Grandfathered Sims - I don't get it

How long does LL plan to keep these sims grandfathered? Obviously LL doesn't have a good plan for brining these sims up to current rates - maybe a progressive tier over a period of time would make sense. What gets me is that these sim owners have enjoyed increased rental rates due to competitive estates being forced to charge more to cover the higher tier and then the sim owners use the grandfathered status to gain more value for the sim upon liquidation.

Why does the grandfather status follow the sim and not terminate at transfer? What is the plan to level the playing field?

Since when was there a plan to "level the playing field"? This is SL not ebay.

What exactly is your problem with grandfathered sims? You don't have one? Maybe you don't also have a lifetime account with a free 4096. LL has sold different plans to different people. Ever heard of Anshe Chung?

You must have one LOL. When does anyone extend the grandfathering past current ownership? I can even understand, for a moment, why it was done to start with but to enable those with a grandfathered sim to sell it at an increased rate is wrong. The grandfathering should sunset upon transfer.

Rental rates in my grandfathered regions haven't budged since Feb 2006.

I don't know what other people have been doing.

As for sunset of grandfathered rates on transfer... shrug... no intent to sell, here.

Why exactly? People who have grandfathered sims paid more than people who buy today.

But there are a plethora of people who paid that price and have the higher tier. The grandfathered tier didn't tie to estate purchase price.

In your scenario maybe LL should offer two purchase prices then - If you want to pay 1695 and have a tier of 195 sign up here or take our introductory price of 1000 and pay 295 a month tier.

The reason LL grandfathered the sims would not pertain to the new owner - and the original owner has already been more than compensated with an extra 100 a month income. Some, like Desmond may not have raised tier and for them I say Bravo! However, being a shrewd business man like he is I am certain he sees the advantage of these sims ......... maybe he doesn't raise tier for existing residents, maybe THEY get grandfathered as well but when new residents move in - new tier.

This is a unique situation because the product doesn't wear out - a sim can be sold 10x over - wiped clean all those times - have been a beautiful beach or a vast commerical wasteland and it can be back to new, clean as a baby's butt with the click of button. Yet the lower tier survives a transfer - would seem bad business on LL's part.

No, it's the same old rate.

Lots of people haven't changed rates from the old days on grandfathered regions.

No harm done mate, but please don't assume they did.

Actually there are a plethora of people who paid a higher price and have a higher tier. Apparently that didn't work out for LL because they lowered the price to even lower than the grandfathered sims price.



I didn't offer a scenario, I stated a fact. Your numbers are flawed, the grandfathered sims were $1250, and there was a HUGE influx of people (by 2006 standards) who got in under the $1250 before the price and tier was raised.




Part of the reason so many people rushed to purchase before the price was raised was *because* the tier would be transferred to any new owner. You also seem to be operating under the assumption here that there is no work involved in beiing a sim landlord. Landlords are not automatically "compensated an extra 100 a month income" there is work involved, and they are paid partly in accordance with how happy their renters are. the fact that people with grandfathered sims pay less out of pocket than others does not make a $100 bill automatically appear in ther wallets every month.



Many of the grandfathered tier sims are lower class sims with not as good performance as the new sims on offer. That is why LL charges and raises tier for a sim class upgrade.

I was wondering if you actually had a reason to call for grandfathering to end other than that maybe you don't own a grandfathered sim?

There is a general fear that sooner or later there will be a grid update which grandfathered sims won't get. For a while before Voice came in, LL were saying they wouldn't get voice. There were similar worries about Havok 4 and I occasionally hear them about Mono, too.

The length of time for which LL will be prepared to maintain systems they know to be obsolete, simply to push older customers to pay a higher monthly fee, will surely be limited.

I wasn't around when they changed over but I'm sure that the original plan was to bring them in line with new islands when they were resold, but to honour tier rates for existing owners who purchased them at the old rate.

That hasn't happened though.

This would be a good question for Jack. Most likely, however, LL hasn't made any decision about this. If I were to guess, I'd imagine that when all Class 4 hardware is retired (not even on the planning horizon now, AFAIK), they might remove the grandfathering. It's not that all grandfathered sims are Class 4 (or maybe it's that some non-grandfathered sims are Class 4?), but those changes were really very close to coinciding.

LL periodically 'evaluates' the decision to keep older sims grandfathered. The thing about grandfathered sims is, they are mostly (but not all) class 4 sims, last I heard they do not have voice either.
I pretty much believe LL hasn't raised the rates on grandfathered sims because many large Land Barons have LL over a barrel. If they raise the tier, it could put some Land Barons in financial jeopardy. And I would theorize more than one has probably threatened LL with closure if they raise the tier. When you have one Land Baron holding a sizable chunk of the market, they can throw their weight around. There's little other valid reason not to raise the Tier to keep it in line with everyone else.

However, I would expect LL to upgrade those sims if they did up the tier, to Class 5 and with voice capability.