So, what is so great about the mainland?

[Trewd Acer]

I personally can't stand the place.  The place lags for me a lot even my monster computer. And don't get me started on sim crossing.  

Nevertheless, this isn't really a troll post; it has to be great since a lot of you people like it so much.  Can you give me some reasons why?  ^^

[Persephone Emerald]

I've had 2 rental homes & 2 parcels of owned land on mainland. I like exploring neighborhoods, walking along Linden roads & boating along Linden waterways. Try walking & flying from one spot on the mainland that you frequent to another. It really shows the diversity of SL & how people use it. Yes, you run into alot of ban-lines, crappy little parcels & abandoned lots. But you can also discover small treasures you might not find otherwise.

I think on the mainland good neighbors make a good neighborhood, so when I look to buy land, I explore the parcels & regions around me. I have gorgeous castles on either side of where I live now, ones that people can explore & enjoy. There's a lovely underwater mermaid area, 2 nice art galleries, a few interesting shops, & a freaky cool haunted hotel.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

Well, I give y ou a quote from none other than the founder and first CEO of Second Life, Philip Rosedale:

 

"I'd say, stay on the mainland: the idea of clustering and the magic spell of working with your neighbors is just a great appeal." Philip Linden 7-7-06 Town Hall

[Knowl Paine]

There is a variety of buildings and sims, it's kinda like going to a circus or a fair grounds. Every shape, size and color and nothing matches. An organized mess.

One of the greatest things about the Mainland is that it's great. It's great because people say it is and that contributes to it's greatness.

Freedom, on the Mainland the only people watching you are the Linden's and your neighbors and the people in the next sim and some of the people at the mall and a few people from that telehub. Besides those people, you have total privacy.

You can ghost objects a nobody really cares, you never get in trouble for it. Build anything you want anywhere you want.

I'm a Mainlander, all the therapy in the world cannot undo what the mainland has done to me, I mean for me.

[Indigo Mertel]

Mainland is not only chaos and lag. There are a number of communities and well preserved areas. The East River Community is one of them. Bay City, Chilbo are other examples.

This is a partial view of the East River Community:

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

Huh. I don't think I have ever been to the Main Land. I though SL was a bunch of Square Islands that you could only access by LMs and teleport. Come to think of it, I usually only teleport from store to store. I have become addicted to the hunt. LM please?

[Ever Dreamscape]

I like the mess! I also love the many surprises and themed areas like Bay City where I now have two lots . I like that you meet more newbies and a seeming wider variety of creatures on mainland. I like to be able to fly from sim to sim to sim. I like that even the themed cities are not so themed they are ridiculously postcard-like. Don’t get me wrong I’ve had some beautiful places on private sims… but also issues with owners changing hands… and changing covenants etc. I’ve (almost) always found people to be friendly on the mainland…with people keeping more to themselves on private sims… maybe I’ll try another someday. But mostly diversity rules the day for me.

[Holocluck Henly]

It's nothing like it was when I first came here years ago, with adfarms and spinning junk and one 512 crowded by superglow hot pink  and particles.  While this no doubt goes on still, it's a minority and not the norm.

In many areas, it's not such a mess. I've found in my extensive route travels that people tend to take queues from the moles and build up the land from the road outward. 

An interesting thing I discovered was that I've encountered less lag on the Mainland as a whole versis private estates.  there's the issue with region crossings, but considering the number of regions and the different sim server versions interconnected, it's pretty amazing.

[Celestiall Nightfire]

 

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Trewd Acer wrote:

I personally can't stand the place.  The place lags for me a lot even my monster computer. And don't get me started on sim crossing.  

Nevertheless, this isn't really a troll post; it has to be great since a lot of you people like it so much.  Can you give me some reasons why?  ^^

---

 

No, no..there are no reasons.  Can't think of a one.  Nope.  No-siree bob.

Stay away...far, far away.

 

**Har Har..another one gone...now...more mainland for me! **  

**Rubs my hands together gleefully**  **Suckers!**

[Rufus Darkfold]

I prefer the mainland.   I'm building an Egyptian museum there.   I also like to fly around and sail around.

Teleporting is boring.

 

[Marianne McCann]

For me, its often a question of scale. Mainland is huge in comparison to individual estates. You can head down a road or the tracks and cover region after region. You have huge waterways like the Blake Sea, Dire Strait, Bingo Strait, Degrand Channel, or even the Gulf of Lauren to explore. it's just... space.

It's also about exploration and discovery. You can just wander down a road and find new, sometimes amazing things. You can go down a road you've been down 100 times, and see new things all the time. At the same time, it's a part of having a home here. landmarks long present and land that you can practically travel all these years later with your eyes shut. The familiar combined with the new, static *and* radical change.

It's also running across other explorers, or ending up with great neighbors, and building new friendships and communities that crop up through the random happenstance that courses through the veins of the mainland.

[Locke Nider]

I tried going to the mainland plenty of times, but I kept lagging for some reason.  Just moving around feels so sloppy and unrepsonsive sometimes.  Lowering my draw distance doesn't fix the problem at all.  Doesn't really seem worth it in my opinion.

[Tiffy Vella]

What everyone positive has said.

It's the chance to explore. I live near a linden road, and love to hop on a horse/bike/car/helicopter and go down to the pub. Or go even further. In fact I can travel for hours, and find almost anything, from tacky to grand. There is nowhere to go on an island.

People. Mainland has people, some new, some old, some locals and some explorers. We never know who is going to come visit the garden, and I really like random people walking through, saying hi.

We are forced to cope with neighbours. Despite how annoying a bad one can be, it's repaid 10 times over by the friendship of a good one.

Constant change and flux. The pleasant surprise of finding that a friend next door has finally decided to live inside a Giant Peach.

The flexibility of being able to own as much or little as you desire. I've slowly added to my land as business has grown. If I needed to tier down, I'd be able to sell some off, and never have to lose my landmark.

And the real biggie- NO LANDLORD.

[Peewee Musytari]

I`ve had loads of mainland over the years & my own sims and the 2 are very different experiences with positives and negatives for both.

One of the main positives I found for mainland is the "passing traffic" you meet all sorts of people that are just passing by, which is less common on a private sim, even though explorers do go there its not the same & I totally agree about the mainland community spirit.

[Void Singer]

three positives from a landowners perspective

you know who your landlord is, and that they aren't going to disappear tomorrow

exposure. there is more through traffic on mainland which can mean better walk-in exposure w/o paying for advertising.

very limited to no covenent... means you can build what you want, how you want (although it can be a downside if your neighbors do the same, only with less taste)

[Drongle McMahon]

No boundaries.

[Wildcat Furse]

.... It is the core of second life, a viable world with amazing people and builts, just love it *meows*

[Tiffy Vella]

 

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Trewd Acer wrote:

 And don't get me started on sim crossing.  

---

 

Sim crossings on Mainland are tricky at times, as I find my car rubberbands a bit as I go over, so I take it carefully, and also keep my inventory down. Sim crossings between two islands though have just got me beat. How do you do it with that dead space in between?

(sorry i couldn't help myself :smileywink:   )

 

 

[Want2 Tinkel]

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Trewd Acer wrote:

I personally can't stand the place.  The place lags for me a lot even my monster computer. And don't get me started on sim crossing.  

 

Nevertheless, this isn't really a troll post; it has to be great since a lot of you people like it so much.  Can you give me some reasons why?  ^^

---

Living in mainland is like living in a large city.  Sometimes you jostle against people in a city, most times you are forced to use your people skills to deal with them.  It's a living, vibrant community, and you can find anything you want to find.  If you are looking for beauty, there is a lot of it to be found.  You want really bad architecture, you can find that too.  I lived on a private island for a year and then purchased land on the mainland.  My monthly tier goes to LL, not to someone whom I have no idea who they are, where they are from or if they paid their tier on the due date.  There is no covenent, I can join or subdivide my parcel as much as I want.  If I want a garden on the ground and my house at 3000 meters, I can do that.  The mainland is true freedom.  And, the best part of all, as a general assumption, the people on mainland are much, much friendlier than those who live on islands.  It's much the same as in RL when you have people who live in gated communities, they just don't seem to be as friendly.  I'm not saying ALL people are that way, there are exceptions on both sides, but, in my opinion, the majority of mainlanders are very friendly.  Here are a few pictures of my small garden in Sinaburoe.  I must say that I have the nicest neighbours on all sides.  They are the ones who have made my SL experience worthwhile.

Enjoying the sprinkler in my garden.

My little pond and Gazebo.

Here is an overall view of my Garden.

 

Hopefully I've shown a few of the reasons I love mainland.  Yes, sometimes there is lag, but, I got that on the island I lived on too.  A good computer and graphics card helps, but you can never prevent all lag.  Have a great day and if you ever want to come visit mainland, here is my location in SL.  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sinaburoe/32/48

[Eileen Fellstein]

Well, try some time just zooming out the map and double clicking. See where you land. Sometimes it's not so great but I've discovered some very cool places doing that. Generally I start with the click then walk or ride my horse from wherever I land. I did so tonight and happened upon route 10 which is quite an interesting stretch of road, and ironically, after following it for almost an hour, I found myself just a couple parcels from my own home. Now why hadn't I found this before? I've ridden my horse around quite a bit.

That wasn't the end of it, I inspected the map a little closer and saw that there was another road near my home also. I trotted Chessie across the field and picked up the other road which to my amazement, went underwater through a glass tunnel for the equivelent of what would be a couple miles were it real life. I continued on and soon came to a comunity and wound up talking with a friendly shop owner for about an hour.

All in all a pleasant experience and it helped renew my sense of adventure.

On the flipside, Mainland can be interesting in terms of those who happen along to your own place if you don't keep security that rival's fort knox. I've met some rather interesting folks that happened along. And yea, a handful had to be removed via the access list but generally not in my experience. Most are usually people just exploring around like I like to do. I'll usually go outside and speak to someone if I see them there.

And then there was the time a couple decided they could live in the house because no one was home when they found it, lol. That kind of thing does happen but it's usually a good opportunity to teach newcomers a little about how SL works.

 

[Tiffy Vella]

 

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I've stumbled across that glass tunnel too, Eileen. Isn't it a great find, and so unexpected. I live quite a few sims north of it, but have ridden almost all the north/south road of that continent.

 

[DrFran Babcock]

First, thanks for making this forum available.

The answer to this question, for me, has to do with maturing in SL, and history. When I was a noob, I loved the idea of having my own island away from it all. As I have spent much more time and effort in this world, without ever losing my enthusiasm for and wonder at this virtual space, I have come to respect the scope and grandeur of the efforts to create a continent as the original Old World. 

While I scoffed at the lag and crowding of Sansara, I am now living here proudly. Much of the ick of the adfarms is gone (except for one just across from the sim I co-rent :-(  ), and I find that lag is not an issue. 

I guess living here feels like being at the source. I explore a lot, and find new wonders every day. 

The sim I have co-created is lovely, bucolic, and without an expensive Air France ticket, allows me to get the feeling of living in the South of France. Come visit!

[Polenth Yue]

I like the stability of the mainland. It's difficult to run a shop when you have to move every year or so, because the private land owners move on to other things.

I also like the challenge aspect. When I moved into Mindulle, it had ad squares down the side of the road and the whole thing was terraced poorly. It's taken awhile, but I've managed to get rid of the ad squares and I'm slowly restoring the hill.

[Indigo Mertel]

Very true, Polenth. I had the same experience. The area where our community is 3 years ago was a total mess, the usual chaos of unfinished buildings, ad farms, micro parcels, floating prims, ugly skyscrapers, dozens of skyboxes and a total eye sore in general.I started buying parcels after parcels with the intent of reclaiming the land to a state of decency. Three years later many says our community is one of the most pleasing areas on mainalnd.

[Tiffy Vella]

I think there is a natural law at work here, that like attracts like. Over time, I've seen much of the random scattered mess of Mainland around my home consolidate into either mini-communities, or swathes of abandoned empty space.

 

It's beautiful where I live too, now. Much different from the barricaded urine-soaked heckhole it once was.

 

Phoenix'es permanent derender button still helps a little bit though, must admit.