Moratorium on first land

The solution to the first land troubles is simple, IMHO.
I won't even bother to debate this, I'll leave that to others.

New Rule should be:
"First land cannot be resold before 90 days after it's purchase."

...and do not use a countdown or variable that is easily seen, or detectable with a script, or a wierd color on the map, nor anything like that. It should happen quietly, and only the owner should know when it's available. Immature first land needs to be indistinguishable from any other land not for sale.

I better this thought.stop giving first land. This will stop the abuse!

Oh I like that idea. Then the rich folk (like me) will have all the land, and the poor new players will have to bow down and accept our table scraps MUAhahahaha!

OK, enough joking. A 90 day quiet Moratorium is the way to go.

Look at all alts taking first land in 30 days sell it then move on to the next avie. Oh i forgot the alts also taking al the money off the money trees as well.
This goes on and on......sign up after 30 days or so sell off the first land. Then move on........

A throttle on multiple first land purchases from the same machine or IP address would do a LOT more to prevent abuse, and have MUCH less impact on ordinary players.

(90 days now? The previous 45 day proposal wasn't draconian enough?)

I think the 45 day one was plenty, as it would require at least two premium payments, thus making it no longer profitable to try to abuse the first-land system.

I picked 90 days out of the air. It seemed a reasonable length of time for anyone who was serious about OWNING first land and not just trying to flip the property. Withe the double payment, 45 days now seems reasonable. I amend my idea to a 45 day plan.

As I understand it, this idea has been proposed before. Does anyone know why it didn't go through? Or if any action was ever taken on it? Or what happened with it? I can't seem to find it in any of the archives. I'm very curious to know the fate of the old idea if anyone can tell me.

At one time, I thought First Land was available to only ONE person, regardless of how many accounts.

This issue has been brought up many times and the official answer is always the same. This is not abuse. It cost a min of 10USD to get an account the can buy first land. That's a lot of money for 512 sq m. True they also get a stipend that if you buy a year's worth at a time might make enough to pay for the account. But the bottom line is, if they are willing to pay for a premium account, then they are entitled to first land

That might be for those real newbie accounts. But those that make accounts to abuse other parts of second life over and over again creating signing up picking money trees taking the first land reselling it. Then after 30 days so cancelling the account. and then start the whole process over again show the system is being abused and somethng needs to be done about it. If that means stopping or putting a time on the land which it can be sold so be it. The abuse continues.........

Not if the use paypal as the information online. cancelling and remaking accounts. Its what money tree pickers ( tree farms )do. I saw this when we had a tree on our land. I still getting those pest money tree (farmers )abusers coming and over again thinking there is a money tree even after over 2 months after i removed it. Also remeber visa, or master cards AA prepaid CC serves another source they are using. The situation of firstland is a just a mess nowadays.

It's NOT a reasonable length of time for someone to be unable to expand his first land parcel by buying parcels from his neighbors, or for someone who finds his first land surrounded by aggressive neighbors or absentee ban lines, and wants to sell out and buy land elsewhere.

I can't imagine why anyone would want first land if it meant they were tied to the land like a medieval serf for three months.
Because it fundamentally changes First Land from a way to get people started in land ownership (which includes selling the land, buying more land, and so on), into a long term low prim sandbox. And you can get a MUCH better deal on that by renting on an island estate. For the $10.00 a month you pay for First Land you can get at least than twice as much land, fully terraformable, with a responsive landlord and no chance of a casino or camping hole opening up beside them.

At one point Linden Labs set up a 9 sim managed First Land with a variety of restrictions, called Shermerville. Within a couple of months it had been reduced to 6 then 4 sims, mostly empty.

Bottom line is, the present system allows people to farm new premiumn accounts for profit. First land is intended to encourage people to become participating community members, but the present system allows new acounts to flip the land for profit and then downgrade the account, throw it away, and start over to flip a new account exactly the same way. This isn't good either for customer retention, or indeed, for LL's bottom line.

absolute minimum of a 45 day moratorium of selling any land purchased as first land, although I'd prefer a 90 day moratorium.

This only applies to land purchased as first land. If a newbie purchases land at normal rates, they aren't tied to holding it for 90 days, although that (and deeding their land entitlement to a group) would remove their right to buy a piece of first land.

really, I'd like to see first land remaining available unless and until you actually buy a designated first land parcel (ie deed to group and purchase regular land do not cancel your first land entitlement). however, I don't know how hard that would be to program in at this stage.

If and when LLabs decides that first land is nolonger serving the purpose of the intented useage. There will be continue abuse with this issue..We need a better problem solving ending this this problem.

90 days 60 day.this might not be the answer. Because those that are abusing the system will continue to do it. Reguardsless

A long time ago I had a first IM me and asked me if i could own land? he had first land to resell. I said well i had no intention at the moment to own ( so i could not ). You know what he told me? He said MAKE A ALT.Now mind you this person is indeed a very greedy ( and they are in the sellers gild as well ) person if selling first land this way and making a profit off it. Sad fact is that its these older player just like those picking money trees ( money tree farms ) that are causing problems throughtout the game these days. ( they are just adapting to the the new system and then learning to cheat with another set of rules.
We need change and big change. The current system just doesnt server the amount and style how people are the users base now. Infact abusive problems are occuring will llabs stop such abuses? Well will see very very soon.......

Its not creative thinking these people are doing to make money. Its Creative Cheating To Make Money!

I think its very reasonable, they are only paying 512L for the land $2us currently. Thus if they want to move before the 90 days. They can abondon the land. It would then go back to being "First Land" if abandoned before the time is up. It is not like they are loosing $10, $20, $40. in which they would pay for something that size currently.

First land is there for the newbies and not to turn to make profit. I would like everyone to remember that. 90 days will help solve this problem of others making alts for a profit. Anyone that says otherwise your just one of those greedy land flippers in my opinion.

Cute.But the facts are its happening. and yes your correct its for newbies, but really how many newbies are there on sl!

You're missing something important here. I am not saying that they shouldn't change anything, I'm saying that they should make the change that causes the least damage. Throttling first land per IP or machine address would be a more effective method, without screwing up the first land experience for everyone.

A great "first land" experience, that. You pay your US$10 to upgrade to premium, blow your chance to get first land, and end up US$12 in the hole for nothing.

Yes, they are, they're losing $12, and the ability to get First Land.

Come in world and talk to me and tell me I'm a "land flipper".

I still own my First Land. A friend of mine and his partner bought First Land next to each other, then he talked me into joining up, so I got the next parcel and we called all our friends in and managed to get several more lots nearby. We talked to our neighbors, bought some of their lots and swapped with other lots in other cases.

When land nearby was abandoned and went to First Land we talked to the buyers, and bought their parcels... at this time the Land Barons would typically descend on a FL sim and offer newbies L$2000 for a parcel, we were paying L$4000 or locating good parcels for them elsewhere in the world and swapping. After a while we had people watching for FL near us... including at least one bloke who owns two islands but had never bought FL because he didn't think it was worthwhile... because they liked the area we were building.

THIS is learning land ownership and building community. Keeping FL as a maze of twisty little 512 square meter plots isn't.

From a newbie...

I've only been around since 12/26. I'm afraid I'm already addicted and am exploring every aspect of SL including scripting, clothing, building - and socializing. I want very much to be a participating member of the community. I want very much to get my First Land. I believe I am exactly the originally intended target for first land and was, in fact, promised first land by LL in their marketing write-up for a paid membership.

My opinion, then, is that first land somehow needs to be available almost immediately to all TRUE first timers. I would not at all mind a time constraint - really of any length - before I could sell that land. Owning first land does not preclude me from buying additional land BUT I can not buy ANY land until after I've purchased my first land or I forfeit my rights to buy the first land. This just isn't right when there is no first land available. It doesn't matter to me what the problem is, I just know that in the current environment - the original targets for first land are not only NOT being helped -- they are being actively hurt. It just ain't right. I'm really tired of searching for first land every few minutes only to come up empty.

Hopefully I understand the rules and have not misstated here. Please let me know if I've misunderstood. I'd like to buy land but don't want to forfeit my rights to buy first land so I'm renting and trying to hold out. I personally think that first land should be available ONCE to each human person on their first account, period.

Thanks for reading the rant from a frustrated newbie!

Then do what I did, and rent on an island... I've had my parcel on LostFurest dAlliez much longer than I've had my First Land. I can't recommend the dAlliez islands enough... Alliez Mysterio is an active and responsive landlady, and renting a parcel there is actually cheaper than just paying for a premium account and paying tier on the land (let alone buying it!), and you don't lose your "first land" rights.

I wasn't renting to "hold off" buying first land: I had no intention of ever going premium and buying land on the mainland, not after visiting a few First Land sims and talking to the people who lived there. First Land that you can't expand is frustrating because of the low prim limit and postage stamp parcels. A hold on resale would make the already cramped and crowded First Land sims even worse: even more of the parcels would be occupied by absentee landowners than are now, since they couldn't sell to someone who actually wants to do something with the land (such as, for instance, their neighbors). For the longest time we had a row of parcels with ban lines up on two sides, and there was nothing to do but wait for months for the land to be abandoned so Guy Linden could come take the ban lines down. On First Land sims that seems now to be more the rule than the exception.

Keeping swoopers from buying First Land by keeping them from using the same IP to buy FL twice would be at least as effective, without making First Land more of a ghetto than it is now.