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Complete newbie here - I need some help :(


IOASam
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Hello all,


I'm new to SL (as you can probably tell), and although I've done alot of research I still have some questions.


1) If I was to upgrade to premium and also purchase a large piece of land with a house, how would I cancel my tier payments if I wanted to leave SL after 6 months for example? Would I be charged indefinitely unless I could sell the land? Or is there a way I can simply cancel all second life payments in one go and downgrade to basic without any outstanding charges? I'm worried that I'll get caught up in a contract and have to pay land charges even if I have no further interest in SL.


2) What day of the month does SL take the money out of your RL account?


3) How do you store vehicles?


4) I read somewhere that even if you buy a piece of land privately (not mainland), you still don't own that piece of land. Is this true?


5) I've seen alot of tutorials that say you need additional software in order to "rez"(!?) a house before you put it on your land? I am going to be honest and say I have no idea what this means. Can't I just buy a  prefab house and just put it onto a piece of land I've purchased?


Sorry for all the questions, but any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you.

Sam

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1. If you have land and you want to leave, or go down to a basic account, you simply need to abandon the land. Then you don't own it and you won't be charged tier. But, you will be charged tier from the financial month you abandon it in, because you've had it during that month.

2. There is no set date for all. Whatever date LL puts on your account oage, that's your date.

3. You can store anything in your inventory, but if you mean like in a garage, you can get a garage and rez them inside. Whatever is rezzed counts for your prim allowance, of course.

4. The closest you can get to owning land is by buying mainland, but even then you pay teier to LL each month for it, so it's effectively rented from LL. Non-mainland land is always owned by the sim owner, who is the one who pays tier to LL each month for it. The owner can chuck you out of non-mainland land and take the land back again for any reason whatsoever, or for no reason at all,, and you don't have comeback.

5. Some houses can be quite complex structures that come boxed in several parts. With those houses, you just rez the box and the script inside it does the rest. YOU don't need to have any additional bit of software for it. Houses come complete with everything they need to be rezzed successfully.

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Phil Deakins, you have been most helpful. Thank you very much.

 

Just one more question - you mentioned than non mainland plots still have an owner (not you) even when you purchase them? That seems a bit unfair - if I just forked out over $1,000 of real money for a private island, I would want to own something...

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IOASam wrote:

Phil Deakins, you have been most helpful. Thank you very much.

 

Just one more question - you mentioned than non mainland plots still have an owner (not you) even when you purchase them? That seems a bit unfair - if I just forked out over $1,000 of real money for a private island, I would want to own something...

I will let Phil address that question :-)  but wanted to say there is a secondary market where you can safely buy from other users at a much cheaper price.

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If you set up and purchase a private sim then pay the tier to LL, you own that. Before you shell out 1K USD for a new setup, however, I'd look at the land listings here on the forum. Chances are you can find one for sale for 300USD and they pay the transfer fees. Much cheaper to do it that way.

If you are paying the tier/rent directly to LL, you own it. If you are paying it to an individual, then they own it and are paying LL the tiere/rent. They can give you most of the owner rights and if you are renting a full sim, they will often give you full rights, but that's up to the owner.

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IOASam wrote:

Phil Deakins, you have been most helpful. Thank you very much.

 

Just one more question - you mentioned than non mainland plots still have an owner (not you) even when you purchase them? That seems a bit unfair - if I just forked out over $1,000 of real money for a private island, I would want to own something...

I was assuming that you weren't thinkling of a whole sim. If you do get a whole non-mainland sim from LL, then you pay the tier to LL and you own it. If you get a whole non-mainland sim from someone else, then make sure you end up owning it and paying the tier to LL. It's possible to get a whole non-mainland sim from another user where you pay the user the rent/tier and, in that case, you won't own it. There are usually plenty of non-mainland sims for sale - just make sure that the ownership is transfered, by LL, from the person you are getting it from to you.

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Welcome to Second Life Sam. Don't often see people talking about purchasing full regions/sim so soon after joining. I just wanted to add on to the other good advice here.

1. Don't buy a sim from LL. You can always find them cheaper on the forums second hand from another owner.

2. When you buy a sim from someone it will already have a "tier date" associated with it and that is the day each month the LL will charge you the $295.

3. Ownership of land in SL is always a bit confusing. I think of it like this:

Linden Lab has server space which hosts regions or sims which we in Second Life see as land.

Land can be mainland, which is owned by Linden Lab and "sold" to premium members to use as long as they a) maintain a premium membership and b) pay the requried tier each month. When you pay for tier on the mainland you are always paying for your highest land usage from the previous month, and always pay directly to LL.

Land can also belong to private estates. Any SL user can purchase one or more regions from Linden Lab, which form together into an estate. When you purchase land in this way you have full control over what happens and who is allowed to visit that land. You can break it up and rent it to others. You pay a monthly tier to LL to cover the cost of hosting your region on their servers.

It is possible to get a parcel of land without being a premium member or owning a region of your own by renting. On mainland, you can rent a number of prims or space from someone that is a premium memeber. They will set the rules for you and generally as long as you pay them you can continue to use that land. When you rent like this on the mainland you usually have very little control over what happens on that land, it is true rental.

You can also rent a parcel from a private estate. This is where it gets confusing, because most people call this buying or purcahsing a parcel, but really it is a rental. The difference when you rent on a private estate is that you generally do have a good deal of control over your small portion of that region, your parcel. You can do a great many things so long as the owner of the estate lets you. Many estates have a covenant, which is basically a document which lays out what you can do on your rented land.

One last thing is on pricing. Mainland pricing is done on a tier system based on the highest amount of land you owned in the previous month. See this article (https://secondlife.com/land/pricing.php ) for that pricing. Estates are priced by their owners. A single full region costs 295 US per month (76000 L$) and a homestead costs 125 US per month (31000 L$). Keep this in mind when looking at land. Most private regions are priced by the prim, and a full region holds 15000 prims. In order to recoup the cost of that region the owner would need to charge about 1.27 L$ per prim per week. That gives a good bench mark when looking at land costs. As a land owner, I can say that very few land owners are in this just to break even so consider yourself forunate the closer you get to that 1.27 mark.

Sorry for the TL/DR explaination, feel free to hit me up in-world if you have questions.

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I would strongly advise not getting land even in rental format until you're 30-60 days in.

I've been a mainland resident since 2009 - and I've seen people come and go a lot in that time.

Invariably new users buy up massive plots of land, and then spend months trying to offload them, because they bought much more than they needed, in places that were not suited to what eventually became their needs, long before they understood the nature of their purchase.

- This horrid process of being stuck paying for much more than they needed and sometime even more than they can afford causes a lot of people to end up leaving SL. Furthermore - land ownership can be isolating... once you have your plot, you might end up being less likely to wander around, and as such meet less people. I've seen a number of early land buyers then decide SL was dead... because everyone was actually just somewhere else while they were in their private spot of land...

 

Go around and explore SL a lot before you settle down.

Anyone who ever needs to ask about land ownership - is generally not yet ready to own or rent land. Its not something to do lightly - and you want to know everything ELSE about SL before you jump into the land side of it.

 

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Haha - amazing. Thank you everyone.

 

My mind is still slightly boggled with the whole land owning side, but I'm sure it'll become clear as time goes on.

 

Do you still have to pay tier fees if you buy non mainland space? I'm guessing this is a yes as someone has to pay for server maintenance.

 

Thank you all.

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IOASam wrote:

 

Do you still have to pay tier fees if you buy non mainland space? I'm guessing this is a yes as someone has to pay for server maintenance.

 

Thank you all.

You can only buy whole regions of non mainland (and any amount of mainland), and you pay tier to LL.  If you want a smaller space of private land* then you would rent from someone who owns a whole region -- the confusion is that where non mainland is concerned, if you "buy" from another user you are NOT really buying but renting, altho it may list you as "owner". IOW a user in Second Life can only actually OWN either a parcel of mainland OR an entire region of private land. 

 

*The advantage of a private parcel is that there may be a convenant that protects you from neighbors building a ten story monstrosity. With mainland there is little in the way of a covenant; LL may or may not take action against bad neighbors.  The disadvantage of renting private land from another user is that they can take your money and kick you out, and LL will do nothing. Never pay more than a week's rent in advance.

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Welcome to SL, IOASam!

One thing that may be confusing you is the term "own", which is (I think accidentally on purpose) misleading. Here's a section from the Second Life Terms of Service...

9.2 Linden Lab provides the Service on an "as is" basis, without express or implied warranties, and all Content, Linden Dollars and virtual goods have no guarantee or warranty of any compensable value.

LINDEN LAB PROVIDES THE SERVICE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE LINDEN SOFTWARE, THE WEBSITES, THE SERVERS, THE CONTENT, THE VIRTUAL GOODS AND SERVICES, AND YOUR ACCOUNT, STRICTLY ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND HEREBY EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, WRITTEN OR ORAL, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF TITLE, NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

NO VALUE, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IS GUARANTEED OR WARRANTED WITH RESPECT TO ANY CONTENT, LINDEN DOLLARS, VIRTUAL TENDER OR VIRTUAL GOODS AND SERVICES. NOTWITHSTANDING ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS YOU MAY HAVE IN YOUR CONTENT OR ANY EXPENDITURE ON YOUR PART, LINDEN LAB AND YOU EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY COMPENSABLE VALUE RELATING TO OR ATTRIBUTABLE TO ANY DATA RELATING TO YOUR ACCOUNT RESIDING ON LINDEN LAB'S SERVERS. YOU ASSUME ALL RISK OF LOSS FROM USING THE SERVICE ON THIS BASIS.

Linden Lab does not ensure continuous, error-free, secure or virus-free operation of the Service, the Linden Software, the Websites, the Servers, or your Account, and you understand that you shall not be entitled to refunds or other compensation based on Linden Lab's failure to provide any of the foregoing other than as explicitly provided in this Agreement. Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties and, to that extent, the foregoing disclaimers may not apply to you.

As you can see, LL can pull the plug at any moment and leave you with nothing. Even while SL exists, LL tells you that nothing you "own" here has any value, either express or implied. As a "landowner" you don't get a box of computer parts in the mail if LL goes under.

When we refer to buying land, what we're really referring to is securing additional rights to a piece of virtual land that you rent. Securing those rights involves payment of a one time fee to either Linden Lab or a private land owner. From that point on, you retain the land rights to whatever it is you are renting, so long as you stay current with your rent. Those rights may include the ability to control access to the land, terraform it, etc.

This arrangement is both similar to and different from obtaining web hosting space on an ISP. With an ISP, you might elect to pay some "rental" fee to secure a shared space on one of the ISP's web servers, with limited control over what you may do on the server. For a higher fee, you can reserve a dedicated server for your use, with much greater freedom over what you can do there. This is like SL. What is not like SL is that ISPs do not say you are buying the server space. They say you're renting it for a monthly fee, because that's the truth of the situation.

Although the use of "buy" regarding land in SL is misleading, I don't think that's malicious. It is probably the result of Linden Lab working a little too hard to draw parallels between SL and RL to make living here seem "real". As you may learn, it can certainly seem so at times.

Good luck, have fun!

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Pamela Galli wrote:

 

... 

 The disadvantage of renting private land from another user is that they can take your money and kick you out, and LL will do nothing. Never pay more than a week's rent in advance.

As a longtime private estate owner & landlady, I take exception to this advice. 

Certainly there is always the chance of running into an unscrupulous or irresponsible land owner, but this risk exists every bit as much on mainland rentals as it does on private estate rentals.

I've been offering homes for rent on my private sim "Turtle Bay" since 2007, and some of my tenants have been with me for that long.  I have a long-running discount, where if the tenant pays 4 weeks payment, I throw in a week for free, so they get 5 weeks for the price of 4.  If a tenant wishes to merely pay week to week, they are free to do so, but will receive no discounts.

Not all land owners are thieves, but we continually get punished for the misdeeds of a small percentage.

/rant off.

Edited to correct a typo.

 

 

 

 

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Think of land this way. When you buy from LL, you've purchased land in a city. It belongs to you. However, you're still responsible for paying taxes on the land. You're "tier" is your taxes, you just get to pay them monthly rather than once a year.

When you purchase from a landowner and pay the tier to them rather than to LL, you're leasing the land. In many cases you can do what you like with it within restrictions. However, the person you lease from could decide to leave SL or sell to another person. That person can chose to let you continue to lease from them or kick you out. If the original owner just leaves, SL repossesses the land and you're out as well.

Hope that helps the understanding of the difference.Personally, if you have a premium account, just get the free Linden home you can and start from there.

Good Luck

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Dana Dielli wrote:


Pamela Galli wrote:... 

 The disadvantage of renting private land from another user is that they can take your money and kick you out, and LL will do nothing. Never pay more than a week's rent in advance.

As a longtime private estate owner & landlady, I take exception to this advice. 

Certainly there is always the chance of running into an unscrupulous or irresponsible land owner, but this risk exists every bit as much on mainland rentals as it does on private estate rentals.

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Not all land owners are thieves, but we continually get punished for the misdeeds of a small percentage.

What do you take exception to? The fact that it can happen, which you agree with?, the fact that the OP was told that it can happen?, or the fact that mainland rentals weren't mentioned?

It can and does happen, although it's very uncommon, so you can't take exception to that being said. It would be a disservice if the OP were not told that it can happen, so you can't take exception to that. Pamela didn't mention private islands or mainland. She just said "private land", and that can be on the mainland as well as on private islands, so that shouldn't generate any taking exception to either. So I'm inclined to think that the post was just an advertisement.

Incidentally, I'm completely unaware of any "punishment" that land owners receive because of a few thieves. Would you enlighten me please?

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Phil Deakins wrote:


Dana Dielli wrote:


Pamela Galli wrote:... 

 The disadvantage of renting private land from another user is that they can take your money and kick you out, and LL will do nothing. Never pay more than a week's rent in advance.

As a longtime private estate owner & landlady, I take exception to this advice. 

Certainly there is always the chance of running into an unscrupulous or irresponsible land owner, but this risk exists every bit as much on mainland rentals as it does on private estate rentals.

[
advertisement removed
]

Not all land owners are thieves, but we continually get punished for the misdeeds of a small percentage.

What do you take exception to? The fact that it can happen, which you agree with?, the fact that the OP was told that it can happen?, or the fact that mainland rentals weren't mentioned?

It can and does happen, although it's very uncommon, so you can't take exception to that being said. It would be a disservice if the OP were not told that it can happen, so you can't take exception to that. Pamela didn't mention private islands or mainland. She just said "private land", and that can be on the mainland as well as on private islands, so that shouldn't generate any taking exception to either. So I'm inclined to think that the post was just an advertisement.

Incidentally, I'm completely unaware of any "punishment" that land owners receive because of a few thieves. Would you enlighten me please?

Hi Phil, I should have been more concise.   I object primarily to the advice to "Never pay more than a week's rent in advance.".

Following this advice on my sim, would mean the tenant would never benefit from the 20% discount (pay for 4 weeks in advance, get a 5th week free).

As for how we full estate sim owners are punished, it is through lost revenues from potential customers who have been dissuaded from doing business with evil land owners such as myself. 

My advice would be for anybody to do their research, get references and/or recomendations, and then exercise a bit of common sense.

Edited to add this:    I am sorry you found my mentioning the name of my sim to be a blatant advertisement.   It was not intended as such, and if you do a search of my previous posts you will see no pattern of this behavior.  Perhaps in retrospect, I should have left the sim name off.  But the rest of the paragraph you chose to delete went straight to the point that it's not inherently dangerous to pay for more than one week at a time, and in fact can be desirable.

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Ok. Fair enough. It gave me the impression of an ad because the sim name was included along with the discount offer.

Your advice to do some research, get recommendations, etc. is good. It would also be wise for somebody new to suck it and see for a while; i.e. pay weekly for a while to see how it pans out, especially until they've got to know a few other people who rent from the same landlord so that they can feel comfortable about it. Don't pay more that a week in advance is very sound advice to anyone who is starting with a new landlord who hasn't been given trustworthy references/recommendations, regardless of any offers. I think you'll agree with that.

I don't agree with your use of the word "punished" for what you described though. You are affected, of course, but it's not any sort of punishment. Bad things do happen in the field you are in, albeit quite rarely, but you chose to be in that field, so, for you, it's par for the course. You don't actually lose any business because of it because you never had that business in the first place. I do know what you mean though, and it's unfortunate, but it's your choice to be in it. It's not too dissimilar to opening an RL shop. Losses through shoplifting is par for that particular course and anyone who vehemently resents it shouldn't have a shop. (I'm not suggesting that you "vehemently resent" people being advised to take care at the start.)

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Renting from a reputable estate for a month at a time will work just fine. Just a few tips. First, check them out. Have they been in the business for a while? How many sims do they manage? Do they have people that work for them? When you land on one of their parcels, does someone IM  you to say hello and offer to help? All those are signs that you aren't going to lose your money and they are well established. I've rented 1/2 a homestead before from a reputable company and was very happy. Got the break for renting 4 weeks at a time. They asked what kind of terrain I wanted on the land. It was a beach sim where they had put a mountain range between parcels and put in a waterfall for me as well as waves.

Again, do take your time before rushing in to land ownership/rental.

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  • 3 weeks later...


NOELxoxo wrote:

sorry if this was already covered.

 

I just rented a dome, private island.

Since i wont be going back to and dont want to go back to the linden included home.

can i now , downgrade to basic?

 

Thanks,

Noel

Yep, if you're renting from a third party, you're not using the included tier of a premium membership. There are other benefits of premium membership, but those were never enough for me to sign up. You will remain a premium member until the end of your current billing cycle. Linden Lab does not rebate the unused portion of a premium membership. Make sure you've abandoned the home and any other Linden land you might have.

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