First Land

Dropping this was a bad idea. Maybe the lots were a little low and you need to adjust the sim cost shared by all the 512s but first land sparred growth across the board in SL. It was a good reason to go premium. Even the people who resold usually did it to move up and get bigger lots. The tier remains the same so I really don't know what you had to lose.

First land helped SL grow and the recent decline occured months after the program was dropped. You need to reconsider bringing back first land to reverse this decline.

Never have I witnessed growth anything like the opening of a first land sim. Watching residents buying land and setting up homes by the droves. It was truely an amazing thing to behold. Please rethink bringing back first land for the good of SL.

First land is one of the main reasons I am in SL today. It was my start and the idea of owning my own land for 512L was a compelling reason to be a part of the community, to become a premium member. And everything started right there, on that first land in Yucca.

I never owned first land because my early land needs required 1024 sq m, but I do agree that dropping First Land rather than implementing a way around it (e.g having to sell it back as first-land for the same price).

The reason it was dropped (for those that don't know) is that the cost of getting a premium account for one-month was less than the going rate for a 512 sq m plot of land, so it was possible to get a premium, grab some first-land and sell it then just cancel the premium account.

My preferred option for 'fixing' first land is still to force users to sell it back as first-land at the same price. Yes it means they wouldn't be able to use it to kick-start a career in selling land, but it has bigger advantages that outweigh this, namely:
- We'd still have the first-land programme!
- The amount of first-land would not decline as quickly, as first-landers move on, their land becomes available again as new first-land
- It gives people a much-needed incentive to go premium

The first is the biggest advantage, as the thing with first-land isn't to sell it on to make a profit, it's to have somewhere to put your stuff, to build freely, to start-up a business etc. etc.

Or we could have closed the open registration and then you could only First Land Flip once.... (well, ok, four times).

Yep. Sad part is that people abusing the system made keeping First Land an even worse idea.

Actually I never saw the abuse. If the cost of the first lands all equal the cost of a sim and the tier is the same, it really does not matter what becomes of the first land plots once they are purchased, LL does not lose anything. Sure a lot of plots are flipped pretty fast but many are also people's start in SL. All we are doing is adding a few sims that are not for the land barrons to decide, they have enough sims and there will still be whole sims for sale anyways.

Ok, there is an easy work around on the land being worth more then a one month membership. All they have to do is require a three month commitment instead of the one month premium membership. This is better for everyone anyways. The entry price on that first land can be considered a added bonus for getting a three month premium membership.

We really don't want to regulate how the land can be used as we stop people from expanding their lots or selling to buy bigger. I myself had bought out several neighbors when I started.

It's not about LL losing (well, maybe it is).
Here's how it worked:
You paid $10 for a 1 month membership, bought the land for L$512 (practically got with the $10), and then sold the land for L$10,000, then sold the L$ on the LindeX for $30 to $40.

Talk about a quick way to double your money!

What LL was losing was because they were basically giving away free land to people who then never used it. They had to supply 5 sims worth of First Land A WEEK to keep up with the demand....which never slackened because the demand was by people who never had first land, it was just all being bought up by land flippers.

Now, if LL had turned that same 5 sims into Private Islands they'd have made far more income. You can get 137 first land plots out of a sim. At L$512 a pop that's $234 US. A sim's *monthly cost* (not the startup which is $1600 or more) is $299.

Oh yeah, LL is going to supply people who abuse the system with easy money while they can do the same amount of work and same cost of hardware and give it to people who ACTUALLY want the land (and make a profit on it too).

I think a larger downside to the first land scandal was that it deprived the legit people from actually getting any..

Truthfully as I recall except during beta that first land really was awful.
Yes it was cheap but the land that often was available was pretty bad.
We still get free 512m2 tier bonus we just don't get to pay only 512 for it at least now we can use it anywhere we own land.
In 2003 everyone could get 512m2 land for cheap regardless of their membership status but it was also still in the beta stages.
Truthfully they sell more main land if they let everyone buy land and increase the land bonus if you were premium like 1024m2 and for freebie accounts 512m2 no tier charge but they couldn't own more then 512m2 without going premium.

Well, not quite... Also along with that (137x512/266) $263.70 is 137x $10.00 in premium accounts (that would not happen otherwise) for a total of $1633.70 for that sim. I believe that is more then what mainland sims been going for lately.

As I said in my last post that they can easily require a commitment of a quarterly membership to bypass the land flippers as it would not be worth it to them at that price. Then we are talking about $263.70 + 137x $22.50 for a total of $3346.20 a sim. Now we are way over the price of a mainland sim.

I think you are forgetting that back when first land was active, 5000 was the high end, land speculators were offering 1.8 - 2.2k, and the average price was 3-3.5K. Prices jumped considerably after 1st land was dropped. Now we are in a glut and at 6L per M a 512 is back down to about 3-3.5k.

Also there are 4 sims on a server and at $299 a month times four, there is profit in that $1196 in *monthy cost* per server, that is a far cry from actual.

Take a look at an old 1st land sim today. Almost all of the small lots grow into larger lots. People who grow tired of SL leave, people who love it buy out a neighbor or two, or sell out and move to an island perhaps. This is typical growth and old 1st land sims are identical to others that were not over time, the tier cost balances out.

First land contributed to the growth of SL. When times were very good, it was dropped. It seems to me that perhaps dropping it was a big mistake. Perhaps it just needed fine tuning. We need this growth, it was healthy and was a benefit to everyone. At least back when there were first land and you saw a group of dots on the map, they were really live people.

137? By my math 65536/512=128 for one thing. That's not counting public land for roads, or beachfront (which was held back), so you need to redo your calculations.

Ok, I used his 137, if its less its easy to adjust, but we still can't forget all those premium memberships into the equation. Today we are losing premium memberships at a pretty good clip and that needs to be reversed.

Linden Lab lost 5,810 premium accounts last month, a decline of over 6 percent from June. Thats a big hit on accounts that actually pay into the system.

While I'd be fully in support of that, I don't see LL ever caving into that.

I still think that just forcing first-land to be sold off as first-land again is the easiest way. The only technical addition would be a way of preventing people from joining/dividing their first-land (so it remains the same 512 sq m plot that they bought) and it's a perfectly painless experience. They can still get more land for more prims, but just can't alter the plot's boundaries and thereby sell it for more (or sell it at an unusual size), they could alter any other settings as required.

Sure, they won't then make any money on that plot, but that's not the point, they can make up the value by running a business off of it before moving on, or even selling it as first-land but providing a load of purchasable items that a first-land buyer can then buy as well like a house, or just return instead.

First land if just a memory of the virtual world past.

It was never going to be part of the 3d Web of tommorrow dream idea thingie.


Future stuff thats on its way out some day -

18+ grid

Being banned

the Linden $