Without land, you are nothing

I've been watching this for a few months and finally came into SL..head first w/premium.

And I noticed something right away. Without land, you're just spinning your wheels and paying more real-cash to explore orwhatever people fancy in a pixilated world.

The exception being...well versed at scripting and selling items. As I say, I've only just come inside...2 days now. I have a deep and greedy spot in my heart for pure online communities that goes back to the days of telenet. I honestly like the idea of this place

....but there is now one huge flaw...

...there will never again be any common ground between people that have signed up in the past year or less and the old-timers. There are real-life wealths being made and they control all the land thru a multitude of accounts. All the land. There are currently no first-land offerings. All entry level land sales prices are for the virtual equivelent of time-share or 'property owners associations'....which are mostly scams weren't it for the contract language. I just read one and almost missed the few spread out lines explaining that the buyer wasn't actually owning anything.---keep in mind that I read contracts all day long.

Tiered retnal, then lease, then fees....much like the real world people wanted to get away from.

The point is this....all the land is snapped up and the few offerings are designed to make a person put the credit card to the machine to even get a foot in the door...that being the same foot in the door we thought we were getting by going premium. Those land owners are never going to un-ass the goods....and they can afford now to never lower prices and buy huge lots a-la-carte.

In a much shorter time, this has gone much further than EverCrack ever did.

So, what I'll do is keep making useless objects about the countryside and hopefully, one day, I'll get a script correct...

I can't live.

with or without you.

There will be more first land at some point in the near future, SL has gone through a tremendous amout of changes in just the past 6 months alone, many of which had to do with open registration and a massive influx of new residents. It will settle down once LL starts releasing new sims again and land prices will drop. Land is far from the only way to build wealth in SL, people are earning a lot of RL money in things like animations, building and clothing design.

There is always room for somebody with some fresh ideas or a new spin to make a mark in SL. I like to use music as an analogy here - musicians have been arranging and re-arranging the same set of notes for thousands of years now, and still new songs and new genres are created on a regular basis. We all work in SL with the same toolset, but there are such huge differences in styles, texture, scripting, etc... that you can't ever really say that "it's all been done already" any more than you can say that every song has already been written.

It's quite possible that one can have SL land and still be nothing.

yeah.. and it's also quite possible to be homeless in SL.. and be something. (other than homeless)... I mean, even without owning land, you can rent.. and even without renting land, you can hang out and shop and go dancing and watch movies, play games, etc. But even without MONEY... and without LAND... you can still find plenty of things to do in this world.

And sometimes you get lucky, and turn one of those fun things to do, into something that makes you enough money to buy land.

By the way, is there a reason that you should buy the land from a private island, if there is an option to just rent it, because buying would be kind of "renting" too? I mean, the owner of an private island can kick the buyer off the island regardless of the purchase.

Yes, there is now real world interfering with the virtual world. Money mountains shift towards SL and buys everything just for selling it with profit. But if that is how its going to be, then it will.

In general, I think that what I get from SL is too little for the money that it costs in terms of purchase cost and tier fee. Somebody might consider the quality-amount-cost combination a good one (and there are lots of buyers of land), but not me. I have little land, though, because small plot is still affordable at least, so that I have the feeling of owning some land and I can put a house and things on it.

Also I have to consider, that as a virtual citizen, land cost is not the only expense. I spend money on clothing, clubs, pets, additional avatars, apparel like swords and sun classes, body shapes, textures, houses, vehicles and so on...

I just wish that cyber worlds were cheaper and better. Surely in the future. This one is still a good taste of what might be possible.

The prices of land don't vary based on who's buying it (ie, their age in SL). You've always had to "work your way up" to some extent.



First Land is still being produced - you just have to wait for the next "wave" of it, which is usually every couple of days. As for "making people put a credit card in the machine" - well, bear in mind that the land owner probably had to do so too. At some point the sim of land will have been bought by someone who paid up to US$1300 for it, so they're going to need to make that back somehow.

I think what the OP is talking about is the practice that the "Realtors" of Second Life have taken to, where they create virtual armies of premium alt accounts, and with those alts, they stalk the land sales search for First Land, descend upon the area the moment it goes up for sale, purchase as many plots for the $L512 as they can, and then immediately turn that land around back for sale for upwards of $L8000 per parcel.

Regardless of what these crooks think land in Second Life should be worth, this is a truly despicable thing to do to make a quick buck. The practice has been observed over and over by several residents including myself, and absolutely should be against Terms of Service, and it should be cause for a long suspension, if not termination of the account.

If Linden Lab are not willing to look at this issue seriously, and officially ban the practice, then they might as well do away with the First Land program altogether, and just introduce new land at the current market value. When THAT happens, prices WILL come back down into the breathable atmosphere.

Check out the land auctions at http://secondlife.com/auctions/. There are several mainland sims being auctioned off right now. Any newcomer can jump right in and start controlling mass quantities of land.

Back in 2004, the 'old timers' were considered to be those who were able to buy lifetime accounts just previously - imagine a tier-free 4096m for a one-time fee.

Looking back, some of the 'disadvantaged rookies' of 2004 did very well. You'll see a LOT of highly successful people who never had that early advantage. It always comes down to guts, ingenuity, vision and hard work, in any world.

Look back from 2008 and you'll see it again. The grid changes, markets change, the rules change. There are people signing up this month that will dominate our markets, arts, technology and imagination in less than 18 months.

There is only one way to 'lose the game' of Second Life. And that is to give up and quit.

As an 'Old Timer' having joinned SL way back in early 2004, I never felt the need to create a 'home', let alone buy land and build a house, insert the usual usless things like staircases and Toilets .

If you want to trade in SL, you can simply rent a spot in a Mall and throw out a few boxes, or negociate with someone for a corner of their own large shop for a few L$'s.

Many methods of trading in SL don't actually require or have a need to set up a 'base'. You dont need floor space for desks, secretaries, filing clerks, warehouse persons, doormen etc.. So unless your interests are in stepping onto the land market, what is the point?

Human nature for the most part, drives us to make an area our own, stake out our territory, have a place whereby we can impose our own rules and standards, maybe thats what drives so many to do so in SL? Apart from those that see the marketing advantages of owning and selling land, fair play to them, they are no more than traders like the vast majority.

I don't believe for one moment that further releases of land/server space will drive down the prices of land. As in real life, this is rarely the case. If LL pulled the plug tomorrow, who stands to loose the most? At least I can, like those that don't own land, simply withdraw all my assets through SLExchange, no one is going to want to convert real life money for a time limited asset that will not exist once the plug is pulled. Those that stand to loose the most and take the risks, should get rewards for their investment.

Just my opinion.

Ermm? Since I own land I never spend so much RL money as when I was without land... and this not only on the monthly fee of 40 US$.

I am active on my land, that means it changes all the times... as I am not a builder or scripter (and no, I don't wanne be either... I work hard enough RL), I have to buy stuff.... and the only way for me is to use my credit card for that... (and no, I don't want a job in SL either, I am here to relax... on my hobby of making pictures I don't want to make money, which would lead to obligations and I don't want those in SL).

Morwen.

Lose nothing! If I up and sold everything right now, I stand to make around $300 real money, which by my estimate, would put me back to where I started before purchasing land and paying the monthly premium fees. If land prices rise as much this year as they did last year, it'll practically pay for my account when I finally cash out .

- Jolan

Your entire argument appears predicated on the assumption that one MUST have First Land as some sort of initial step into participating in SL, and that after 2 days of not getting First Land you're at some crippling disadvantage.

I only joined in October, and I certainly can vouch that you can have a great time in SL without First Land. With due diligence, I did locate some First Land plots -- and hated them. Since I wasn't interested in playing the real estate market to make profit, I skipped over the First Land option and just outright bought a very nice 1024m plot. The extra prims were worth it.

When my ambitions and prim-hunger outgrew that land, I bought yet another piece of land. I'm using that as a sand-box and eventually it will become a showroom, and hopefully cover at least a portion of my land tier expenses.

If I'd been willing to wait, instead of using $US to start my business, I could have built on public sandboxes and arranged for display in a mall or island store.

There's nothing holding anyone back in SL, although it's certainly true that real $US will grease the skids. Where you go though, is entirely in your own hands.

Nice.... but you didn't read the whole post.. I said if LL pulled the plug tomorrow.... you assume someone would actually buy your land turning your assest into L$'s in the first place.

"First Land is still being produced - you just have to wait for the next "wave" of it, which is usually every couple of days."

I check 1st land search every evening or so to see (I'd found a 1st land sim was a good spot to set up a small store to sell 512 sized prefab homes). Haven't seen any for weeks. Maybe it all gets released and bought up/swooped while I'm asleep or at work, who knows.

Every day that you don't set up shop is a day you're not making sales. So just how much savings do you get by waiting for First Land that may or may not be appropriate as a sales platform?

Heck, you could rent a 512m plot and pay off your rent with just a few sales. Sell enough, and you'll be able to afford a larger plot of land with room for more than one pre-fab model. Don't sell any and you can just walk away.

Wait a second here, what's this about land being unavailable? I was under the impression that land was purchased directly from Linden, either by going to a premium account or paying for a set amount of land. How can people shut someone out from a transaction between themselves and the company that creates the land in the first place?

That aside, most of the land I've seen is barren, utterly devoid of people. I don't see the benefit in owning a house that nobody will ever visit, or a ratty little strip mall with garish vending machines and FREE LINDENS HERE!!!1!11 terminals.

I started in SL as a basic resident last September. After a couple of months I upgraded to Premium. There was no first land available so I put my starting bonus and the few hundred L$ I had saved into a few 16m plots. I bought the cheapest and merged them into 32m ones, which are more useful, and sold at a profit. A few lucky buys and sells plus the weekly stipend allowed me to work my way, bit by bit, to 512m. I've now built my home on my plot, which is not for sale.

I made a rule that I would only buy land with Lindens gained in-world, although I would pay 'tier' from RL money. Today I broke that rule, though! All around me are 512m plots for sale at a reasonable price, but they had stuck, presumably because of the new landmass that's appeared in the last week or two which is now being turned into sale plots!

I bought the 512m next to me because I realised it bordered not only Linden land but a future highway route and so should be worth a premium. Meanwhile it gives me a nice little garden, doubles the no. of prims I can use and gives me room to play with if a troublesome neighbour plants trees that overhang my land.

Uh?

I have a visitor counter placed in my house that only records the people who actually ENTER the house.
Every day there at least 10 to 15 people wandering into my house.... and as the frontdoor is open, they are welcome.

On another spot, I have am building a galary. This place has also a visitor-counter that only tracks people who enter the building (landing spot is outside the building and the doors are locked). I have here at least 2 or 3 reports per days as well.

(No discusions about trespassing locked doors here, it was meant as info)

So no people visiting? You are very wrong there....

Morwen.

The only land that is hard to get is First Land for newbies. All other land is available in abundance, although the price is such that most people will think twice before buying all the land they want vs. all the land they can afford.



Where exactly do you hang out? Granted, there may not be more than a few people at a time in a specific residential sim, but there are plenty of places where people congregate to shop, socialize, get information.



If you invite them nicely, they will come.

Too true. And I'm applying the grease to the skids frequently.

One things really surprised me(and maybe this is the point of second life), I'm the complete opposite to my 1st life. In 2nd life I own no property but spend L$1000's at nudie bars.

Go figure

Breen

I concur. However, they will lose the ability to con us into paying for a Premium Account, too.

Provided they are willing to pay real cash when they have no clue, since it's hard to make money in game if you have no clue.

I <3 this post.