M Linden Speak's Finally !! Letter to Residents

What a bogus counter-offer! 750 prims for 75 USD a month?! By changing to two products and converting OS to homestead, it's just another nail in the coffin to prove how underhanded you are as well as insulting our intelligence. No dice!

It is a scam, pure and simple. If they didn't want landowners dividing up their OSs and 'selling' them for residential use, why the hell didn't they disable the 'buy now' button and stop the system from giving the so called 'buyer' fake ownership rights. I had no idea what an open space sim was (in fact I have lived there since May and only found out that I was in violation a week ago) when I found a wonderful island; deliciously rural and private. The isolation and beauty convinced me to click the 'buy' button. Little did I know that I was only renting the land and had no rights at all - even though my name is stated as owner. In view of this and the fact that you were well aware of the situation, I demand that you, LL, reimburse my purchase fees (L$124,000) and the money I have been paying since May (L$300,000). You have failed to protect me and continue to make a mockery of the word legality.

Harriet Gausman

I rent an OS, and yes I have a house on it and some furniture and flowers. I have used about 3000 of the allotted prims, and not too many scripts running besides the standard sit animations, and I never have more than 3 people on the island at once. So now they are calling it a homestead... fine... whatever you want to call it.

My question is this...how exactly am I abusing the space? The land comes with 3750(exact?) prims. I pay for those prims... so why CAN'T I use them? How is it abuse if I am using the prims THEY SAY I am paying for? If light use only means I can use 2000 prims, it should only have come with 2000 prims. People aren't going to pay for prims and space we can't use... it's ludicrous for LL to even think that from the start.

And yes.. 750 prims for 75$ a month. Forget it... I can rent cheaper almost everywhere. That is simply absurd.

LL should just be honest and upfront that their plan failed and it is costing more than they thought it would so they need to increase to tier to cover their expenses. I would respect that at least. Not trying to go back and change their words and blaming us for this mess because we were using EXACTLY what we are paying for.

One Corporate bigwig makes up a classification and you run with it. Just last week this was a Opensim according to the same bigwig. Are we really suppose to pay $1 US Dollar for every 10 prims? I keep my business on the mainland and pay $125 USD a month for 18,000 meters and thousands of prims. I shre a non profit making opensim with another person as my home. Now one of us will have to move so the prim count can go down or we double the money we pay to have a pretty setting. Sounds like a deal breaker.

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I was answering a query from someone who asked where they stood living on a sim and not renting it out. If you think I'm in any way, shape or form in favour of this exercise of trying to pull the wool over people's eyes think again.

You know those thuggish gangster type you see in the city with the little table and their card trick? I think LL took notes. What a blatant trick. Thanks for insulting our intelligence LL. If this sticks you will lose out on many loyal customers. Don't be a thug. This is not candy and we are not babies.

I bought 16 open space sims for $418.75 per sim in lots of four all attached to my full sim. This didn't seem to cause any problems for LL. Then they raised the prim count from 1875 to 3750 while raising my monthly tier from $73.75 to $75.00. I didn't ask for this, LL seemed to think that that was what they could afford based on the use for the 1000 odd open space sims they had out at the time. I never changed my usage for the majority of sims as they are just water and have only about 10 prims in them and no scripts until a vehicle passes through. Two of the sims went over the original 1875 prims because they were covered with trees and other plants forming the wet side of my island home. Now that LL has discovered that some people "overload" the open space sims they want more money but why can't I get the same deal I originally signed up for, namely open space sims with 1875 prims for $73.75 monthly tier?

The people that purchased an openspace sim from anyone other than LL might get a refund if you bought from a trustworthy resident. The owner can convert 4 openspace sims (if they own 4) into a full sim, therefore, getting a free sim. Alot of people bought openspace sims for 20k plus , which is a TOTAL rip off because you are actually only RENTING from the person you purchased from. If you decide you can't afford your sim anymore , the owner gets it for free. I would ask them for a refund before just giving up your sim. NEVER buy land from a private owner, rent only. I would never buy land from LL either anymore, too many scams in here and LL can't be trusted. Just have a basic account and rent land weekly on a private sim, no upfront cost. live and learn the hard way in here.

As someone posted earlier, the average SL player is pretty much SOL here. The large estate owners that rented/sold us the open sims originally are going to be holding the bag while people pack up their inventory and leave before or when the current tiers are up.

Anyone in their right mind will not agree to pay these prices for so much less than we had to being with. This "solution" is ludicrous.

I would have thought LL would have carefully examined the situation to determine who makes up the majority of those that pay for and use these open sims. The estate owners pay LL the tier but its the average SL joe paying the estate owners. Either that fact was missed or they simply don't care. Now THAT is shooting oneself in the foot.

What are you reasons for not "buying" land from LL anymore?

So you would rather "rent" land from someone who has "bought" land in SL, in effect giving your money to SL through a 3rd party?

What if the person you are renting through needs to raise prices to cover the rising cost of widgets in their life? What if they are in a car accident and are unable to pay their SL land tiers and you do not find this out until after LL takes your home offline? What if they just decide to quit?

I am not sure about not "buying" land from LL. We are not really buying anything from LL but renting. Why inject a 3rd person into the equation? What if you have a 1/2 sim to full sim build and require a long term place - do you trust that to a SL Real estate co?

What am i missing here? Someone help me out (not you Nina!).

I would never pay an upfront cost for land from a private owner or LL. To protect myself I would only pay weekly , if something like you mentioned happened (car accident, etc) I wouldn't be out that much money. I would also make sure I was renting land from someone trustworthy. I would never live in Mainland, nothing but lag, and definately wouldn't consider buying a full sim or OS sim from LL again. Linden Labs has proved how trustworthy they are, therefore, they no longer get my paycheck.

Ok, the two tier structure is a start, but the price for the true opensim is way to high. Since the annoucment, I have been looking at other grids, and I have seen one where openspaces are US$10 per month, but you can not rez or build, and can only have a choice of water or an island.

This goes part way to the solution, and an ideal way would be for very low cost land, no building or rezing but the ability of uploading your own terrain file.

Since in July the fee will be going up to US$125 for the new homestead product, Give residents the option of buying these direct, without forcing them to either own a full sim, or having to rent / buy from a third party.

I personally think a lot of people would like to take control of their own land for the light use of single residences etc.

When u rent/buy a sim from an estate co, you can pay them in Lindens, and as an european you save the vat )

No don't change the OS sims in anyway just give people what they paid for. If a small inflation matching price rise is necessary, do that with proper announcements 1 year from when the new product was released.
Once again Linden Labs, you disconnected OS from the need to be anchored to full sims thereby they were no longer expected to be used to be placed soley between islands, you took away the need to buy them in 4s so making them more readily available and you increased the prim limits, All these measures clearly indicating to people that their usage had changed. People did not change the use of these islands your actions LL implied a change of use. So people took you at your implied word, and probably considered you hadn't changed your guidelines because you are notorious for not updating your Faq's quickly. Those in doubt asked concierge and were informed okay to do what they were planning but reminded they would not receive support, they were never told you would move the goal posts which of course is something else you are notorious for.

Now you think you are being really clever by trying to delay the inevitable price rise to 125US$ for what people already get now. You reduce the prim limits to ridiculously low levels while keeping OS sims tiers at the level they already were before you changed OS usage and call them the same. The only two changes I see here are a renaming of OS sims to homesteads so you can charge more to allow even just one person living on one, and a reduction of prims on the so called OS sims that are being used the way "you always meant them to be used".

So stop dressing it up with slight delays to rises and still implying people where in the wrong for following your change of use. You just want more of peoples money, be honest and say we like to rip you off. Tell you what give us an honest week by week account of the number of all types of sims held in private hands so we can all cheer as we watch your true income drop dowm until sl slides under the waves of its own thievery and duplicity. Oh and if any lindens need jobs on another virtual world don't mention in your CV you used to be an SL employee it may not go down too well.

...it would be appreciated if you'd have a look at this.

I am a big supporter of LL and quite often tried to justify your decisions from a rather professional business perspective, which is not so obvious to many people. But this time even I am speechless!

Why?

Your new OS SIM strategy is like buying a Volkswagen, use it in (subjectively) normal way and you saying

"Stop it! You are expected to use just the driver seat, no guests, no trunk use. And of course speed limit. To continue your actual use you need to upgrade the car!"

Your kind upgrade offer then includes a sticker for relabeling the car to "Homestead - the family car", remove the rear seats, announce to further reduce the load limit and offer a price increase with a 6 months ramp up plan. Alternatively I am offered to convert this car to a "Full Usage Van" - or can downgrade to a bicycle by issueing a ticket. Of course for the same costs as my car today.

I am impressed about how well you promote this embarrassing business strategy as something well thought and engineered! Good job, Mark.

Okay, let's switch off the irony mode and become serious. My point of view is as follows:

1) Introducing OS for "light use" in the past without precise usage guidelines was a tremendous mistake. The abuse you complain about is mostly a misunderstanding of your vague use specs. They have never been precise, Mark, regardless what you feel!

2) It is almost to be called naive to believe, that residents would not place even a single house or light rental on these, like 3 people per SIM. This is the nature of refinancing SIMs in SL. Mark, did you get, that almost no one ever has interest in just paying? That even partly refinancing is the usual use case?

3) The "new" Homestead" SIMs are nothing better than a renamed OS from today with increased price and reduced performance. There is nothing to spend applause for! I think that the avatar count limit of 20 might be a realistic setting for such SIMs - but this should have been specified from the very beginning on! This would have avoided a lot of of today's mess.

4) From the above I get the clear impression, that you started to loose connection to the SL residents. You don't seem to know anymore, what they want and how to serve them with well formated and priced products. The Homestead-thingy of today is what people understood to receive already as they bought a simple OS in the past! And your vague specs and strong OS promotion is the root cause for that! I fully understand that today many residents feel cheated. And the surprising positive comments about your letter, Mark, seem to me, as if these people do not quite understand, what you are actually saying.

You are suprised to read that? Surprised, that only few people actually will want the new "pure nature" OS? That's the point, Mark. You misunderstood the resident's requirements, missed to create clear OS specs before and therefore the buyers of the "old" OS misunderstood your use intentions. Expect that many, many OS SIMs will be given back to you just to get rid of them due to the new pricing.

Oh and later today you will receive a support ticket returning my two openspace sims Vampirs Rest and Dragonmyst to you. Later in the month Femina Isle will be returned also, the 8th of my full sims, and as more people leave my lands more full sims will be returned, until finally i can leave sl, oh and where is the light switch so I can flip it if I am the last one out the door.

Thats pretty much what Im doing Femina. As ppl leave Im shutting them all down. I have the money to keep them running and to parcel them up into full prim sims but for what...so that sometime down the line LL can raise fees on those too?
If their intention was to run private estate owners off the grid through sheer exasperation then theyre not as incompetent and many suggest.

Ugh, me and my partner are sooooo tired of this right now. At first I thought it was great until I actually thought about it..I can't pay a linden more than what I do now so any price increase means I'll have to resize how big of land I am renting right now, so now we have to possibly re-size our rented land twice because of increase and in the end it'll be the same amount that we were going to have trouble paying in the first place..ugh.

Why aren't the Lindens pricing per prim.

From my reading of the posts and the "announcement" (and forgive me if I am wrong) the OS, Homesteads and Full Regions are going to be on Class5 Servers.

The OS and Homesteads are going to have restrictions on their usability, yet we are being told (i almost said asked!) to pay a premium for them.

3750 prims on a homestead at a cost of $125, 15000 for a full region at a cost of $295, the math is simple.

That is $500 for the same amount of prims.

$205 extra for wht?

Surely if a sim has all the restrictions on it, its monthly maintenance charge should be less than that of a full region?

Let's be clear. If you are using your OS sim for a home and can't afford to pay $125 per month then LL wants you to cancel. It's not a threat to say you will abandon the sim. LL will be relieved to hear that they won't have to lose money on your sim anymore.

Best thing to do is not spend a dime in SL anymore. They aren't listening to anymore complaining, their mind is made up. They know people will be upset for awhile but will soon go back to paying the inflated tier. DON'T DO IT! If you have a premium acct, dump it and go basic or better yet, just leave SL. Log in to visit friends and explore new worlds, SL isn't worth getting so upset over.

I may be able to help you out for land. Not sure what you are looking for in terms of location though. Contact me inworld and we can have a chat =) See if we cant figure something out.

I would sooner buy from LL and pay only the tier LL charges,i seem to go over this over and over,but i'm glad to see there is more discussion about us renters
I paid $500 for my OS so he got his initial cost back and charges me $45 on top of the $75 monthly tier.
When the OS become HS and the price increase is complete,i will be paying $51 above the $125 tier
Who i am with, i know is not going to disappear overnight.i know my HS (OS) will be safe and i will not find myself homeless
I would love to find a more reasonable price regarding the extra above the tier i must pay,(meaning the estate owners profit)
But i'm afraid like you say how do i know they won't disappear overnight.
I have said so many times in this forum,i wish LL would sell homesteads to individuals who are not estate owners
Maybe the raise in tier is a rip off but we get ripped of in two ways,first the tier increase,then the profit the estate owners charge us,so we pay way more than the tier increase,$176 for me when it goes up to $125 + exchange to US currency on top of that
At least if LL would sell homesteads to non estate owners then we would be paying only what the increase is and no more
I don't like it but i can afford the $125,but with the estate owners profit thrown into the mix then it becomes unaffordable,I know,i know LL started all this,but i am just saying this increase is less affordable with profits piled on top
I know that might anger estate owners but we renters are people with needs too and also can only afford so much before it becomes too much

Hey, you got it with very less words, great. This is what 99% of all OS owner think about the Lindens rip-off. Really, really, really ..... outrageous.

Everything would be ok if the lindens would increase the performance and the prim limit of the Homesteads too. But more pay and less performance - no way!!
The performance of the OS is less enough, for the currently price of the sim. Believe me i have tested it out very well.

I think it's time to find an alternative. Maybe it is OPEN LIFE. Of course, they are very new and have a lot of bugs in their software, but i had a lot of troubles in SL too (for expl. since the last update the viewer freeze every 30 minutes). If i have to pay for troubles, i can do it in OPEN LIFE too, and this 4 times cheaper.

Thank you Lindens, you destroy a lot of hard work from a lot of people!!

some can't afford that large up front cost that is associated with buying private estates while others simply will not live mainland due to lack of control if issues arise.


I cannot tolerate the idea of mainland as you never know who your neighbor will be, if it's unacceptable then you have to either wait to sell or simply abandon with no change of regaining back at least a portion of the purchase price and if sim stats start to drop....it's gamble if anyone from LL will respond to your ticket in a timely fashion. With estate, I can request a move at not extra charge or the person possibly broke covenant and will be told to vacate/be moved. Sim problems and I have a manager there to help in a timely fashion.

Of course, experience of others may vary. I'm on my third estate owner via rentals and only had problems with the very first one. There are trustworthy ones out there and it's always recommended to "shop around" before you settle. Research a bit, ask around, see what the sim owners have already established, IM them or their manager and ask questions.