Deal with it or Buy mainland

I just had a thought reading your reply I think i will sell our adult sim off while i wont lose to much on it and save the tier scale down to half/three quarters of a sim and move back to the mainland while land is dirt cheap so any space on your sim??

PS: Well Island is up for sale and with the money I save tiering down and moving to the mainland and back to 125 USD tier I can reinvest in another grid as well as save money here and keep the RL Adult Business running in SL. Thanks for opening my eyes

When you quote someone there is a quote=residentName at the top and a /quote at the end. Just copy and paste the first part and the last part to the relevant sections. It makes little odds if you reply well anyway, which you did So for example to quote this your paragraph above it starts with QUOTE=VonGklugelstein Alter and ends with /QUOTE, you need to include the square brackets.



Those policy changes too a lot of petitioning from residents to come about. However yes it has helped. There is nice mainland around, despite a belief that all mainland is a cesspit but there's little guarantee that it will stay nice.



I only mentioned corporate and scholastic presences to point out that not all estate land can be compared fairly as an option compared to mainland. I don't have the anti mainland view that many hold, indeed I own mainland but it still only constitutes around 20% of the world as a whole. New users don't naturally gravitate to mainland because to own land you need to be premium. They can rent mainland of course but again, they can rent estate too.



Plenty of consumers are involved. People who just want a residence are consumers. The lower risk option is renting without upfront cost. Consumers who wanted mainland were being put of by high upfront costs of mainland, I saw plenty of complaints. Land flipping can only go so far before the chain breaks and there's a problem.



People will have to adjust I agree, but they won't forget. I sure as hell won't forget this. Linden Lab's customer relations in this matter have been truly abysmal.

I have to stick my neck out on this one and say, I agree a little bit with what the OP was trying to say.

Now before you all slam down on me, I AM one of the affected OS sim users. I have to move, regardless. But I just don't understand all this "Now I can't have a business anymore" whining going on. OS sims, as a 3750/detached product have only been sold for about 6 months. SL businesses flourished well before then, on mainland, and on estate land. People made money with businesses on estate land and mainland.

People were creative... they found ways to make it work. And they will again. I have been here over 2 years... yes this is an alt account...

I just consider that you all are giving way too much power away to the Lindens. The Lindens don't make your business.... YOU do. I know you're gonna come back at me with "well they own the game/platform, we are powerless they can do anything.... blah blah blah." But sorry, I don't believe that. Don't sell yourselves short.

I also don't understand the "M Linden said premium users don't matter to him, so I'm leaving!!!" sentiment. I mean... is that why you're here? To be loved by the Lindens? I don't care what my phone company "thinks" of me... nor the electric company... and even if they said their "residential customers were low priority" (which is NOT really what M was saying in the first place) would I up and change plans? No. I look at the total package. Do I want to continue, do I still have the benefits, capabilities, that provide me with satisfaction?

And the answer is yes. I was perfectly happy before moving to the OS sim a few months ago. I will be happy again on estate land, where I've already purchased a parcel.

Frankly, I can't be bothered to obsess about the policy changes. In the scheme of things, for most people, this is entertainment. For me, it is not entertaining to continue to obsess and be angry about it. SL was entertaining before Windlight, it was entertaining before sculpties, and it will still be entertaining even if I choose not to live/play on an OS sim.

And yes, I have checked out the other worlds, and they are not entertaining for me right now. Too much crashing, not enough to do. Perhaps later they will become more interesting.

There are a few issues for me. First of all the price rise, it is heinous. People will have purchased this product in October, raising prices like this is just awful customer service.

Then there's the issue of the doublespeak. I find it galling to watch Linden Lab try and defend this by pointing to a guideline that they themselves were only too keen to ignore whilst they sold the product. People questioned this, I was one of them. Why the heck are all these sims appearing when they're supposed to be for open waterways? These complaints were ignored and the product sold like hot cakes. For Linden Lab to now say "Hey you shouldn't have been using them like this" is completely unethical when they benefited from the sales.

However yes you're right, you have to shape up or ship out but trust has been deeply eroded and this could have all been avoided if Linden Lab had the decency to accept their role in this fiasco.

It is not the Primary OS land owner that will suffer. All cost will be passed right down to the Resident renting - DUH.

Therefore nothing changes with the Primary Land Owner, He will simply rent at a higher cost all profit loses will be recovered through higher tiers - or haven't you figured that out.

thanks for not attacking me for the most part .. there are some great answers and things to think about in this thread..

I appreciate everyone's input and as I said earlier .. I hope that the LL Goons are reading this and reporting it back to their fearless Leadorrrshipness...

I will read the rest of the posts tomorrow and answer where needed - I just got off a plane and don't have the energy to read this

Its ok.. I pardon you.. whoever you are ..

Go ahead and raise your prices.. make sure you make them real high because there are people who love to brag about how much they overpay for stuff. They can be your tenants and you can be a SL legend..

I am out of touch.. other people touch it for me.

Well that is a bit harsh. No ones hand got caught in the cookie jar except LL. No one who has an openspace sim did anything wrong except going for the better deal LL provided. They (LL) made these openspaces the same price as mainland and killed the mainland market. Now they want to reverse it and make everyone pay for their mistake or insanity.

If someone offers me a better product at the same price of an inferior product, you better believe I am going to take the better one.

Yes its wrong to have not thought about the implications of offering a product that will end up making a mess such as this.

It was harsh so I would get the point across .. I realize many if not most did not abuse the loopholes that this product created, but then there are those...

unfortunately for the rest of the people - the few, the "those people" destroyed the whole system and balance.

Was it a better product? Never! it was supposed to be a way to add ocean or scenery to an existing Estate so that you can have a boat or whatever... and not crash into a invisible wall 10M into the water.. purely technical and for esthetic reasons. Why else would it cost less? Trust me .. if 2 people offer you the same product for drastically different prices - you need to wonder what is it that you are not being told about the lower priced one. Poor people pay twice.. ever hear that? Buy Junk - it breaks you go buy it agin to replace it .. and just spent more than a good quality version of the item would have cost.


I looked at them and said to myself that they are useless as a standalone and gladly decided not to buy one.. or more

Often in Business you end up paying for other peoples expert mistakes without knowing it. In this case the mistake was not an expert mistake but a blatant goof - yet still you will end up eating it in order to continue. When the price of raw goods and fuel goes up by huge amounts in a short time, people end up having to bite the bullet and pay or be out of business. Hating the suppliers is useless and a waste of energy. This is one of those cases.


Best for everyone is to get out ASAP and move on.. the twisted mess with the Homesteads and more complex Pricing Structure is funny... LL should eliminate this product entirely and keep the pricing the same across the board for all land - if they want to do the right thing, they should give volume discounts to people with higher useage..

\m/

Compounded by LL's tacit encouragement to do so, in the interest of generating income.

Also, I imagine some of "those peole" did so just out of being uninformed as to proper use of the product.

The only thing i think LL failed on was not setting up a TOS agreement when purchasing the OS sims. If they would have clearly communicated this on purchase . this would have not gotten out of hand. And making the user agree to it before purchase would have stopped all the problems at the gate.
On the Land Pricing page it clearly states Openspaces (light use regions) are also available so you can add ocean or open park land. For more information, check out our Information on Openspaces knowledge base article.

All the info is there. The bottom line is research before you buy
Ll Should have a Conditions of pricing link as well like they do for
EDNP region pricing which reads as
Conditions of EDNP

For help getting started with your education or non-profit work in Second Life, please see our education page.

To qualify for educational or non-profit discounted pricing:

1. Enter "EDUCATOR" in the COUPON field of checkout to apply.
   
2. Your status as an educator or non-profit will require verification.**
   
3. For all Teen Grid region orders (requires parental/guardian approval if under 18 and a background check if over 1
   

**If Linden Lab determines at any time, at its sole discretion, that a region is not being used for educational or non-profit purposes, either in part or in whole, Linden Lab reserves the right to cancel all related billing agreements and accounts, and/or bill retroactively for past usage at standard rates. Please contact billing through the Support Portal with any questions regarding this policy BEFORE submitting an region order.





If they can make it loud and clear about the EDNP pricing they should have done the same with OS sims and not be so nonchalant about it

The ENDP pricing clearly states Make sure you read the Conditions of EDNP Pricing BEFORE submitting an order





There should have been a better form of communication on their behalf. But we can make excuses all day long. The bottom line is, that it is Clear in the Knowledge base about it. Nothing wrong with selling a product. Just be absolutely clear about conditions




Just my 2 cents

1. Linden Lab knew how they were being used going back to 2006. They ok'd that sort of usage.

2. If they'd setup such a TOS agreement they wouldn't have sold anywhere near as well, LL are fully aware of that too.

First I want to give credit to LL for listening and slowing down the price hike. I have a feeling in the end it will be too little too late but at least it shows someone is trying.

I agree with your points but its not that simple. Most of the people who live in open space sims were conned. They were *sold* the land and given the idea that they could use it like a region. Everyone has seen the ads for *owning* *sims*. Most of the land scammers who did they selling are not going to able to get a lot more out of their renters so they are going to take off. So who gets caught? The renter, the little guy. Not LL and not the land scammer.

There are also a small amount of renters who knew exactly what they were getting into or had honest owners and have been using the openspaces as light usage areas. A lot of those renters can’t afford to pay a serious hike and most won’t be excited about getting exactly what they have now for more. Obviously LL could have just cracked down on the big land scammers or offered *homesteads* with more prim and capacity and given those customers a real reason to hang around. Maybe they will still. If they do that and make it illegal to *sell* island space without transferring it some good will come out of all this.

Or maybe they will just raise the island tier to $500 a month to match the Homesteads.

The bottom line is people who have had openspaces are not going to flood back to mainland to trade their private retreat for the lack of privacy, lock outs and lag that some of us experience on mainland. The irony is if the land scammers were just a little less greedy, if they hadn’t charged so much and been honest about how an openspace should be used LL probably wouldn’t have decided it needed a bigger piece of the pie.

The same land scammers are probably already running some con in the other virtual universes or they will be soon --but anyone from sl will have learned their lesson the hard way.

If it's stupid, they'll do it. So I'm expecting LL to do just that.

I think IMO mainland used to be the back bone of the game. Just think, you sign up for SL you get your avi picked out your all ready to start this cool new (Game) remember this is a game. Wheres the first place you rezz, a private Island. Can you just imagin how many people would be turned away from this game if there first site they seen was the color grey and lag. Mainland isnt even good enough for the noobies so they start you in this world on a private estate. Ok youve made it to mainland lets click on the ground and see how much they want for this piece of land. OMG $5.5 million L, are they nuts. Ok we find are way to the new cool place called Nautilus. Wait Im trying to get away from the houses being stacked next to each other in RL so I come to this dreamland game to esacpe these things and Nautilus looks like a low income housing project. Not really a dream for esacpe.
I lived on mainland for 1 month when I started, never again. IMO

maybe both combined

and then Mainland prices might come back up to 3L per Meter which is still less than a 3rd of what it was before April.



Honestly .. the stupidity of people who pay for the priviledge of being allowed to rent a piece of Land from someone without equity ior even a Guarantee is beyond my comprehension. LL shoud definetly make it illegal to sell Estateland unless the Tier gets transfered to the new " Owner"

Before I would prepay someone for a Piece of land which is nothing more than a rental.. I would need to know where the Estate Owner lives.. and where his family lives and where he works and where he shops for groceries..

Well, count me as one of those stupid people....maybe.

I rent from estates, because, as has been pointed out earlier:

1) I get service. I know who the estate manager is, and when I have problems, he fixes them.

2) There are *enforced* rules. No ad farms, or Star Trek spaceships in my Victorian sim. It simply looks better.

3) Community. The estates I am part of are communities, with friendly people, willing to help me out, work on cooperative projects, and that sort of thing.

*If* I could get that same sort of experience from a mainland location, price would be a factor. But, I can't. People like me won't be flooding back to the mainland to buy....because it simply isn't the product we are looking for.

For us, the Mainland and the Estate don't compete, they are *very* different products.

*chuckles. One could apply that to those who own Mainland too.



Reading between the lines, I'm assuming that you own Mainland...you know where M lives then? We know where he works, but maybe you could go kick his backside in the direction of his keyboard then.

If I'm wrong in my assumption, my point still stands: everyone is essentially renting from LL.

Yeah that zactly! And mainland is ugly.

If I get burned by LL .. I can call my scumbag Creditcard company and have them deduct it from LL's bank account for defrauding me ..



I am not promoting Mainland as being better .. I am stating simply that it needs to be more valuable so that there is more of an attraction to new people and existing residents with money to spend and invest and make commerce happen.. improving the overall picture for the entire game.

personally I don't care which is better..I don't live on SL - I live in a house with a better scenic view than any 37" Lcd Monitor screen gan give me.. specially not one displaying funny looking cartoon characters wearing all black .. holding a knife and a fork..

If they really only intended for openspaces to be used for waterways, then why did they drop the requirement that they be anchored to other sims? What is the point of a scenic waterway that no one who isn't standing on the sim will ever see?

Why did they increase the prims? It was the prim limits that prevented openspaces from being a runaway residential product long before the price drop, and I'm quite sure they understood that.

Furthermore, why were they so damn proud about grid growth in July when they knew full well it was mostly openspaces?

Sorry, they knew damn well those islands would be used for residential purposes. They just underestimated the abuses.


I don't even understand why you bothered posting this. At the current "low" monthly price of $75/month openspace costs exactly the same as owning 1/4 of a mainland sim. People aren't on openspaces for the savings; they're there because they want an island of their own.

I looked at quite a lot of mainland sims in light of all of this and each and everyone of them is freaken ugly!

I should add, I only noticed the uglyness after it took forever to rez due to the heavy lag!

Or buy mainland, or buy my estate parcel...has about the same number of prims and I'd really like to be rid of it!

Sorry Von, the market worked. People found a product they liked and wanted, so they bought it. Now LL and a few naysayers such as yourself are complaining about the market and want to regulate it. A little too late for that, this heavy handed approach will only drive people away.

OS didn't kill the mainland, LL dumping sims on the market killed the mainland.

LL dumping sims did crashed the mainland, but OS is the ultimate killer of mainland.

At US$75 per month, OS is simply underpriced. Let me explain.

A reseller cut OS in 4 equally parts, 16k sqm each. In the middle of this 16k sqm, the reseller cut out a 4096 sqm land and you have a 4096 sqm island around by water within the 16k sqm.

What's the cost to own a 4096 sqm, 937 prims island? US$75/4 = US$18.75 monthly

Now, take a look at Mainland Land Fee.

A 4096 sqm land cost US$25 monthly to maintain and to own land in mainland, you need a US$9.95 monthly premium membership fee.

What's the cost to own a 4096 sqm, 937 prims mainland? US$34.95 monthly!

Who would want to buy mainland when OS is obviously underpriced?

OS is therefore the ultimate killer of mainland!!!