No First Land available?

Hey all.. I just started last week, and want to buy some property. Everyone says to buy the First Land, but when I click on find it, it says none available.
Am I missing something, or is there really no first land for us noobs?
Thanks!

They put first land out quite often, but it gets sold with mind-boggling speed. Best thing to do is check often.

looks like im not the only newbie to notice. they should email us or something when its time for our shot at staking a claim =p

We've been checking every morning and night for four or five days now, haven't seen any...

I've been checking for 10 days, now, all times of the day. There is never any First Land available, and I am beginning to disbelieve the claims that it is - or they are only putting out a handful of plots which go immediately.

Given the nature of the SL world, a virtual land shortage is purely artificial. Why are new residents being shafted in this way? It states quite clearly on joining (and paying!) for SL that starting land is available. It equally obviously isnt. Is this an attenpt to keep the people who were here earlier happy by inflating prices for exitsing land sales?

Perhaps the management could tell us how many First Land plots were put up last week, and at what times. Otherwise the smell of deliberate shafting of new players will only get stronger and stronger

Hotlinethis question!

If I remember correctly, and it has been a while since I dealt with First Land, you need to apply for it. Then the Lindens set aside a plot specifically for you - no choice of location. The plot is 512m2 priced at $1/m2.

I suggest doing a quick search on these forums. I know there are posts about the program detailing it.

my <$0.02L

They abandoned that in favor of an in-world list some time ago.

And you have to ask why, since this would seem a much better system!

Allocate some blocks for this, make them residential use only - no shops, clubs etc, and give them out as needed.
You could allow people to sell them back for the original price if they move up to something bigger - no profiteering on this special offer land.

Or even offer it, say, as a 512 m2 apartment - do a very basic apartment (the sort of thing 99% of new players would be happy to start in). Easy, simple, mass produced, and ending all the land shortage for new people problem.

b o r i n g

Nice to see you think helping new people is boring.

Hi and welcome to Second Life.

When LL bring out new sims, they provide a lot of plots for new players. Since they haven't released any lately, I think that's the problem. When I joined in December there was no land for a while, until they opened up the north west with new sims and I got a plot in Derwent.

I know its not what you want to hear but just be patient and wait for it to come onto the market, its the cheapest land you will ever buy in SL and if you buy land from another player, I think I'm right in saying that you lose the chance of buying first land.

Buster, if you didn't want to post something helpful in this thread, why bother posting at all?

Alexa

Please, would one of you post this First Land question in the Linden Hotline section... they DO watch and answer questions there! The may not be aware of the severity of the problem.

But why should I have to wait some indeterminate period of time until they condescend to release some land?

It states when you join that this land will be available. It's looking like it isn't.
Surely they don't need to have new sims fot this, what about land used by people who have then left SL?

People who leave SL in most cases do not release their land back to LL, they sell it to another player, presumably then exchanging their L$ for US$.

I know it is irritating because I went through the same thing myself.

Wisper is giving good advice - please post this problem on the Linden Hotline and a Linden WILL reply.

In the meantime, if you are thinking of building your own house for when you get the land, there are plenty of sandboxes around where you can build anything you like. Be warned though that everything in the sandboxes gets cleared once or twice a day. So take a copy of whatever you are building.

Good luck

Alexa

I'm with ya on that, Daemon.

I was a basic player for two months, then switched over to premium - oh, I don't know, maybe two weeks ago.

There was no first land. People kept telling me that I was looking at it wrong, but then it became clear that there really WAS no first land.

There has been first land during that period only one night I was on. I looked at several of the plots and passed them up. There were only about eight when I looked, and none of them was mature, all were PG.

That was a couple of nights ago; since then, nada. I agree that it is misleading, and frustrating, too, for a person changing from basic to Premium to realize you aren't really gonna get to look at land.

I have heard it said that it is easier to find it late at night. And the night I found it - and it seemed to last into the next day - it was late at night when I saw it.

I don't know why they do this, but it is definitely not a good impression for a new player to get - to check that thing day after day and nothing is there. If it is going to be that way, they should at least rewrite the hints and other writings in places like the website to reflect the scarcity, rather than making it sound like something you will actually get to do when you want to.

coco

P.S. I believe it was the thirteenth of this month when I finally saw some.

Hi- recent arrival here.

I have been trying to be patient, but... since it seems to be a problem with others as well, I thought I'd add my voice here. I've been checking in a dozen times a day since I joined last week, and haven't seen any First Land at all. Late at night, early in the morning- even while I'm at work. (Bad. Bad Ktaadn.)

Anyway, I can wait for now. My main worry is that land will appear, be snapped up because there is a drought, then not appear for another week. Another week of checking 'Find' obsessively.

In the meantime I'm exploring and enjoying myself, but I won't be truly happy until I have a little patch to call home. I notice that no one has posted on this issue in the Hotline as recommended... if things are the same by this evening, I believe I shall.

-Ktaadn

Hi!

First, I'd like to welcome both you new residents to SL and those of you who may have been here for awhile but are looking for First Land and why there is none.

Second, I'll explain what's happening: First Land is made on a regular basis to our residents as quickly as we discover it *smile* but because it's so popular, it goes really fast. I've commiserated with residents who have missed it by just a few minutes. We are working hard on making more available easily in the future so there isn't such a drought, and the next batch should be ready in a few more days. Keep checking the Land tab.

I apologize for the inconvenience and hope that you can hang tight to claim your homeland in Second Life!

I'm sorry you're having problems finding first land. We put new sims up each week, and you'll be able to find first land there. It may sell out quickly though, so do try to check in on Monday when the new sims show up. Right now land is being added in the northern continent.

You may also find that some of the other residents offer smaller plots for newcomers, so check the classifieds or the land sales directories as well.

is it just me, or does this sound like 'tough, its all working as planned?'
I (and some of the other posters here) have been looking for the first land that is promised in your sign up. Its isn't there. Now you tell us you will post up a little , maybe on a Monday, so what are we supposed to do, hang on all day contantly checking to see if the inadequate number of land parcels come up?

If you are going to restrict the available land so much it is never available, maybe you should consider a different way of allocating it. The current systen sucks.

I'm really sorry you're having trouble finding the plots, and please believe me, it's not a conspiracy to keep the land from you.

What we offer with the premium membership is the right to own 512m2 without paying additional monthly fees. We also try to make it easier for you to purchase that land by allocating some 512m2 plots in every new sim. But we can't guarantee every new resident will find a First Land plot.

I'll see if we can increase the number of 512m2 parcels in the new sims going on line over the next couple of weeks.

Thanks much for the information. It's good to know there's some hope.

I'm still anxious to get a plot. It's good to have a home base to do stuff- a "room of one's own", and all that. It's easier to be patient knowing a little bit about the process.

-Ktaadn

Robin,

To play devils advocate here, if the game is ever going to expand into the cultural phnomenon you want it to, LL is going to have to seriously rethink the current system. Imagine a situation in another year or two where you guys add a feature that "changes the industry" . I know thats a situation you all there think about every single day. It's what you guys work so hard for. Now I want you to think about all the bad press that would happen when hordes of new players jumped into the SL world to find an overly exaggerated real estate market thats unfriendly to new players. Not everyone is interested in texturing, modeling, or scripting. Nor should EVERYONE be. Different people log into SL for different reasons. Owning your own space in SL is a feature you all heavilly promote. So when a new player looks at the website one of the first 10 things they probobly think is "wow i could build my own house".

A bad experience in this sense could really hurt the growth of the world. I realize you have to carefully think about what you all at LL do and how it effects the economy. I'm also unaware of what the problem actually is thats causing the first land shortage (nor should i be as a resident =p). But if the problem is bandwidth costs and hosting perhaps you could partner with someone on that? I'm sure there are hardware vendors out there that would consider offloading some of those costs for prime advertising space inside the SL world. Funcom has had a really good experience working with alienware and their advertising campaign inside anarchy online. Sure it made some noise among their playerbase at first, but at the end of the day, it wasnt as intrusive as everyone thought it would be. People got over it. But most importantly, it now pays for all the freebie accounts that game currently enjoys.

just something to think about, I hope it helped give you some perspective on a possible solution to the problem Robin. Just tryin to help ya out here

- Cerebrix Absolute

A post to the Hotline reads as follows:
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Pratyeka Muromachi
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 24
Quitting SL, donating land to first land
Hi! I want to quit SL for personal reasons. I currently own 8640 sq m of land. I want all of it to become available as first land, for my own personal reasons. How do I go about making this happen?

______________

Looking at the land market, which is slow, it's not hard to understand the need to slow down the release of new sims. Perhaps it would be time to consider purchasing some of the land for sale to be recycled into first land plots. Boost the land market and new player enthusiam at the same time.

If this is so, you need to rewrite all your written materials, especially those aimed at new members.

I think, though, maybe you are saying, we can't guarantee every new resident will find a First Land plot RIGHT AWAY?

But even if that is what you mean, it should also be stated somehow so that we will know what the situation actually is. Such as, "entitles you to have 512 land without paying tier, but this land is available only part of the time and claiming it is competitive."

Or some such.

coco