Premium Member and Land

I though by becoming a Premium Member, I would get a 512 square meters land of my own.

However, looking at my account summary, it looks like if I am ALLOW to get 512 m2 land.

As I am a newbie (just started Yesterday), I am not sure how to get LAND for myself.

I want to own my little space. Do I have to pay MORE for my land? On my summary, it also says "Total Monthly fee in US$" ... does that mean I also need to pay a monthly $US fee to get land?

Wowing Lane!

well a premium account, and all the tier options, just *allow* you to have a certain amount of land. it's like taxes. you still have to buy the land.

rented land or land "bought" on a private island doesn't count toward this tier though.

I must really be a newbie because I did not understand your answer.

The only reason I because Premium was to get a piece of land so I can create my stuff. Now, it says "Total Monthly fee in US$" which means that I need to pay more $US on a montly basis to get my piece of land.

Another way to formulate my questions:
1-Do I need to be a premium member to own land?
2-Whats the difference between owning land and renting land?
3-Can I own land with L$ without being premium member?
4-Can I rent land with L$ without being premium member?

Wowing Lane

First of all, welcome to SL ... and it's good that you found the fora so soon. There is a wealth of information here (and a lot of steamy discussion ).

As for your question, I strongly recommend that you peruse the knowledge base, esp. the chapters on

How do I find land?
How do I buy land?

... and other articles in the Land section of the KB.

However: Why don't you first rent something for a few weeks before you decide what and where to buy? For all practical purposes it's the same, and does not require the same level of investment as buying. Furthermore, you don't have to be Premium; a Basic membership is sufficient for renting-

1 - yes, for practical purposes (we don't discuss owning a whole island here)
2 -
... Buying: Pro: Full authority over land incl. re-selling: Con: Fixed prim ceiling, high cost of investment
... Renting: Pro: No long-term commitment, higher prim allowance than on own land, ideal if you aren't sure where to settle down, support by your landlord in technical matters; Con: May not hold land as a potential investment, more expensive in the long run
3 - no
4 - yes

Your premium account comes with the -ability- to own land. It does not come with the land. You have to buy it.

You do -not- need to be premium to rent land from another resident, or to rent/purchase land on a private island. You only need to be premium to purchase land on the Linden Lab operated "Mainland".

Difference between renting and owning:
On the mainland, renting means you pay another resident for the ability to occupy the land they make available for rent. You can use the land, build on it, whatever, but the other party still owns the land. When you purchase land on the mainland, by right clicking and buying, you own that land for all intents and purposes. You still are subject to Linden Lab's monthly tier fees, and if you default on that or your premium membership fee, Linden Lab will reclaim your land.

On a private island, you never really own land. It is functionally the same as on mainland, and you go through pretty much the same motions, but the person who owns the island always owns all the land, and has the ability and the right to reclaim land from anyone at any time for any reason. This is rare, however. Most of the island estate owners are trustworthy, and offer an experience far superior to Linden Lab.

LL does not automatically assign plots, you must purchase plots of land by yourself. You do not need to be premium to purchase plots located on a private island. On private islands, the estate owner is a player, NOT Governor Linden. On mainland, the estate owner is Governor Linden.

Owning land: is purchasing a MAINLAND plot. You pay LL fees for owning mainland IF you own more than 512m2. This is usually called "tier." You have rights to modify the land settings and terraform the land. You will not be ousted from your land unless you violate the TOS or fail to pay tier for land in excess of your free 512 allotment.

Renting: is paying a player for right to use land. With private islands, you can "buy" a lot, and you will have the same power to modify settings, but the island owner will typically ask you to pay a fee akin to tier. islands typically carry covenants, or rules that govern the development of the island. Unscrupulous island owners may oust you from the land without you having violated the covenant, and you always run the risk that the island owner, or their successor, may oust you from the land you purchased.

You do not have to be premium to rent.

Secondly, remember that the term "own" is only used in a virtual sense. Linden Labs could decide to change their business model, and take away everything.

Land is devided into mainland and private islands. Mainland ownership is controlled by Linden, you have to be a premium member to own mainland land, but you can rent without being a premium member.

Private islands have private owners. Linden still has some say, such as the community standards policy, but private island owners can set their own policies concerning ownership. You do not need to be a premium member to buy land on a private island. However, since the owner of the island is being charged a monthly maintenance fee by Linden, they'll usually pass that on to you in the form of monthly fees, which can go by a variety of names. It's possible to find a situation in which the owner of a private island will let you have some land without paying a monthly fee, but that's the exception.

In both cases, if you don't make the monthly payments, you'll lose your land. In the private island case, if the owner doesn't make their monthly payments to Linden, they'll lose their island, and hence you'll lose your land. Similarly for violating rules. There is, however, one important difference. Linden has their reputation and business on the line, so it's unlikely they'll be unfair to you (where I mean unfair in a sense that everyone would agree is unfair, as opposed to arguable situations). However, private island owners are more anonymous, and even when their public personas are known, their reputation isn't as valuable to them. So a private island owner could treat you unfairly, change the rules, bump you off the land, and so on. So can Linden, but at least they're better known, more stable, and have an easily available public track record.

The main difference between "rent" and "own" relates to the land control features that are available to you. Usually, in a rental situation, you can't change anything that you can see in the "About Land" dialog box, where as in an ownership situation, you can. I'm not sure if private islands handle this feature differently, but a private island owner could certainly have a policy that prohibits you from changing settings that the software would allow you to change. The other obvious difference is that there's usually a bigger up front cost for ownership, but there need not be.

But Firstly (puns intentional), if you need to ask this question, then in my opinion, you're not ready to buy land. I've been around for a few months, read the forums fairly often, understand the tier fees better than many people posting here, and still don't feel comfortable buying land. Back when First Land was available, there was a reasonable path, but not anymore. There's a huge amount to learn, lots of risks to understand, and processes that are much harder to understand than the tier fees and free allocation that comes with premium memberhip.

Well, without a land, you cannot build something that could make you more L$!

I have a pretty good idea of an object I want to do that would need players to pay it. The players would get a result.

I don't want to make L$ by camping at 3L$/10min forever. Isn't that the role of LAND ... to make L$.

Wowing Lane

you're right, it is confusing.

to put it simply (i hope):

1) a resident can "own" land on the mainland in any size pretty much
2) or a resident can "own" a whole 16 acre island

for either of the above you have to be a premium account.

then after that any resident can arrange for you to live on his/her land, which is renting essentially. at that point you're working with another resident, not LL, who doesn't care where you park your avatar butt or call home, so you don't have to be premium.

Hm. I never thought that the reason to own land is primarily to make money.

You can do building in a sandbox or a sky platform where building is allowed. No need to own land for that.

it's a risk to become Premium if you're mainly looking for a positive bottom line.

Well ... here's my next question:

Why become a Premium Member other than the extra 1000L$?

Wowing Lane

The only possible reason is to be able to buy (as opposed to rent) a mainland parcel, for whatever reason. From a purely economic perspective, it's giving money to LL.

Most SL residents would answer, "No good reason." Most SL residents are not Premium members.

Those who do choose to go Premium these days do so because they have some reason to own land on the Mainland--even if the reason is "I just want to." (A further rationalization might be that when logons are restricted, Premium members get better logon priviledges, but this hasn't really been a factor in practice.)

A Premium membership allows you to own 512sqm of land on the mainland. However, it does not automatically give you the land to buy; you still need to pay for the land.

You may need to spend money on buying L$ in order to be able to afford the land, although you do recieve some L$ with your Premium membership. Second Life is not designed so that an "optimal" player will never need to spend US$ for L$. Instead, it works the same way as all RL businesses do - you have to invest some money first, then you can start making money.

If your object is a game or similar item that requires people to pay to play it, then you would probably be better advised to talk to existing landowners who may allow you to place your object on their land in exchange for a fee or a share of the profit it makes. (Just owning a piece of land will not make people visit that land.)

For me, it was 500L$ per week, 512m2 of tier, all for $6 per month. They don't send us cake or anything at Christmas, so that's about it.