Land claim/release question

I've been curious about this... when I buy land and release it immediately I am reimbursed what I paid for it. What happens when I buy land, sit on it awhile and surrounding property values rise?

Will I be reimbursed the original amount I paid or will I be paid the current value?

If I'm not mistaken...

Say you buy a little piece of land for $50. All the surrounding land goes up to $200. You release, you get what you paid -- $50. You decide to reclaim, you pay current cost -- $200 -- or $300 or $400 or $25 or whatever the cost is when you buy it back.

I think it would make more sense to get current value when you release. I'm not sure why you don't.

The other interesting thing, if you look at Hunter's script from the Q&A about the new release, is that your Net Worth is your current cash balance plus the *original* cost of your land and objects. Whether land costs have gone up or down. Would make more sense to me if current value was used here too.

But then, this is not real life, and maybe they're trying to avoid too many fluctuations.

These would be good questions for Philip's upcoming economic Q&A.

Kerstin

Thats what I thought. I think your net worth and the actual value should be based on surrounding property and the economy rather than what you locked in at. I plan to be at the meeting but if something comes up and Im not there, please bring it up.

While it would be nice to have values shift with "the times" the problem is that ppl would spend time trying to predict the market trends (hehe, sounds professional, but i only learned it when i realized that Bill gates is still number 1 on Forbes richest ppl, even after having his net worth drop more than 15 BILLION dollars, anyway...) and buying and selling land to make a profit. While that might make a neat game, it kinda detracts from the point of SL, even if i cant understand what the point is myself...so, unless u want to see random avatars that have Donald Trump's horrid hair piece, or Bill Gate's smug smirk, than i'd avoid selling on fluxuating prices. Heck, someone might figure out how to short the land prices (in SL, i have no idea how they might, but who knows what someone can sell to a poor schmuck w/ promise of insta wealth).

Well I don't think it would detract from the game. It would be a weird phenomenon now with the way my understanding of land values works. That is, the more land owned in a place, the less worth it is. This means that to get your land value to go up, you want other people to leave. Or am I missing something? If this is the case, it may turn into an incentive for griefing - get paid to scare off the neighbors.

Yes it does seem to be a supply & demand land market. Yes, some people might go to the trouble of buying & selling for profit but you'd really have to sit down & do the math to determine if your investment would reap profit AND you still could be wrong. If the market were dynamic it could also go the other way and you could take a loss.

The current SL players are skilled. Skilled at scripting, textures, building and entertaining. When the game goes live and Joe (or Jill) average signs up they may not have any skills. This would add a new dimension of play for those who wanted to go that route.

I'll bring up again that SL is supposed to be limited to our imaginations. I see the current land market as a limitation.
Granted it may play into the whole economic system in ways I am unaware of but I would like to see it explored as a future option.