End or Fix First Land

summary of this thread:

OMG NEWBIES GOT "SCAMMEd" OUT OF 3$ US!

i think the focus should be on the money supply, not first land.

Well, no, not in the past month. I came in-world at the end of October, upgraded to premium a week later, and bought my First Land (in Leafroller, a new undeveloped sim) a few days after that. In mid-December, I bought a larger 1136 plot next door (just over the sim border in Lappet, as it happens) from a land baron, sliced off 16 and gave it to a neighbor to get into the 1024 tier with group bonus, and sold my original First Land to one of my next-door neighbors for L$3800.

So... how has it all worked out? The original sim has consolidated into a smaller number of hands; it was all First Land originally, but only a couple of 512 plots are still left. Many of the land owners in Leafroller are original settlers who bought out one or more neighbors to expand their holdings. It's still a hodgepodge of buildings, not nice and neat and planned like Dreamworld, but it's a living settlement and the neighbors get along.

About half of Lappet is now owned by one person, who bought it all from the land baron when he got tired of holding onto so much land. As a result, much of it is green space, with lovely swaying trees. The rest of it is in the hands of smaller holders like me. Again, we all get along.

My point... the First Land program seems to have worked out well for the people in that area. The ones who stayed got a jump start on buying land with the inexpensive plot. The ones who left got fair prices, mostly from neighbors. Leafroller had those rotating signs briefly when it first came up for sale, but so far as I know nobody sold their First Land plots to speculators -- and that happened despite the fact that we were mostly new players. Based on our experience at least, the program isn't broken.

No, $3 is just for one newbie. If we wanted the headline to read pluraly, it would read something like,

"OMG NEWBIES GOT 'SCAMMEd" OUT OF $30,000 US/month AND GROWING AT AN EXPONENTIAL RATE!"

Imagine what LL could do with the money lost through first land scamming.

Nice bit of public service there. $L6000 might be a bit much for people in a first land area on a hillside (LL seems to love hillside plots these days) to expect.

and i would still roll my eyes because "SCAMMEd" was still in quotations.

End or Fix Hiro Pendragon.

Hey all. Author of the thread referenced earlier complaining about the landsharks and griefers. Hoping to merge that one into this, as they're related (but not quite the same).


This was actually next to my house for a short while. I supported their existance too, because, on the OTHER side of my house, was this:

I really can't stand these, and I'll elaborate on my plight in this matter.

While musing over solutions for the problems that arise surrounding the concept of "First Land", I too came to the conclusion that, perhaps, a time limit should be in place preventing the sale of first land for a certain period of time to prevent the land sharks from jumping on newbies to buy their land for a meager price. Upon further reflection of this proposal I realized it would simply make the land sharks show up later rather than immediately and thus would not solve the problem. It would also make it impossible for neighbors who wanted to expand their land to do so.

While I am still brainstorming additional methods of resolving this issue, the only preventative method of stopping a new land owner from being "scammed" out of his land is to perhaps require that First Land be put up for sale for no less than 5 $L/sq.m, or a warning box popping up to inform the owner when they attempt to sell their land of it's real value...or both.

While it's unfortunate that new players get scammed, this is not the reason for my concern in this matter. New players getting scammed give the land sharks additional land with which to operate. I'll give you all a quick once over, play-by-play style, of my dilemma:

Me: "Hmm, SL seems fun. I suppose I'll upgrade to a premium account for a year. Oh, I get land now. I suppose I'll buy some and go read up on it before doing anything."
*buys a 512 plot of land and reads up on the matter, fully aware of the value of the land itself*
At this point everything seems hunky-dory, right? Then I get a message from someone wanting to buy my land for 1500. No. So, what does this land shark do instead? He says to himself, "Oh, he doesn't want to sell? Ok then, I'll just buy up all the land around him from anyone stupid enough to sell for 1500 and them make all the land I now own so crappy he'll want to move and sell me his land anyway! Mwhahaha!" That means he places as many spinning spam boxes on any land he owns, and any land he them aquires either through newbs not knowing the prices of the land itself, or through people who are leaving because they're tired of looking at the spinning spam boxes. Then he says, "Hahah! I made your land not worth living on and you can't do anything about it because you only have a 512sq/m account! Now I'm going to go back to my 8000sq/m lot where I don't have to look at anything I don't want to and no one can grief me, hahahah! I pwn j00! lolololol!!1111" ect. This is the same type of tactic large land companies would employ earlier in America. Buy up as much land as you can in an area, and then force out anyone who won't sell by making the surrounding area look like crap. It's why areas are now zoned as residential, commercial, and industrial. We take for granted these days that when we move into a home, our neighbor isn't going put up a giant lighted billboard aimed directly at our house that spams us with advertisements. Those are limited to the commercial districts.

In this thought process, I question why certain regions (zones) cannot simply be given an attribute of "Residential" or "Commercial" and "Industrial". This doesn't mean make ALL the sims have these tags. Leave those who want to live in a hodgepodge to do so. Some may want the flexibility to change what they have on their land at any time. Those who want to open a store can go buy on commercial land and not have to worry about anyone complaining about advertisements. Those who wish to live in a quiet neighborhood can find a residential sim to inhabit. Those interested in...heck, I'm not really sure what you'd do with an industrial zone, but I'm sure there are those out there looking to build their military base with helicopters or space jets or something. I'm rambling here but you see my point. Someone could even buy a commercial lot, place a store on it, and add a second floor as an apartment, provided you don't mind the environment...

Now, immediately upon my happening upon an idea, I try to find all flaws in it, or as many as I can. Devils Advocate would point out that trying to police such issues would become a real pain. While considering this, I concede that it would likely be a pain, although, compliance would still be required. Failure to do so would either result in a fine (as is the way in the real world) or forfieture of the land by a Linden intervention if prior warnings were given. Since losing land will not remove the user from the game and not limit their gameplay, it's better than being banned, but I suppose both could suffice. Ultimately, when buying into such a form of land, I'd want a warning window to pop up from the client to address such matters to the potential land owner about what types of objects are appropriate in the zone. No one is going to want to pay money for land, and then money for land fees, only in an attempt to upset their neighbors and have their land revoked. All rather complicated, yes, but such is life, and Second Life.

The images posted earlier are in a zone named Areumdeuli (which we call Areum). In an attempt to counteract such boxes, barred entry and land tolls we've formed the Areumdeuli Civic Association as a way to maintain our zone and communication among neighbors. Below is the group's description:

Organization created to develop a sense of community among those living and doing business in Areumdeuli while maintaining a sense of order and decency.  We oppose public advertisement (spam) and barred entry of land through toll or access lists.  We strive for a peaceful and tolerant sense of community.
We understand the need for privacy and encourage skyboxes over accesslists.

Anyone reading this who is a land owner in Areum and agrees with the above statement is welcome to message an officer for an invitation into the group.

In the end it's really in an individual's best interests (and likely what I'll do in the future) to purchase a large chunk of land (say, an 8th or 16th of a sim) and build a good chunk of whatever they like in the center of the land and leave the rest wooded or simply barren. This way you can see your environment and nothing someone else has placed right on the property line of your land. :/ Makes sense for me though, I'm going to cancel my cable TV subscription and put the money towards SL instead. I play it so much I stopped watching TV anyway! :) For the moment I've land in Areum with a growing community of individuals who really want to make it a nice place to live, and another 512 plot in a PG, group trust owned sim where I know the guidelines by which all my neighbors will abide (or be thrown out of the group and lose their plot of land).

--Fox

but i do agree it's turned into a breeding ground for unscrupulous people.

that is to say it's attracting scum to sl.

i think the best way to fix that problem with first land is to make first land like renting land in the private sims. or make it such that first land reverts back to ll for a full refund when new users are done with it.

This is why I think SL needs "low density" sims. I don't recall who came up with this idea but it's been increasingly growing on me. Same number of prims, but 1km by 1km, and parcels 16x the size. They'd have to be in the "islands" for now, since LL can't connect multiple sims to one sim edge, and they'd seem prim starved by current standards, with "wasted" land, but I think they'd have interesting properties.

Maybe they could give them a region corner with a big Z offset?

Great Post Fox! I didn't know that people were actually alerting First land owners in this way. I love it! Maybe a better solution to first land not being able to be sold in a certain time period, would be some sort of notecard of knowledge given to First Land buyers about how much their land could be worth if they were to be resold. The reason I say this is because, some may choose they don't want to stay with SL and decide they want to sell in a hurry and may want to sell quickly.