Advise: Islands Or Mainland ?

Hi and waves to everyone,

Many questions I have received wether people should by land on Mainland or on Islands ( private estate ).
Many people just run behind their imagination and of course 'Island' sounds great.

I do suggest that you are careful what to choose as both have pros and cons.

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Pros and cons for Islands:

Basically parcles on Islands can be low priced.
Islands are owned by estate owners. They have bought it from Linden Lab ( LL ) for US$ 1675 and pay monthly tier US$ 295. In that respect they will always stay the owner.
Land to residents therefore is leased.

Be careful to feel if the estate owner has a friendly profile and response. As we all know, players of SL ( thus also the estate oweners ) can show bizarre or extreme moods. It would not be the first time that residents had been removed without a justified reason.
Estate owners also can go bankrupt. We should not dramatize it, but the risks are present, and I've seen it more then once that residents just lost all they had.

Islands, for some reason, are often due to heavy lag compared to mainland.
The reason is unknown, but very often a fact.

The amount of tier to be paid depends on the estate owner. Tier is paid to him/her. Sometimes the tier is higher than mainland, but it can also be a lower. It depends on the estate owner.

Limits on Islands are:
Covenants ( ristricatons for building, reselling, behavior ), no terraforming and ocean around the region/sim cannot be used ( as they are no sims/regions in use by LL ).

If all these points have no importance to you, and if covenants are to live with compared with the lower price, an Island might suit your neads.

Islands are better suitable for a theme and commercial use.
Return On Investment is higher and the risk of being blocked by owners around your parcel has a serious less risk.

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What are the pros and cons for Mainland

On mainland the risk is very easy and fast that the view of your parcel and access is being block as all residents can build and decide access to their property as they please.
These risks are enormous inland.

Commercial use is of course possible but the price for a parcel might be high for your Return On Investment and the risk of being blocked by owners around you can be a quiet a risk.

Terraforming is possible and mainland usally have no covenants.

At Protected locations at Linden Ocean and at well selected locations this risk is fairly nil (if critically well researched and selected).
The Linden region/sim-oceans can be used to drive a boat etc, but are not permitted to build on.
Objects placed unused on that ocean are returned to the owner automatically after 5 or 20 minutes (depending on the Linden ocean).
This keeps the view open and clean and the ocean can be used to play.
Linden ocean can be recognized by: Owner: Govenor Linden.

Lag depends on the region. My experience is that mainland performs often signifantly faster. However a class 5 server is no garantee for high speed. A healty Time delation and SimFPS are the most crucial elements.

Tier on mainland is fixed by Linden lab by a tier table per how many sq.m is owned. For the first 512 sq.m no tier is required as a bonus.

Before you buy land on mainland I would suggest to have a friendly chat with the direct neigbours and check if their profile appeares to be friendly.
Check if the ban lists don't seem to be out of control and if owners around you are not likely to restrict access.

Again, someone's profile reveales a lot about about kindness and co-operation.

Really super locations at Linden Ocean are rare available and therefore have the highest value in SL.
You're land would be very well protected in a friendly region and is no subject to lag and blocked views and access.

If your budget has space and you appreciate speed, higher stability and need a protected view with a usable connected Linden ocean, and you like the beach or if you are romantic, well selected protected mainland might suit you need the best.

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Still question ?
Please IM me for further advise and instructions.
I will always there to advise and instruct you.

Ciao

Good post, Linda.

I'd like to correct two things, though...

First, private islands are well-suited for residential, not just for commercial, use. Most of the sims in the island group where I live are dedicated to residential builds. One of the nice things about island living is that you're pretty well assured that some ugly commercial build won't appear on the plot next door.

Second, terraforming is possible on a private island. The limits depend on what the island owner has set, but typically allow for plus or minus 4 to 6 meters from the reference level. I've built a mountain, a beach, a boat slip, and a swimming pool filled with Linden water on my island parcel.

Actually the post is full of Inaccuracies concerning Islands. and I will now go through them one by one:

"Islands, for some reason, are often due to heavy lag compared to mainland.
The reason is unknown, but very often a fact. "
- Completely untrue. In fact it's quite the opposite, Islands are far less laggy than mainland, as most mainland sims are still Class 4, and most Islands to date are Class 5. Islands also benefit from active management to combat lag issues, while on Mainland you are at the mercy of your neighbors and the whims of LL. Try getting a mainland sim reset. Next to impossible.

"Covenants ( ristricatons for building, reselling, behavior ), no terraforming and ocean around the region/sim cannot be used ( as they are no sims/regions in use by LL )."

- Again, a brash generalization. while *some* islands may not allow terraforming, many do. It's up to the estate owner, and will be reflected in the covenant. Also the ocean around the sim can be used if it's part of an ajoining island, same as on mainland. There is no functional difference between sim ocean on an island and sim ocean on the mainland.

Also you failed to mention that While premium membership is required to rent land on the mainland, this is not required to rent land on an Island, this fact can substantially increase one's savings from renting on and Island versus renting on Mainland.

And on a personal note, I have to say It's sad people love to hype the actions of a few bad Estate owners, when debating the Mainland/Island question. Most Estate owners are very reasonable people. I can only say talk to other renters in the Estate before renting. This will give you the best idea of the temperment of the Estate owner in question.

And lastly, Covenants are there both for the protection of the Estate owner, *and* the residents. Its through the Covenant that one will be ensured an enjoyable environment in which one can work, play, and live. No Covenant means no rules, as the bare few rules in SL's Terms of Service are at best rarely enforced by the AR system which has been stretched beyond the point where it is still functional.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks, Darien. I missed the lag and premium items.

I'm a very happy owner/renter on a Private Island estate.

You do not need to have premium membership to rent on mainland, you need premium to buy on mainland.



When I joined I looked at the options avaialble, buy/rent etc but the problem with Covenants, they were mostly written one way, ie; to protect the owner, I do not believe I have ever seen a covenant that mentions any rights as to the paying tennant, it was all to onesided and no consideration was given to the tennants. Basically if you miss rent day your out is how most were written then, so don't know if thats any better now.

Perhaps thats down to the lack of entrepreunerial skills of would be business people.

Covenants protect the tenants not against the landlord, but against their neighbors.

A typical covenenant will tell you what sort of things you may build on your land...residentaial only, retail commercial, etc. It may specify a particular style. If you're on a tropical island sim, a brooding gothic castle next door might spoil the view for you.
It may restrict certain activities. For example, damage-enabled combat is not permitted in my sim, nor are major weapons (I can have, and use, my katana...but my neighbor can't build a fort and stock it with tanks and Harrier jets. Thank goodness!)

If your proposed activites fall within the covenant, you will most likely be a happy camper. If the things you like to do don't fit in...look for a home elsewhere.

Don't look for "tenant rights" in a covenant. You have none. As mentioned earlier, the landlord may take back the property at any time, for any reason...or for no reason. A reputable landlord won't do this, as it would hurt her reputation and future business. But you MUST determine if your potential landlord is an honest businessperson.

Except in Caledon, where you do. Rather than quote from a [possibly] outdated covenant, you can travel to any Caledon sim and use the "About land..." option to view it.

Hello everyone,

I'm very glad about the reactions and thank you so much.
I do hope I have covered all the reactions.

Of course ( gladly ) many users seem to be happy on Islands. Other's not.
If people are happy with all conditions and the estate owner is nice and responsive, then an Island could suit fine.
If people have space in their budget and don't want any hassle and reading covenants at all, research mainland for well selected regions as I proposed.

Nonetheless, matters like the covenants, terraforming and the mood of the estate owner depend on the person and therefore Island. This will stay a fact.
On Mainland there are no covenants, terraforming is always +/- 4m ( +/- 8 on some old sims ) and an estate owner is not in between. This will stay a fact.
Other risks and difference I have mentioned, and it is up to the user to choose between Island and Mainland.

Of course covenants are there for protection for both the renter and estate owner. As far as I have seen, covenants are often written quiet narcistic to the estate owner's point of view and intentions, and to some point for the benefit of tenants and leasers. This might be lack of entrepreneurship indeed.
Covenants do depend on the estate owner ( Island ). Some will not let you resell the land for example and other covenants can be suitable for a specific user.
Nonetheless, Islands do have covenants and therefore have ristrictions for people who would prefer absolute freedom of play without any complexity and hassle.
For them I would not recommend covenants.

Lag versus speed.
Class 4 and 5 seems to be mentioned very often as a benchmark for speed.
Wether a sim ( on Islands and Mainland ) is 4 or 5 depends very much on the time of introduction of a sim. Many older Islands are still on class 4, newer on 5.
The newer 5th and 6th continents Nautilus and Corsica are very fast everywhere.
Type 4 and 5 of course have an influence on the initial and basic speed of the server, Time delation and SimFPS will always be the key factors to the end result. I have visited about all Islands by now and my experience is Time delation and SimFPS factors are not quiet an exceptional issue, causing quiet massive lag.

Saving on a premium account for Islands is used as pro for Islands indeed.
Let's rationalize it:

Monthly:
US$ 9,95 = L$2687 - (4,33xL$300 stipend base) = L$1388 = US$ 5,14 netto.

Quarterly:
US$ 22,50 = L$6075 - (13xL$300 stipend base) = L$2175 = US$ 8,05 netto.

Etc.

Staying on a basic account limits account services, limits weekly stipend base, and the netto cost for premium membership is not making a hole in any rl budget I would say. Moreover, as said, it sounds nice, but in fact you never own the parcel and miss the L$300 weekly stipend base which makes the netto cost for premium a laugh on quarterly basis.
If you are on a super strict low budget, agree with covenants and accept other conditions, Islands could serve. Otherwise I would research alternatives also.

Reset of a sim is not much of an issue anywhere. A roll back can be requested.
On Islands and both Mainland I could understand that it would be appropriate that all settled users in the sim would agree on it first. We have had a roll back of my mainland property agreed upon all residents.
On an Island I could understand that the estate owner decides on his own initiative... I have seen residents loosing inventrory in that way by the way.

Usable Oceans:
Usable oceans are not "water". Facts remains that usable Linden Ocean around Islands is not there. Around them the regions are empty and not in use by LL, unless a connecting region is also bought by the estate onwner. If an estate owner has some water available depends on if he/she has made it available on the sim, or he/she can have some water made available by connected ( former empty ) sims he has bought for US$1675 each without the need of exploiding it. The latter is not certainly likely to happen. The water could however perfectly suit for swimming or a short boat ride.
However, I was talking about Usable Oceans ( not water ).
For long distance undestrubted sailing and flying over it "water" doesn't suit should people prefer this to be available directly at their parcel. On mainland the Linden Oceans can cover many connected sims for long distance sailing and play. Selected protected mainland directly at vast regions of Linden Ocean would suit those needs should the budget allow it.

Well, this is clearing up many things more.
And thank you so much for your input

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Henry Ford also said:
People can have all colors as long as they are black. ( lol )

Sigmund Freud:
"People strongly tend to remain loyal to their dreams, illusions and mind.
Acceptance of major transitions is not likely to be sensitive to logic, reason and arguments. Very sadly revolutions and even wars arise from this theory.

Indeed, this has been often confirmed to me in SL with the land business:
Many people bye land strongly based on impression, illusions and dreams which makes us human beings of course.

Revolutionary thoughts may open insights and trigger changes:
My aim is to add insights and rationality. Truly I do hope we all learn from it.

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I invite you to take a look at mine, then

As for the OP: While I understand that you are attempting to provide an unbiased assessment here, you will have to forgive me, but you present a very biased slant towards mainland.

I own both mainland and estate (both as an estate owner *and* as a resident on someone else's sims). I can tell you that even if I sold off all the properties I own, I would never in a million years go back to living on mainland. Own a business there? sure. I have Pando Square Mall, it does fine. The caveat to that being, I own the entire sim and have as much control over the lag and so forth as I possibly can have mainland, which isn't saying much by comparison to estate.

A well researched mainland plot of land found today with no ad farms or other neighboring businesses or so forth, might well be tomorrow's nightmare, with no one to appeal to and little hope of recouping your original investment price... a price that was likely high given the premium nature of the parcel you indicate.

Newly released land is the worst of all to get in on unless you're buying a lot of land because the small parcels are going to go through some rapid fire transitions for the first few months and there's no telling what they will become. I've seen it too many times to count and won't go there.

Established lands are better, especially if there are few overall owners in a given sim, but then you're likely to be buying a much bigger chunk of land than most folks start out with.

And you forget with your vagaries of estate owners that while yes indeed we are human and can be moody and unpredictable, the vast majority of us don't take that out on our residents, uphold our own covenants and feel bound by them as both a duty and an honor.

What you say about premium membership is true. They do lose the 300L and they do not get the better support services. I encourage everyone who can and is willing to, to become premium members. I have four alts, three are premium in addition to my main, one is an unverified. The latter is simply because she is the only one who can check the estates for all manner of banlines. Enough said.

But the biggest benefit I provide my estate residents, commercial or residential, is me. I don't say that to be immodest, I say it because I provide customer service beyond anything you will *ever* get on the mainland. Your neighbor has something spammy going on? particles drifitng into your lot? A noise making item? Prims over the property line? Who do you call mainland when your neighbor tells you to piss off its his property he'll do what he wants?

On my estates, and I would presume most estates, you call me, or one of my estate managers and its handled.

Who do you go to when there's a grid attack? you have to wait for the AR team to get a handle on it and clear the grid. On my estates its over in a matter of moments as one or more of the EM team swarms in to clear things.


Char

Thank You "Larrie Lane" for pointing out those other inaccuracies



this is also not true, i dont think i have seen an island with a full sim dedicated to be ocean ?, something you can find on the mainland, at some points clusters of 5 or even more ocean sims together.

Its not cost effective for an estate owner to do this. But many of us have the low prim clusters that allow boating between them.

Do try to remember that what is of utmost importance to you is irrelevant to others. There are strong pros and cons to *both* areas and it is up to every individual to find the balance that works for them.

Shall we all agree to have our own point of view and let it go?

Char

p.s. anyone who wants my notecard on Mainland & Estate: The good, the bad & the ugly, is welcome to IM me in world for it.

Hi again,

If I seem to have stepped on a few toes, I'm very sorry for that if I have.
Of course I do understand and respect all points of view.
Nonetheless, my aim is different than the point of view of estate owners and various situations from Island to Island: to give a generalized summary for end users and hope there is something to learn in addition.

That situations are various from Island to Island is very certain.
Although Customer Services and After Sales beyond anything can also be found on the mainland... Well, in my case anyway. Agreements with the neighbours can also be very well established if you understand how to find clean and friendly areas.

My advise remains:
Both Islands and Mainland ( that is well selected Premium land ) have pros and cons, depending on all requirements of the end user I suppose.

Ciao

Linda, there is no way not to step on toes in here. Have done it many a time myself, even when I said *not sure* in the body of my reply. Therefore my apology to you if anyone has hurt your feelings. Unless you want your post to be 10 pages long you can't hit on everything.

My problem with buying or renting on a private sim is that regardless of any convent they put in to protect the renter/owner, they can still kick your A-- off that island any time they deem fit with no warning. I know this has happend to me when a rl person who was subleting to us died in her real life so obviously no tier could be paid to the sim owner. He really didn't care a bit even though I offered to pay him again. All he cared about was his money... Sad for him that a real human being was less important to him than a few lindens.

Normally, keeping an eye on one island properly is going to keep you busy maybe 10-20 hours a week, for maybe 170 USD a month if you do it perfect and are solid full of tenants. Most people not 'into' Second Life would run screaming from that. Hard to know what happened in your situation.

As for private estates: yup, you can be kicked off, muted and banned the instant money was paid.

You could also have expensive objects left behind and stranded, you could be ridiculed and the sim owner could dance on the wreckage.

Or the island could simply vanish in a shimmer of pixels one day - no warning, no recourse.

All these things could happen.

Of course, you could also walk into a soup kitchen and a rude person could say, "Get out, no soup for you!"

Ya just never know...

Hahaha Desmond,

Lol.
Can we conclude that SL seems to be gateway with a lower threshold to exploit the soup kitchens you mentioned, in cases ggg .

Thanks for the wisdom you all .

Ciao and waves.

Coyote,

Caledon rocks...or it would if rock had ever been invented there.

Des is arguably the BEST private estate developer/renter/manager in Second Life. I would expect Caledon's covenant to be a model of fairness. I would rent land from him any day of the week, if it weren't for the fact that a) there's always a waiting list, and b) I don't look good in hoop skirts.

Still, as I think even he will admit, covenants are not enforceable, at least in the tenant-to-landlord direction. You rely on the ethics of the owner, regardless. Des's ethics are solid gold, which is why he has such a long waiting list of customers.

True--I own three parcels there, and have never had issue with putting up anything/terraforming as I saw fit/neighbor issues. I leave my parcels build and script enabled, as usually, if someone spots something amiss, they'll IM me about it. Similarly common areas are frequently cleaned up by estate owners notified via group chat.

But, and this is the important point, my aesthetic sense runs towards the Victorian/Steampunk. It might be stating the obvious, but a themed sim like Caledon attracts people with a common vision. I find the same in Steelhead and Antiquity, two other islands I happily rent on. But if you don't like that shared vision, well, you won't like the island.



The crinoline issue is a common misconception. There is room for all sorts of dresses, from lovely Regency affairs, to borderline scandalous dress reform examples. Myself, I admit to slouching about in a late 1880's riding habit or bicycle dress half the time.

All sorts of comfy, yet feminine and flattering, outfits can be seen here:
http://www.victoriana.com/Victorian-Fashion/sports-clothing.html

(I do hope that wasn't tooooo wildly off topic )

With all respect and freedom of speech.
Caledon seems to be a reasonable place. Personally I can't find any exitement, but I do understand that some people would like the theme, relaxation, conditions and ultra low traffic. Hmm, I have noticed that the covenant is very long to read... very long...
I really wonder if people would read it... Probably I had already left. But that's me.
At least Desmond is hounest to say that buying land on Islands is misleading.
People can use the parcel on the condition to respect the covenant.
The lag is a different story. For some reason Desmond ( I don't know why ), rezzing of objects is quiet slow; just on the edge of impatience I would say. Could it be that servers are still class 4? when I visited many times there was also almost no traffic.
Anyway, the theme is nice, and at least you are very hounest.
Housesty is everything in my perspective of life

I researched both. The advantage of an island, as stated, is that you won't find an ugly warehouse blocking your view, or a big prim glowing orb in the sky. My first land was on a private island and is currently on one as well.

Just some things to consider about an island. Be sure that the owner of record is stable. Talk to them and find out what they are planning. The group that owns the island I started out on has the orders in and will eventually have their own continent. The owner also has ongoing business concerns in SL so he isn't going anywhere. Same for the owner where I moved to.

But, I also know of an island, recently, that the owner decided to get out of SL and sold the island. The residents were SOL. They received a very small amount of money and 48 hours to vacate. The amount they were given wasn't even enough to buy a 512 on the mainland. These are people that had 8192 size lots.

That being said, if you do your research, depending on what kind of lifestyle you are looking for, both have their good and bad.

Wah, just poked into this thread just now! Didn't realise I was being discussed

Ah, with respect to covenant enforceability, believe it or not, there *is* a mechanism, though a very imperfect one.

Realise, Caledon is over 4000 USD/month of tier. Say I did something bad to somebody - it would be like shooting one bird in a flock. Maybe they wouldn't all leave. Maybe that one bird would never see redress. But there is a huge, substantial motivating factor in place for me to behave.

Try having a bill of over 4000 USD/mo against your credit card... would you behave?

On a side issue, oddly enough, *how* the covenant is enforced is also a problem. For every person wanting the covenant to be lax on Tuesday, come Thursday they want me to be tough, Tough, TOUGH! ... but to their neighbour!

I'm pretty lenient, and I make no apologies for it. For those who want carefully measured punishments meted out, I suggest one of the legalistic sims... grin



People go over that covenant like crazy. I was surprised. The reason it's long is to give a sort of spirit of the place - you'll notice the second half isn't rules at all, but a history. Crazy as it sounds, I think our history is important.

Traffic - try Tateru Nino's headcounts on her blog. We are largely a residential area, and even so, run an estimated 10,000 visits a week roughly. Couple that with constant live events - honestly, we aren't that bad. Caledon is what you get when you strip away all the campers and icky stuff.

Could I boost traffic? You bet I could, overnight. I could allow general subleasing and we'd be drowning in dots. I don't, to preserve the quality of the sims.

About half our servers are class 4, yes. But if something is slow to rez, that has nothing to do with server class. There's something else going on, probably you've got network issues or packet loss, or did those times. Class 4 vs class 5, that's not it. Any sim that dips below .95 time dilation gets attention in Caledon, and fixed promptly.

Thanks for all the kind words, everyone

It is what one wishes, like any other place. I seem to vacillate betwixt spending a quiet hour chatting with friends in the morning over tea, and trying to shoot self same friends down with my Vickers equipped Ornithopter. It's a fairly large area--there are sim crashing balls (not all Victorian, though personally I prefer those), and empty areas one can stroll about in.

Not to say that Caledon specifically is everyone's cup of tea. But truly, we are not always lounging about the veranda, fanning ourselves and watching the virtual sun make its slow way across the sky.