youve touched upon.."customer service" it really makes a difference to people, and helps retention if you give it, I cant see LL having any "site managers" around to help people, probably just get pointed to a wiki page!! Plus from what Ive explored on these LL housing schemes..they aint no oil painting and so cramped...

I still do feel quite aggrieved over the whole business.
Im quite sure if LL hired some clothing designers and started handing out free everything in designer gear..there would be SUCH a hue & cry..seems so far.landlords are just sucking it up, as we always seem to do.

Curious how you met a mentor..we all got the boot a while ago...maybe one of the new improved unofficial ones? how rude :/

LL has disbanded the mentor program. Anyone can create a group tag that says they're a mentor. Whoever you spoke to had no relationship to LL and probably no relationship to the old mentor program.

Landlords are the evil empire. The claim that LL aren't competing with residents over this is absolute balderdash, however I do think this can work out well for us landlords, I'm in the watch and see category on this.

That's exactly what they did when they started putting designer avatars and clothes in the Linden Library.

uhmm...not really lol I surely wouldnt wear whats in the library..Im talking gooood stuff.

Maybe I'm just more critical of builds and land than I am of avatar accoutrements, but the newer generation of Library stuff seems about on a par with the close-packed residential builds in Nascera: nothing any self-respecting Resident would want for long, but serviceable and the price is right.

It'll be interesting to see how this all evolves, socially. Will a Linden Homes address be stigmatized as much as a Noob McNooby avatar? Will that desirable mate agree to view the etchings if the TP destination is in Nascera?

The stuff that is in the library *is* good stuff. Each time they come out with a new update to the default avatars, they're picking from the best of the products available at that time.

Why do people not stick with them? Because they don't have a lot of variety, because they scream n00b... not because they're not good, but because they're the same as what everyone else has when they start up. Well, you know what? Mascara doesn't have a lot of variety either.

lol...good point

my view was my view..and I dont think it is good stuff...its ok for a start up, but certainly not on a par with what I buy to wear now (even not on a par with store gifts and hunt gifts really)
I suppose its all down to choice, my choice is..I wouldnt wear it. FYI..mascara does indeed have many variants, I get befuddled with the vast array each time I decide to *try a new one* .

Ferrets use mascara? Wow, who knew.

No, no, it's pandas that use mascara.

I'm wondering if there was an open and explicit decision to make Nascera rather unpleasant, on the theory that new registrants who are unhappy because (for one thing) the only way they can get to their parcel is to TP in due to ban lines and outside-parcel-radius security devices, and then once they do TP in, they can't hear themselves think due to the outside-parcel-radius media streams their neighbors are running---will react to the unhappiness by giving LL more money.

Perhaps the talk around the table was 'then all these people will become convinced they need at least a 4096sqm parcel to be happy, and we'll sell those to them and reap the higher tier they'll be incurring'...

If so, did those around the table stop to consider that many of the new registrants will have purchased only a one-month Premium account, and will react to the unpleasantness of Nascera NOT by upgrading, but by leaving SL altogether?

I don't think it's unpleasant at all. It's just repetitive.

Actually, now that I've visited Desmond's place in Blue Mars, I am more convinced that Mascara is an attempt at a "Blue Mars" experience, with a limited set of cookie-cutter houses and a rigid layout.

Well, not unpleasant if most houses don't have ban lines and most don't have security devices and/or media streams that extend past the parcel boundaries.

But one can't help asking: why did LL decide to leave these options open, especially considering how mnay other restrictions they've imposed (e.g. no megaprims, no terraforming, etc.)

Were they hoping that those annoyed by the ban lines/security devices/noise from other parcels would say 'gee, guess I'll hand LL $1,000 for a private island and commit to US$295/mo'.............? Did they reason out that this would be a likely result of permitting ban lines/security-past-parcel/media-past-parcel?

My money would be on 'yes', they thought it likely.






I do think you're right that LL is using Blue Mars as their model.

Some (or one) at the top at LL seem to have the same distaste for the multiplicity of Creation that SL has been known for, that the BM people seem to have. The preference of both seems to be to strictly control creation, and go for that More Predictable Experience (that Brenda has trademarked.)

I guess it's obvious that I believe this trend will not work for the ultimate benefit of LL; I think it's short-sighted and based on personal reactions as opposed to being based on an accurate reading of the market.

We shall see, I guess.

LL wants it to become unpleasant over the long haul. As an time goes on and the new premium gets more experience, they are going to tire of the limits and the general asshattery of their neighbors. Which oddly enough will prepare them for the mainland...

But if LL doesn't enforce their edicts, then that's their own fault.