how much money is enough to put in sl?

I am considering going up in tier again because I don't want to lose
my home with the usual plight of mainland, low fps.
Land for me is place to create in, nothing nothing less.
I am wondering though how is enough? I started off with 512m
I needed more prims pretty soon it became 1/4 sim, spent tons
of money, went without things irl because I wanted a place to create
in without having to deal with sandbox issues.
I need more land, I am tired of anyone moving in and taking the resources
of where I live, the do whatever I want but you can't put up banlines because
it inconvenience me attitude.
Land is where I create, and nothing like having someone else's build hover over
where ever you live to interrupt that.
Any land I have or my friends have acquired has not increased in value since first purchases it seem to have dropped value if you do sell.
I don't want to sell my home.
It seemed like their is one thing after another.
When is enough a enough money spent in your sl?
How do you say no or when to say yes and put up with the problems with less if you want to stay on mainland or Second Life?
Should I stop spending money in Second Life when where I want to live is
only going to be at whims of whatever is happening?
Should I just go to Openlife? Is it any better there?
No I am sorry I am not going to rent from a resident, renting from LL is the only
100 percent secure way to go.

I started with 512m2, moved up to a full sim over time and have gone back down to 1/8 sim now. How much is enough depends entirely on you.

How much can you afford to lose out of your RL budget? How much do you feel comfortable with?

You will get as many answers as you get people replying. The only correct answer for you is the one that comes from you.

I live on very tight budget but I hate having to feel like unless I can own sim or
island I am limited with what I can do here
Concierge level is obviously more valued Resident business wise to LL.
Anyway anyone ever abandon land to Govenor Linden to avoid giving it
away for pennies to unpleasant neighbors and relocate to another spot?
Anyone know if there is special restrictions on abandoning land that may
effect one who is abandoning negatively?

What they said. Only you can decide whats right for you, and where you would like to place your money. I was always raised with a "If you can afford it and it makes you happy, then it's worth it" type of mentality.

l
As Ralph Kramden said.."I had it and I went with it". As long as you aren't denying essentials or skipping bills in orfer to play SL, however much you want to spend is the right amount.

Dunno how much time you've spent on the mainland but it's _way_ less laggy than when we joined, FD. Jack says that LL upgraded all the old mainland to class 5 hardware. Between that and H4, it's not at all like it used to be.

That's not to say it's like having your own private island or that some places aren't still hurting, of course.

There are only 3 questions:

Are you happy?

Do you feel that you get good value for your money?

Can you afford it?


Those are the only things that matter.

I like create and I do have happy moments but I am not good with "happy"
and of course I want more.
As I said before I live below the poverty level but my expenses in real life
I intentionally keep low. So technically no I don't have huge disposable income
but I cut back on the extras and essentials. If I do it the land will be a gift, I just have to pay for the
tier so that saves me a whole lot. I hate to see it become what has happen to it in most of sim where there is nukes in the sky and black boxes.
It has been my home for long time, nothing special about it except its been home and where
my friends have lived for long time and I feel possessive over it.
I am attached to the area and I love it.
Realistically I probably should go down to 512m lot but its hell living on 512m lot.
Maybe being in some parts of SL is great if you got really nice computer but if you've got
older sim and under 1gb ram, and lower end video card no it the fps aren't that great.
With each improvement the Lindens do it makes it harder for those of us who can't go
buy a 3000 or even 500 dollar computer every year.
That is part of reason why I left in 2004 all I had was matrox video card and it was borderline system close to 364 at the time.
There probably would be whole lot more people joining and staying in SL if the world wasn't so hard on those who don't have high power computer or budget to get one every few years.

i would say that you should not invest more than you can realistically afford, now matter how sweet the deal. you don't want to give up RL stuffs for a game.

P.S. > i won't be back inworld until tomorrow, FD. just foruming it at this point.

As I read this forum, I get the feeling we have all been sucked into some kind of gyre. I hate calling it addiction, but that weird feeling of having all your buttons pressed and knowing "this is the place I want to be!!!!" is uncanny.

I wake up thinking "what am I going to build today? What am I going to make from that texture I uploaded? Don't I need more hair since I made three hair textures and so far only one piece from the last batch...." I can't control the thoughts or the desire.

I CAN CONTROL how much time I spend inworld and how much money I invest inworld.

My rule is that if I can not explain the amount I are spending to some random stranger sitting next to me in a doughnut shop or to a colleague, a parent, or someone who is not into multi-player virtual worlds, I am raising a very big red flag. Compare your SL spendig to other leisure. If it's inline with what you usually spend, you can explain it to the stranger in the doughnut shop. If not, find a way to build smarter instead of bigger and to have fun in ways that don't involve a lot of investment.

You can look at neighbors as a plus. I get a kick out of walking around my ever-changing neighborhood (Business failures still unnerve me.), and you'd probably hate my slightly glowing yurt placed above sunken property so easily visible at night like a little beacon.
I have a 512. I still have fifty prims left that I guard zealously. I build a lot of clothes and hair. I keep a list of good sandboxes. Recently I tried to map the ends of SL and succeeded.

I control what I can. You need to try and do the same.

I figure how much would I spend for the educational, social activities and art therapy sessions if I had to pay for it my first life if my health was in better place?
3D art classes would cost me over 3000 a quarter or more, Therapy over 80 dollars
a hours, social activities depending on what I am doing and how often a whole lot more.
What I spent so far is cheap considering what I spend here.
Yeah maybe it is addiction, maybe it is stupid to love virtual piece of land that if measured in real life might be little bigger then postage stamp.
I too spend endless hours reflecting on clouds, and things I am going to make regardless
if it sells or anyone else sees it because it makes me happy.
Yet as someone in real life who due to circumstance and choice has chosen
to be frugal, recycles, reuses everything, doesn't own a car, limits my electric use to only certain things, tries not caught up in consumerism in my first life, in my Second life I wonder if I really by the consumption bug of virtual land.
Do I need a prim rehab program?

well, if you can afford it as alternative entertainment in RL, and it makes you happy..... DO IT!!! no one likes a grumpy elf.

Sobs and whines but this grumpy elf needs prims and fps

Do you just need a private sandbox, or do you need a spot where things have to remain standing?

as nike says... just do it.

Both. I have some dreams of doodle city I have wanted to do for while.
But mainly its to protect the areas resources the more land when I do create
I might have 10 fps to build things and not have to worry about someone tping
in and blocking my camera while building like I would in public sandbox.
Also it way to help my friends too when we build and create together,
our little shops even though we don't sell much.

I was like you FD a few years ago when I inhabited the mainland. I ended up owning twice as much land as i need purely to get rid of the ad farms and poor builds and general mess. In the end I gave up, moved to an estate where I rented and where i never had to deal with these issues. On the rare occasion I do have a complaint I just inform the estate manager and it's dealt with quickly and efficiently.

So what happens when we all abandon mainland to pay someone elses tier who
had enough capital to buy a island?
It is great service for those who don't want to go premium but they still
got the pay some how.
I have met people who manage rental situation that I like and respect but
their lot with those situations I don't like or I would have stayed in those rental
situations, I didn't like it.
There is definite advantages to renting directly through LL, they won't evict you
as long they are being paid or breaking the TOS, even then they may not evict
you.
Yet disadvantages are dealing with like current issue Landlords renting out Opensims
which weren't intended for that, causing issues that is going on today and numerous
other situations.
I should have right to live comfortably on mainland without being bullied out of my home.
I shouldn't have to be forced to rent because I am being bullied, extorted or whatever unpleasant reason off mainland and pay someone else's tier unless I choose too.
I don't want to live somewhere that I am told I can't turn off the land access or have to
share building, scripting or whatever rights with all the group members because its
a inconvenience to the landowner.
I don't want to rent a cramped box. I don't want to rent from place I can't have
group rights to land with my own group.
I don't want to have to deal with some landlord who decides they can no longer afford
to rent to me or pay someone rent for shop and then suddenly they don't want to rent to me anyone because they don't want competition or sales be taken away from their own stores.
I am not saying I am great builder, sim developer,etc but at same time I don't want to have to be forced to live in some rental prefabs, told I can't build either, in same way on mainland.
I have dealt with annoying things on mainland for years, and even with dealing with annoying or greedy resource hog neighbors that annoy heck out of me they have their rights too.
There got to be balance I guess, I just wish more was done to make it okay to protect
mainland communities and smaller land owners not just whatever newest sim the Moles
or LL is promoting that going to go for 100k per 512m lot.
I have my probably my share of mistakes around being poor neighbor unknowingly too.
I guess I am just sad about my area changing and want to protect a little piece of mainland for people like myself who just want place to create, dream and call home.
It just seems like no one wants to do anything about mainland.
The adfarm and rental sign situation was good step but they aren't enforcing
this everywhere.
Any way I will figure out what to do I got few days to decide.
Thanks for listening and giving me words of encouragement all
FD

Hiya FD
In fact you are answering your own question

Most of my time I rented on estate land, and so far without any problems. Now I must say I did pick out my landlord well, and the current estate managers are super.
Of course it was a big bummer when I moved to an Open space sim this weekend, to find the joyful message from Jack only a day after that, but I licked my wounds and got a new parcel on the same estate. The dream of a full sim of land vanished, but worse things happen.

But estate is not for you, and that is a choice I can understand. The back draft of it, is that you can get annoying neighbors and have no one to turn to, but it is your own land. Well, as far as owning goes of course. As long as you can ignore the bad side, you should be fine.

Now how much is enough? I would say 295 dollar per month, because that is the only way to make sure you have your own space without possible annoying neighbors. Even a full sim of mainland does not protect you from annoying neighbors in adjacent sims. But 295 dollars per month is an awful lot of money, plus you do have the initial setup costs as well. Ob theother hand, if you can be sure you have enough friends to rent parts out to, it might be a possibility.

The only other option you have, is to ignore neighbors that annoy you. Put up megaprim screens of they bother you visually (transparent on their side though), and ignore them. You alone know how many prims you really need for your Second Life, and that is enough. Do not let annoying people force you to spend more then you should.

As for lagging, why not take your projects high up in the air? Create a mega platform, texture it like you are on ground level, and you save yourself very much lag.

I up pretty high already and at 400m I am getting about 6 fps or less on bad day.
4000m maybe 10 when it use to be 15.
If there in middle of combat thing and nuking the sim it might be actually whole
lot less.
But it just be my computer, someone else might have 5 or 10 fps more then I do.
I am ignoring, banned them, they banned me and my first alt from 2003.
If they hadn't annoyed me so much I might have consider giving them good deal
and moving over to sim next door but this point I am going to stay where I am
enjoy what I can, wait it out.

But also have you considered that the more you build the more textures you upload and have rezzed on your land can also contribute to the FPS too, just a thought.

yeah I don't use more then half of the prims at any given time that is shared between 3 people and I try to keep textures to limited amount except in display or work areas or special areas
Right now except in few areas most of the textures in my gallery and office area
is white.
My highest area where I do building and more complex this all I got it in white with fall leaves on mega prim, plus any textures I am doing for a building there.
I try to limit how many prims, scripts, pose balls and mega prims my friends and
I use, I only leave out things I am working on, vendors, texture viewer and few furniture related items and sometimes my tv briefly to prevent lag but if neighbors are doing other things like rezzing tons of scripts, weapons,etc then I really don't have control over what type of lag happens.

We have a set SL budget every month and will never go over it as people have said whatever you can comfortably afford without skipping RL stuff and remember always allow for tier increases and unexpected LL announcements etc in your budget

I been reading this and other posts by you and bloody hell you seem depressed.Cheer up.Bad neighbors can be a pain in the arse, only if you let it bother you .It seems your PC more than anything is causing your performance probs and getting more land will only make it worse.Never abandon land,just set it at or near the minimum rate.Then someone like Sara
will promptly snatch it up,worked for me.I find moving can be cathartic.Why not downsize bigtime,I have on more than one occasion,regroup get your head in order and start afresh.Worked for me too.I know from your posts you can build and create.Even a 512 can more than pay for itself if you use onrez and SLX wisely.Sorry for the sermon but most of all be happy,

I put in a fair amount of cash each month into sl. My partner and I own mainland property. I don't think I would ever part with it since the actual plots have memories I associate with my experiences in sl. For me, sl becomes a richer experience if I treat my property as more like "real property" (in teh legal sense of teh word) and less like I am shifting myself around a computer game (yes, I know it actually is). Permanence is a key to sl contentment, I think. Yes it costs some - but only as much as a meal at a restaurant; I know there are people here on a limited budget but they appear to extract so much pleasure from their life in sl, isnt the price they pay for land and goods worthwhile? My key to satisfaction in sl is less "manipulation" of the environment, lower expectations of a fickle economy, hold on to property (which is really the only investment you can expect to appreciate in sl), have conversations and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh (particularly your own!) Hedonism rules in sl!