Who's in favor of island billing being exactly like mainland billing ?

I am. Vote on the poll.

Steve, how much will Islands cost up front? In the last year, mainland sims have ranged from $1500 to $5000. Or are you just talking about monthly tier?

I think mainland should be cheaper than private islands since they're going to have lower quality from surrounding sims and the lack of control you have over your land as opposed to private islands.

Either way I wouldn't get one until server side is open source. Only then will you be able to visit Squeezeonestan!

Exactly what I wanted to say.

I was only referring to monthly tier. Original purchase could remain the same as now, to me anyway. Cost is another debate.

Yeah ditto that... either islands get downgraded to the same region controls mainland sims have, or mainland sims cost less.

are you talking older islands or new islands
the land pricing page says full sim 195 a month thats mainland correct?
and private island is 295 a month so arent they currently paying more for the extras they get?

Other than the ability to carve up and sell off the parts, all other factors favor Islands.

Just a few benefits: Waterfront on four sides. Ability to hold more avatars. Less lag. Terra and sun options. etc.

The benefits are worth a 33% premium.

However, I am in favor of bringing down tier fees in general.

Too bad there's no way to know what LL's actual costs for the servers are to see how much profit they make. There's a chance it's more expensive than people think!

It also could be their driving profit-maker. Who knows but a Linden?

aslong we keep the same control, functions and performance, i`d allways vote for lower costs lol

but tbh, the $100 a month difference is worth it with the total control we have
best example is the ghost prim issue where we could restart the sim at any given time we wanted to fix it unlike the mainland where u would have been stuck for days

I think tier levels should be the same so that as island owners we are able to offer better rental fees to our customers.

Surprisingly perhaps I don't have a strong opinion on this one.


Like it or not, all of us who maintain sims of any stripe are de facto partners, of a sort, with the Company. Junior Partners, and really junior ones at best.

Which is a good thing.

Because as little as one might trust a Company manager, they are likely to have more facts in front of them than we do about the state of the world, and more information about the capabilities of a small Company to change it.

Sort of a "trust the pilot to fly the plane more than the passengers" philosophy - and if there are pilot issues, it's still better to give the plane's controls to the copilot than the passengers.

* * * * *

I hadn't been keen on it when the private sim prices went up, but I pretty much could see where it was coming from, and why.

If it truly was to curb rampant expansion via private sims, and truly to get the Company into sustainable profit territory, then... it was something that simply had to happen.

It's painfully clear that mainland sims are better moneymakers for the Company overall - every scrap of unused tier out there is 'land' that they make money on that isn't even represented on the grid. (I picture unused tier, collectively, as a vast and ghostly 'continent' of nether-region sims, all misty in a twilight sea - how much of that continent are you paying for? grin).

We've all collectively bounced off grid concurrency limits (a growth pain) for months, so perhaps prices weren't high *enough*... and thus opens up the great debate about allowing free accounts in for, well... nothing.

But by the same token, I expect prices to come down once they are able to bring them down.

Why? Business 101 - don't spur on your competition with stratospherically high prices, dominate the market as best you can with low prices.

I didn't agree on other pricing possibilities we've heard recently, but I've said my piece on those and put forward my reasons.

I do think it would be a mistake to raise prices further... mainland or otherwise. Technology prices always come down via competition, and it seems the rule is: the greater the price, the harder the fall.

* * * * *

Playing 'pricing manager for the grid' for a moment, I'd be looking at value-added services that would encourage premium membership.

I think I'd put the ability to speak with your voice in this category. Also, the limited ability to change or maintain a personal name for a price (first names, add a middle name, change a last name with a 'forward' in search).

Other things too. Such as the ability for your avatar to be up to 90% transparent, more profile picks, classifieds at a discount, extended text and pictures in your profile. More groups.

That way, those who *really* needed to access the grid for free still can... but maybe it's a dollar a month or something minimal to be 'really cool and capable'.

It would have to be minimal, as there are people who rent entire sims that aren't premium members themselves - perhaps a land baron could pay a resident's 'extra features' fee as long as the resident was a tenant.

As it is, everyone that pays tier or rent is in effect covering the cost of free folks to be here.

Finally... if push came to shove, I'd rather that the next million freebie users had to view 5 second Coca Cola and Nissan ads on teleport, than my regions bill go up X hundred bucks a month...

Um.... Wow. I never ever thought I'd hear a suggestion about "what to do about all those free accounts" that I actually truly liked. But that's it, right there. That would make me go premium in a big hurry, and still squeeze some value out of those that don't.

I'm very impressed.

.

I believe the Linden gods call that heresy, Ray.

/me moves away a little to get clear of the impending lightning strike.

In general it really annoys me when LL makes announcements which are never folllowed up on again:

Mainland specific:
General pricing:
It would be nice to know whether all the above was shelved (we're 8 months along now), or if it's merely waiting in Zee's drawer until they need to buy another company/feature.

Maybe I shouldn't remember that far back and just be far less troubled .

Mainland sims should never cost as much as private islands unless they reach feature parity. There are lots of features that island owners enjoy that aren't available to mainland owners. They're also on newer hardware than any of the mainland sims that have been around for a year or more.

! yes !

Desmond Shang for linden! (too bad we cant vote them in)

seriously this is an awesome idea

Let's be honest though. The only way the two are going to be made equal in price is by raising the price of teh lower one. And No one really wants that.

Well I'm in favour of lower tiers for private island but to be honest I'm not sure of all the differences. What are these differences in limits? Can a private island hold more than 50 people?

If tier fees dropped to something reasonable then perhaps half the grid wouldn't be yellow, people wouldn't delete awesome sim builds because they don't make money.
I could afford to for out $1700US for a sim every couple of years, but not $1700 every 6 months.

NOOOOO!!! I _LIKE_ high tier fees! I wish they were even higher! It is so much fun watching my bank account drain month by month!

And I like adcuts, and landbots, and campers, and cloned strip malls selling freebies, and most of all I LOVE LAAAAAAAAAAAGGGG!!!

<-- I makez joek!

The price of mainland sims is stunning, it really is.

And even so, given that land prices are now finally falling again, they are going for more than private islands a lot of the time.

Of course ... the flip side of that *IS* the tier.

I'm getting the strange yearning for mainland though, only because islands which are not adjacent and together feel so ... lonely ... and I want to be able to sail away from the jetty and explore (if only those empty spaces between islands could eb water without it having impact/cost, sigh ...)