Why Purchase Mainland?

I've been looking at land on the mainland and on private parcels. I realize that when buying from a private parcel that I'm bound by the covenents of the Sim owner. I also realize that while it's called buying that its renting in reality. However, I don't see any benefit of purchasing mainland.

I just checked out land in Corsica. Here's this fresh new area that looks beautiful on the map and what do I see? Already I see no zoning, I see yard sales, I see ad signs all around.

Other than being able to say I own this land and can do what I want, I'd like to hear opinions of why I should buy on the mainland. Less restriction is not so thrilling to me if the area looks like crap.

You can divide and/or resell it. One of the few benefits.

Other than rezzing a skybox for a place to build and experiment...there really IS no good reason for buying mainland any longer. Unless you buy a fairly large parcel, you will never be able to separate yourself from your neighbors enough to gain even the illusion of privacy. Just MHO.

You don't own it any more than you own private land, you're just buying from about the most trustworthy source here. You still have to pay either a membership fee or a land use fee for owning mainland. It's just that LL shouldn't be unreasonable about reclaiming it like private owners can.

As for why buy mainland, you get more flexibility than private landowners give you in general but as you point out, that's not always a positive.

I noticed in looking at a few island lots for sale, that the "read first" notice sometimes stated that although you "owned" the parcel, you could not RESELL it without first getting the island sim owner's direct permission. That seemed rather odd to me, and undermines even further the "owenership" concept.

I forget what they call in, in places like New York or someplace where certain apartments and rentals have a frozen rent that the landlord cannot raise, or kick them out from? And it makes those rentals *extremely* valuable, and I think people even "sell" a sublease to others who get that protection. I'm probably all confused and I forget what it's called, but that is how I sometimes think of estate sales -- as "infinity leases" where you pay a large upfront fee to guarantee certain desireable conditions will last forever, and can later "sell" the "infinity lease" to someone else.

Regular by-the-week rentals have less protection, the landowner might jack the rents or sell the land and the new owner auto-return all your stuff while your rent is still in place! =oO (A little spoof on the "am I a jerk?" thread)

Correct. I realize there is no such thing as true ownership in SL.

I'd still like to hear from those who prefer mainland. There must be something about it that I'm missing.

have restricted land divide only so i know what ppl are doing, if anyone needs to join or divide their land, all i`m asking for an IM so i can track of land sales and tier instead of waking up 1 day and find say a 8144 cut into 512 and resold

The only good reason I can think of: Higher Traffic. Only likely to interest you if you run a business. AFAIK there are no infohubs on Corsica so I guess traffic won't be that high anyway once land sales have died down.

I had a parcel five sims from Ahern last year and cripes, the traffic was insane. Right after dwell was taken from us too. I coulda been paid for it.

I own a 512 in Livigno and while it's gotten a little more crowded around me over time, nothing terribly obnoxious has sprouted up that I can see. I kept my house relatively small so I have more snow to look at, and the view from my window is actually quite nice.

I like the fact that I don't have to pay anything on it beyond my annual membership and the money I put down to purchase it.

And, hey, now that they've banned gambling, you'll never have to worry about a casino being built next to you!

Anyone who prefers it either lives on a nice established sim (like my home sim of Carlisle) or is happy to have the ability to rez whatever ugly or beautiful crap they like, or wants and needs flyby traffic, or is buying it to resell or rent out, or is fearful that the Estate owner will evict them, or they like a look or theme of a certain sim. Racking my brain, but I think that's it.

Bradley,

If one were to buy a whole mainland sim, the tier is only $195 instead of $295 for the same amount of land. You have also basically "purchased your view," so it doesn't look like crap.

I own over 40% of "Devolin Mal" in Southeast corner of the the Nautilus continent. In addition to having most of my view "bought up," I'm fortunate to have neighbors who are into the beauty of their land, and are not exploiting it for ad space or junk. If you take a look, you might be surprised it's mainland. Yes, there are still some risks here.

If you're just wanting to buy a small plot for yourself, then others' advice is probably sound. You're likely to end up with monstrous things popping up around you on the mainland. So maybe you're better off "buying" something on an island, or renting from someone like me. <-----(shameless plug)

Mainland parcels are great to start an own business. Islands with land for rent tend to be strictly residential. On the mainland you're free to create whatever storefront you like, and for a shop owner it doesn't matter much what the surrounding parcels look like.

Only way I'll ever own outside of the mainland is if I bought my own sim...which won't happen anytime soon.

Even then, I would prefer to own a sim on the mainland simply to be a spectacle and to be considered one of the few good builds on the mainland.

The Statue of Liberty would look horrible in Lake Superior!!

I don't mind building in the sky and actually prefer it because of lag reasons...even if my surroundings are desirable.

The other reason I like the mainland is because I like to go on trips every now and then. One piece of my property is by several large bodies of water so I love spending an hour sailing across several sims, working my way through the waterways. I also like flying down the roads on protected land in the older areas.

I really think the mainland would be better if LL had kept up on that. I understand why they wouldn't be able to, though, with all the growth SL has seen.

There are a few private sims I like going to and hanging out at, but overall I'm a mainland kid!

I was on the mainland for a while. What I saw as the main benefits were (1) contiguous sims so you could, if close to the road or a waterway, explore around nicely, (2) ability to have 512 plots and "own" at a lower cost, and (3) the freedom of not having covenants. The downsides are the lack of zoning (the flipside of no covenants) and the resulting ad farms, ubiquitous ban lines that make exploring a pain, the hugger mugger feel of many areas and, in some areas, increased lag.

I now live on an island sim, and I prefer it because the downsides of the mainland for me outweighed the upsides -- but your own preferences may be different from mine.

I've taken another look around at some mainland sims and have been able to find some that are nicer than most of the others. Unfortunately all I've seen so far are connected to Sims that are littered with rotating signs etc. I'd be very frustrated to work hard to develop an attractive sim only to have to look over someone elses blight.

I've also come to realize that part of my issue is that while I'll see lots of nice homes in a Sim they seem very disorganized as far as layout. I guess I've come to realize that I must prefer conformity. Hmmm, not something I'd ever thought I'd hear myself say.

Other than retail, though, I'm not hearing any other reason to buy mainland. Guess that means I probably have my answer.

Before you give up, you may want to visit a few of the sims mentioned here: /327/14/176949/1.html

And this site has reviews of various sims: http://www.SecondSeeker.com

Landscape beauty is almost always a certin type of random conformaty, or patterned randomness.

There is an element of randomness and an element of constraint, Nowhere in nature is there every kind fo plant all placed with complete randomness in one area. THere are ery severe constraints in the layout of plants and rocks and water in our world that we've come to know as "beautiful" when talking about views.

Something that I have had to deal with in av building ("Hairstylists" in SL know this concept very well) as well as landscaping. The conformity can be greater (formal gardens) or lesser (wild natural areas), but the pure random haphazardness of getting 30 people building in a single sim rarely has nearly the conformity necessary to be anything other than annoyingly cluttered unless on owner has forced conformity on them

Pure anarcic randomness is just "clutter" or "noise". We use and appretiate conformity in our lives to levels most people don't probably think about too much, even the most random of us!

I own about a 1/4 sim of mainland, all non-commercial, in a mostly-transgendered sim. Slowly building a fairly big pool, though only about 8k m2 is wet so far. With the exception of a small skybox, all of my land is open to the public - don't be rude and you're welcome to hang out and have fun.

Personally, I like having strangers stop by. Some are curious and are left to explore. Some are new and clueless and I'm happy to help them out. Some are looking for some discreet (or not so much) fun and, again, are welcome to stay and scoop, as long as they're not ruining it for others. Some are rude and/or idiots - they don't stay long.

If you don't intend to resell your property but just want a neat place to build your home, rent on an estate. There is no buying price, just weekly rent. Usually there is a covenant that prevents people from ruining the sim (for example: excessive terraforming is banned, no building higher than 30m, no floating objects below 300m). I prefer to adhere to some basic rules over living on a mainland sim that looks like a 3d version of the adult classifieds page in your local free newspaper.

Your money reaches LL at the end anyway, so for them it shouldn't matter where you live.

Eventually there is no such thing like "ownership" on SL. Any piece of land you call your own is a section of physical hard drive space on one of the Linden servers. You always pay LL for hosting your home. Real ownership would mean to run the server side SL software on your server, bring a piece of land into virtual existence and connect it to the main grid. So far this is not possible.

There are pros and cons, but not too much benefits. I think buying mainland, you buying from a more reliable source. With a private island, you are at their mercy. I've had friends who lived on private islands and the sim owner swiped it clean twice and everyone had to start over. Then he finally cleaned it a third time and said she was going to focus on helping some friends out. Most left after the first time, but some stayed to have it done to them twice. He did it without notice. If a private island owner can't pay the tier and shuts down, the residents are in limbo. Now, if Linden Lab shuts down, we ALL are gone anyways.

You have a better range of terrains/textures to choose from on mainland. Most islands all look alike.

The downside to mainland is the lag in most places (ad farms, flood of scripts, etc.), That's why I bought close to 1/2 sim to keep that under control. Eyesores is another thing. You buy a nice oceanfront just to see a home made island built in front of your view with eyesores on it.

Also, private islands are usually cheaper per month since you pay no premium membership fees. And in most cases, tier is even cheaper. So, you actually save money, but the risks are higher also.

Very simple, I only buy mainland because I won't live in a RL area with zoning laws and covenants, why would I want to in SL? Freedom, it is a beautiful thing.

I don't think that is true in all cases and is one of the possible advantages I see to mainland. IF you pay yearly, the premium membership is only $6 US/month and includes 300L$ per week in stipend plus 512 in tier. You could see that as paying 2$ per month in tier for that 512 (the other 4$ offset by the stipend). Add in the 10% bonus on group land and the monthy costs of mainland can be moderated a fair bit. The purchase price of the land, however, will likely be much higher than most very nice (and far more visually satisfying) island parcels.

it's called rent controls

I live on mainland. A small 512 square meter plot that is surrounded on three sides by Linden protected land.........it's nice, quiet, and not ugly. Actually my house is probably the ugliest in the immediate area since I still have a little texturing to do on the outside. There are some businesses near and some signs.........but they are not objectionable at all. I've seen quite a few come and go in the sim since I purchased it a year and a half ago............but only one small group got obnoxious and I had to ban them from my land. There is one club in the sim.........but it seldom causes trouble with lag.

The advantages of "owning" mainland in my opinion is that I can change my house anytime I want and texture it the way I want........and if I pause in my "construction" like I have for a few days no one is going to shout at me to fix it up.

A hint if considering mainland..........look for land that is butted up to protected land. That way you won't get "land locked" and surrounded by "ban lines".

Great thread, Raymond. Thank you. I'm so anxious to check these sims out that I'm considering canceling plans I have this evening. Nah, this will be one of those rare moments that RL will win out.