Sold Out?

[cenedraflame]

Soooo, I finally get around to setting up my premium account.. slow I know but hey.  

As you all know part of the offer is the free Linden home so I think, ok lets see what they have.  Naturally the forum (my personal wikipedia research tool for everything regarding SL) was searched and I found out a lot that way, but still decided I would see what was on offer. 

And what did I find?

"Oh Snap! Hmmm?

Linden Homes are Sold Out! "What??"

Don't worry.

We're building more. "Oh that's alright then!!"  

 

Typical!  Does this happen often?  

~Ceddy~

[PeterCanessa Oh]

As far as the helpers were aware when this came up in Answers this is the only time it has happened.  It depends on the flow of newbs into SL.  They're about the only ones that have Linden homes.  The homes were designed as starter places but nearly everyone wants somewhere better, if not bigger.

[Tiffy Vella]

You could go pick up a tier-free 512,and build your home yourself. Waaaaay more fun in my opinion, and more likely to carry you through your land needs if you wish to extend. A linden home is pretty much a dead end, imo.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Your post is the first time I've heard of it happening.  Try again Monday.......it's a weekend in San Francisco today (actually it's Mother's Day so all the Lindens are taking Mom to dinner this evening).

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Yes, a serious shortage at the moment and residents are seeing this image at times. Started maybe two weeks ago.

However, Homes can pop up at any time as someone abandons or changes one. I read one girl saying she waited hours but eventually got one. The problem at the moment is that there is no resesvoir of vacant homes to choose from as there had been. Despite the fact that  21 empty sims were created a couple of months ago waiting for the Moles to build homes on, nothing is happening so hopefully LL will make its mind up very soon on its new approach to Linden Homes following the survey a while back and sort this shortage out.

Contrary to what Peter & Tiffy say, Nascera can be a very pleasant place to live and many homes are taken by long-standing Premium members.

[Phil Deakins]

The screenshot says, "You can also follow @SecondLife on Twitter for updates." How idiotic is that?

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

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The saddest part of this whole picture is that they recommend following Twitter for updates... making it quite apparent how badly LL communicates to their user base through their own platform, which is all about communication.  Brilliant.

...Dres

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

The screenshot says, "You can also follow @SecondLife on Twitter for updates." How idiotic is that?

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You beat me to it, damn you.

...Dres

[Phil Deakins]

Just lucky lol

[PeterCanessa Oh]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

...Despite the fact that  21 empty sims were created a couple of months ago waiting for the Moles to build homes on,...

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And, as I've said before, despite the fact that there's a huge amount of worthless abandoned mainland they should have soaker-up instead.  Oh well, you can always trust LL to do the wrong thing.  ... Hmmm, 21 sims sounds a lot (to me) but it's only 2,688 parcels of 512sqm.  I have absolutely no idea whether that really is a lot or not but compared to the number of new registrations per day (in as much as we have any figures) it doesn't seem that many after all.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

 

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

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The saddest part of this whole picture is that they recommend following Twitter for updates... making it quite apparent how badly LL communicates to their user base through their own platform, which is all about communication.  Brilliant.

...Dres

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I overlooked that part Dres and it does make you wonder who creates these pages.

And also, while it may not be as easy as pressing a button, it's not that hard for Linden Lab to create new homes. It uses an auto rezzer that rezzes entire sims of mapped Linden Homes in hours then sends the Moles in to tidy up. I'm surprised more new Premium members aren't screaming blue murder over the lack of available homes after parting with their hard-earned cash but this has only really come to light during the past couple of weeks. I suppose it is a measure of the success of its Premium Membership drive but seems the wheels have come off the chariot now.

Already been suggested elsewhere that Linden Lab should begin to develop abandoned mainland for additional Premium Homes, which is quite a good idea but clearly not in the way First Land was done way back in the mid 2000s. I recall First Land 512 parcels where you couldn't slip a credit card between the houses as everyone built to parcel edges.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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PeterCanessa Oh wrote:

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

...Despite the fact that  21 empty sims were created a couple of months ago waiting for the Moles to build homes on,...

---

 

And, as I've said before, despite the fact that there's a huge amount of worthless abandoned mainland they should have soaker-up instead.  Oh well, you can always trust LL to do the wrong thing.  ... Hmmm, 21 sims sounds a lot (to me) but it's only 2,688 parcels of 512sqm.  I have absolutely no idea whether that really is a lot or not but compared to the number of new registrations per day (in as much as we have any figures) it doesn't seem that many after all.

---

There are actually 22 sims but one is already partially landscaped as parkland. You also have to allow for parkland within the sims as well as the gaps and landscaped areas between the houses and groups of houses. So nowhere near the figure you mention. The number of houses varies between sims depending on type, some have more and some less, especially the sims around the edges. At a rough guess, 50/55 homes per sim.

 

[Luc Starsider]

You'd have to wonder, though. If they created 21 sims a while ago, which have been taken. Does this mean more people are signing up for premium? Or are simply more people abandoning mainland and getting a Linden home in stead?

Oh, yeah! I agree with Phil and Dres. Recommending Twitter for updates *is* idiotic. Seems secondlife.com is just a signup form with a few embellishments, and the community a resident sandbox/playground.

- Luc -

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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Luc Starsider wrote:

You'd have to wonder, though. If they created 21 sims a while ago, which have been taken. Does this mean more people are signing up for premium? Or are simply more people abandoning mainland and getting a Linden home in stead?

Oh, yeah! I agree with Phil and Dres. Recommending Twitter for updates *is* idiotic. Seems secondlife.com is just a signup form with a few embellishments, and the community a resident sandbox/playground.

- Luc -

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They haven't been taken Luc, just sitting there. See photos below.

There is just one home in all those sims, a rather unusual one as you can see. It is twice the size of normal Meadowbrook homes with an unusual leisure area close by although that doesn't seem to form part of the house as it belongs to a Mole. Originally I thought experimental new Home but I think it is actually a competition winner's home from a while back as it is occupied by a Resident. The second photo also shows the homes mapped out on the land in one sim waiting for the auto rezzer but no houses rezzed.

[PeterCanessa Oh]

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Luc Starsider wrote:

You'd have to wonder, though. If they created 21 sims a while ago, which have been taken. Does this mean more people are signing up for premium? Or are simply more people abandoning mainland and getting a Linden home in stead?

Oh, yeah! I agree with Phil and Dres. Recommending Twitter for updates *is* idiotic. Seems secondlife.com is just a signup form with a few embellishments, and the community a resident sandbox/playground.

- Luc -

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No, I think it really does all make sense.  This might sound like a bit of a rant but I'm quite relaxed about it - LL do not care about the older residents and those that use these forums.  We're just not profitable or numerous enough, it's as simple as that.

The old business model was to build a big virtual world from land paid-for by residents who could do what they liked with it.  The infrastructure never worked very well but that didn't put off the techy-creator-adventurers who almost solely populated SL up to around 2008/9.  You had to be in that group or you wouldn't put up with all the time it was offline and how hard it was to make it work een when it was online.

There just aren't enough techy-creator-adventurers though.  For sensible business reasons LL has always been after the "millions of potential residents" that wouldn't come to SL as it was or that left very soon afterwards if they did.  The millions are the twit-face, social-networking crowd.  Their idea of a 'virtual world' is somewhere they can decorate a home and dress-up with their avatars.  They want to communicate by banality.  LL gave them feeds and hif the profiles instead of fixing group-chat.  LL gave them homes so they didn't need to know about land, rent, tier or building.  LL pushed marketplace so they wouldn't need to move around in-world.  The "millions" don't use SL or its forums.  They use twitter, facebook and feeds.  So LL don't communicate here.

It's working for LL; the "millions" are starting to come to SL (perhaps not, but a lot more).  They buy premium, get their Linden home and buy furniture and clothes on the marketplace.  They don't build, explore the rest of the world or sell so most of the time they never even learn that most of SL doesn't work.  They'll probably be bored with SL by the time their membership needs renewing but there'll be a lot of newer people by then, or they'll have learnt to live with a faulty platform like the rest of us did.

*Hehe* SL used to be wilderness, filled with people wanting to do something new and having a sense of adventure.  SL went in every direction at once, just like the residents did.

Now the people coming are the the ones who want a modest home, just like all their friends, in whole communities where it's all just the same.  SL is becoming Suburbia!

[Luc Starsider]

Ah, right! I didn't read your post too well. So, this is the 'Don't worry. We're building more' part of the message. Two weeks is a long time to let customers wait. Perhaps the Moles are on strike? Everybody has been let go, and there's no one left to start the auto rezzer?

@Peter. You might very well be right. I don't blame LL for trying to get more customers, and I hope they manage. I'm not sure I think the customer they're after is the 'right' type... Also, contrary to what I have a feeling LL thinks, trying to attract new customers does not mean you have to abandon and forget the existing customers.

- Luc -

[Phil Deakins]

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Luc Starsider wrote:

Ah, right! I didn't read your post too well.

So, this is the 'Don't worry. We're building more' part of the message. Two weeks is a long time to let customers wait. Perhaps the Moles are on strike? Everybody has been let go, and there's no one left to start the auto rezzer?

@Peter. You might very well be right. I don't blame LL for trying to get more customers, and I hope they manage. I'm not sure I think the customer they're after is the 'right' type... Also, contrary to what I have a feeling LL thinks,

trying to attract new customers does not mean you have to abandon and forget the existing customers.

- Luc -

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I completely agree with that. Posting necessary information on Twitter is fine but it should always also be posted where the users are - here or in the blog. Posting necessary information exclusively on Twitter is a really idiotic thing to do, and it reveals something (really negative) about the person who decided to do it that way - Rodvik, wasn't it?

[Luc Starsider]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

I completely agree with that. Posting necessary information on Twitter is fine but it should always also be posted where the users are - here or in the blog. Posting necessary information exclusively on Twitter is a really idiotic thing to do, and it reveals something (really negative) about the person who decided to do it that way - Rodvik, wasn't it?

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It is really easy to think Rodvik is behind it. I'm not sure he made the decision all by himself, though, even if he probably influenced it greatly. He does seem to like to make people work to find any relevant information. Spreading everything on feeds, twitter, facebook and whatever doesn't exactly make it easy.

- Luc -

[Coby Foden]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

The screenshot says, "You can also follow @SecondLife on Twitter for updates." How idiotic is that?

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Twitter, ufff..!  Very idiotic...

Linden Lab collective head --->  <--- Angry resident. :smileytongue:

[Perrie Juran]

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PeterCanessa Oh wrote:

As far as the helpers were aware when this came up in Answers this is the only time it has happened.  

It depends on the flow of newbs into SL.  They're about the only ones that have Linden homes.  The homes were designed as starter places but nearly everyone wants somewhere better, if not bigger.

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Where do you get your statistic that it's "about only" newbs who have them?

 

[PeterCanessa Oh]

Either

1. It's purely anecdotal because I'd only heard of 3 'oldbies' that had them and lots of people moving on/out/upwards
2. They are still a fairly new feature so anyone getting one with their account is a newb by some definition (don't confuse me about oldbies with premium accounts already)
3. Nostrodamus said it would be

[Perrie Juran]

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PeterCanessa Oh wrote:

Either

1. It's purely anecdotal because I'd only heard of 3 'oldbies' that had them and lots of people moving on/out/upwards
2. They are still a fairly new feature so anyone getting one with their account is a newb by some definition (don't confuse me about oldbies with premium accounts already)
3. Nostrodamus said it would be

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I know several oldbies who maintain them for private trysts.  I suspect a few others of doing the same though not admitting it.

I do still know several land lords who are not doing well with rentals and have suffered ever since the introduction of Linden Homes.

The grid did grow a little last week but interestingly enough: "A net increase of 32 regions this week with Private Estates gaining 36 and Linden owned dropping by 4"   http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/virtual-business/8523-new-sl-sims-past-week-63.html#post1556535

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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PeterCanessa Oh wrote:

Either

1. It's purely anecdotal because I'd only heard of 3 'oldbies' that had them and lots of people moving on/out/upwards
2. They are still a fairly new feature so anyone getting one with their account is a newb by some definition (don't confuse me about oldbies with premium accounts already)
3. Nostrodamus said it would be

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So, no statistics then  :smileyvery-happy:  just a stab in the dark and a hope nobody would pick you up on it! Good try but no cigar. :smileyvery-happy:

I think I'm probably a little more informed than you on Linden Homes as I've lived there for over 2 years and I do know far more than three long time residents with homes there :smileyvery-happy: By its very nature, it's likely to be more transient than mainland, especially as not all retain Premium membership so have to give the homes up, although I should think rentals see as much resident movement. There is also a contingent of Premium members who retain Linden Homes because they were free but don't necessarily live there. I know some of them too.

Time is passing you by without you realising. Linden Homes are by means a new feature, having been released on the 17th February 2010 so well into their third year now.

Oh do please quote the verse from Nostradamus on Linden Homes. I always enjoy people making up prophecies from his nonsense, just a pity they can't deciper them before events instead of after. :smileywink:

[PeterCanessa Oh]

Good, well I'm glad someone offered more than just my anecdotal comments then.  Your anecdotal comments mean we have twice the unverified information to go on :-)

Nostradmus wrote "3 pints and a pot of yoghurt please". I can't remember how all the arcane references were worked out but I remember it was on the internet somewhere, so it must be true, that it meant "most people in SL won't want to put up with the restrictions of a Linden home for long"

[Isharae Atheria]

I'm a premium member, own land, pay a good $ per month.  Although I own land, I want a Linden house, too.  I'm also seeing the 'sold out' sign, and have seen it several times over the course of a week.

When I am able to get a Linden home, if I don't like it, I look at the map and mosey around to see what else is available.

I've come across a slew of homes that are owned by Linden that I would love to take for my Linden home. Instead, they assign one to me, I go look at it, and it's in a horrid location, nothing to see but someone elses house right up against mine. 

Why doesn't Linden Lab set it up so if you find a home you like, you can right click and rent it?  Why do they have to assign the homes?  Why can't we browse the neighborhoods and pick out the one we want?