Sold Out?

[Tiffy Vella]

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Jocial Sonnenkern wrote:

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?

 

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That sounds too pleasant and rational

I really think that LL does not want linden homes to be too attractive as a long term option to most people. They are starter homes, in essence, and are designed to give people a taste of home ownership, and some comfort, before they are ready to commit further.

That's why they are no-mod cookie-cutter units, and don't offer as many options as buying a first tier-free 512, or renting on the open market.

But they are a great idea for what they are- I've played with one, helped pimp it up, and had a ball looking at what can be done decorating wise...and I know how they can make a good getaway. As long as LL can hold to their promises, and have them available, of course.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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Jocial Sonnenkern wrote:

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?

 

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Every single home there is owned by Linden Lab, not just a slew of them and there are certainly no slews of homes available right now. Just because a home is empty doesn't mean it's not taken by a resident. They just may not live there on a permanent basis. If it's not appearing in the available homes on the web site, it is taken.

Would be nice if you could pick the home but I think the sheer logistics of checking every home in every sim looking for vacant ones would be nigh on impossible and a task very few would even contemplate. On the automated system, you can choose and abandon homes up to five times in any 24-hour period until you find one you do like. If a home in a nice position is available, chances are you will get it after a few abandons, especially with the serious shortage now.

It may not be ideal but it is the system in place.

[Isharae Atheria]

The empty houses I'm referring to, are not rented/owned. If you check under "Parcel Details', it shows Gov Linden.  When rented, it shows the person's name. When they pop me into a home I don't like, I mosey outside and look around. I've found some fantastic empty ones with great views.  I abandon my house and try again and it sometimes puts me back in the same house. This has happened multiple times in one day. I have to then change my house style, to get it to pick a different location.

Don't get me wrong - these homes are a nice perk, but would definitely be even more so,  if we could be more self sufficient in chosing our home and not have the process dependent upon having a home selected for us. 

And the view out of my pixel world, is important.  Given a choice, I can't help but believe that the majority of ppl would prefer to see grass, trees or water versus the side view of their neighbor's house.  I'm just saying.... 

[Luc Starsider]

Sort of elaborating on what Tiffy said, and also defending LL a bit.

LL have to make a few consideratons in this respect. On the one hand, they have to provide value for their premium members, and on the other they can't alienate land owners who make a living from buying, selling and/or rent out land. This is a big business in SL, and I don't think LL can affort to step on too many of their toes.

LL needs to keep a balance, and Linden homes is a pretty good deal as a premium incentive. You get a 512 lot and a house included in your membership where the house itself does not count in the prim allowance. At the same time, you don't get to choose the excact house or look you want, it is kind of small, and mostly not the best view and also few options when it comes to changeing it to your liking, so many will want to buy a different plot after a while to use for a home. Hopefully to the benefit of the real estate business in SL.

I opted for a bigger place after a while in a Linden home. Others, as have been explained, choose to keep the Linden home, perhaps as well as getting another plot.

To me, Linden homes, the way they are set up, seems like an ok compromise, although it wouldn't hurt if they built some more so that their customers could actually get a house...

- Luc -

[Dilbert Dilweg]

I pretty Much agree with you Luc . They do have to keep that balance.

However, I think spreading things out to other regions on main land will help the land sellers and regions by populating them perhaps.

Linden Home Residents would see more of what is out there wile living on their plots, thery will see land being sold around them, which could/would spark the interest to expand. LL Putting 4 or so homes on each region maybe would help... Who knows. I think it might be something they should venture into. It may also take the strain off of having to build new by possibly speeding up the cycle of which residents upgrade to larger land.

[JonathonAnthony]

OK, first, yes, I'm one of the "newbies" who got his house and such...

There's just this sense of "Get Off Mah Lawn" mentality about some things. Like this hatred that they dare use social media outside SL. Yea, I know, there are forums. But then people are moving away from specialized resources. I know some people who have their Twitter account on their smart phone. So they are heading home to drop into SL, and BANG Tweet saying grid's down. I see nothing wrong with MORE ways to communicate. If I had a smart phone myself (Got locked into a **bleep**ty contract with a **bleep**ty phone when I didn't have the cash for a smart phone), I'd have Pocket Meta/Grid on it too. I see nothing wrong with offering more ways to communicate.

Complaining about that would be like complaining that their adding the ability to integrate outside media into SL. I'd rather see greater convergence between social media and SL, so that I can send an IM via Facebook and have my friend in SL see it. New does not mean bad, it just means new...

Now, one thing I AM seeing is that they are neglecting the forums, by your opinion. Now I haven't been here long enough to speak to that, but I am not seeing a lot of admin names running about. It is a damn shame if they are moving away from supporting across the board. My first visit here (during the boom it appears) bored me to tears. I was lost and wandering about, left after 2 days. I get that they are trying to make the entry level more friendly to people coming in. I don't see that as bad because if people leave, sims close, land goes abandoned, and we get steps closer to losing SL eventually.

As for them not building homes, I can see why. There was an offer they dropped in my email for a "free trial" home. I can assume what they are doing is trying to create a second tier, and become their own land baron. By holding off, they can save building the new sets of homes to see how many of us newbies jump ship so they can just reuse our homes. The homes appear to be bigger and more well equipped. And the "trial" part means they will eventually convert to a rented property. So it looks like they intend to step on some toes... hard.

Now, I will say this: Renting from someone is SO much better than just having a freebie home (I get this feeling that with all the premium gifts so far, it will have to be retermed preebie home, soon to be followed by a preebie car, preenis... I'm sure...), mainly because dealing with another human being when you run across an issue is better than submitting trouble tickets... Right now my home has its rights locked down and is just a place for me to hide projects from my soon-to-be-partner.

I'm sure people will read this and dismiss me because I'm some 45 day old avi. And that's a shame, I love SL, this visit has been.. so much different than my last. I've found a new passion, maybe even new profession if I decide to pursue it RL. I've made fast friends with some really great people. And I enjoy being in SL this time around. I'd rather be a fresh perspective that helps you oldbies realize not all change is bad

[Dillon Levenque]

You suggest oldbies dislike change. Possible, even probable, given how humans respond to changes. I don't think that has anything to do with who stays or goes from Second Life. In your message you said that your prior viist "bored me to tears".

Second Life is not for everyone. I'm sure Phillip Rosedale wishes it had been; he'd be wealthy beyond his wildest dreams (presumably: I don't have insight to his dreams). But, fact is, it is a special place and not everyone likes it. One thing I think is true, though: if it bored you to tears before, it will bore you to tears again. I have never once, in three plus years, logged in and thought, "Now what?", let alone been bored.

 

[Phil Deakins]

The first part of your post make it clear that you had entirely missed the point. But then you wrote a paragraph that showed you hadn't missed the point at all, and it made the first part of your post irrelevant.

To make it absolutely clear... There is nothing wrong with LL communicating important information via Twitter and such. But there is absolutely something wrong with LL NOT also communicating important information in their own systems, such as this forum and the blog, where the information will reach far more of their users. These places are where they can reach more of their users with important information. They can't reach anywhere near the same number on Twitter and such.

Communicating important information externally but not internally is gross stupidity. It's what I expect from the sort of people who run SL.

[JonathonAnthony]

Dillon - Yup, bored to tears. No L, didn't really find too many to chat with that had similar interests. My time to login was bad, mostly non-english users most places I found. This time around is... WAAAAAAY different. Have some disposable income to set up a life here... met someone... Found that I love DJing... I have 20 or so really great friends... Finally hit on the live music scene here... Just took hitting the right sim and being able to be on at a better time of day. So far I've yet to be bored at all. I'm also looking into building, texturing and scripting.

Just because the first time around I didn't see the point of SL doesn't mean that there isn't one and that I will find it boring later on

Phil - Perhaps they are looking to move the information from here. I agree, as long as this place exists, they need to ensure that they are feeding information to it. However, most companies are outsourcing their communications to social media because most have a small buy-in for maintenance (here, they need moderators and servers to maintain, on Twitter, they just need to have one guy to occassionally fire off a tweet), but still provide the interaction with their clientele. I know, for example, City of Heroes heavily leverages Facebook and UStream now, even though they have an extensive forum and internal communication system. And, honestly, I find myself seeing more of what they do BECAUSE of that.

Do you know why I came to these forums in the first place? For scripting help. Not to socialize really, because I do that in SL. I didn't look for information because I can have that sent to me at my Twitter account if I so desire, or Google SL info when I need it. It's an older mentality that a game community requires a forum for it. I know, I am a part of that community to some degree. But media is shifting away from specialized resources like single-game sites and forums. Many people hop on Facebook first thing in the morning, or even check it throughout the day. It just makes sense to meet your customer where they are rather than asking them to come to you.

I agree that they do need to support the forums so long as they exist, and some forums are really needed to be here (Employment, Scripting, Classified, et cetera). The level of support will likely not be the same in the heyday pre-social media, but yes right now that support does not seem to be there.

[Phil Deakins]

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JonathonAnthony wrote:

Dillon - Yup, bored to tears. No L, didn't really find too many to chat with that had similar interests. My time to login was bad, mostly non-english users most places I found. This time around is... WAAAAAAY different. Have some disposable income to set up a life here... met someone... Found that I love DJing... I have 20 or so really great friends... Finally hit on the live music scene here... Just took hitting the right sim and being able to be on at a better time of day. So far I've yet to be bored at all. I'm also looking into building, texturing and scripting.

Just because the first time around I didn't see the point of SL doesn't mean that there isn't one and that I will find it boring later on

Phil - Perhaps they are looking to move the information from here. I agree, as long as this place exists, they need to ensure that they are feeding information to it. However, most companies are outsourcing their communications to social media because most have a small buy-in for maintenance (here, they need moderators and servers to maintain, on Twitter, they just need to have one guy to occassionally fire off a tweet), but still provide the interaction with their clientele. I know, for example, City of Heroes heavily leverages Facebook and UStream now, even though they have an extensive forum and internal communication system. And, honestly, I find myself seeing more of what they do BECAUSE of that.

Do you know why I came to these forums in the first place? For scripting help. Not to socialize really, because I do that in SL. I didn't look for information because I can have that sent to me at my Twitter account if I so desire, or Google SL info when I need it. It's an older mentality that a game community requires a forum for it. I know, I am a part of that community to some degree. But media is shifting away from specialized resources like single-game sites and forums. Many people hop on Facebook first thing in the morning, or even check it throughout the day. It just makes sense to meet your customer where they are rather than asking them to come to you.

I agree that they do need to support the forums so long as they exist

, and some forums are really needed to be here (Employment, Scripting, Classified, et cetera). The level of support will likely not be the same in the heyday pre-social media, but yes right now that support does not seem to be there.

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It's not that LL needs to support the forums. It's that they need to support their customers. They have a blog system fpr communicating things that customers need to know, as well as this forum. I don't care how other outfits communicate. I only care how LL communicates with their customers - because it includes me.

It's gross stupidity to turn away from their customers and only communicate to the outside world. And gross stupidity is precisely what I expect from the people who run LL. In over 5 years I've never seen much else from them.

[161488303349]

you made some good points i think

+

just add

the main difference between pre-2008 and now is the capability of the tools to make stuff. having to use 3rd party tools to make stuff that on a quality level is comparative to at least the medium standard of stuff available today for purchase

sculpties and now mesh are total domain of 3rd party tools. prims are cool but the complexity of the shapes that can be made is quite limited compared to what you can do with mesh and scuplts. at least in terms of prim cost (altho the new LI thingy is trying to address that)

the skin/clothing designer in the SL viewer doesnt compare at all to what you can do in a paint program. altho back in the day when you did use the designer then the output was about equal to the medium quality point at that time

+

i think if SL is to regain the creative glory days then we need better builtin tools so that newbies can learn straightaway how to make stuff of medium quality. like a paint skin/tattoo editor and a simple prim to mesh convertor would be good i think

eta: and a texturiser for the prim-to-mesh-convertor. one you can load textures onto but also hand paint on directly 

[161488303349]

the reason you cant pick your own linden home is that the ones on the edges by the parks and waters get gobbled up first. which always happens in a land rush. longtime accounts end up with them all. leaving only the sim interiors available for newbies

random allocation is more fair i think 

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

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There are actually 22 sims but one is already partially landscaped as parkland. You also have to allow for 

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22 sims, or 22 sims per continent. Because they have at least 3 to 5 continents of linden homes. The entire build has just been copied over and over in a couple locations.

Mainland's a better bit for a lot of reasons though... but for a less experienced shopper - the prim savings of the mole built house can seem a deal.

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

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There are actually 22 sims but one is already partially landscaped as parkland. You also have to allow for 

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22 sims, or 22 sims per continent. Because they have at least 3 to 5 continents of linden homes. The entire build has just been copied over and over in a couple locations.

Mainland's a better bit for a lot of reasons though... but for a less experienced shopper - the prim savings of the mole built house can seem a deal.

 

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I'm only aware of one continent of Linden Homes and that is Nascera. I've never heard of anyone with a Linden Home anywhere but there. Are you perhaps confusing continents with the different themes? The sims I was talking about are empty ones at the northern end of the Meadowbrook area, by far the most popular theme.

JonathonAnthony said LL sent him a free trial offer of a bigger more well equipped home, which is the first I've heard of such an offer. Anyone else know anything of this trial?

[Phil Deakins]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

I'm only aware of one continent of Linden Homes and that is Nascera.

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There are three clearly visible on the map. They all look identical so you can't miss them.

[Luc Starsider]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

JonathonAnthony said LL sent him a free trial offer of a bigger more well equipped home, which is the first I've heard of such an offer. Anyone else know anything of this trial?

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I was also wondering about that.

If such a thing exist, it kind of underlines the points that have been made about LLs inability to communicate with the population of SL. You would think they wanted as many people as possible to know of this, and get people in to make use of it. 

- Luc -

[Irene Muni]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

 

JonathonAnthony said LL sent him a free trial offer of a bigger more well equipped home, which is the first I've heard of such an offer. Anyone else know anything of this trial?

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I'm not sure of course, buy maybe this post (and the KB link)? -> http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/the-next-big-thing/m-p/1542595/highlight/true#M65502

[Sy Beck]

Odd that they've sold out when there are 11 empty homes on my Linden Home sim.  I'd wager a bet similar figures exist on other Linden Homes sims too.

[JonathonAnthony]

Here's a link out to the HTML version of the email.

http://link.secondlife.com/YesConnect/HtmlMessagePreview?a=DiZJSeuA-xqz_RJtqjIaKzsK&msgVersion=web

These are obviously NOT the starter homes that are offered now. The link used to lead to a style selector with a LOT more options (basic style of house, some additional options and arrangements), but now leads back to the Linden Homes site. However, the offer has expired: The promotion runs from 12:00 PM (PDT) April 19, 2012 and ends at 12:00 PM (PDT) May 18, 2012 and is subject to a limited availability of Starter Homes. After 15 days you decide whether you want to keep your home or not. If you do want to keep it you will need to pay for it pursuant to the applicable terms of service. If you don’t want to keep it or if you do nothing you won’t be billed for it.

I assume that's why the link is now referring back. I wish I had said yes now, but I was already renting a wonderful 1/4 beach sim with my girl, and they did not list the pricing for these lots. They had a few styles (the images show what they offered), as well as just renting you an empty lot to rez a house in. I had thought the email was mass distributed...

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

 

22 sims, or 22 sims per continent. Because they have at least 3 to 5 continents of linden homes. The entire build has just been copied over and over in a couple locations.

Mainland's a better bit for a lot of reasons though... but for a less experienced shopper - the prim savings of the mole built house can seem a deal.

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Phil Deakins wrote:

There are three clearly visible on the map. They all look identical so you can't miss them.

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You're right. My apologies. There are three others, one somewhat smaller, so four in all. No empty sims on the other three though.