Why can't I find good land/neighbours in SL?

There is definately good land on the mainland, with good neighbours and community spirit. The problem is that they very rarely appear for sale because basically, the owners don't want to move out, and often if they do, they sell to the current neighbours in order to prevent "the wrong sort" of person moving in...

I rent land on my sim, Digital Nirvana. It is residential and I am open to limited commercial - this means that I'll allow 1 or 2 shops for the entire sim. I am lag-concious, so to speak. I use the sim for residential condos on the ground and very high in the sky, land rentals (only about 35% of the sim is allocated for land rental), and my work area. My rental fee is just a little higher than LL's tier fee. I do not allow security devices of any kind (except 'locking' doors), lots of particles, lots of flexis, etc. I have 1 corner plot (2 sides water -edge of sim) available now - all others are waterfront.

You can find the sim by using the map or check my profile under picks.

Good luck with your search!

I agree much of the Mainland Lands been a Eye Sore a few nice spots in between but not many i can say of. I've been in Sl over a Year now. When i first came to Sl my first home was in private lands because i did not want to be on the mainland at all it really did look like a landfill. I private land i had good neigbbours which are hard to find. I had good neighbours but i had a lot of constand lag to deal with from my neighbours and some over sized builds around. So soon i figured the best way i could build what i really want and controol who's my neighbour, builds or lag was to get my own Sim entirely. It would have been nice to get a sim with like minded frinds at that. However i felt it was just best to go it alone and get my own to prevent any futher problems down the road. I own the Sim Epsilon its still been worked on as i'm not usually around that much to work on my own land. But the cool thing is i own the whole thing and whenever i return i not have to worry about a new neighbour, lag or someone build even if i have not been around for two weeks encroaching on my land. Its has very log lag, its nicely landscaped land with builds i working on and over 1/8 of it forested because i can do that for everyone enjoyment of it. For me my sim is a Palace Realm and hopefully a place people can enjoy just been there. However i don't rent on my Sim at all to anyone, unless its someone i feel can add something really great to complement the land for people to enjoy i will allow it but no Rentals and Stores. It to be a place people can enjoy.

There are many great land and places in Sl you can find you just have to look, hard as it can be. However to alleviate you problem all togeather sometime you have to get your own land or get togeather with like minded friends who you know well and TRUST and own a region. Sometimes it takes doing that also.

Aetius

So what I hear you saying is that everyone else in SL needs to conform to what you feel is good building. Stop being a whiner. Maybe your neighbors think your build is horrid and can't stand to look at it. Other people are going to have different ideas about what they want to do in SL, so deal with it. If you want total control, buy an island.

Yes this is very true, I got my land in Bragg over a year ago and some obnoxious things have come and gone but over all it still looks pretty good and I like my neighbors. Trollhole is now over 10,000 sq m

I respectfully suggest you clean your ears because you aren't hearing what is actually being said.
No one suggested ever that 'everyone must conform to what I think is good'.
Simply giving a little thought to what you are doing and having respect for your neighbours would go a long.

Anshe Chung Studio's Dreamland:

The first - zoned and themed communities since January 2005
The largest - more than 130 sims
The most diverse - 18 communities ranging from completely unzoned to clearly defined cultural and architectural themes
The fastest growing - 30 sims added last month alone
The most popular - more than 1000 residents

People vote with their feet. Check it out yourself :-)

As we're on the subject of renting.... there is less security than ownership.

Stories such as this one do the rounds from time to time, because when you are dealing with a land baron (and this is any land baron) despite the claims, you do not actually physically own the land you are paying for, and could lose everything at any time for any or no reason should the owner decide to make it that way.

It's simply a case of figuring out which is better for you - paying slightly less money for some standard of neighbourhood, or paying a little more to risk bad neighbours but having total security. Buying land also has a resale value, of course, whereas rented land is the same as real life renting - throwing money away for nothing at the end.

In my opinion, buying land with protected on one or more sides (roadway, infohub, sim edge, water etc) or buying a larger plot so you can guarantee access from at least one side, is by far the better solution - and you have total control over what you can do there.

Lewis

This is - argueably - true. Please dont forget that, when "buying land" from Land LabI'll gladly concede that it is maybe more improbable that Governor Linden reclaims your land. But he could - and sometimes he does.

Any landlord who reclaims land and deletes the previous owner items, for example, is not actually bettering her reputation. And despite some ugly stories making the rounds there is usually two sides to such stories. I know of no incident with one of the better known real estate firms where the firm did something like that in violation of the respective contract. (When you are not paying tier, Linden Lab has a rather short probation period, too).

These incidents are actually very rare. We had not one so far at the OTHERLAND GROUP. And I know of only a handful of cases with the renowned firms. There are many Cheap Joes entering the market currently, though.

In the end it is all a matter of personal preference. If someone, like you, harbors a lot of distrust and antipathy to anyone doing business in SL, it is probably not a good idea for him, to leave the mainland. If someone does not share this attitude and wants a more controlled and protected environment for his home, leaving the mainland might be a better idea.

It is usually not always a matter of price alone. Living on the OTHERLAND Archipelago for example, is not that much cheaper than on the mainland. But the land is more beautiful, the neighborhood is friendly and our Covenant makes sure that it stays that way.

Trust me, I've looked at just about all of the private options.
Very few of them offer anything I cannot get on the mainland.

I still see bouncing red security text (often its more widespread on private sims) and many claim to be cheaper than LL but when you sit and do the maths more often than not, you pay the same and occasionaly more or less (depending on plot size).

I'm also not sure about the deal that I should "buy" land upfront that I am essentialy renting on one of these sims.
Surely if I want to rent, then I pay rent. In rl if I rent then I can expect to pay several months upfront - this I get back when I wish to leave though and I don't see this going on in SL.

At my current location I pay monthly rent - nothing else. Its $5 cheaper per month than LL.

This develops into a rather interesting thread. As I said in another reply: It is a matter of choice. Some residents find all they want on the mainland. Others don't. Having a choice is good.
This is expressly forbidden in our Covenant and in the contracts of some other firms, too.

While I don't see price as the main advantage of privately developed continents, I have not seen many offers which result in greater costs than going the mainland way. Have you read the contracts of the renowned real estate developers, Wanda?

We, at The OTHERLAND Group, do offer upfront/tier and pure rental contracts, for example. Tier payments are considerably less than rental payments, of course. And many of our competitors do it exactly like that. So, again, it is a matter of choice.
If you have not seen it, maybe you should take a second look. Because that's exactly what we offer. When you give back your land on The OTHERLAND Archipelago, we will pay back 75% of the initial price. (Which, together with the reduced monthly payments, makes for a rather good deal compared to pure rental.) And I know of competitors that offer similar conditions.

The model you are describing in your RL analogy is not uncommon at all in SL.

and i can put my shop there right?

This is from an advert your comapny is currently running:

   Rental rates for those who prefer to rent:
   - 2048sqm - $15 monthly - **LL tier price= $15 upto 2560
   - 4096sqm - $25 monthly - **LL tier price= $25 upto 4608
   - 8192sqm - $50 monthly - **LL tier price= $40 upto 8704
   - larger parcels andL$ rentals available
   
   

** added from:
http://secondlife.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Land+FAQ
of course you can say that with mainland you would need the initial investment to buy the land. But on an 8k block you are saving $10 a month going through linden land, no?

No, you can't! Because we are currently offering residential land only.

Some competitors are offering residential, commercial, mixed ... And we will be offering some commercial and mixed land soon, too. So, what was your question, exactly?

Wanda, forgive me repeating it, but I am talking about choice. When someone does not want to live near a shop, zoning make sure, no shops appear where there were none. When someone wants to have a shp near the house, that is possible on zoned land. When a purely commercial area is preferred - but without clubs - thats possible, too. And for those who don't like any rules at all, there is the mainland. Choice!

Might it be possible that you forgot to add the cost of a premium account (6$/month up to 9.95$/month, depending on payment plan). Without that premium account you won't get the added 512sqm you are referring to. By the way: I don't know what company you mean by "Your Company". These are not our prices.

Additionally, if I am allowed to repeat that: in my humble opinion it is not necessarily the price that is attracting people to leave the mainland. We at The OTHERLAND Group are not striving to offer the cheapest land in SL, for example. We leave that job to others.

Please let's not "fight" about this issue. There are many different options available these days for setting up a home in SL. I think it is good that all are available. Having these aditional options available does not take away anything from anyone prefering a different option.

My sincere appologies, I thought you were connected to another female who posted on this page but I see your prices are better.



I agree with this and I am actually willing to pay above normal rates to guarantee I can have a nice quiet place.
Sadly though as soon as I mention the word shop people stop listening.

It is very very wrong to assume that residential only areas guarantee any fewer lag inducing scripts or textures than commercial. In fact, my lag buster experience has taught me over the years that people are just as likely to kill both server and client rates in residential mansions as they are shops.

Most of my calls have resulted in having to tell people that they, not their neighbors, have packed four-hundred hi-res textures and seven-hundred active scripts on their 4096sm lot causing the lag that they and their neighbors are feeling. The usual reply is something along the lines of picking up one animated animal and asking if that will solve the problem because they couldn't bear not having all of their stuff around them.

LL, and the commuuuuuity at large, have woefully neglected to teach residents the limitations of the hardware and software on which Second Life is built. It's not possible for people to respect their neighbors on those points because they simply don't know how having no understanding of how it all works. It's like giving someone a time machine with five minutes of operational instruction and expecting them to know how to act responsibly in a venue where they've had no experiential exposure.

Just have fun, create, rez, don't worry about how many items are in your inventory, how large textures are, how many alphas you have stacked in your view, run those thousands of scripts til the cows don't come home, we'll take care of all the backend stuff with our infinity scalable architecture. Thus we have heavily invested land barons claiming that their sims are low lag simply because they're non-commercial.

Calling any build around you an "eyesore" is not "having respect for your neighbors". Going to them to "talk to them about it" simply because you didn't like the way it looks isn't either. And how dare they build something on their own land that sits near something on your land, the nerve of them! You should give them a list of acceptable behavior so they will know what they are allowed to do on the land that they pay for.

Sounds to me like you are the bad neighbor.

Yet again your ears seem to be not working. I refered to one large mess as an eyesore. I have many other buildings around me that I like a lot.

Nor do you truly 'own' any other type of land in SL. Effectively, you buy a license to rent from LL. Try not paying your tier, and see what you own.

It is somewhat hard for me to see any reason to start a fight about an issue like this. Of course both attitudes have their merits in some cases and can be condemned in others. And of course I have no right to judge my neighbors taste or lack thereof.

I guess, anyone living on the mainland has experienced neighbors who are simple rude while building, though. Residents who come into a rural or purely residential area, buy a 1024 and fill it edge to edge with a glowing, particle spewing sky scraper. Of course they are totally within their rights, when they do so. I would still call such a behaviour "rude".

In RL there are many rules and regulations that try to control the building behaviour. You may not like those rules when they prohibit you from doing what YOU want (happened to me, when I build a house some 3 years ago). These rules are not arbitrary, though. Actually they try to preserve a certain fairness between landowners in a neighborhood.

I have a different complaint. I searched hard for my second piece of land, and found a little oceanview property with quiet neighbors who held similar development views. No flashing lights, no bubbles floating into my living room. Unfortunately, this morning I awoke to find my ocean-- gone. A large land mass had been created during the night, leaving me with a puddle and some waves.

Obviously this has repercussions beyond the aesthetic. My neighbors and I paid more for oceanfront, and economically this hurts us. Do we cut losses and run before the gaudy strip joint goes up in front of us?

While the Lindens are certainly the dei ex machina of Second Life, and are bound by no restrictions, this seems an illadvised action in terms of customer relations We buy our land with a certain amount of faith. We hope for no large commercial buildings next door, but know that is a risk we take. However, to have the entire terrain changed as we sleep seems beyond the pall. There was no warning, there was no notification, and apparently there is no sense of responsibility to at least attempt to offer some conciliatory offer-- such as a lake, or something that maintains the integrity of what we purchased.


Mine is a small plot, one among many, but when you run a business, every customer is important. At least notify homeowners of pending changes.

Thanks for listening,
Lady Hightower

That is interesting to me about the waterfront property disappearing overnight, because I've been hesitant to invest in such property for exactly that reason. I have no idea what the "rules" are or if there are any when it comes to property that isn't a private island. None that I can tell.

It seems LL, or your neighbors, have the right to do whatever the hell they like with the surrounding land, so the only recourse is to rent on a zoned, private sim or buy an island/lots of land, if you want a controlled environment.

One of the problems I've noticed in my brief time in SL is that unless you are "in"-- a part of the business--you aren't really going to understand a lot of things and run the risk of being burned.
Apparently this is one of them.

I can accept these consequences to a certain extent, but it seems to me that LL shouldn;t be part of the problem.

The first land I bought as a first land buyer. was bought almost immediately from me for the same price because I failed to check something. The buyer was extremely nice when I contacted her, and returned the land, but there needs to be protection IF you want this to expand beyond the techsavvy. If people feel they are being taken advantage of, or manipulated, then many may be discouraged. SL should be fun, not someplace that feels like as if it mimics RL, worrying that you're being conned in every transaction.

I have found everyone here so far to be helpful and generous. This is the first time I have felt helpless against some unknown power. It's not pleasant, and it may prevent me from investing more time or money in SL-- which should be the bottom line for LL.

My partner & I got more than fed up with the mainland lag, not only from the sim we lived in, but lag that "drifted" over from the next sim (from 24/7 camping chairs, malls & casinos) - We now rent out extra space to help offset the $195 monthly fee; run a couple of clubs & have a great time. As in real life, yu just have to pay well to play well. Good luck & hugz )