Mainland

[Lexie Linden]

Share advice and best practices about mainland in this thread.

[Knowl Paine]

The Mainland is a great place to buy land. There are plots that fit almost every budget. At the top of this page is a link to the World Map, it's very helpful to get an overview of the entire SL world before trying to tackle the Inworld map. 

When viewing the World map, the majority of the largest Continents are classified as Mainland. There are several Continents and maybe someday the singular mainland will be presented as plural and that would clear up a lot of confusion created by calling several land masses one.

How you want to use the land and for how long is a big factor in finding Mainland that will work for you. Land with access to roads, waterways, customers or a professional business presence adjacent to existing places of commerce are priced accordingly.

Use a Public Sandbox to place (Rez) the items you intend to use Inworld to determine how much space you need and the total number of objects you have. When you purchase land, you get exclusive use of space (land) and objects (number of prims the parcel supports).

Visit a region more than once before you purchase a selected plot or property. If the regions performs good during the hours you will be online, then it's a good region.

For first time land Buyer's who want some land to create objects, learn, and do it today. Use the Inworld Search / Land sales, then choose features you want from the selection boxes provided, Mainland - price range - size in meters- maturity rating.   

 

 

[Sidnella Riler]

-Check prices in the area before buying,

-Always make offers if you like a parcel, that is not for sale, works in many cases

-As said before, visit the parcel a few times, stay for a while, you will know if it is a good zone or not

-check for banlines in adjacent parcels, I always do this, as a beautiful parcel, can be ruin if all the neighbours use security systems or banlines

-Use the big map, it is one of the best tools we have, visit all around, keep an eye in good parcels for price changing, and always make offers if you like a parcel, if you are too greedy, you might loose a great parcel

-follow your instinct, if it feels right, it probably is

 

[Josephina Bonetto]

The only real issue with mainland for me is neighbours, and I've owned a lot of mainland.  I have nice plots of land but had to get creative to get rid of glowing monstrosities and my script performance is constantly bad due to a self replicating physics scripted thingy on some plonkers land near me.  I can't tell him to move it so I'm stuck with running a business in that environment praying he moves.  Object issues such as parcel encroachment I easily solve myself because I feel confident asking people to move things in that scenario.  I think it is about doing your research before you move in and trying not to stress yourself out when you get selfish people causing you issues.

The random traffic you get on mainland is a constant source of entertainment for me and a feature I missed when I owned a private island for a year.  It's not all bad, the powerlessness I feel about performance being broken by my neighbours is the only thing that wears me down.

Your nice mainland can change overnight if someone moves in with a truly unique idea of beauty and I think having coping strategies in place helps.

[Wildcat Furse]

I own a full mainland sim, very happy with it. I never built on groundlevel because it is too much influenced by the neighbouring sims, best performance is found way up the sky *meows*

[Conlaoch Gustav]

 

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Josephina Bonetto wrote:

Your nice mainland can change overnight if someone moves in with a truly unique idea of beauty and I think having coping strategies in place helps.

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Josephina, got any suggestions on the coping strategy?

Also, when does building a monstrosity and then offering to sell to those whose view you are blocking cross the line into an ARable offense?

 

[Prokofy Neva]

It almost never happens.

You can try, but it usually doesn't work.

You couldn't have a free land market unless people were allowed to set their sale price at any sale.

One man's extortion build which we all know is extortion will be said to be another man's art build, especially by that man, and the Lindens may agree.

[Prokofy Neva]

Check out all the line of sights so that you don't suffer a bad view inadvertently.

Never assume that you will be able to convince your neighbour to change something about what he's doing.

Never assume that land for sale or abandoned will "never" sell.

Check the FPS (ctr-shift-1), i.e. see if it says .99 for the time dilation and 45 for the FPS, that is the optimal. Also check out "spare time" under scripts -- if at 0, don't move in. See how many scripts are operating on the sim, i.e. more than 3,000, you have to worry.

Right-click and look at the these things in each of your neighbours:

o date of their land purchase -- a long time ago? Good, they may be stable

o date of avatar age -- old? Good, they may be stable

o name of club or store even if no building? Bad, they may build a lag monster at any moment, and have shouting objects

o war groups/war games/mafias, etc.  --Bad,  they may shoot you even if you are on safe

A good neighbour is worth 1,000 pretty sunsets in Second Life.

Fly around and see if you run into any red ban lines for group-only or any security orbs. This is the biggest buzz kill of any area, if you have that around you. Never assume it will change.

[Curious Hazelnut]

 

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Conlaoch Gustav wrote:

.... got any suggestions on the coping strategy?

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Conlaoch Gustav wrote:

... got any suggestions on the coping strategy?

I have had a bit of mainland for over a year now and I have found the following works very well:

• Greet new neighbours in a friendly way when you notice you have a new one.
• If there is something they are doing that is a problem, talk to them about it BUT always be polite. If they say they can't do anything about it, you will have to let it go.
• Stand in the middle of your plot (with nothing rezzed on your plot) and take high-rez pictures of the land around you. One for each of the 4 compass directions. Save these. If a neighbour has an absolutely UGLY build, put up a big phantom wall just inside your property line with the picture you took on your side and the transparent texture from the library on the other side. You don't have to see the ugly build and your neighbour shouldn't notice.
• Do what you can to cooperate with your neighbours when they have an issue with you.

[Pauline Darkfury]

Mainland rentals are possibly the most affordable way to have some land to call home, with less commitment/risk than buying mainland and paying LL directly (if you rent from an established person who is unlikely to take your rent and run).

The key limitations are:

1. You can't have ownership level control over the land, as the landlord has to retain ownership for LL tier purposes.
2. You can't typically use your own group as the land group, as the landlord will almost certainly have the land deeded to their group.
3. Different landlords offer differing levels of control over the parcel options.  Most will be happy to get the options set in a way that works for you, some will allow you to do that yourself.
4. The land is likely to have some rules, but these are most likely to keep the land pleasant for everyone renting there and avoid conflicts.

The key advantages are:

1. No purchase price for the land
2. No 30 day tier cycle with inconvenient tier levels from LL
3. No Premium account required
4. Rent is typically in L$ per week, sometimes with a discount if you pay 4-weekly or monthly.
5. Small parcels will typically be cheaper than if you paid the LL tier on them directly, as the landlord probably is paying tier on a full region or more.
6. If the landlord has vacant prims in the same region, you may well be able to rent additional prims beyond what your parcel size would normally allow.
7. Some rental spaces are in a region where the landlord owns the entire region or a significant portion of it, vastly reducing the issues with lag, litter, problem neighbors, etc.  The land may be "no covenant" in LL terms, but the good landlords tend to set out some form of covenant / ToS / rules to ensure that all tenants can peacefully enjoy their land.
8. Many landlords will move you between their rentals at no extra cost, whether it's just to a different parcel that you'd prefer, or to move to larger/smaller.
9. You can probably get some expert assistance, within reason, from your landlord for typical land issues, such as being able to clearly see your parcel limits when building in the sky, helping you understand how SL land works, helping you get started, etc.  Landlords are busy people, but will often help with something where it makes the tenancy a success and avoids them having to deal with problems later.
10. There may be some community space or features available for tenant use.