New players not well informed about buying land in player run estates

If I was a new resident, I would be REALLY confused about the type of land ownership available in SL. Should it be LL's responsibility to inform new residents about the pros and cons of player run estates? I think so. Especially in light of the recent billing bungles (there were several, not just one let's remember AND they weren't on LL's part) that have happened in the last few weeks which put many resident's virtual homes at risk for complete annihilation. I thought Ordinal's post deserved it's own thread.

...thanks for the compliment, though, um, it must be said that someone else pointed out that that could be confusing as well, because you can buy mainland from another player, and it does become yours. It's more "the only land you really own is the land that you go through the land buying interface to buy". Or "the only land you own is the land you can see on your land page".

Which is another reason why the word "buy" shouldn't be used for any situation where you pay money to somebody, but they still actually own the land and can take it back from you at any time.

I will give this point a priority through the processing system in the queue of articles that I am currently working on for a large "fansite" project. I think it is essential that people realise that they are, in effect, getting nothing for something when they do not actually buy the land themselves through the buy land tool, and have no recourse or actual rights to the land or any monies paid for it.

Preying on newbies naiveity is probably the lowest form of gameplay out of all the scams and griefing tactics that there are out there - and the fact that one of the largest names in the land business not only supports it but carries it out on a daily basis is, at least to me, a great cause for concern.

Lewis

Totally agree. I think this will become a rather huge mess for LL when/if one of these large player run estates goes down permanently. They will be flooded with customer complaints.

Yes but Ingrid, as a new resident, your user would be old, experienced, and intelligent enough to not dive head first week one into spending hundreds of US dollars without taking the time to travel, observe, talk, read, and possibly rent until you figured it all out.

New residents are adults with graphics cards and broadband. Give them some credit.

Nice fantasy.

Feel free to correct me with your opinion of new residents and thier capabilities.

Because unfortunately, not all will bother to take the time to research their options. Also, some don't REALIZE that there are options. I was lucky because when I started here, I had a friend who said, "Okay.. first rule: Don't pay RL money to another player. Always pay it to Lindens. At least with the Lindens, it might go into maintaining staff and servers. With a player, it goes to lining their pockets."

Okay, it was a bit callous, but you know, it at least made me do some research.

You're asking the guy who doesn't understand how the average person gets through the day without accidently maiming themselves for his opinion on new residents?

Get out of my mind! Now!
I mean, I've always held that opinion of most pc users.

Your talking to a guy who's constantly being told that he give people too much credit for assuming that they accept responsibility for looking after themselves.

Exactly I think people are by and large defective. You are an optimist. I don't think we can agree on this issue.

I'm a bit confused about this whole issue and I've been around for 2 years, rented from LL island owners both.

The section of the mainland that anshe bought way down in the South East, does that work like an island continent (ie estates), or like mainland that's being resold? I seem to remember when it was auctioned off that it was going to be estate for something like 2 weeks in order to get it ready, and then turned into mainland owned by the purchaser to be used or sold like normal mainland.

It sounded like one or two people confused about whether they owned the land or not had been told that if it's on the mainland, they own it, but where finding out otherwise on that small branch of the main continent. It also sounded like they were paying tier directly to LL in addition to paying anshe?

So if it does look like mainland and the tier is payed to LL... can she still evict people?

If they're the ones I am thinking of, they do own them. If they pay tier to LL, then they own them; they may have paid Anshe to purchase the land after she had developed it.

If I remember correctly, Anshe also does some buying/reselling in the Real Estate market. By developing it a bit, she'd be able to resale it at a profit.

For the record and with regard to the above debate on individual capability:

I think most people are incapable of making anything more than rudimentary connections between information and drawing useful conclusions. The problem is even bigger when the information is dependant on context. This leads to the inability to understand instructions, misinterpretation of factual information, the inability to determine if information is fact opinion or fiction, and a weak grasp of cause and effect. The affore mentioned failings also lead people to make incorrect estimates of their own critical thinking and intuitive abilities.

Also for the record I am one of those most people occasionally. Mostly when I haven't slept.

I think the above deficiencies are correctable. I think most people could use their brains and just choose not too. That brings up a philisophical point about whether or not the choosing itself is hardwired in. I see people working through a line of thought that makes sense, only to abandon it completely when something unexpected happens rather than trying to understand what caused the unexpected thing to happen. It's like watching someone trying to complete a maze, making a single wrong turn, and deciding that the maze is unsolvable.

How much a person is interested in something is also important. I just frequently find it hard to believe how dissinterested some people must be in just about everything .

As far as emotions enter into it, they shouldn't be involved in thinking. Unless you're a sociopath, you have emotions but they do not have to stop you from thinking. You should be able to reach a conclusion you don't like.

If you are offended by any of the above you should try asking yourself why. Then again, if you are offended by any of the above, you may not be able to or it might not do you any good.

Nobody owns land in SL--except for LL. (And depending upon whether they lease or own their servers--LL may not even own it.)

LL and Anshe Chung both require an up-front purchase cost--and monthly tier payments. If you fail to make your tier (i.e., rent) you are off your land. That's not land ownership. Tier is not even analogous to RL property taxes. Where would you pay property taxes that ran (on average) more than twice the value of the property every year? It's rent.

LL and Anshe Chung both run a risk of insolvency. LL is still not running at a profit; Anshe Chung apparently is. On the other hand LL just got eleven million in venture capital funds.

Either could kick you off "your" land for violations of their Terms of Service--though LL will kick you out the world as well.

So whether you lease from LL, or sub-lease from Anshe Chung, it's all rent…

It is all rent, but to me there is a fundamental difference. If your land goes poof on the mainland, owned by LL, chances are, it's because SL is no more, and the entire grid is gone. That is far less likely to happen than a large player run estate owner to lose interest in LL, for whatever reason, and decide to "bug out" of sl.

LL is also far less likely to have billing problems with itself resulting in the loss of your land because they missed a payment date to themselves. Sure, they have bills to pay, but so far, I haven't seen them have to sell off a bunch of their own sims (or whatever it takes to rectify a billing problem of that magnitude) in order to keep the grid up and running. I can't say that about SOME of the large player run estate owners.

If you want to sell the land you bought from LL, chances are you'll be able to do that, and recoup some of the cost you initially paid, as long as Second Life is still around and up and running.

If LL goes down, so does the resident landlord. If the resident landlord goes down, LL are still there. There is a difference.

For the record, I would like to add that there are many PROS to having land in some of these estates. Zoning is one of them. But there still seems to be some misunderstandings about them, as we continually see questions in the forums from residents about their landholdings on these estates.

I agree that they have a lot to offer, but I am biased

I am with you on the misunderstandings too, they cause problems for me. I have had people go elsewhere before because I won't 'sell' them the land, no matter how much I point out they have exactly the same minus the marketing semantics. It seems that some are willing to pay to be able to say they 'own' the land *shrug*

I think it's because there is more of a perceived risk involved. And frankly, it is riskier to put your money in the hands of a player over LL. On the upside, some of these estates are really very nice looking.

I meant that some people are more willing to put the money in the hands of a resident that charges a purchase price over 'renting' from one that doesn't, just so the resident can state they 'own' it. It is a minority that has that mindset, but it's still very common.

ahh.. got it.

Yes there is. But it is not the difference between "buying" and "leasing". I "own" land on the mainland myself--but if I wanted a zoned and maintained residential community, I'd be buying in Dreamland--or one of Anshe's various competitors.