Massive OS sim abandonments

In your opinion. Me, I don't think in terms of "building a giant club", I think "getting a whole sim worth of space for $95, and no neighbors... hot damn!"

In your opinion. Me, I don't think in terms of "building a giant club", I think "getting a whole sim worth of space for $95, and no neighbors... hot damn!"
The cheapest quarter sim I see listed is L$67830, as much as the setup fee for an OpenSpace, and it's a horrible gerrymandered parcel with holes in it and landcuts along the edge. Similar cheapies are, well, cheap for a reason. You're looking at over L$100000 to get a decent parcel.

Mainland costs more than OpenSpaces to buy.

You pay less tier per square meter, or more tier per prim. If prims are what matter to you, then buy mainland. If space is what you're after, then $95 is still a bargain. No gerrymandered parcels, no holes, no landcuts, no giant toilets...

100k is approximately the same as the setup fee.

but you can recover that money when you sell it.

Prims are more valuable to me than meters in almost all instances.

100k is approximately the same as the setup fee.

but you can recover that money when you sell it.

Prims are more valuable to me than meters in almost all instances.

Wish i could get a homestead for $95.for those of us who rent it is not $95

and on top of that 20% exchange to US funds.

Are you sure about this? You get charged 20% just for changing currency?

Dear Argent and All,

For me the matter is not what is a rip-off or what is of value. The question is: "Do I trust the Lindens to keep their word?" And the answer is a resounding NO!

I paid $1695 USF for my private estate early in 2008. Two weeks later LL dropped th price to $1000, so I lost $695 right off the bat. I took the el cheapo OS as a sort of consolation prize, hoping to break even one day. Which I may have been able to do eventually, but not when they raised the OS tier.

Further to trust issues. I asked again and again if I could build on, run scripts on, hold events on the OS and the conceirge phone folks always told me what I was doing was just fine and dandy. Again, they say one thing one day and something else the next day when they go to raise the rates.

I don't trust LL not to suddenly raise rates on the full sim -- without warning and without cause. Or to drop the set-up fee on full sims to $100 tomorrow without warning and without reason.

This not an economy. This is chaos. It is impossible to make any financial plans at all in such an environment.

Think about it. Some people are paying more tier to LL then they are paying in rent or mortgage on their own homes. I figured it out. For what I dropped this year in OS I could have leased office space and opened a meditation centre in real life.

This is really just a computer game that LL is trying to turn into something more. But if they want it to be something more they have to support the people who are creating this new world of theirs and not do us down whenever they want more money. Especially as the money is being used to encourage the RL giant corps to come into SL.

I think I have been done down and done over very badly. I was a fool and I freely admit I let LL con me into giving them thousands of my RL dollars. Once shame on them, twice shame on me. I am not giving them a third chance to prove me a fool. I've already done that quite thoroughly.

We are losing 2 of our OS over the current price increase. 2 OS are remaining as Homesteads at the 95$ mark.

Said Homestead owners say they cannot afford more than that, and the remaining 2 sims will be abandoned come July if the 125$ increase is implemented.

LL has forgotten who pays the electric bills, the salaries, etc... Hope they figure it out fast and abandon the next increase, or they'll be awash in unused servers no matter where on the grid they place them.

The setup fee is $250, which is more like 70kL than 100kL. And this is at a historical low water mark in land prices, thanks in part to OpenSpaces.
Tell that to the people who bought at 10L/m and are now trying to unload land at 3.5L/m. Now, personally, I think 10/m was insane and most of my land I got at 5-7L/m, but it actually got over 20L/m at one point.
So why do you care about the price of OpenSpaces, since by your reasoning even at $75/month they were NEVER as good a deal as mainland? The fact that you do care means they WERE a better deal, no?

If you paid that much there is a serious issue...

depends on the market... but when selling an openspace/homestead you are guaranteed a $100US loss minimally.

You'd have to buy several mainland sims to get the kind of protection that you get for that extra twenty bucks a month with an OpenSpace.

It's not always 20 bucks though is it,

it's more like 45 bucks

Mainland tier on a quarter of a sim is $75.

If you buy a whole sim, and count by prims, you need four OpenSpaces and the difference is $180... for which you get an extra three sims worth of space and no annoying neighbors. Assuming you can get a full mainland sim in the first place.

If you buy a whole sim and count by square meters it's $100 in favor of the OpenSpace... and will still be $70 in favor of the OpenSpace after the second price increase.

And that's not even counting the other advantages of islands, like unlimited terraforming and estate tools.

Seriously, if $75 wasn't an insanely great bargain they wouldn't have sold like they did. At the peak there were easily more OpenSpaces than mainland sims on all the continents put together... while mainland prices were dropping. You wouldn't *get* that kind of growth in just a few months if people didn't believe they were a terrific deal.

That is not a fixed cost, if you own a full sim worth of mainland it works out at less than $50.

Well if you have very deep pockets there are apparently mainland sims that offer these little advantages too.

There were allegedly more of them than full private estates, although I've never seen official confirmation. Of course they were popular, people want privacy, they afford privacy but privacy isn't how we are charged tier here.

Seriously, if $75 wasn't an insanely great bargain they wouldn't have sold like they did. At the peak there were easily more OpenSpaces than mainland sims on all the continents put together... while mainland prices were dropping. You wouldn't *get* that kind of growth in just a few months if people didn't believe they were a terrific deal.

But to try and raise the price as much as LL wants to will drop the demand for the product like a stone,if that is LL's intent,well,it worked.

One of the things they included in the survey they sent out to ex-premium members was the possibility of allowing premium members to buy Homesteads.

Mainland tier is less per square meter the more of it you get.
Which is the same loss you would get from ONE extra month's rent.

They were an insanely good deal. Now they're "just" a very good deal. Whether they'll be a good deal when they cost as much as half a region... I'm not speculating, but you are still getting quite a bit for the extra twenty bucks: you're getting four times the space, you're getting a guarantee that you're NOT going to get griefers moving in next to you (and yes that does happen). You'd have to buy several mainland sims to get the kind of protection that you get for that extra twenty bucks a month with an OpenSpace.

Well I still can't see how you can say they are still a good deal. They are absolutely the worst deal you can get in SL. Can you give me an example of a worse deal?

75 was a good deal... got what you would get mainland but with slightly less performance, but privacy.

There's a hell of a lot more you get from an OpenSpace or Homestead than simply the prim count, which is why the population of OpenSpace sims exploded the way it did.

Then why aren't they staying exploded?

Then why aren't they staying exploded?