New City Area Discovered

I went and checked out the land auctions in the Nautilis sims. I'm pleased and dismayed. Pleased because it's a very lovely job of creating the landform and landmarks around a coherent theme. Kudos to whomever designed and executed it!

Dismayed because of two factors:

1) Bidding has already pushed the price of most of the 1024 plots into the $75 US range, far beyond the means of average residents such as myself, and I strongly suspect the bidding is being driven by speculators with no more imaginative plans than to flip it as soon as possible at a tidy profit. I think at least some plots should be offered at a fixed rate through a lottery system, which would be much fairer than either the speculation-fueled auction system or the bot-ridden first-come, first-served system; and

2) with no covenant on the properties, within 48 hours of the conclusion of the auctions, it's going to be the same chaotic jumble as the rest of the mainland. Not that there's anything wrong with freedom of expression, but this is rather like handing a can of spray paint to a tagger and letting him into the Louvre after hours.

So in conclusion, even if I were wealthy enough to make a credible bid on one of these plots, I wouldn't. The increased prim allowance is a definite draw, no question, but prices are out of control and I fully expect the lovely landscaping to disappear beneath the usual layer of throbbing neon dance clubs and deserted strip malls.

It just seems like such a waste of talent and effort.

The joke is on them tho because they're out bidding the very same people they will be trying to sell too.

/me is very unhappy the bidding went out of her price range in the first few hours

Yeah, stupid LL what are they thinking? They paid a bunch of "volunteers" near minimum wage to put together an estate that they're just about to sell on for something like $50,000. Haha, they must feel like such chumps.

And of course it'll just end up looking like a big messy jumble like Bay City did... oh wait, Bay City still looks freaking awesome and is probably the best place to live on the grid. Prices in Bay City are astronomical not because of stupid speculators but because of "stupid" customers who are desperate to get in.

P.S It's nearly impossible to build a dance club in Nautilus because the parcels are too small.

If the prices are out of reach then they're out of reach. I'd love a presence in Bay City or Nautilis but I won't pay those prices. I'd love an RL home in places out of my price range too, it's just one of those things you have to accept.

Flippers are restricted in such areas because the prices are out of the reach of many so they have to weigh up the pro's and cons too.

The people bidding on some of these plots must either have more money than brains, or be complete idiots. There is one plot going for over L$120,000 right now. That is just insane.

Sorta cheap compared to Bay City...

Hmmm..., thing looks great so far, but somehow they missed the point. Seems, it is made for millionairs wich like to sit on a 1024 lot, in a prefab house with too low ceilings and too small rooms. Yesterday I found the marketplace at the very east of the scenerie, where all these houses and a kind of sim themed content-package is for free. Things are mod/copy, but no transfer. At bay city one can get the whole package for free, with full perm rights on each object. The nautilus package offers only a few textures for the harbor walls and one single walkway texture and that's it. Textures and items for other areas there I found not. Additional to that, the houses, as said. K, they are modifyable, so one can re-design them for more cam-comfort, but what a work...and not everyone is able to do that easily. And if one is rezzing own buildings, it breaks the look and feel of the area.

All in all it is a museum. Where you can stand the whole day long in your prefab, looking out of the windows, seeing the same prefabs at any direction. They should make 1-2 sims as examples and then giving the content packages for free and with full perms, so that people can build that style with additional ideas somewhere, to attract the mainland regions. Would be the better way, to bring kind of taste inworld on wich everyone can participate. Also the moles could try to make not ever kind of nostalgic styles/themes. So far we have 1920 and before...they should explore the architecture streams of modern times too, if they're working further on such things.

Anyway, thing is simple too expensive and not thought to an end.

Yeah, it's ridiculous, I got outbid all day on amounts I never thought I'd consider paying. The parcel I had wanted sold for 83,530$, for 1024? That's insane. I really love the area, the recreation of ancient Carthage is great, but what I'm seeing is a lot of people running prices up into the 80 to 120,000$L , then turning around and relisting them for sale at 99999$L and 149,999$L five minutes later.

It's seems like it's mostly profiteers at work again. There should have been a bid limit or a lottery, or something a little more fair. 2000$ start bid was a nice thought, but so far nothing has sold for less than 50,000$L.

Plus there's no covenant, and no clearly defined business or resdential areas. So inevitably the person who thought they were paying 90,000$L for a nice quiet waterfront home is going to be very upset when several clubs, reseller shops and escort services open up next to them.

Not to mention the dicing up into 512, 64, 32 & 16sqm lots and reselling them to advertisers. Ah the fun is just beginning. Kinda glad I got outbid now. :-/

Parcel divide & join is disabled on both Nautilus and Bay City - no splitting in these areas..

Well, that's good at least. Still way too much to pay, but why would LL complain, they're making a nice chunk of change off this I'm sure. 120,000$L for 1024sqm? And I thought 15,000 for 16M was ridiculous. lol

I just looked at the map. Half of the parcels that sold in Bomilcar yesterday for upward of 85,000$L are now for sale at 120,000$L. It begs the question... Who actually benefitted here? LL sure did, they're making a killing. Land holding companies will if people pay the ridiculous resale prices they're asking. I'm seeing multiple parcels owned by the same people or groups. It seems like some whole regions were "acquired" in this way and will be resold as well.

So much for the average user getting to enjoy this great build, let alone buying into it. Next time, LL should consider a "one per customer" limit, lottery, or some other way to keep this from constantly being a land grab where only the richest get to play. IMHO.

Nautilus was never for the average user. It was always expected that it would be bought by the super rich who could afford it and a bunch of poorer people would complain about how unfair it all is. SL land has always been about the free market and this is just another example of LL following through on that.

I don't see why LL would want to give away land for less than people are willing to pay for it. Even if they tried every "buyer" would immediately resell to someone willing to pay the right amount so we'd be no better off than we are now. Only difference is a bunch of lucky lottery winners would make money instead of LL.

Then why bother starting the bidding at 2000$L? Why not just sell them outright at 90,000$L each and tell the "average user" to go F*** off?

It's because they need the "average complaining user" to drive up the demand and the prices. You can lean on your SL elitist rationalizations all day, but it still sucks that once again the land speculators, real estate agents, land holding companies and idle rich, as well as LL are the only ones this whole excercise was for. The very people who could care less about the state of the mainland.

Meanwhile, us "Average Joes" who buy, use and support the mainland with our tiers and hard earned Lindens are once again the ones left out in the cold. You can call it "dark chocolate" if you like, but it still tastes like "S***". IMHO

Uh because they're obviously not all worth L$90,000. Many went for L$50,000. It's normal practice to start an auction at a very low price it's not a deliberate attempt to insult anyone.



Uh, apart from perhaps the idle rich those are the people who care the most about the mainland since their livelihoods depend on it. Average Joes will take it or leave it when something better comes along but land holding companies, for example, depend on the mainland for their businesses to exist. Perhaps I could be persuaded to back off from that a little but it's certainly hard to argue that one group cares significantly more about the mainland than the other.

OMG what would we do without land holding companies???!!! PAY LESS FOR LAND, that's what. I don't see the value in someone who buys a lot of what you could buy yourself at the same price, then hoards it just to jack up the price just so he can sell it to you for more. That is a Parasite, I don't care how you want to paint it.

As one "Average Joe" who owns a full sim worth of Mainland, I can tell you that I care a helluva lot more about my neighbors, the sim and my own land, than some d**k who's only interest is in how they can dice it up and resell it to someone who will probably buy it and put it all back together again. A pointless excerise that only benefits one person, the middleman.
We could all do without mainland hoarders and microparcel extortionists. Any fool can figure out how to buy land without a go between.

I can think of a couple of dozen nicer places than Bay City. One of them just got cleared and sold as a blank sim because the builder's a better builder than sim manager.

Well, that just proves my point that Bay City is the best place to live on the grid! (in my opinion).

As for my Shimada, I didn't say anything about Land Holding companies benefitting you. I just said they care a lot about the mainland. On the other hand I'm not familiar with economics but I suspect there's a pretty sound theory that they don't cause prices to rise at all.

They have to raise prices to make a profit.

I'm not your Shimada.

LOL, leliel is right, economics 101, buy low, sell high. If they're not raising the price from what they paid for it then they're not making a profit.

I also don't see how you can claim they "care about" the Mainland when they buy it in bulk like meat, never using it to enjoy or build on. Instead, dicing it up to turn a quick buck at the expense of "Average Joe Newbie", or "Average Joe business owner".

Your arguments are weak and it seems that you're more interested in being contrary than being correct and factual. Something I've noticed you do in other threads too.

http://ideas.repec.org/a/rje/randje/v24y1993isummerp212-223.html

Also

http://www.isoc.org/inet2000/cdproceedings/7d/7d_3.htm

But then you can prove anything on the internet.

Regardless, I'm gonna stick to my other point. You must be crazy if you think I, and most other land flippers/land barons/land holding companies don't have more vested interest in maintaining the quality of mainland than you do. Why do you think I show up in every freaking thread about land? It's because I spend all day long thinking about the mainland and how to keep it going.

From the second paper:


I would say sl _has_ achieved this state.


Do we need this in sl?


Do i really need help clicking on the "Sell land" and "Buy Land" buttons?

I stopped reading at that point because while the paper has a very good point, non of it apples to sl with regards to selling land.

The average user was never likely to get to enjoy this great build, we'd already had the example of Bay City and the older sims such as Nova Albion still command extremely high prices. There's plenty of mainland for the rest of us to enjoy, let the land barons play in their rich playground.

How do you figure, because one out of over a dozen places got shut down, the other dozen suck as well? You, sir, are applying traction to my pedal extremity, and that kind of shenanigans I will not up with put!

Well, I dug in deep and grabbed myself a piece of Nautilus - Baal last week at auction. Got a nice spot with parks on two sides and one adjoining lot between my lot and the canal. Got it for 65,000 on a last minute bid.

The one next to mine sold for 79,000 and the buyer put in on sale instantly for 98,000 and that sold within a day to someone who put it up for sale instantly for 149,000. A day later it was marked down to 139,000, today it's at 120,000. I'm starting to see more yellow than purple on the map of the area, as the high prices speculators want for their parcels are not being paid by buyers. Parcel prices are starting to drop everywhere and even the auction bids are not going as high.

Am I trying to sell mine? Nope. I love the spot, I built myself a decidedly more Roman villa with some elements of Egyptian, Carthaginian and Greek design. It's more spacious than the boxy little homes that are free to take. I've got a breathtaking view of the sunrise over a huge park along the canal. The best part is, it's unblockable.

Turns out there are some actual residents, albeit not many. There's a Nautilus City Council group that sends out explorer guides and landmarks for all the free attractions. If you wanted to buy into this area but were discouraged by the fierce bidding and high prices, you might want to start looking now as many new parcels are going up for auction and the ones for sale now are getting cheaper.

I have to say, it's a very cool area and I'm glad I got a place in it, I just wish there were a few more real residents and fewer real estate agents, lol.

When I first came to SL over two years ago...I purchased land in the Semoshi region...and have continued to do so, until I own approximatly 98% of the sim. I pay $195.00 a month in tier. My investment over time to acquire that land was approximately $1600.00. There were fluctuations in the land market over that time that at various times made my land worth $1800.00-$2000.00. That was to be expected.

Six months ago, there was a reduction in the cost of mainland region acquistion, it was supposedly done to improve sales of land for LL....mainland regions were reduced from $1250.00 (as a starting bid price) with most selling in the $1800.00-$2000.00 range, which made my land commensurate in value. The reduction was to $750.00 (as a starting bid price). This immediately devalued my land. In other words, the land that a week earlier was worth perhaps $1900.00 US dollars, suddenly was worth less than a thousand. Why would anyone purchase my land if they could buy mainland land at auction for half the price?

Over time, because of this reduction in acquistion cost, mainland land continued to become more and more devalued. With the further devaluing of the land, my sim was worth approximately $700.00. I lost more than half the value of the investment I made in Second Life, because LL wished to increase their sales.

Now comes along a new mainland continent, part of the parks and recreations program. Its called Nautilus...it is a pre-built series of regions that are currently for sale. The problem with Nautilus is that the parcels are being auctioned by LL for the same lowered acquisition price that was set six months ago, certainly they are being bid up higher by land speculators, but that is not the point, the parcels in these new sims are allotted twice the prims per sq. meter that other older mainland sims are. In other words, you can buy at auction a 1024 sq. meter parcel on the new Nautilus continent and that parcel will support 468 prims. The rest of mainland can only support 234 prims on a 1024 parcel. A lot of folks are saying this is equalized by the high bid prices that the new land there are bringing in...well, acquistion price is a small part of the ongoing cost of land. I checked with concierge support and was told that the tier would be the same per sq. meter as it is on the rest of the mainland, and that the "bonus" prims would be on that land permanently. So if you are not already tiered up, having made your investment in SL already, you can get twice the prims for the same amount of sq. meters...and not pay twice the tier. Sounds like a great deal, huh? It's not, it is a horrible development.

Simply put, you have made a short-sighted decision to improve LL's sales while showing that you have no regard for your existing mainland residents ...a decision that has devalued the land of every mainland landowner in SL. Why would someone pay for MY land that has already been devalued once...when they can buy on Nautilus and get twice the prims? To buy land on the rest of mainland and get twice the prims...well, you have to buy twice the land. Of course I cant invest in Nautilus, because I own a full sim of mainland already, I am fully tiered up...and have no choice but to keep it, and I don't think I could sell now for more than about L$3/sq. meter...or about $450.00, based on current mainland prices in search.

You've made decisions that made more money for LL...great..but you took it out of my pocket to do it...and out of the pocket of every other mainland landowner in SL. So, can we expect parity with the Nautilus regions? Will you be giving us 2X the prims?...Or will you be cutting our tier prices in half?

I ask this because your mainland pricing and prim charts say this:

1/128 Region 512 sqm 117prims US$5
1/64 Region 1,024 sqm 234prims US$8
1/32 Region 2,048 sqm 468prims US$15
1/16 Region 4,096 sqm 937prims US$25
1/8 Region 8,192 sqm 1,875prims US$40
1/4 Region 16,384 sqm 3,750prims US$75
1/2 Region 32,768 sqm 7,500prims US$125
Entire Region 65,536 sqm 15,000prims US$195

and that is still true...UNLESS YOU BUY ON NAUTILUS...then you pay the same tier, but get twice the prims, which once again screws existing mainland land values.

Temporal Mitra