Public Notice About Tier Donation

It has come to my attention that a prominent figure evidently with plenty of personal baggage is making unfounded accusations about my supposedly "pressuring newbies" who have arranged sales with me of first land, and claiming that I am a scam artist and trying to take advantage of newbies.

Since I am public about purchase of land and explain what I do, whereas many other traders are secretive, this opens me up for attacks fueled by all the venom that many players feel about the land business and everything associated with it.

This individual and some other older players have repeatedly slammed me and claimed this tier donation offer of mine is a scam, and attempted to harm my business, either for some personal reasons, or because they believe it constitutes some competition to them.

First of all, I am generally not in the land trading business. I have bought perhaps a dozen or so newbies' lands in my time in SL, usually because they contacted me first either in person or by IM. In some cases, the newbies stay on the land they original bought and pay rent, then move; in others they sell. They are adults, and are well informed about their options.

I advertise the following program which is not a scam and which is not "illegal" in the Lindens' view (as my detractors keep falsely claiming): you may sell to me or or any other person your first land at market price, a price which you yourself set. We can make suggestions as to what the best prices are and you can see for yourself what land near you is selling for. If you want to sell immediately to get the cash to start SL and save toward a larger plot, you can sell to us if we make that arrangement. If you would rather price your land and wait for a better offer, by all means do so. A single 512 in a huge patch of 512s is of no value to us and in most cases could not resell in 30 days anyway, so this notion that this is a scam is misplaced. People making this accusation about allegedly rapaciously hungry land barons scouring the landside for 512s are grossly misinformed -- a land baron buys land on the auction and cuts it up into 512 sections, she or he has no need to go out trolling among new-landers to shake down their lunch money. In most cases, newbies themselves hear the word on the street and price up their lot, sometimes ridiculously high.

Many people have very gravely mistaken notions of what land is worth -- my land always seems like the most valuable. Currently the highest you could get for new land in the new continent is about $6500 per 512, a princely sum, given that in the old continent $5120 is about as high as you can go. This may go up. But, no, $25,000 is not an option. In most cases, you have to remember your audience: your price is directed not at a land baron, who can get plenty of 512s himself simply by chopping up his parcel. Your price is directed against your future neighbours, who want to add to their own land right next to you.

In fact, if we buy your 512, situated often in a swamp of dubious builds blocking everyone's view, we are doing you a favor. Land barons do bother to systematically buy up first land often wait many weeks to sell their land and their prices can be set higher. So your sale to us merely ensures that your sale can go through faster -- however, it is entirely up to you.

After you have sold your land, you can either move to a new location in our rentals communities, or remain on the same parcel, get a meter box, and pay the standard rent of $250 a week for a 512. This enables you to save. You can refund and leave at any time for a small refund fee. This is the standard practice in the rentals business.

At no time is anything "stolen" or "scammed" from you. If you sell your first land, it is at a price you set, after being informed -- which you best accomplish by looking right around you in your very own sim.

Tier is yours to put in or withdrawl freely -- only you possess control over it, and only you pay for it. Many people are very confused and misinformed about what tier is, for all kinds of reasons. But once you join a group, you have the option to go to the land tab on the group menu and donate your land where it says "contribute". At any time, you can put it in, and at any time, you can take it out freely. It always remains yours. It is good practice to

ALL the risk of a tier donation program is mine, not yours. Why? Precisely because I cannot "steal" your tier, but you can withdraw your tier and leave me uncovered, whereupon the Lindens seize my land.

Many people, even older players, have never worked in land groups. The tools in them are poor, and they must be improved. But they work very well to encourage players to donate their tier to gain the discount for the group, and to help make sims more beautiful places by enabling people to establishing residential districts.

To avoid a long post now I would urge those interested to contact me in game for a detailed FAQs about tier donation and group land, and purchase of first land, that will answer every conceivable question you may have about this complicated subject, which is definitely not a venue for me to "exploit" newbies in any fashion, but only a way to help people have access to better land, so that we can work together to make better sims.

New users should be treated with kid gloves.

Anything that can potentially even slightly harm their SL experience should be watched over very very carefully.

Yeah, they're all a bunch of un-net savvy people who would surely perish while being trodden upon by those who came before. That's why they gravitate to SL instead of linear treadmill MMOGs. ROIGHT!

You do a greater injustice to new SLers by assuming that they need to be treated as fragile people than any supposed FIC ever could.

Watch all you wish, blaze. These are people who have received countless hours of game help and explanations from me, and have been helped to get access to more land, and land on waterfront or with mountain views, instead of those hell-holes where the first-land is usually located.

The relatively small number of people who have followed this program in our group (most just pay cash for rent) -- small beacuse of these constant forum slams by the FIC and self-righteous zealous ex-TSO friends with axes to grand -- are happy they have better land. The time and effort I've put into them and their explanations is not at all justified given the number of silly attacks I've endured from ignoramuses.

But I will persist in offering this program, and encouraging others to form groups and pool tier. There is a better way.

Since the introduction of the First Land program, a common scam has been for land buyers to find a cash-strapped new user who doesn't yet understand the land market and offer to "help" them by buying their 512 sq m parcel for a fraction of what they could get if they just put it up for sale normally. The land buyer then buys the land, resells the parcel at current market rates, makes large profit, and moves on. Newbie goes off to find better land and discovers that they've been scammed.

The excuse that it's not "illegal" is pretty flimsy. It's obvious that the newbie gets a raw deal in the exchange. Essentially this scam takes advantage of newbies and their unfamiliarity with the land market, and parts them from their land under the guise of "helping" them.

To Prokofy: I'm certainly not saying that this is what you do -- I have no knowledge about that. I only point out that this scam has been so prevalent that it's possible for people to over-react when there's even the appearance of scamming a new player out of their First Land. If you're helping new players -- and that would be consistent with your arguments in the forum -- that's absolutely fantastic. New players need a leg up.

To First Land scammers: That's a really lousy thing to do, and you know it. New players simply don't have the specific knowledge of SL necessary to avoid getting scammed. And Nolan is right -- they should be treated with kid gloves. Give them a strong start and a positive experience.

I'm glad that people with less creativity but more business accumen are here to help us newbies out....

Gee, thanks Cubey. If you're going to give credit to the wrong guy, at least pick a guy who didn't make a sarcastic joke out of the idea.

Well, I don't know about previous versions of the game, but in this one, first land is only able to be purchased by an actual newbie with a fresh account. A land baron could not purchase it obviously. To be sure, he can hover around a newb and tell him, "buy here, and I will pay you $1200" and be ripping him off, but honestly, I don't think newbies are so clueless as all that. The Lindens distribute wiki cards about land, written by older players, which explains that newbies can shop around and try to sell for a profit.

There used to be a deal where barons got together and gave newbies 1024 in exchange for their cheap 512s. Not sure now this worked, but maybe they took doggied 1024s in PG snow and traded 512s for mature waterfront.

Please be aware that my business is not like this at all. For one, I stay with the newbie through this process, and after it. I don't just say "buy this, and I give you money" then disappear on my 30-day alt which is untraceable. I'm a known avatar with a location, a reputation, whatever you might think of it, and a substantial investment. The communities are visible, they speak for themselves, the customers can give you testimonials. It's all good.

After I buy their land, I have them put 512 in my group. Obviously I stay with them. Some of them remain months. Others stay for a week or two, and save and move on or move in with someone or buy Lindens and tier up. Some then return to me later when they tier down. It's all good. I have no motivation to scam a newbie because I'm hoping he will come and put tier in my group or pay cash for rent on my land, and stay part of my happy customer base so that he comes back to me and refers others to me.

People with a provincial, tiny-minded allergy to commerce and suspicion of sharpsters in the big city with prim hair need to get a grip. This is a good, honest, helpful business. I do not scam newbies and I have no motivation to scam newbies.

Now that you're all done bitching, would you all like to pick up the newbie land I got in those choice parcels like Cartmel, Gogebic, etc. where there a numerous 512s for sale (many more expensive than mine) and not going anywhere soon? Would 90 days holding the tier on a newbie's doggy land in a PG wasteland sim be enough to convince you that I am not scamming them? Because that's what I have done.

I am not sentimental about newbies and first land. Some of these newbies are just oldbies screaming. They are grownups and can price a thing without me holding their hand or anyone. It's just a 512, and they can always get another one in a few weeks.

First land, in 90 percent of cases, is dogmeat. You know that full well. So why all the crap about it? The job with first land is to help newbies sell it at a great price and move out of its infested hell. Then a few more coherent parcels of 1024 or 2048 can begin to appear for longer-term end-users. Why is that hard to understand? Few people remain on first land. It's called first land for a reason. Move on to better opportunities -- there are plenty of them.

I think, as a rule, new users are not profit centers but cost centers. Many of us spend (via donations, helpful tips, classes, etc) to attract and entice them into SL so we can profit off the many years they decide to spend here.

If you're profiting off a new user (user less than a month) while the rest of us are spending to keep them in SL you're probably doing something wrong.

Once they've been around a month and educated, they should be fair game.

Anshe had a similar deal, where she was buying up first land and trading it for land in snow and other ideas.

Claims were that it was all done in order to attract users, however I thought if that was the goal there was better ways to do it that were much less suspicious.

blaze, you're not reading the posts or understanding the program if you believe it positions a newbie in it as a "profit center".

1. The newbie sells land quickly and at market rates. I resell it only much later, and sometimes even at a lesser cost, because it is not in a good location!
2. The newbie does not pay me what it costs me to pay the Lindens in tier as a whole. He merely donates 512 to my group, pays no cash (where's the profit center???) and gets access to land.
3. That land could be sold for a far greater profit, or hell, even rented at a higher price! Geez, what is so HARD to get about this???
4. That newbie soaks up dwell, he gets access to prime land for residence or business which he never could have had for his $512, and he saves his money and leaves for higher country in a month. What's not to like?
5. During that time he spends hours asking me game questions and I answer them. By the time he leaves, he understands everything about tier and land groups, but also basics like how to terraform, get scripts to work, open objects, build simple items, etc. etc.
6. Did I mention that tenants also get free vendor stalls and free use of event space?

Honestly, blaze, you are supposed to be someone who "gets it" about my tirades here. Join my group. Look at the tier donators in it. Ask them what they think. Count them. Geez, there are hardly that many -- no tier soaking kingdom here! Then you will kick yourself for not starting this brilliant idea yourself. It helps everyone from newbies to oldbies to the company in dozens of ways. What else can you say does that? So often what "helps" SL is really just the technically brilliant achievent of one individual and group which provides money and dwell and feting for them and helps LL sales. Find me things that help build the fabric of society in a virtual world. Cooperation of people in groups for the good of their sim is one of these things. It is that kind of soft "human capital" or "social capital" that is vital for the financial capital and the bricks-and-mortar to have meaning.

Where did I say it positioned it as a profit center?

I said new users shouldn't be a profit center. It's up to you to decide whether or not you are doing this.

I am not doing this.

And frankly, even if I did find some slim tiny profit off a newbie with this, it is to their advantage, just like the profit a vehicle maker makes off a vehicle.

What, a vehicle maker, a prim dick maker, a hoochie-hair maker gets to profit off newbies, but a land services business cannot make even a dime? Stop, with the allergy to commerce!

You are implying a slight of my program by taking this thread to lecture me about never profiting from newbs. You don't say "I recognize your program is helpful to newbies, they lose nothing, they only gain, and you must have a lot of administrative headaches, geez, how do you do that."

That's what I want you to say, blaze.

Honestly, I have no idea what you do.

Theoretically, it sounds like it may be hugely benficial for new users, but until you provide me with precise details of all your financials I can't provide you with a clear analysis of whether or not it's a profit or cost center.

I don't think anyone can. I think we all just have to accept that the ground rule when dealing with new users should be - cost center.

If we're making a profit off of new users, then we should just reduce our prices or increase what we pay them.

I just explained in copious detail what I do. In this thread. Read it.

There are no "financials". Maybe 20 percent of a rentals group of 120 people at most uses the tier donation program -- go in my group and count them. Some are even my alts. So really, blaze. It's just a program to help newbies and offset my tier a bit. This enables me to provide lower rents.

I utterly reject that hoochie hair makers can view newbies as profit centers, but service-providers are endlessly supposed to eat their losses.

blaze, why?

Well, there are people who do not do enough for new users, I'd certainly agree with that.

I guess you refer to Land Angels. This was one non-profit program run by me and others to provide newbies with 1024sqm instead of 512sqm First Land parcels. It lived from donations by older players to fill gap between 512sqm and 1024sqm. I myself donated 20000 sqm of land to this and never received one single L$ back.

Yes, but I never quite understood how you thought new users would benefit from trading prime 512 land for not so prime land.

Or how they'd be more involved in LL just because they tiered up.

Why not just let new users use the land rent free until you sold it? That probably would have been better.

No skin off your neck, not like the land was doing anything. And new users would have plenty of prim space to build.

Let me go over it ONCE AGAIN Blaze. Your bias, even though at least you are willing to discuss it, is painful.

Newbies are NOT sitting on prime land. The only thing that can be said about 512s is that they only cost $512. Bullly for them. But they are not prime. They suck. They are almost never on waterfront. It is only because I and a few others started a clamour that they really should start offering newbs and alts of existing players (which indeed ARE legitimate and ARE entitled to first land just like any new account) the opportunity to get waterfront first land or good-looking mountain or whatever land. A few more parcels have started to come in those better areas. And there are many more plots now so the choice is greater.

Um DUH the tenants DO USE THE LAND RENT FREE after it is sold IF they donate tier. Why on earth would I give someone land when they have not given me a thing? Why should I run a charity? What I can offer is something very, very low cost. I buy their land, usually in a crappy place. For example, I buy way out far from the telehub, in a huge patch surrounded by viewblockers. The person wishes to flea from that

New users don't have plenty of prim space. They get 117 like anybody else. The best low-prim house is 40-50 if it looks at all good, so they have 50 left. They all want to move, and this way, they get money with which they can rent by the week, put in tier, and start saving their stipends for their purchase. I have a fair number who have done this already. Contact me ingame and I will list them and you can contact them all and find out how it worked great for them. You are just not getting the advantages because you are old guard and stuck in your ways too blaze and not willing to hear the fresh facts of how to improve the game NOW, not in the version of a year ago.

What does a newbie gain from sitting on a 512 in the middle of 512 hell? Nothing. He is blocked on every side. Sometimes, he is harassed. He's going to be pressured to sell his land anyway, by people who will not give him a fair price, and even if they do, do nothing for him afterwards. He is free to embark on selling to those wholesalers if he likes. I don't get the zealousness with which Traxx Hathor and other detractors are telling people to sell and get a "good price" when all they do is sell to others who don't have the time to then follow what happens to them and help them.

There is no space, no view, no perspective. Tell me what is not to like about a newb trading his ratty 512, for which I pay $3750 or $3500 or $4150 or whatever it really is worth, and then keeping him right on that lot, having him donate his 512 tier he is not using anyway for awhile, and then perhaps buying from his neighbour, who sells and goes on his way to buying a larger plot. Then I can give that first newbie a 1024 for $350. I have had players rent for weeks like that perfectly happily. Sure, they can sit on their land for free for weeks. But it's only a 512, not a 1024.

And in most cases, the newb opts to move to a better location, like waterfront, or mountainview, or telehub, or a community where they can socialize with people and do games. In 512 hell, they never met anybody but land dealers. In my communities, they can start their Second Life.

Try to think out of the box on this one blaze. I help people get out of 512 hell.

Now with all your furor, no doubt this is the explanation for just happens with one person I was trying to assist. SHE contacted me, asking me to rent and put her 512 in, and I explained about her need to sell her first-land for a good price. She opted to have me buy. She set her land to sale. I bought it. I believe it as $3500. It was in a sea of 512s all set to that price of a bit higher, never going to sell in 30 days. I bought her land...but then she disappeared and didn't rent from me. Them's are the breaks. I constantly deal with people who don't follow through. My new overpriced 512 sits in the sun, baking, where it will likely bake 60 more days. Thanks a lot, blaze and Traxx. Happy now? Who is the victim here of which scam artist?

Phil Linden said at the first town meeting I attended that he would like to see real estate agents appear in the game, that he would like to see people buy bigger parcels on the auction. OK, I do that. For which I am savaged and brutalized even by people like you who don't land and live in the game. You are like that Russian poem. "We live without feeling the ground beneath our feet" which is said of utopian intellectuals.

My newbies walk, and talk, and meet people in an immersive game. You fly around and IM and make scripts and stuff and just treat it as a tool box and a tekki wiki. Good for you, but it can't be that for everybody.

What part of "512 hell" don't you get? What on earth is to the advantage of someone sitting next to Siggy Romulus' God-awful free low-prim house (God, I wish he's put out a new first-land house!) for the next 6 weeks, staring at that boxy brown stupidity? I'm sorry, but WTF???? Look at that shit out there. It's dogmeat. WHY must they stay there? To prove you right about mathematics?

Yes, 512 that costs $512 is a great buy. But it is meant to be sold. And you move on to the next square. I help with that, in a game where the learning curve is hella steep, just like you help with scripting questions. Where is the appreciation?

No user will sit on that land rent-free waiting for me to sell it, while I have already paid them. Get a grip, blaze! You try that wonderful little concept if you dare. Of course they will fly off and say "chump" and laugh with their friends. Why on earth would anyone sit "rent free" on their stupid little dodgy 512 land after somebody already paid for it? You mean I pay them money up front for their land, then I wait for a sale to occur on that land, leaving them on the land rent-free? Why? They don't need that -- they don't like that land, that's why they are selling. And I don't see why I am supposed to do it even for altruistic reasons. It makes no sense.

The newbie can get cash, he can get access to better land through my resources in the gruop, and we can sell that land and move on. The land barons had the influence and game power to stand up to all you bulllies who trashed them for their first-land trade program. Maybe I don't. I will continue. It is the right thing to do.

My post was a reply to Anshe and I was discussing the Land Angels program.

To be completely honest with you, Prok, the reason I haven't really tried discussing what you are doing specifically is because I do not wish to wade through your posts.

I'm a slow reader and you type much faster than I can read. I also wouldn't want to discuss or debate the merits of what you are doing unless I gave it all a close read.

So, all I can say - if you are doing business at a loss with new users then you are doing a good job. If you're not, then you may wish to reconsider working with new users. And it's not altruism .. it's a loss leader.

If you're not willing to be a loss leader for new users, then I suggest you simply do not try to specifically do business with them.

Read my posts. These ones on this subject are not long. I AM a loss-leader for newbs. Please stop it. You really should be ashamed of yourself, using your position as an older, more skilled, and respected player, to lag and pontificate about this very simple issue. It is obvious to anyone -- it's a good deal. It doesn't serve me. It often harms me. I do it for the good of the community.

And even if I did NOT, and even if I profited from newbies, providing a service is no different than selling a prim dick.

Keep it to that length, and I promise I'll read your posts

Sounds like you're doing a great job. Keep it up.

Well I disagree, respectfully, with Prokofy's statement that the best house is 50 prims. I can do a serviceable house with 9-13 prims and still have it look good. It will be small and not fill up a whole 512k. But Flrank Loyd Wright showed that simple lines can be elegant.

Now granted what we are taling about is efficiency, and not a model of an IRL prototype house. But face it in SL we don't have to cook, or eat, so kitchens dinning room and laundry rooms are great places to put sex balls, but not necssary. Also since roofs are unnecessary except for privacy, there is serious potential for exploring the notion of merging interior and exterior space.

Oh a 512 lot, you don't have either the prim allotment or the space to do much, but with a little thought and design, you can make some visually interesting spaces. Not every 512 lot needs to be a massive econobox. Sure ultimately you'll want bigger and better, but nothing says small can't be cool.

That spiral staircase that guy did, over by the crashed plane was amazing. Ther eis just a part of me that winces when I think about the prims.

I heartily agree that a low-prim house can look good. You can do it with 10 and there are good architects who do 26-prim prefabs.

But I can tell you based on my experience of the rentals and land-buying markets that it is not what people want.

"Looks good" is not enough for them.

They want a real house. You may find it silly that they want to recreate kitchens or bathrooms that are unnecessary in a virtual world, but they do!

The whole point of saving on prims is to decorate. So in one sense, if you get a low-prim house, you can decorate more with interesting things not needed for RL-like conditions, i.e. an interesting painting or radio or chair to sit on rather than a realstic looking dinette set with 4 chairs and sushi on the platters LOL.

But...people want all of this. So they dont' stay on their 512s LOL. The tension between low-prim abodes and high-prim decorations is one that makes SL interesting.

That fellow's staircase may hog prims, but in fact, it will fit just fine in some content-baron's mammoth showcase estate home. Jake, zoom out from your 512 and picture yourself on an entire sim. Picture even just say 12,500 m2 where you might get 2900 prims to work with. A private island will have loads of prims to burn. So that's how such prim hogs get justified, in areas where the wealthy can pay for the land under them.

Well its not exactly that I find it silly. Just that there may indeed be a SL design ethic. It takes time for architecture to adapt. Look how long we put neo-classical curlicues on big buildings.
So people now want what is familiar. Understandable. My point, how ever is consistent with yours- the prim budget is a serious consideration, and that it is possible to design intelligent, useful and workable spaces too. Ultimately its a choice of what the resident wants of course.

You are right the land rich can afford the prims, and the lindens want to sell all of us an island. More power too them. I often muse about how nice it would be to buy an island and live on it, all to indulge my vanity. What a tier donatation that would be.

OK then I will buy your Lemon 512 tomorrow if it didn't sell yet and you can donate to my group and find the same size land in any of my communities. You can see for yourself this isn't a scam.