New Continent Coming to Second Life Mainland

Thanks guys! U've been a big help.
Milla

I haven't noticed any new continent to the east yet but the southern continent has increased a lot in the last few weeks.

I have been a bit annoyed that the new sims lack much in the way of character. Other than the few coastal snow sims that hit a couple of weeks ago, its alot of prarie land. A mountain range would be nice, maybe a lake or 2.

Glad to see your island is selling well Rockwell

I would imagine, if anything that this uncertainty will increase the demand for private islands -- at least for the time being. Who would want to buy mainland knowing they could very well lose a lot of their investment versus a private island lot where they know they can resell it for the bulk (if not all) of their original price back?

Reece, that depends on the price the private island lot was bought at. There are quite a few of us out there that won't pay more than 1k or so up front to acquire a private island lot because it is still effectively RENTING a lot. By buying mainland, the upfront cost goes into actual ownership. I wouldn't dump 20k to buy a private island lot that can be taken from me without cause, whereas I absolutely would for a mainland plot that won't be taken from me without cause or unless LL goes down (at which point, we all lose).

I understand your viewpoint -- but remember, if you go with someone who has been in the business for months and months, owns dozens (or hundreds) of islands, is the risk of them leaving SL or banning you really any greater than LL going bankrupt? I think not. I'll take Rockwell as an example. He's a well known land baron, honest guy who doesn't scam people. Now if I were to buy a private island lot, I would certainly buy it from a guy like that over some person I don't know anything about. In Rockwell's case, he lets you resell your lot and keep all the lindens, so effectively calling that renting is no different than calling owning mainland renting because you have to pay monthly tier fees to LL. If you go with honest people who have been in the business awhile you have nothing to fear with private islands.

I meant island sims.

Watches as the land moves from servers crashes,.land lags and even the grid monkeys run out of bananas. As they work overtime trying to keep togther what use to be a repectable game. .................and slowly land became less and less wanted............What going to happen to all this land when people get feedup and leave after they start raising tier cost........

"is the risk of them leaving SL or banning you really any greater than LL going bankrupt?"

Mathematically, yes.

Thanks for the kind words, Reece.

As a word to my fellow residents, I want to assure you that maintaining integrity is paramount in everything I do (both in RL and SL). I do not plan on getting rid of my island, but instead buying more islands - as I feel the arrangement I have at "Kush" offers the end-user a vastly superior value proposition than owning land on the mainland. Land in Kush is listed under 8L per sq m; all of it is waterfront; your first week is tier free; you can pay tier in L$ or USD; you don't need PayPal; and you get a 10% referral bonus for telling your friends! Also, as stated in my covenant, if my islands are ever sold, residents are entitled to their portion of the liquidation proceeds.

It's the bold part that makes it renting and not owning. You don't have a right to resell it, it's a granted privilege that can be revoked at any point based on the whim of the sim owner (whim including changing the covenant at any point), and the only one who will acknowledge your ownership of the land is the sim owner, not LL.

What stood out for me in the millionaire debate was just that, even though the land on the sims was sold, eg no longer owned by that person, that didn't stop them from counting it towards their assets, or in other words, it's their sim, and not the individual land owners'.

Selling land on a private sim is simply a trick to get an instant return on investment while still retaining full ownership over the sim. There's nothing wrong with that practice, but be honest about it and don't try to trick people who don't know better into thinking they're getting the same deal as owning mainland land.

If covenants were treated as a binding contract between two residents, or in other words, once you buy land on a private sim, the sim owner looses the ability to change the covenant or estate options without the renter's consent, or if revoking land ownership involved an automatic refunding of the initial payment then it might all actually mean something.

Kitty, I appreciate your comments, but in all fairness, I'm not in the business of tricking people. I'm in the business of giving Second Life residents a superior land ownership experience (this has been the case in my mainland dealings, and now also at Kush). Residents of Kush own the land and resell it at their sole discretion. The arrangement is the same as if they owned mainland. They buy the land and then pay tier. I refer to it as "my" island because I still have to pay LL $295 per month to maintain it. Some people prefer living on the mainland, others prefer a more peaceful, lag-free setting that islands provide. My covenant is very standard, modeled after Anshe's Dreamland, but more permissive. Everyone who lives in Kush is very satisfied with their experience so far. Go have a look for yourself.

Hi there- the classifieds section is a ways south of here, you might have missed it

Since my SL birth of just four months ago I've seen a lot of mainland v island threads popping up at regular intervals.

Whilst agreeing with Kitty that the psychological feel of 'owning' mainland against the risky practice of renting island, does to many seem more rewarding, they are in fact very different packages.

Even ignoring the lag aspect, if you're lucky enough to find a benevolent island owner who keeps order and to a degree enforces the law, providing the home owner isn't too restricted by the covenant, many people do I'm sure see that as an alternate form of security.
I think as such this puts the usual value for money argument out of the window.

Sorry, it's just too quiet here today without Inexorable whining and just needed to flex my fingers

BTW I own a 1024 mainland plot and at present am very lucky with having quiet low-lag neighbours

I rent two plots on two differently owned private sims and I absolutely love them. I've been renting both since about June-July and never had to pay for the land at all, it's just group-deeded.

I've asked for more prims/land on one plot once, and twice for the other and it was a complete breeze. They reclaimed the land, joined the extra amount I asked for before redeeding, or deeded more land on a different part of the sim within a day and updated the rent cube. If I had to buy the land first then I'd either end up with too few extra prims, or too many and I'd be out a whole lot more money paying for something that doesn't need paying for.

Meanwhile close to a dozen of friends have come and gone and ranted about how they were lied to, scammed, ripped off or outright thrown out of land they bought on a private sim, complaining about sim owners who just don't care, who are never around to take care of anything and so on.

I'm sure it's a minority, and I do know tons more who paid for the land and are quite happy with it, but not once have I heard someone complain about renting. If it doesn't work out, you pack up and go. If a purchase doesn't turn out right, you're stuck with no way out if the sim owner decides to be a pain.

With either a private sim or a mainland sim, it remains the case that if you don't keep up your tier payments you lose your land without compensation. You don't really "own" anything, anywhere. Given that tier payments quickly mount up to more than the cost of the land, everything is really rental, either with or without a start-up payment.

I would not recomment buying from a small land guy I did have one bad experience but there are a couple of large ones that have a vested interest in maintaining a good reputation because their business is in selling/renting land and that's it. The ones you have to be weary of are the one or two sim owners renting/selling their land in order to cover tier costs who have messy covenants no reputation etc. I tried one just to see and it turned out to be a disaster it was also dirt cheap and I lost very little lindens (it was a gamble as I decided to give a little guy a chance). If you do stick with "land barons" which people hate the word but it means something (its what they do sell/rent/buy land) your going to be okay. I have been purchasing on private sims since my return due to the outrageous costs on the mainland. I was leary as I had heard horror stories. I am very very happy. I own 1/4 of a low prim sim and have a golf course on it and 4096 of land and have small business on it. Covenants are enforced but not with an iron fist.

Here is an example of something linden labs will not do for you. YOu buy land and a guy puts up a casino or mall with camping chairs to the point he locks up the sim and makes it impossible for you to port into your sim. This happened in a privately owned sim the other day anshechungs actually (wasn't gonna put the name out there but why not i am very happy with my quality life instead of mainland chaos) the sim was locked down as it was capacity and no one could get to their homes or businesses. She did something about it so that peopel could access their land. She put a limit on the number of camping chairs per sq meter and had that guy remove chairs he had squeezed onto his land to lock up the sim. Now that in itself is worth something. If i buy land I want to use it. LL sure isn't going to do that with camping chairs now is it?

AS a result of this experience no one is allowed to operate more then 1 camping chair per 1024 sq meters this is to avoid the sim being locked down by a single operator who will insist on squeezing 2 million chairs into a box above his sim.

Anyone that thinks this is a negative thing please put up their hands lol I for one think that some management is a good thing and will buy more land from these private sims as a result of my very positive experience

meanwhile stay away from the little guys with one sim trying to cover their tier costs and wanting to have full use of their land at the same time unless you want to take a gamble. (it may work out or it may not depends on the person) If you aren't willing to take that kind of risk stick to the large land barons who's business it is to provide virtual land to people because them ruining their reputations pulling sims out from under you wont earn them their living.

/shrug..

mostly common sense really but meh

p.s. some operators have unzoned land including anshe chung I have land in anarchy unzoned i can put up a house or a business again no different then mainland except it lacks the chaos..

.. with the exception of the lowly 512sm mainland plot. That once bought and not increased remains tier free .. but then the premium membership in order to buy it is merely another form of rent I guess.

I have done both island and mainland. I now own about 10000 sqm on the mainland. I didn't particularly like the island life because I got tired of being told that my white marble home (beautiful by the way) was "not in character" with the rest of the sim. Now we aren't talking about some hideous obelisk or something. It was a tasteful manor house with marble facade that I spend literally 40 hours on.

The other drawback of islands is when they give you this beautiful large plot but restrict you from buidling on more than say 30% of the land. Of course the bulk of your large plot is under water and you aren't allowed to build on the water either. So you end up with 1900 prims available but only about a 30x30m buildable area (oh, and you can't build up either, 30 m max) I could never find a use for all of the prims I had. But you could sure have an awesome 30m cube!!

The mainland is total chaos, but there are nice pockets and if you have enough cash, you can always carve out your own. I understand the concept of zoning to keep everyone happy, and I don't want giant purple phallic towers next door either, but c'mon island owners, lighten up.

If I find an island with a limitd covenant (and a large stable owner) I will consider moving back.

What I've found is that most private island people are mainland people too.


A few scenarios:

1) The Artisan Merchant:
A person has a business in my sims, or perhaps three or four, plus several others on the mainland and some other private sims. Two residences: one their social center in my sim, and the other a sandboxy area on the mainland. Very common practise and sprinkled liberally with the use of alts.

2) Counterpoint Creativity.
A lovely formal estate in Caledon and another in a radically different area of the grid. Often a steampunk / cyberpunk mix, one in counterpoint to the other with the person living and creating in the best of both worlds.

3) Happily Ever After (with tier payments)
So you've had it with your social scene and are starting over with someone new... you leave 512m on the mainland because of your premium account, rarely logging in as your main account. Just enough to stay in touch with a few dear friends in the social fallout zone you barely escaped with your life. You've scrammed to the beautiful islands with your latest lover, leaving the casinos, escorts, porn and bling behind. (for now, shhhh!!!)

4) Disposable Income meets Whimsy
You may be the cashier at McDonalds, but between the lack of a significant other to blow money on, your low-cost digs in the basement at your mom's house, and no car, you have 200 USD a month to play with. And play, you will. A bit of land here, a bit of land there - whoops bored! Time to sell it off. Furry this week, goth the next, victorian, cyberpunk, mecha, vampire. Now you're in purple, now you're the turtle. As far as entertainment goes, you are getting ten times your first life money's worth. No time for listening to accountants battle it out over this ridiculous benefit or that. In two weeks you'll be back in WoW. Then gone, then back here again.

5) I'll Git You, You Rotten Kids!
The world is truly against you. You tried the mainland, and it turned out that ALL NINE of your neighbours were Satan personified. Off to the islands, and guess what? You by sheer luck have found the MOST unreasonable landlord on the grid, and all his lackeys and cronies live next door. Who was it that reported your Winnebago as 'out of theme' in a Middle Ages sim? Okay maybe it bent the rules, but that's no reason to live next to a total rat fink who called you on it. You still have properties scattered about everywhere, because those cheap newbies don't know a fair price when they see it.


There's the real market for you...

Ok, it's not part of the new eastern continent, but I think it's safe to say the Lindens were serious about upping the amount of land being made available.

The auctions page is listing 40 new full sims for sale in the southern continent, only one has been bid on yet.

I think it's safe to say land prices will be coming down, very quickly.