FirstIsland

It would be impossible to prevent alts from taking advantage of this. I can think of 3 totally easy ways to get as many first sims as I want, and I wasn't even trying.

Because there's no sense of community any more... Everyone with money to spend gets an isolated island and creates discontinuity. What was once a growing community has become a mass of tiny enclaves (and a few larger) of cliques.

So when you voted no, you meant yes? or no?

As I understand it, Linden Lab basically takes a loss as it is on the price of servers. We need Linden Lab to not go bankrupt.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a business practice of offering premium features to users who spend more money. That's the way most things in the world work; we're not in a communist republic. Linden Lab has done better than that - saying that they will implement the same features from private islands on the mainland, as well, given the time to implement this more tricky operation.

So, we're already getting a pretty damn good deal.

Starax - as for your comments, I don't think anyone will feel a raw deal, because people hosting their own servers will still have to buy the equipment and pay for what I am sure is an exhorbitant bandwidth rate. If anything, since Linden Lab does it in bulk, their rates will probably be *more* affordable than doing it yourself, at least at first.

Sorry, I know exactly how I would go about creating an free standing alt, and I know people who have. If you have a different name, different credit card, different email, and different ISP you are home free.

Opinion:

My buying First Land on my second premium account has nothing to do with this. When I purchase a legitimate SL account - and pay them $72 of my actual money each year of that account (which I have done twice, for two premium accounts) - my ability to purchase a 512 lot directly from the Lindens for 512 (worthless to them) Lindens is part of that account and not against the rules.

(In fact, it would be hard for them to have such a rule, unless they were willing to offer premium accounts without First Land at a lower price.)

In the case of First Land, the only problem is determining whether all those purchasing it are actually purchasing it on a legitimate account - that is, one that is within the number they are limited to, as defined by the personal (or household) limit.

Apparently, there are ways around this, and the Lindens don't care to take the time to find those people who actually break the rules - i.e., who buy First Land with premium accounts they weren't legitimately entitled to.

This reluctance is likely because the money they get from any illegimate alts ($9.95 a month) is more than worth any "loss" they incur from those accounts purchasing First Land. I put "loss" in quotes, because there is no loss. They get the monthly premium, and the 512 Lindens the land costs is burnt.

In fact, it's hard for me to understand how anyone could profit from flipping illegitimate First Lands, considering they would have to pay $9.95 for each one in the first place. It could be all the sales you see are just due to people buying First Land in the normal way, then others wanting to buy it from them.

However, in the case of Islands, they sell for cash money in the first place, and a pretty penny, at that.

If the Lindens gave a discount on one's First Island, they would actually in fact LOSE say, $500, at 50% of the $1000 real money they would have received for that island.

That would make it necessary to have a rule that it is only one island per customer, not per legitimate account, forever; the end. And still it would be difficult if not impossible to prevent people from getting more than one First Island anyway.

Moreover, with $500 of real money at stake for any island purchasers, the motivation to cheat on any such limits would be high for some, and I'm not sure any system exists that could completely control for this.

That is what I meant when I said the alt problem would be the problem with this idea.

coco

So by your understanding of the rules, if First Island worked under the same rules as First Land, it would be perfectly OK to for you and your alts to each buy an island sim for the $500, and then turn around and sell it for $750, or $1000 (still a savings to the end purchaser)?

While I agree with you that there should be incentives for multiple private island ownership, it is very common for companies to offer incentives for first time users of something. Honestly, the main reason I have never gotten a private island, aside from not wanting to reward Linden Lab's piss poor custom support, is that I just don't think the upfront costs make sense, especially in their current form. Certainly reduced startup costs would be an incentive to get people to sign up (not that it seems they have had any problem anyway, as the private islands have done far better than I think they ever imagined).

I don't agree with Siobhan's solution, but I do agree there is a much more disjointed feel to Second Life than when she and I were n00bs. What I'd prefer to see is islands being more "fluid." IE, have an automated tool that allows people to attach / detach islands to one another to forum continents at will:

If owner A and owner B agree that their sims be connected on one side, make it happen automatically. If that involved shifting islands around on the map, so be it; map location isn't really crucial to islands. If either of the parties decides its time to disconnect, then do so automatically and re-separate. This, of course, gets more complex in continents, but you see where I'm going with the idea. Perhaps something like this could be worked into the revamped group system that is being worked out.

Also, I think allowing islands to attach to the mainland would be great. There are quite a owners of sims who have a "null edge" with nothing but ocean. While its a pretty view, I wouldn't mind have an old trust friends to the north of Indigo; and most of the color sims along the north of the original continent are owned by single owners. I'm sure the same is true of many sims facing "null edges".

Regards,

-Flip

Siobhan is right in one regard - I do think the private islands are too insular and discourage community, compared to the mainland. They definitely have to upside that you listed - but there is a cost to them as well - what we now have are a bunch of isolated gated communities disconnected from those around them - it is kind of isolating. As you spend most of your time in Le Cadre, it probably doesn't bother you. At least P2P has helped mitigate this problem somewhat, but I know whenever I go to a private island I still feel sort of cut off from the rest of SL. A lot of people don't like them for that very reason. The mainland, with all its faults, is far more interesting to me.

I wouldn't like to see them go away, however. I just personally don't like them that much.

Yes, that is what I love about Mavericks - it has remained a null edge sim on two sides, and I own the coastal land in Kelham on the third side so it is all contiguous. It has a secluded feel, without being isolated. I can hop in a boat and sail two sims over and see what Barnesworth and Co. are up to in Deimos, or sail all the way to Federal and revel in the fact that there is now a botanical garden on the grave site of Club Elite

Excellent point.
I agree with Prok, islands should be 1/2 price to new island owners.

/rubber_stamp

Great ideas.

Approval:+95.
Range: -100 to +100

Ah likes this idea! Has anyone posted it as a Feature Request?

Toodle-oo!

Be sure that you do not EVER log in on the same computer with your new 'alt' account though! As soon as you do, it may be associated with your main account. This goes for any friends you have playing or family members who may come over for a lil visit and use your computer.

I have a couple of accounts that were tied into my household of people that have never lived here, do not live here...and NEVER WILL live here. But they are forever stuck to this account.

Big Brother is watching .

Those would be ISP nabs then. There are a couple of ways to foil ISP addresses, including logging on from a computer at work.

islands should be free for everyone. we should just have to pay a small administrative fee to set it up. then monthly tier. one of the biggest hurdles people face in acquiring land is the intial cost.

Oh hey wait. I lived for 6 weeks with some folks here in SL while I was making my move, and I logged on every night from their house, on my own computer no less. No one noticed or cared.

I can´t imagine what hell could be LL datacenter to hold all that stuff, islands and processing units if they spend all the money buying hardware to set up a sim or island.

Well we were told that we were over our household account limit from LL when my wife attempted to create an alt account for accounting purposes LOL. They sent us an email with a list of avatars that were supposedly counted towards our 5 account limit. one was inactive and on the TEEN grid, and one belonged to a friend, and one belonged to her sister who is no longer living with us.

We were told that they had at some point all logged in from the same computer and were associated with our household.

Unfair if you ask me.

I totally agree with you on this. $1295 is a lot of cash.
That's my mortgage payment ya know?


But you have to start somewhere if you wanna play with the big dogs. LOL

I bet that LL would more than make their initial losses back. However, even if they did have the capital, they would have to wear some pretty thick armour if they were to contemplate this

you know what - it doesn't cost 5k to buy a dual opteron box. it's substantially cheaper than what they sell the 4 sims they load on it for. so i'm not sure the armour even has to be too thick.

I'd like to host my own sim locally. I can host a webserver and i have tested the metaverse software. Perhaps i'll just make my own virtual world lol.

I just don't see how people can keep paying that price for 65,536 sq m of virtual land. The price jump from a 512 parcel to a entire sim is just terrible.

I was thinking more for protection against all the residents that paid for sims

And yes, I can't see how they cost that much.