Parcels, reservations, tier fees oh My! What the hell.

Ok can some please explain to me, what is a reservation? I think I get the idea of the entire parcel, but what is a reservation? In laymans terms please.

Also what if I want to buy my own land, without having this "covenent", is this possibly to do through someone other than purchase from Linden?

Thanks again!
Pretty in Pink Plaid,
Jez

A Reservation is a sim in which gambling is legal?

reservation relates to an island estate and a covenant.
the closest thing to buying land from linden is buying 'mainland'. in your land search menu select mainland instead of 'both'.

I sooo should not have read that whilst drinking coffee.

Yeah. Well I will be sure to have poker machines that have no noise then

Not entirely sure what you mean but the only land without a covenant is mainland. You can buy that from other players, how much land are you looking to buy?

I think there are islands out there for rent/lease without a covenant, but it takes a bit of searching... mine isn't one of them!

Happy hunting Jez

Inc

Reservations only apply to buying an entire island...you can reserve the spot where you want it to appear on the map. Unless you buy an entire island from someone selling their pre-existing one, you pretty much have to buy mainland in order to avoid covenants. I suppose there are a few estates out there without them, but 'buying' from them means you don't really own the land...the island owner can kick you off at any time for any reason and LL *probably* won't interfere since, according to their records, you never owned anything in the first place. There ARE reputable estate owners out there, but they're likely to have a covenant in place.

Jez,

1. If there's a spot on the map you like, but you're not quite ready to buy your $1700 private island for that spot, you can "reserve" it for a much lower price. The reservation is good, I think, for 30 days, and can be renewed. Consider it as a purchase option.

2. The covenant for private islands is whatever the owner says it is. Some are very liberal, others are quite strict. If you want looseness, look around for an owner who feels the same way you do.

3. If you really don't like covenant restrictions, you can buy a whole sim (aka private island) yourself directly from Linden Lab. Cost is $1,695 USD, tier is $295 per month. A lot of people do this, then break their island(s) up into parcels and re-sell them. Presto! You're a land baron! Or, you can buy land on the mainland, either from Linden or from the current owner.

4. Don't be confused by terms. Sim=Region=65,536 square meters, whether it's on the mainland or a private island. One square on the grid. Each sim has a "prim budget" of 14,992 primitives...that's the max number of objects that the land will support, not counting avatar attachments.

5. Low prim budget sims. These are regions that are for things that need lots of space, but not a lot of prims...boating activities, for example. Because of their low prim budgets, they're much less expensive to buy...and harder to sell.

It's highly likely that you will find some great deals on land from casino owners today. Keep your eyes peeled!

What is this store for?
You can reserve or buy islands for use in Second Life with this store.



Are there terms or conditions involved?
You must read and approve of Region FAQ: Link



Are there special conditions I have to meet to qualify for a region purchase?
All current Estate purchase rules apply, including creditworthiness and a clean disciplinary record. Linden Lab reserves the right to refuse your application and refund your purchase if your account is not in good standing or you do not meet our minimum criteria for region ownership.



How do I use it?


Simply click where you want to buy or reserve a region on the map. If the space is available, click Add to cart.

Once you've picked all your spaces and go to checkout, you'll be brought to a screen where you can choose either to reserve or purchase the spaces you've picked.

If you choose to reserve the spaces, then an auction will start with you as the high bidder on the spaces you've picked. Otherwise, if you choose to purchase the spaces, you will simply be billed, and the island will come online usually within 7-14 business days.



What exactly is a reservation?
A reservation guarantees your right to build on a certain space. Reservations are a good alternative to buying land if you are not sure you need the land yet, but want to make sure you can build there in the future.

Note, you currently must be a concierge user in order reserve a region.

If and when you finally decide to build on a reservation, you will have to purchase the region for a flat price. (Currently USD $1675 )



What is a concierge user?
A concierge user is considered a user who pays over USD $125 of land maintainance fees per month. For example, a user owning exactly one region is a concierge user because the monthly maintainance fee he pays is USD $295



The webpage says: Each Region is USD $1675. A region will give you complete ownership of each grid space you purchase. Each Reservation starts at USD $30. A reservation will allow you to a save a space to build on. What does this mean exactly?
When you outright purchase a space for USD $1675 you get immediate ownership of the region. The location does not go up for auction, and your future island goes there (with no further cost other than the monthly maintenance fee)

Auctions begin only when a space is reserved, at the starting auction price of USD $30.



What is the auction system intended to do?
The auction is there to allow for conflict resolution between two residents who wish to reserve the same space.



Can you reserve next to another reservation?
Reservations cannot be placed beside other reservations.



Can someone reserve a space next to me without my permission?
Just like the current standards, Linden lab will not place another region next yours (no touching borders) unless you give your permission.



Do you have to renew your reservations (and hence go to auction again) every 3 months?
As it currently is designed, you do not have to return to auction to renew your reservation.



After the 3 months are up, which price do you pay, a flat $10 per month or the price you paid when it went to auction the first time?
Currently we plan on charging the overall average auction price as the renewal fee.



How does an auction allow for conflict resolution in the instance when two grid spaces are reserved with a grid space between them?
The auction that begins first will prevent the second auction from starting.



Private islands in the red grid area are protected for a year. What happens when that year is over?
All existing private islands are in a protected area. This area will be protected until March 14 2007. During this period, PI owners may ask us to move their regions out of the protected area and into the reservation area free of charge. Once out of the protected area, they can add regions or reserve grid spaces at their own pace using the Land Store. Current PI owners may continue to *attach* new regions within the protected area using the old way - contacting [email=islands@lindenlab.com]islands@lindenlab.com[/email]. Current PI owners cannot add new noncontiguous islands within the protected area.



Are corner-to-corner regions adjacent and part of the reservation or grid placement?
Corner to corner are not considered adjacent. Only regions which share a shoreline are considered adjacent.



What if someone uses this tool to harass me?
Misuse of this tool constitutes a violation of the Community Standards policy on Harassment and will be dealt with accordingly. Bidding on auctions alone does not constitute harassment.



If someone tried to make a reservation ring around an estate -- would that be considered violating any agreements and prevented (if reported by the estate holder?
We would take action on a case-by-case basis. One of the maxims we tried to maintain when building this system was to keep the rule set as simple as possible and err on the side of simplicity.



What is the difference between "Region Name" and "Estate Name"?
Region is the name of each particular area/region/island

Estate is the name for a collection of regions, i.e. "Mainland", etc.



If I will only own one island then the region name is the same as the estate name?
They don't have to be. However, they certainly can have the same name.



Can I name the region what ever I want?
Regions must be no more than three words, and may not be the same as any other region currently in the grid. No special characters may be used.



Can I name the region when I reserve the space?
No, reservations alone do not allow you the right to name a region. You must convert a reservation into a region purchase to name the region.



How does the new reservation system affect new islands/continents that are created to be permanently hidden--never to show up on the Second Life Main Grid map?
Invisible islands show up in the land store as grayed out regions with the annotation "This grid space has already been built on."

Initially, we left the islands invisible on the Land Store map. However, we soon discovered it made reserving space an exercise in hunting for apparently free regions that were in fact not free.

No information about the invisible island is given, and they are indistinguishable from each other.



Do the new land reservation system fees apply to permanently hidden, location non-specific regions such as these as well?
Yes, all region purchases and reservations will be expected to go through the Land Store when it leaves its beta period, with the caveat that current island owners in the protected area who want to expand contiguous regions will be required to contact [email=islands@lindenlab.com]islands@lindenlab.com[/email].

Should we treat this tool in the same way as Preview? Or are these purchases considered real? If you have problems how will they be resolved?

The only way properly to test this system is if we are dealing with real reservations and purchases.

This is not a preview. We are however prepared to remedy any problems caused by the system. However, we feel confident that the system is ready for a beta period and that any problems that do arise will be solvable.



A Recap from Ryan Linden
Private island orders have been steadily increasing month over month. As you know, the process to order an island was somewhat difficult - you had to send mail to [email=islands@lindenlab.com]islands@lindenlab.com[/email] . You would then be sent an email asking you to choose the island type, the rating, name and list other special considerations. Your request would then be put in a queue and someone would fill it within in a two week period. We frequently got requests to put an island in a location - "can you put my island in the south near X?" As a matter of policy, we did not do this. Instead we tried to give people some room to grow while still keeping all estates generally in the same area. On many occasions people outgrew their area, wanted to expand further but could not because of other estates nearby.

Which brings me to continent building. It has become clear that building competing visions of the mainland, ones where different rules or zoning regulations apply is becoming a viable business model for estate owners and Residents are perceiving these services as a value add. This makes sense, as many people are strong community managers instead of strong modelers, textures artists or animators. We realized that the friction inherent in the island ordering system might be impeding the growth of these communities, or raising the barrier to entry for people looking to plan ahead before jumping into the waters. Competition is desirable, as it will force continent builders to add value to their services in order to win the trust and money of consumers.

So, how do we allow people to order islands or build continents at their own pace, without Linden standing in the way and how do we allow people to choose where *they* want to build these continents? The Land Store was conceived to address these needs. While thinking about how to do this we asked ourselves "how do we let people grow their continents without having to make a sizable investment at the outset? Also, "what do we do when two people value the same location on the grid?" Grid location is really only relevant when touching cardinal borders however people have an emotional attachment to their location on the grid just as they have an emotional attachment to where their parcels are within the continents. Having Linden decide where others grow is not only opposite our philosophy of a user created world but not scalable from a resource perspective. This does not mean that we plan to abandon the mainland. We have already designed terrain for 1000's more mainland regions. As you can see on the Land Store homepage, the southern area has been protected for future Linden mainland expansion.

It also occurred to us that unscrupulous people might use the Land Store to grief others or bully them out of the continent building business. However, we thought about the SL community and realized that these attempts would be transparent and in most cases obvious. Which is why we plan to deal with any and all appropriately just as we do now when someone tries to checkerboard parcels within a region or bully others to sell land using lag inducing measures.

Finally, the starting price for reservations: auctions seemed the fairest way to allow people to value grid spaces. The starting price needed to be substantial enough that speculation was not done foolhardily. Set at 1$ someone could go in and reserve the entire available grid which is just stupid.

LOL about the casino land, but good idea.
Yeah I am not ready to do the whole land barron, as since I am a teacher... I go back to work next week. Maybe I can be the land barron next summer

I Imd you in-world btw

Jez,

A covenant usually only applies to parcels that you rent from other people. They still retain ownership of the parcel and pay the "taxes" or tier fees to Linden Lab. You pay your rent to the land owner, and nothing to Linden Lab. This means that you have to follow the land owner's guidelines, or covenant. You probably won't be able to resell this parcel, as it is not technically owned by you.

If you don't want to have a covenant, you should make an outright purchase of a parcel on the mainland. You probably won't be buying it from Linden Lab, but you will still be responsible for paying Linden Lab your tier fee every month. This parcel will be owned lock stock and barrel by you and you will have the right to sell it whenever you like.

There are lots of pros and cons to buying or renting.

Just like real life property, I would like the rights to resell it.