Midge: A Chance for Projects

K, calling all people who constantly talk about player cooperation, taking over sims and planning them, and avoiding the pitfalls of most sims. Now's your chance to put your tier and your money where your mouth is.

Midge has less than 24 hours before its auction ends, 1 day, 17 hrs, 9 minutes as of this post. It's a beaut of a sim -- mature, with a huge mountain on it, and a flatlands, all covered in mist. It's more than the mist you see way up in the clouds above comfortable av flight level -- so it seems. I think it'll be terraformable more than usual too judging by neighboring sims.

It's the kind of sim that could be a backdrop to a horror movie, or something mystical, like the woods in the Wizard of Oz.

It opened at $655, and no one has touched it. Not a single bid. Either there are the usual cagey bidders laying low and hoping no one will notice it and talk it up (sorry about that) or it's already been judged as a dud. Most likely the latter. It's far from the telehub -- like 700 meters. Many won't like that mist. But that's only in its favour. It is bordered on one side by PG land, so that means that at least if it does go the club route, it won't have a lot of competition in the immediate vicinity. And the mist could help block whatever happens on the other 3 adjacent sims -- all wildcards.

So why don't a group of players get together and make some projects on this magical sim? It has 65,000 plus square meters -- that's a lot of sim! A group of people could form this minute, not necessarily from some established project group. They don't have to be involved in some big intensive thing like Neverland, they don't even have to share the same perspective or lifestyles, they could just say "let's cooperate for 24 hours to save this sim from the usual 512 disease, laggy clubs, and boxy malls."

You'd only need 14 people each paying $25/month in tier to hold the tier on this sim. That way, more time could be taken to plan it properly and bring in one big project or a variety of projects -- it could be a Hellfire club, or Goth mansions, or some game-within-a-game that needs spooky atmosphere -- whatever. Some residences might go in the foothills and they could be more weird than the usual clapboard suburban houses.

The bidding on this might go up to $1400, but probably not that high, given that it is not telehub and not waterfront. So for extra credit, those 14 people could each pony up $100 to pay one purchaser through PayPal. It could be done!

I personally couldn't take on this project as a whole now, but I would kick in tier and maybe some of the cost, and certainly help do the administrative work -- if only I could see that all these people always yammering about group projects and taking sims would just DO it for once and stop waiting for Lindens to hold their hands.

I could even put this suggestion to land barons, those most likely to grab this just because they have to get everything if they deal in volume: consider buying this, but then instead of chopping it up and selling it off after 3 days while you juggle your tier all over town, consider having a creative group come in and pay the tier on it immediately through their collective donations in a group, to save your tier bill of $195, and therefore give you incentive not to do the usual frantic chopping and blocky mall placement, to be followed by lagging club and 512 disease. Then you all could work out the sale price. But it would be better of a group formed and took charge of the purchase and the post-purchase administration.

Again, it doesn't need a lot of scripting firepower or building expertise or ingenuity in club or organization or a single Linden -- it just needs 14 people with $25 and maybe $100 each, or one person willing to front the purchase price to be paid back eventually -- and this sim could be rescued.

Hmmm....the silence is deafening.

Once again, here's an opportunity for a dozen or so people to get together, pool tier at $25/month, and pay $100/each (or for a financer to work with them and be helped with their tier coverage up front).

I'm not taking on this potential project myself, I'm just willing to help with some tier and administration if any others get organized.

1 day 4 hours 47 mins remaining on the auction.

I think this is a great idea; if a team does decide to get together in the hours remaining, this is an IDEAL time to do so; a mature sim, entire, up for grabs. Moreso because even the bigtime land speculators are backing away a bit.

I recommend that any interested groups post HERE, and quickly. Perhaps they could even put out a request that the major land-speculators back off of this particular auction. The real-estate tycoons might, but then again might not.

Also, whoever does decide to partner up on this, decide a price that you will be willing to pay at the beginning and BE WILLING TO WALK AWAY from it. The fact that you get together and express a collective interest in it will make you a more tempting target for land developers, who would willingly bid up and bid up, win the auction, then offer it back to you for $100 over what they paid. Adopt an agreement that if someone does attempt to do that to you, no one in your group buys from them, then or ever again.

I recommend that interested parties post in this thread with a simple "contact me" or "I'm in", then discuss the bulk of your ideas via PM.

Unhygienix, you've made some very relevant points. It wouldn't occur to me that the land barons would be THAT rapacious that they'd furiously bid up a plot that an entire group was interested in, and then sell them the plot for $100 more. No way. I sure wouldn't fall for that. And anyone getting into this quick flash-mob save-a-sim project should absolutely be willing to back out if that happens. However...someone has to take the risk of making the purchase. A group that has that person available, and is back them, has to say "Bid up until x-amount, then quit, and we'll just wait for the next sim." I think it would be unreasonable to pay more than say $1200-1400 on this sim, just judging by the price of whole sims lately, and the resale prices.

So any interested people please post here, or IM me in the game. As I said, I personally am not willing to pay for this project or put in loads of tier, so if you don't like me, you wouldn't have to work with me, you could just take it over entirely. All I'm saying is that I'd put in $25 tier and maybe go a portion of the purchase price IF there were a real group forming.

It's a whole, mature, mystical sim! Let's do it...

Prokofy, I would venture a guess that the lack of response you're getting may be due to your, uh, recently acquired reputation.
I would love to move to a planned sim, but since I'm a horrible, feted, elitist, "inner core" content baron, I don't suppose you would like to have me as your neighbor

a whole mature sim is valued between 1500-2000 USD at current inworld market valuation.

you can likely purchase it on the auctions for under 1400 on a good day.

I'm not going to participate, because I have no intention of "saving" a sim just for the sake of doing so. I would only join such a group if there were a well-defined purpose which interested me and if I knew everyone well enough that I could be certain that I wasn't about to get screwed.

Wake me when a group like Bedazzle insitutes a similar plan. I'd gladly chip in to fund one of their builds, because they do phenomenal stuff with the land.

As I pointed out, Egg, I don't have to be in this, anybody could just do it, I'm putting the idea out there for anyone to take. They can take the idea, run with it, and don't even have to IM me to get involved. I don't care. So for you to frame it in terms of something of "mine" means you just didn't read the post, and you're just looking for another opportunity to take a swipe at what you view as an easy target.

And I frankly don't care what you think about my reputation, because not everybody feels as you do, and not everybody pays attention to the forums, and even those who do pay attention to forums, don't always agree with the feted elite. I've chosen to fight those who post with this know-it-all, smug, derisive attitude on these forums, and frankly, many people have told me they are glad that I stick to my guns and don't get bullied, even if they don't agree with me.

And I don't care if the feted elite is my neighbour or tenant as long as they don't put up griefer builds and deliberately lag sims or harass people with ugly builds to induce them to sell or move, that has always been my position, and it is a position often misrepresented as "criticizing any build I don't like" but I think it's a position that has a wide consensus behind it.

What I am seeing here is that at least one frequent buyer on the auction thinks it will be only $1200. But...he may not go bid on it and get it and then work with a group, who knows...it's all a mystery.

And I'm seeing Ardith voice a sentiment I imagine belongs to others who are either content barons or their loyal followers: "Wake me when a group like Bedazzle institutes a similar plan. I'd gladly chip in to fund one of their builds, because they do phenomenal stuff with the land."

OK, go on sleeping. The point is not to have a plan of the order of a Bedazzle build in place within 24 hours, the point was merely to make it possible to save a sim that had some beautiful natural features in order to make it possible for people to plan THE MINIMUM, which is a zoned area that either becomes a club demonstratively, or becomes residential area demonstratively, or becomes whatever. The group could decide. It's just an opportunity I am flagging for people's attention.

The smug inner elite may want to give this one a pass -- they don't need me to tell them what sims are coming on line and what they can do with them. But there are many other newer players that might like an opportunity.

People complain about sims going to the dogs, but they do not pick up, form groups, and put their money where their mouth is. They wait until the Lindens help them, or else they wait for the uber content-barons to seize the initiative, then fall into place. I'd like to be able not to make a judgement like that, but I have to conclude so far it's the case. People just don't want to get into groups and cooperate for even the most bare minimum of shared goals, because they are waiting for the Lindens to hold their hands, or they want leadership from something like Bedazzle, which frankly doesn't appear to be starting any new sim-buying projects and even if it did, would not involve most readers of the forums, because they already have their own group.

Players getting together to form tier-holding groups and groups to create projects or even merely the potential for projects are the obvious way to prevent sim after sim being dragged down and chopped up.

If people are so smug and elitist that they can't encourage and promote that to happen, then they deserve what they get. I'll assume that the most ambitious of the smug and elite will get their sim when they've a mind to do it, if not a private island, then whatever sim rolls off the conveyor belt. Good luck!

Dude, I was JOKING. Humor, you know? Fun! Light heartedness.
I'm just a normal person. Come meet me IW one of these days

Glad to hear it. I will come and look you up soon. Meanwhile, think of what you could do with just $25 tier, and 12 other friends or even acquaintances you just meet on the Internet here in this game.

Hehe.. Yes Eggy, you too could be part of a project. You never did that before.

Well, I dont even have a tier, we get 4096 sq. m. for free which is equivalent to your $25 tier.
Thing is... I dont think I can find a single person who wants to move somewhere, let alone 12.
What LL should do is implement group purchase of sims.
They could put a sim up for sale, people go there and allocate land tier to it, and when it reaches enough land tier, people are charged proportionally to it.
But it's very hard to get people to agree on anything. The modern world is very much geared towards selfishness and individualism, it seems. Group efforts often collapse and generate lots of drama.
LL will not act to enforce anything and I dont see them telling us to go create something specific, so...

I dont get it, but its ok

Hey Ardith,

I think the idea isn't that the sim particularly NEEDS saving, that many have posted on the forums recently that they are tired of ugly builds and zone-free communities, and that they want the club next to them gone. This is a chance for these people to make this happen. It doesn't even have to have a "theme" per se, but if a fairly friendly and reasonably tolerant group of people got together, they could even all agree on certain minimal things like "I'd like to live in a sim without malls or clubs". If the group all agrees on that, they can easily accomplish what they'd like to.

It will be interesting to see whether any of the people who complain about bad neighbors or zoning ordinances would be willing to step up and organize an endeavor to accomplish their goals. A month after this auction ends, will those people still be compaining while this sim has been bought up, chopped up, and sold to a variety of landowners including more clubs and shops?

Well, the horses are out of the gate. Midge is now up for $701.00

"We..." and "your..." -- and people think I'm nuts to figure there's a feted inner elite ROFL!
That's quite a deal, 4096 paid for life! Geez, we never got that in TSO being charter members. They didn't even give me my magic tree yet for my 2nd anniversary.

Seriously...it's OK. You don't have to move. Unless, your 4096 is all tied up on where you live now. But I sometimes find older players using only half their 4096 and not using it at all. So...I call on them to put some tier in to "save a sim" and help establish zoning as a player-established thing, if they've a mind to.



Yep, that's it precisely. I don't need to save a sim. The Lindens make sims every day. I don't need to throw myself on the land mine. It's just an opportunity, is all, and yes, precisely it is put out there in response to all these people yammering about ugly builds and lack of zone. OK, so step in, and zone already. He who does not put together tier with others cannot complain about lack of zoning.

And yes, it doesn't need a big Bedazzling project, or the Lindens to hold your hand, it just needs 14 good people to step up to the plate and say "let's not have laggy clubs here" or "let's have a club, but let's try to find some reasonable architects who will make it beautiful and build it so it won't lag as much" or whatever. The sky's the limits. The barest, barest minimum they could do is keep the malls out, which are big laggers too. Or go the other direction, and keep out a club, whatever. Or...simply MANAGE the club's appearance so that it isn't a huge lagger and ugly. A mall might not go up any way 700 meters from the telehub, not by a large-scale mall owner or land baron, but it could become prey to just anybody who thinks they should just open up a giant box and put their friends' vendors in it.

Well

That's normal. Nobody bids on a property like that too early, to avoid jacking it up. It will likely double its original bid of $655 but I'm guessing it won't go up no matter how much everybody talks it up because no group got together yet lol. And even if one does, they don't have to take it at the price it gets jacked up to. They can wait for the next sim. The point is to get people thinking of how to do this, and how to agree on the barest minimum of a zone, and help it happen. I do believe it can be done using the existing tools of the game, without special intervention by Lindens.

Prokofy, actually, I got majorly screwed on this.
In the pre-1.2 world I owned 1/4th of a sim. I paid for it with my ratings bonus - the good old tax system we loved to hate.
I could dream about gigantic projects, I could buy land wherever I wanted with linden dollars alone, and there was public land pretty much everywhere. I could be truly relevant. A leader.
I had to drastically scale back my involvement with SL and in fact, I sort of left for a while, though that was more for personal reasons.
Do keep in mind that lifetime memberships used to go for around $250... and back then the future of LL was very uncertain. In the first 6 months or so there was practically no land being added. Sims came up one at a time and very infrequently. The world was so empty that we once crashed half of it on purpose and nobody noticed.
I remember being able to gather every single person who was online for an impromptu event once - I was bored

It's a mistaken notion that charter members of SL get a free 4,096 square meter land allocation. That comes from a lifetime membership which, if I remember correctly, cost between $125 and $250 during the time they were available. They were sold continuously up to, again if I remember correctly, version 1.2 in December 2003. Charter members were not given these benefits for free. This idea probably came from the fact that charter members had more opportunity to buy a lifetime membership due to the window of availability. If anyone needs further proof, my join date is October 2003, after beta (and therefore not a charter member), and I have a lifetime membership with a 4,096 square meter allocation which I bought just prior to 1.2's release.

I don't see what is mistaken about seeing how these players got a FANTASTIC deal, that's the point. And yes, it is indeed free. If they paid $250 to secure themselves 4096 in perpetuity with no monthly tier bill, hey, that's just as good as free. I know many people who would pay that.

Do the math. I payd $9.99 a month for a subscription, but with this arrangement of a $250 charter subscription, I have to pony up the $250 up front, but look what I get -- $20/month to have a subscription, and 4096 of land. After the first year, it looks like I pay nothing, that is, break $250 over 12 months, and it is $20/month, then paid for.

Whereas if I had the current system, I pay $9.99 a month, and on top of that $25/month to hold 4096 land.

Yes, the older player then gets land for free. He does not pay tier on it every month. He has it as part of his charter subscription, for which he paid a lot of money up front, but not the cost of tier as it is month in and month out for everyone else.

It's always so humorous to me that privileged players are so defensive about seeing that they do, indeed have privileges. Of course they have privileges that substantially reduce or eliminate costs everyone else pays, duh! It's like the furious warfare over the idea that the sim donated to Neualtenberg wasn't "free" because they "have to pay tier" when in fact being saved the purchase price everybody else has to pay is indeed getting something for nothing. So here's the opposite, older players don't have to pay the tier everyone else pays on 4096, they were able to get it for free after making back the cost in one year.

This more or less was what I was referring to... That the concept of cooperativeness and large scale projects was new, or the "Look what you could do with 4096m2" bit. I too remember owning a hoard of land for my $14.95 membership.

It is important not to confuse lifetime memberships and charter memberships. Lifetime memberships were a limited time offer open to anyone playing SL at that time (roughly April-December 2003) carrying with it no monthly membership fees, and later no monthly tier fees for land up to 4,096 square meters, for an initial fee of a couple hundred dollars. If I remember correctly, prior to 1.2 the lifetime membership carried no benefits beyond a lack of monthly account fees. It was after 1.2 when land tiers were introduced and premium monthly accounts were granted automatic allocations of 512 square meters that lifetime members were granted a land allocation of 4,096 meters.

Charter membership simply means one joined SL during beta, and carries with it no benefit beyond possibly prestige. Charter members who are not also lifetime members pay the usual monthly membership fees or tier fees anyone else might, or may hold basic accounts.

While from a certain point of view you can say that a lifetime membership is "free" after the first year (by way of your cost breakdown; $20/month for one year), that does not consider the cost breakdown over the full life of the player's SL experience. I don't agree that it is accurate to say "older players don't have to pay the tier everyone else pays on 4096, they were able to get it for free after making back the cost in one year." The cost is not made back. The cost may be very reasonable when viewed as a monthly fee but the initial cost is gone forever once paid.

I also think it is inaccurate to characterize this as a privilege given to older players. At the time it was made available there there were very few older players because SL was itself young. The lifetime accounts were made available to everyone in SL at that time regardless of age and I myself was less than three months old when I bought one. It was generally viewed as a way to invest in a promising company with an enjoyable product and save some money in the long term, not as a reward for seniority. You seem to view things with a reduced price as "free" or "something for nothing" as though an SL account were made of smaller parts and getting an account for half price meant getting half the account for free.

I'm sorry if you saw my post as defensive. It was my intention to be informative since you seemed unclear about certain terms and conditions from the early days of SL.

Prokofy, you're missing the point here.
We paid $250 for the right to own an unlimited amount of land for an unlimited amount of time and never spend a single dollar again.
Nowadays, we can have 4096 sq.m. to play with. Thing is, most of us feted inner core peeps had at least twice as much as that! Yes, we were feted back then too
Back then, anyone who mattered was involved with a themed sim project where they had to own 4096 sq.m. of land just to keep the theme alive, and then on top of that they had to own whatever they wanted for a house, and then something for a business, or whatever other project they had at the time. People also bought a lot of land to protect the landscape etc...
4096 is nothing! You know that, you own a sim!
I have zero RL money to play with, man. I can't afford even the 5 dollar tier, and in fact I dont even have a credit card (long story).
I practically had to retire from SL due to 1.2! Wonderful deal my ass!
I came here to play a game, where all the money was play money, you couldnt sell it or buy it, and then suddenly SL changed to this crazy "platform" thing where only the RL-feted ones with tons of disposable income can have their fun.
Yes, I mean you, prokofy. How in the bleeping heck someone can afford to waste a thousand dollars on virtual land is beyond me. Especially if you consider that here in portugal that is what an experienced engineer makes in a month.

Basically in my mind it comes down to:
a) Yes, it was an awsome deal by today standards.
b) It is a lot less than what everyone thought they had bought

I miss the pre-1.2 days. *sigh* I rather be taxed $L for my prims and land than US$ for the "right" to have them,

Um...Eggy, it's hard to understand what point I could have POSSIBLY missed. You're hilarious. You just wrote that you get to have an "unlimited" amount of land? Well, that's even a better deal that I thought! But let's say it's 4096...yes...you get to have it free of tier in perpetuity. What part of "free" aren't you getting here? If you paid $25/mo for that 4096, you'd get it better, maybe? What is it with you feteds?




Yes, you were feted back then, which is why you remain feted, even if they pull the feting away, you keep your feted status, trust me.



Sounds like a fun game! Wish I could play it...or maybe not. That's a lot of work.



Er...I don't own a sim, really. I bought a sim and sold it. I now own a couple of parcels left on that sim. Other people bought it. And I own some of the commons, some of which I've been able to sell to people with the understanding they keep it build-free and take the prims, and I've rented some of it. So...as extravagant as it sounds, it is not "owning a sim". Go out to Ravenglass, turn on the "view owners" and see what is not sold, and then you'll get the idea. Most of it is sold to other people, and they are the owners and make up the community, such as it is, which is merely people who wish to have a residential sim.

And if I owned an entire sim and kept it and didn't sell it, so what? There are plenty of people who do that. And why would that make me ineligible to point out that that there are feted players with a sweetheart deal of a free-of-tier 4096 for the rest of their natural-born lives?



Well, I'm not a wealthy person in RL, and I just happened to have some special circumstances that enabled me to try this experiment for a brief time, to see how it went, and basically, try to make a dime on it. But it's unlikely I'll make any profit, due to the commons idea. We'll see.




Eggy, 4096 in paid-up-forever tier is golden. You could be renting it, trading it, putting something on it, and just living the life of Riley while you take the 2000 in LL everymonth, sell it on GOM, and use it to buy groceries.



Ah...now we're getting to the root of the vicious backlash of the Feted Ones against Prokofy Neva ROLFMAO! Well, geez, I feel your pain. I thought I had playmoney too when I came. But then it turned out you can't live without losing your play money even for clothes, even for an animation to kiss someone, unlike TSO where that all comes with the price of the subscription. And it also turned out that the dwell game is for suckers, tho I still play it. So unless you are a killer builder or designer, how can you make money to survive? After my first dozen contests, I turned to buying and selling land. I'm afraid I'll have to burst your balloon and tell you that I'm not real-life feted at all, just someone who wanted to make an experiment here, and put their money in and hopefully take it out again. I had no idea it would be populated with such anti-capitalist, anti-commerce, anti-business types who would so viciously fight for their socialism. I thought that was all left behind in the Soviet Union, but guess again.



Ah, it always turns out to be about anti-Americanism, does it? And it's really all about the socialist "eat-the-rich" again is it? Well, if someone wants to spend $1000 on a virtual land, you could call them ridiculous, but don't call them rich. $1000 or $1500 isn't enough to live on in New York City. It's a month's rent-- not even. An experienced engineer would make four times that I would imagine. $1500 isn't chump change, but it isn't a lot of money even for lower middle class, and this is even with the dollar being very low now compared to the euro. And as I pointed out, I didn't hang on to that land, or other land I've bought, I sell it, and I try to make back at least what I put in. Some of it I've rented, to see how that works. It's an experiment, to see if you can do it in this game or not.

One of the things that makes it so hard is the hatred so many players have for those who buy and sell land. It's unreasonable, and it's unnecessary. When there is real value in this game, hooked up to the RL world, then you feted inner types will have customers that can come to your events, buy your fancy scripted items, buy your designer clothes, buy your dance animations, buy your gadgets, vehicles, homes, springy shoes and Skunk Money games. Anything you put your mind to. You are well situated to make something of of your 4096, and if you have trouble coming up with ideas for what to do with your 4096, put it in our rentals group and we will rent land and give you the proceeds for a small fee -- or think up something else to do. You may be sitting on your assets.

Just an observation:

Verbose, snarky ramblings about the dispicable, money-hungry nature of the people who you're trying to lead into a project probably aren't going to inspire their cooperation. The blessed proletariat doesn't usually up and buy a huge parcel of land is all I'm saying.