New Player questions about the world

Hi all,

I'm currently looking into this world as a way to spend a significant part of my free time in the near future.

One question I have is on land rentals - I know that the 'real life' cost of living in land increases as your land holding increases, but if you rent land from someone, do you get hit for the same charge again ?

For instance, a 2000m2 piece of land costs X USD

If I rent a building from someone for Y $L do I then have to also pay the X USD cost of increasing the land, or is this borne by the renter ?

I've got a fairly substantial project in mind to keep me entertained long-term, however I am currently unsure about investing real cash into a project if money becomes tight.

Does anyone know ultimately what would cost less - the cost of renting the land (bearing in mind that this is partially offset by the 'free' stipend) or going the whole hog and spending real hard earned cash to get something thats mine to keep.

Sabrina it very much depends.

In general if you rent land up to say around half of one sim (32,000) you would expect that the rental cost in either US dollars or Lindens to be less than the overall cost of premium membership and direct Linden Labs tier cost. After all no body would rent land at all if it cost more money to rent privately, than from Linden Labs

Having said that my personal view would be to rent land from a private Island estate rather than on the mainland. The reason being you may be better protected against griefers as most estate owners take their business seriously and value a continual income stream from happy tenants.

Anshe Chung is the largest private estate owner in Second Life and I would endorse her business having been a previous client of hers. Also Desmond Shang of Caledon (my current location) is a very reasonable and fair person.

Most private Islands also offer the option of buying land, however any contract is between them and you, rather than Linden.

Finally on the private Island estates I have found sim performance to be better than mainland property, mainly because Estate owners can veto certain types of scripts and other activities that cause undue lag, one example being camping chairs and casinos.


With mainland property you are renting directly from Linden. On that point land can be easier to dispose of when any project has finished as you can sell it on, not all estate owners offer unrestricted sale options. One sim plus would usually be more cost effective to purchase via Linden, however you will possibly have to buy a sim at auction if you want all your land in one place, average complete sim costs are around $1,000 US and tier costs of $195.00 per month

Of course the last option is for you to purchase a private estate yourself. Full details are on this site but a single private Island sim would cost about $1,200 to purchase and the tier cost is premium basic membership ($22.50 per quarter) and $195.00 per month. Private Estate owners have more control over their virtual environment including such things as water level, greater terro form limits,, and day/night control options

I suggest you surf over to www.anshechung.com and review the various price options, comparing them with the Linden rates as a base comparison.

Finally I strongly advise you to lurk for a time in any area you are thinking of buying to make a judgement, in other words a bit like a house survey in first life. And visit some private estates and mainland areas to compare.

Hope this helps

Regards

John

Thanks for the information.

Something Ive been wondering about - what is the distinction between residential and commercial zones ?

Are some things not allowed in certain zones ? or is it just a case of being frowned upon ?

If I was wanting to hold a gathering in a residential zone (within the confines of my own home) would there be any fallout as a result of that ?

There would (hopefully) be a trade of cash involved at some point, so if the distinction is that cash can't trade hands on a residential zone then it may be that I have to rethink my strategy, however a 'natural environment' would be much prefered to a highly active 'city centre' type location for what I have in mind.

There is no "zoning" in SL. Short of two or three sims set up to "Test" this idea. You can pretty much build anything anywhere.

I would caution common sense (though why they call it common when it's so rare is beyond me). Be conciderate of your neighbors and watch for laggy scripts and all. Try not to block views with ugly builds-this is a virtual reality and builds need not follow phsyical laws of the real world.

I highly suggest finding an experianced landowner in-world to discuss options with land fees, ownership, and abilities on things like mainland vs island, and rent vs own. While answers here are correct, Q&A with someone may pull up other options or show you things to avoid. Land ownership is one of the more complicated issues in SL and I do not believe LL spends enough time educating the Residents on this topic.

Best of luck.

~Jessy