Does land already have to exist in order to purchase it?

[ProfessorForbes]

We are a group of professors on a university island that is close to the prim limit. A project has come up that would require us to use hundreds of more prims. Deleting or moving what we have is no longer an option (we've done all that we can and still need more room). I wasn't a part of the group that started Second Life on campus so I don't know how it was done in the first place, but is it as simple of buying more land and attaching it to our existing island or is it much more complex?

 

9/21/14:  Thank you all for the answers, each one of you have added to my knowledge about this problem. We are an educational sim but we do not qualify (nor are we receiving) any discount.  From what I understand, this was discontinued a few years back and the only institutions to receive an educational discount are the ones who have five or more regions.  This is why a lot of universities have sadly pulled out.  For this issue we've decided to go the route of replacing the old, chunky prim items with new low-prim items.  It'll be a long process but it'll save us $$ in the long run. Thanks everyone!

[KarenMichelle Lane]

Professor,

It's pretty straight forward. Since you qualify for an educational discount, you can order an additional Full Region or Homestead from Linden Research and have it located in the Grid on any designated side of your existing region. You specify this at the time of ordering via a Support Case.

Mind you, the prims on this new region can not be used on the existing region and visa-versa. So your new project will most likely be positioned on your new region with some roadway/walkway placed between your two regions to allow for foot traffic. But a roadway is so quaint, TP pads accomplish the same thing with less prim usage.

Make sure that you have access to the owning/paying account for your current region so that you can grant permission to locate the new region next to the existing region.

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Professor,

If your university's island is a private estate (as an island, it probably is), then yes, you can "purchase" another estate and request that it be located adjacent to your current one. If you don't need a full 15,000 additional prims, nor the avatar carrying capacity of a full sim, you can locate a homestead sim next to your full sim. The purchase page has boxes for you to enter the desired region name and coordinates and a map tool for locating existing regions (including yours) to you can select an adjacent location.

Here's the start page for selecting a prototype region landscape...

https://land.secondlife.com/en-US/private-regions.php

You'll see links to Homestead and Open Space regions at the bottom of the page, as well as a live chat button.

 

I imagine you'll qualify for the educational discount. Here's more about that...

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Education_and_Non-Profit_Discount_Terms_and_Conditions

 

[Lindal Kidd]

You can buy an additional region.  Not only that, but there is a discount for educational institutions.  Be sure to ask for it!

More info here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Buying-Private-Regions/ta-p/700045

To this, I will add: A full region can support up to 15,000 prims.  That's a lot.  If you are running short of prims, maybe you should take a close look at your building methods.  Some simple things like not using three or four prims when one can be made to serve, using textures instead of prims for small details, and setting objects to physics type Convex Hull or None where it's practical can save you a lot of prims.  So can (sometimes) building with sculpties or mesh.

If you do decide you really have to buy another region, keep a couple of things in mind.

• A Homestead region costs less to buy, and much less in monthly fees.  It will support up to 20 avatars at a time, and up to 3750 prims.  It's the same physical size as a "full" region.  You can buy a Homestead region if you already own one or more full regions.
• You can't share prims between regions.  This is unlike parcels within a region, where you can put 15,000 prims on one tiny subdivided piece of land as long as the rest of the region is bare.  15,000 prims per region, period.
• There are some other virtual worlds out there.  They are smaller and less developed than SL, but if you don't need the large native population and the huge amount of already-made content of SL, check them out.  Some of them offer regions will a larger prim allowance than SL, and at a much lower cost too.  Some are even free!  Google InWorldz, Avination, OSGrid, and Open Simulator.