basic land purchase questions..please be patient with this :)

Excuse my nooB questions but I am very confused about land purchases in Second Life. I am looking into purchasing a private island. And its very confusing to the newcomer. Lots of the terminology used is obsolete....referring to the way things were..before my time anyway.
First of all, is there a glossary of terms available anywhere? One would be useful. What is the difference between an island, a region, and an estate?
Why are there two different monthly fees, a $195 tier fee (whatever that means) and a $295 use fee? Do both of these have to be paid each month if one owns an island? Or is the $195 fee attached to older islands that can be purchased at auction?
I want a private island, not attached to the mainland, but with nice neighbors if possible.
Would I be better off buying a brand new island for $1665 directly from LL and paying the $295 per month? What are the advantages of this? Wouldn't it make sense to find an old island, buy it at auction, and pay the $195 instead? Then pay the small fees to have the name changed, and have it relocated to somewhere private?
What is a low prim island and why would someone want one?
Help! I'm swimming in murky waters here and trying to get some clarity.
Last question...why is this all so bloomin' complex?
Thank you to anyone who can help me sort this all out.

Try the F1 inworld help for glossary terms. $195 is the tier for a mainland sim, $295 is the tier for an island sim.

The auctions aren't for islands, they are mainland sims and parcels only.

Low prim islands allow (IIRC) 1/4 of the amount of prims as a regular island.

A region, otherwise known as a sim, is a 256m x 256m area of the Second Life grid. There are two types of regions: mainland regions and islands.

If you buy land on the mainland, you first buy it, either in an auction directly from LL or from another resident. You then pay a monthly property tax, known as tier, to Linden Lab. If you own exactly one region of land, you would pay $195 per month. If you use the land sale tools to sell mainland to other residents, they are then responsible for the tier payments.

If you buy a private island, you pay LL a fixed fee of $1675 plus a monthly fee of $295. Yes, you're paying more per month than for the same amount of land on the mainland; according to LL, it is because you are getting additional capability and control. You can also buy an island from another resident for whatever price you can negotiate; you pay LL a $100 fee to transfer the island to you, plus $295 a month. (If it's an "old" island that was bought before November 2006, you only pay $195/month.) You can use the land tools to sell all or part of your island to other residents, but you continue to be responsible for the monthly payments unless you transfer ownership of the entire island to somebody else.

An estate is a collection of one or more islands. The owner of an estate gets additional controls that mainland owners don't have; you can change the land textures, ban people from the entire estate, set the number of avatars that are allowed in the region, alter the terraforming limits on land, force a server restart for the estate, change the time of day, and reclaim land from owners if you used the land tools to sell part of the island to them.



If you own an island, you pay either $195 or $295 a month, depending on whether it is an old island or a new island. You normally can't buy older islands at auction from LL, though you might find a private auction of one on eBay or another auction site. LL might offer a private island at auction if somebody were to simply abandon one without transferring it to another owner. Given the value of an island, that would be a rather silly thing to do, unless it happened because the owner was banned from Second Life.



Buying the old island is certainly more economically attractive if you can get it at the same price as a new one. (Also remember to factor in the $100 transfer fee.) The new island does have the advantage that it will be running on a class 5 server (the latest server hardware); older islands might run on class 3 or class 4 servers, which aren't as fast. The difference is most likely to matter if you're planning to hold events with lots of avatars present.

When voice comes to Second Life, islands that pay the $295 fee will get it (if they want) without additional payment. The old $195 islands may not; LL has not yet decided.



A low-prim island, also known as a void region or an Openspace (the current name for them on secondlife.com), is one that gets fewer server resources from LL than a standard one. Normal regions are run 4 per server -- one per processor core, as class 4 and class 5 servers have two dual-core CPUs. Void regions are run four per PROCESSOR CORE; if you had a server that was running only void regions, it would run 16 of them.

Because the void region receives so few resources, it will support only limited uses. The prim limit is much lower than a standard region; instead of the usual 15,000, you are only allowed 1875. It will also only support a few avatars. You might want to buy a void region if you want to build a park or other undeveloped area, and don't plan to host large events there. They are not suitable for normal residential or commercial use.



Beats me

Shirley, thank you for your incredibly thorough response to my questions. I appreciate the time you've put into this and I'm sure others will benefit from this explanation also.

I have one follow up question if you don't mind.

You said that

"An estate is a collection of one or more islands. The owner of an estate gets additional controls that mainland owners don't have; you can change the land textures, ban people from the entire estate, set the number of avatars that are allowed in the region, alter the terraforming limits on land, force a server restart for the estate, change the time of day, and reclaim land from owners if you used the land tools to sell part of the island to them."

Does that mean that if I purchased only one island it would also be considered an estate and I would have the same privileges as any estate owner?

My understanding is that even if you buy only one private island, it's still considered an estate and you are an estate owner.

That's correct. You can use all the items on the Estate Tools menu, they just affect your one island.

Oh, and if you're on a private island you have no neighbours. Nobody can place an island next to yours without your consent.

Oh, and one other thing. On a private island, the US$195 or US$295 is "island fee", not tier. If your island is all you own, this isn't a problem, but if you own mainland too then a) your island fee and your tier can be charged on different days, and b) the ownership of the island doesn't affect your mainland tier progression (eg, you can own an island plus 1024sqm on the mainland, and pay only the island fee plus the tier for the 1024 - on the mainland, once you owned one sim, in order to own the 1024 you would have to go up to the next tier increment which is 1.5 sims)

It is possible that you do not need a Premium account to purchase a private island, but I do not know about this for certain.

Openspace sims are only sold as a 4-pack to people who already own an island, I believe.

Yes and each of the 4 would only have 1/8 the prims of a normal island, not 1/4.