A suggestion to naturally curb land prices...

We might be in a downward cycle for land finally (falling land prices), but that doesn't mean it won't happen again.

It would be nice if, upon purchasing a parcel of land that was over a certain amount per square meter (say, $6), a warning dialogue would come up, asking you if you're SURE you want to buy this land. Something along the likes of:

"Are you sure you want to purchase this land? Traditionally, even the most prime of land doesn't go for more than $6L/meter. This parcel sells for <insert math here>/meter. If you still want to purchase this land, press "yes"."

That would, at the very least, inform newbies of the land crisis going on, and prevent them from getting fleeced. I see too many parcels in "newbie areas" (boardman) going for ridiculous prices, and I don't want to see 500 people leave because they lost their allotment of cash to a land baron.

It'd be easy to implement, too.

Just a thought.

LF

I like this idea. In 1.3 it will tell you how much the land is per sqm, so you could figure out if its a good deal or not, however newbies will not really know wtf that means or may not even see it.

Maybe have a icon giving a thumbs up or thumbs down or stars or something like consumer reports does for showing how much of a good deal it is or not. So say if you have land for sale for 16L for 16sqm, this would be a "great deal!" with like four stars. If you had 16sqm for 1L it would be "excelent deal!" with five/six stars. If you had 16sqm for 1600L it would be "poor deal" or "total rip off" and have 1/0 Stars.

I duno, thats just another suggestion, it could be easier then to look at the land for sale and emediatly see what the good/bad deals are on land compared to others. Maybe have it auto-correct itself, so if all 16sqm land is going for 17kL and someone then offers 16sqm for say 100L it becomes a "great deal!" rather than a "not bad" as it would be if all 16sqm land was going for 16L. That make sense?

This however does kind of lower the possibilities of making "huge" profits off of land, but someone could just do the same thing for themselves by looking at how much each parcel is going for per sqm in 1.3 and make the same conclusions themselves, having a visual cue for it just makes it stand out more.

You would also still need the notification dialog as LF has suggested, incase the person hasn't used the Land For Sale window to find the land and has missed the ratings for the land.

Sorry for the sem-hijack, but I think the idea kinda goes in tandum with yours LF.

I endorse Lordfly's idea/feature btw.

It's definitely not 'natural' by any means. Besides, wouldn't the fact that newbies only start with a small amount of money be a much more natural way of curbing high land prices 'stealing' money from them? After all, if they can't afford it, they won't buy it.

Some land barons "play the system" with which LLabs has no control.

Let's say someone selling land sells it for 10,000. They try to sell it to a newbie. Oh no, he doesn't have enough!

but wait! The land seller heard there's a site called gaming open market where you can buy money! Oh, neat! So the newbie buys the money from GOM, and pays the seller with the money.

Unbeknownst to the newbie, the seller put the 10k on the market not 5 minutes ago. Not only did he make a tidy profit on the land, he also made about 30 real bucks on the market, and can now rinse and repeat over and over.

This is not good business. It shoujld be fixed.

A small dialogue would go a long way. Newbies listen to popup boxes

LF

Interesting scenario, Lordfly, but you left out the cost in lindens or real dollars for the land the baron is selling the newbie. That would have a significant impact on their profits rather than a self-sustaining system or so it seems to me.

If we assume they start with L$10,000 and the mentioned land they would make the $30 on GOM and L$10,000 for the land sale. They decide to replay the transaction and buy a piece of land cutting either their real dollar or L$ supply. There are too many variable to predict how it would go from there but it seems doubtful that it's as simple as rinse and repeat.

What do you think?

I think we could make a lot of headway with an update to the old newspaper that used to be in the welcome area when I started. It was called something like "Second Life Consumer Reports".

It had a ton of useful information, but maybe it was too ambitious. I think a new "Consumer Reports" guide might be in order. This guide could be a great introduction guide to SL for new users. It could:

- establish what they should expect to pay for certian things
- clearly explain how land is purchased, clarifying the issue of allotment and claim
- explain prim limits
- give a very brief overview on building, texturing, scripting, and point them to the classes for these
- explain how events are organized
- give examples of what you can do in sl
- explain how to make money
- etc...