History Repeating Itself ?

[Theresa Tennyson]

32 minutes ago, Phorumities said:

So an empty sim generating no tier is desirable to a full sim generating hundreds of dollars every month in tier?

The proceeds from auctions are pennies compared to tier

Group A - people who want to own land and pay tier on it as end users but aren't currently doing it because of the up front purchase price of land.

Group B - people who currently own land for the possibility of re-selling it at a profit.

For your plan to work Group A needs to be larger than Group B. History shows that it isn't:

This chart shows the period when Linden Lab was automatically selling new abandoned land for L$1 per square meter. That period was from early 2011 to early 2013. The blue bars represent land that could have been bought directly from Linden Lab - see how the amount of available land ballooned. This land was making no tier for Linden Lab. Now look at the purple bars - that's land that was for sale by private sellers, meaning that land was making tier for Linden Lab while being held. In the period of this policy that amount of land dropped radically and never recovered.

Now here's the amount of abandoned land in Second Life over the same period of time. After putting up a lot of land that was available for low upfront prices, the total amount of abandoned land increased. Substantially.

The numbers just don't add up.

[Garnet Psaltery]

34 minutes ago, Sandy Schnook said:

Yup, they had mainland plots newbies could claim once they went premium, no Linden homes.  Mine was in Epilais, my best friend claimed the parcel adjoining mine.

Edited to add:  They would open entire regions just meant for newbies to claim, once mostly full they'd open more.  The regions steadily grew.  The problem was, as I said, many people made alts to claim land.  Got premium for a month, got their land, sold it, dropped the alts.

Yes, I got my first parcel that way, in Achemon.  It's mostly a deserted dump now :(

[Sandy Schnook]

14 minutes ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

Yes, I got my first parcel that way, in Achemon.  It's mostly a deserted dump now

So was Epilais, last time I looked.

This in fact is why there is such a glut of land.  LL was constantly opening new land for newbies at the time.  It's also how Anshe Chung was able to buy up so much and make her empire.  It's also why Linden homes were established.  Now people can try living in a home but without getting a tier-free plot unless they essentially shop around for one, and without LL needing to build new sims so each newbie could have a sale-able plot for free.

Edited September 1, 2018 by Sandy Schnook
clarification

[ellestones]

6 hours ago, Blush Bravin said:

All abandoned land goes into the Maintenance Group. It's interesting that the land behind is owned directly by Guy. It makes me think something is in the works or possibly that land was confiscated (I'm speculating).

the Dept of Public Works (moles) is the mainland beautification programme. They have been beavering away on this for years now. What you are suggesting is perhaps more budget being allocated for this work. I would support that   

[Callum Meriman]

10 hours ago, Blush Bravin said:

I'm not suggesting that at all. 

No, not you Blush, Comrade Phorumites 

For all their libertarianism ways Phorumites is at heart a communist! They want a revolution so they can "cut the knees off"* the Aristocracy (the land barons) and have the state (the lab) provide $1 land to the Prolitariat (residents) so that the state can enjoy the teir (control the means of production)

*their own words

Edited September 1, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Phorumities]

11 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

No, not you Blush, Comrade Phorumites 

For all their libertarianism ways Phorumites is at heart a communist! They want a revolution so they can "cut the knees off"* the Aristocracy (the land barons) and have the state (the lab) provide $1 land to the Prolitariat (residents) so that the state can enjoy the teir (control the means of production)

*their own words

I'm only offering a way for LL to get more land into the hands of people that want it.

Quit trying to put a political spin on what is purely a business decision.

Choices: Sell direct at $1 L per sq m

or

Sell direct at $1 L per parcel,

or

put the land up for auction

Politics has nothing to do with any of these choices.

No one is telling anyone what they can do with their parcel after they buy it. 

 

[Callum Meriman]

39 minutes ago, Phorumities said:

I'm only offering a way for LL to get more land into the hands of people that want it.

"And chop the land barons off at the knees." no, that's not it... what were your exact words....

On 9/1/2018 at 7:31 AM, Phorumities said:

$1 L parcels cut the flipper off at the knees, either he has to buy more and more land to keep the prices up, or he gives up and quits.

Either way is fine with me, because I get what I want, free land

Ah yes. You go Commrade.

Of course, you realise that right now that is you are a non-flipper resident you are able to walk into any region with abandoned land, submit a ticket to buy it, and get it for L$1/sqm.

But this is not what you want. You want land held by someone, more then this, you want to have them forced to abandon so you can snap it up.

[ellestones]

16 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

But this is not what you want. You want land held by someone, more then this, you want to have them forced to abandon so you can snap it up.

pretty much yes

what Phorumities is advocating is a ages old story in SL, dressed up as being a benefit to LL. A person wanting to extend their home parcel holdings and not wanting to pay the adjoining parcel owner's asking price 

[Blush Bravin]

19 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

But this is not what you want. You want land held by someone, more then this, you want to have them forced to abandon so you can snap it up.

Callum I don't think this is what Phorumities is saying. He only ever said to set abandoned land for 1L a parcel. Never did he say he wants someone else's land. Both he and I want to see some of the power the land flippers have now to control the pricing of prime mainland reduced. But that's not the same as wanting to take their land.

[Blush Bravin]

2 minutes ago, ellestones said:

pretty much yes

what Phorumities is advocating is a ages old story in SL, dressed up as being a benefit to LL. A person wanting to extend their home parcel holdings and not wanting to pay the adjoining parcel owner's asking price 

That's not what he said. He wants to be able to move at the drop of a hat and not have to worry with losing his initial investment. So being able to buy for 1L means he is not invested in that land so can easily move. Mind you I don't agree with his argument but I don't think you're being fair either.

[ellestones]

27 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

That's not what he said. He wants to be able to move at the drop of a hat and not have to worry with losing his initial investment. So being able to buy for 1L means he is not invested in that land so can easily move. Mind you I don't agree with his argument but I don't think you're being fair either.

@Blush

Phorumities has said that they have and do increase their mainland parcel holdings, and that they have an aversion to land flippers

Callum has pointed out that if the intent is to be able to move to another area of the mainland easily then the ticket system is available for this

 

edit add for completeness:

if the intent is not to have to pay again for the parcel capital value when moving to another area of mainland using the ticket system, then a flat transfer fee can be advocated for

Edited September 2, 2018 by ellestones

[Callum Meriman]

28 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

Callum I don't think this is what Phorumities is saying. He only ever said to set abandoned land for 1L a parcel. Never did he say he wants someone else's land. Both he and I want to see some of the power the land flippers have now to control the pricing of prime mainland reduced. But that's not the same as wanting to take their land.

As I read it they, (I think they are female btw) want to obliterate the land flipper's business model. By making all abandoned parcels available for L$1 they feel people can bypass the need to buy land from them. The hints this is more then just making abandoned land available are things like "cut the land flippers off at the knees", "Make them abandon their holdings", "so i can get my land for free" and so on.

Right now, anyone who isn't a flipper (or large landholder) can get abandoned land very easily. It just takes a ticket.

However, our commrade desires land that isn't part of this swathe of abandoned land. Their words show that they hope by pushing the price of land down to commodity levels they can obliterate the land barons, thus grabbing the land they want for L$1 when the flipper abandons it.

[Phorumities]

2 hours ago, Callum Meriman said:

"And chop the land barons off at the knees." no, that's not it... what were your exact words....

Ah yes. You go Commrade.

Of course, you realise that right now that is you are a non-flipper resident you are able to walk into any region with abandoned land, submit a ticket to buy it, and get it for L$1/sqm.

But this is not what you want. You want land held by someone, more then this, you want to have them forced to abandon so you can snap it up.

Once again you are making things up. All I have ever said is that LL could increase ease of land ownership by cutting all its abandoned land into parcels of various sizes and listing them for sale for  $1 L each. I never said they should take land held by residents  for this purpose 

Obviously you are trying to bait me. Go play with someone else, I'm done with you.

[Phil Deakins]

15 hours ago, Sandy Schnook said:

This in fact is why there is such a glut of land.

I have to disagree with that. I think you mean a glut of abandoned/unused land, and the reason why there is such a glut of it now is the marketplace. The necessary gambling restrictions played a part but it's overwhelmingly the marketplace. The marketplace caused the removal of almost all inworld stores and malls, because they were no longer needed. That's why there's such a glut of unused land.

[Blush Bravin]

8 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

I have to disagree with that. I think you mean a glut of abandoned/unused land, and the reason why there is such a glut of it now is the marketplace. The necessary gambling restrictions played a part but it's overwhelmingly the marketplace. The marketplace caused the removal of almost all inworld stores and malls, because they were no longer needed. That's why there's such a glut of unused land.

You know I still do 90% of my shopping in-world. I don't see the lack of in-world stores that you describe. About the only thing I use the MP for is selling my products (I do have a small in-world shop too), window shopping very occasionally, and finding gacha items I want but don't want to play the machines to get them. In fact, if I see something I think I might want to purchase (other than gacha), there better be an in-world shop where I can go to at least see the product or I don't buy it. I know I may not have the same behavior of the average resident, but my point is that there are still many, many merchants who see the importantance of having an in-world presence.

I think the glut of abandoned lands is from a decline in the number of residents, the creation of Zindra and gaming regions, and the mass exodus from old interior Mainland to private islands. But the number one reason for those areas being abandoned is the sheer ugliness of the areas. I don't blame people for not wanting to live where most of the abandoned lands are located. Look at those areas. No one wants to live there. It's worse than a barren wasteland.

Edited September 2, 2018 by Blush Bravin

[Phil Deakins]

Yes, shopping can be done inworld, but there only a small number of stores these days compared to how it used to be before the marketplace. And that's why I say that the marketplace caused the glut of unused land.

I did mention that the gambling laws palyed a part too, and I forgot to mention the moving of all the adult stuff to Zindra. That played a significant part too, but I'm convinced that the marketplace is the biggest cause.

What I didn't say is something I've recently post - probably in this thread. It's that I prefer mainland the way it is now, without all the clutter that there used to be. I'd rather have it with your 'lakeside' idea (one word shortcut for the bigger concept) incorporated though, and I'd rather have that with some of the improved sims being specifically residential.

[Phorumities]

23 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Yes, shopping can be done inworld, but there only a small number of stores these days compared to how it used to be before the marketplace. And that's why I say that the marketplace caused the glut of unused land.

I did mention that the gambling laws palyed a part too, and I forgot to mention the moving of all the adult stuff to Zindra. That played a significant part too, but I'm convinced that the marketplace is the biggest cause.

What I didn't say is something I've recently post - probably in this thread. It's that I prefer mainland the way it is now, without all the clutter that there used to be. I'd rather have it with your 'lakeside' idea (one word shortcut for the bigger concept) incorporated though, and I'd rather have that with some of the improved sims being specifically residential.

So why not move the LL homes to mainland? There could be small discrete clusters of homes surrounded by a LL protected greenbelt, and connected to the nearest main road by another  road.

 

Edited September 2, 2018 by Phorumities
added stuff

[Blush Bravin]

10 minutes ago, Phorumities said:

So why not move the LL homes to mainland? There could be small discrete clusters of homes surrounded by a LL protected greenbelt, and connected to the nearest main road by another  road.

 

Have you seen this thread? 

  380 new regions ... speculate all you like but sure looks like a new land mass for Linden Homes to me.

[Sandy Schnook]

I stand by what I said.  Once a parcel was selected by a newbie after becoming premium, it was often sold, no longer making it a free newbie parcel.  However, new players kept coming in and they kept building more sims so any new person could claim their free parcel.  Yes all the rest happened too, but they would have needed a lot less if the new player parcels could have reverted back to new player parcels instead of being sold and new ones needing to have been made.  This is not something that happened for a short amount of time.  I joined 2-3 years after SL began, so you had new sims being made before, it also continued a few years after I joined, and this was during the time SL was getting a TON of publicity, including Anshe Chung's notice by national media.  People were flooding in and grabbing their newbie parcels, many sold for profit (a friend sold his 512 after just a couple days for 10K lindens), many bought large swaths from the new players in hopes of being the next virtual land baron.  But more had to keep being made so the incoming newbies could grab their little bit.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

3 hours ago, Blush Bravin said:

But the number one reason for those areas being abandoned is the sheer ugliness of the areas. I don't blame people for not wanting to live where most of the abandoned lands are located. Look at those areas. No one wants to live there. It's worse than a barren wasteland.

I'm an inworld shopper too. MP only to gather store names and items to check out or if I can't find what I'm after inworld at all.

As for abandoning ugly land, I'm not so sure if I agree with you there. After living on that wretched granite for years, when I had to move my priorities were mainland road and grass. Finding abandoned grass wasn't difficult. A friend said that the sim next to his was mostly empty so I went to look, flew around a bit and found something even better. Maybe I got really lucky there but some abandoned land is fine.

Perhaps that points to a simpler beautification project - god-mode some of the abandoned granite into grassland. All of those mountains turned out to be a mistake. There's no real reason why they all have to stay though.

[Blush Bravin]

7 minutes ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

I'm an inworld shopper too. MP only to gather store names and items to check out or if I can't find what I'm after inworld at all.

As for abandoning ugly land, I'm not so sure if I agree with you there. After living on that wretched granite for years, when I had to move my priorities were mainland road and grass. Finding abandoned grass wasn't difficult. A friend said that the sim next to his was mostly empty so I went to look, flew around a bit and found something even better. Maybe I got really lucky there but some abandoned land is fine.

Perhaps that points to a simpler beautification project - god-mode some of the abandoned granite into grassland. All of those mountains turned out to be a mistake. There's no real reason why they all have to stay though.

Oh I agree that you can still find pretty mainland and even some of it is abandoned. But that's no reason not to fix the bad parts. Also, I agree just changing some of the terrain textures would be a HUGE improvement.

Edited September 2, 2018 by Blush Bravin

[Phorumities]

4 hours ago, Blush Bravin said:

Have you seen this thread? 

  380 new regions ... speculate all you like but sure looks like a new land mass for Linden Homes to me.

Yes I've seen it and posted on it several times. I guess  I should have said why not move Linden homes to EXISTING mainland. There certainly is enough empty. All those 380 sims could have been used to overcome the blockages around the continental edges instead of creating another whole new continent.

Maybe they will condemn the existing 512 Linden homes continents and repurpose those wasted sims for something useful.

And why isn't anyone going to complain that these new Linden homes are gonna cut the flippers off at the knees because that's thousands of 1024's they won't be able to flip to people and make money off of.

[Phil Deakins]

1 hour ago, Sandy Schnook said:

I stand by what I said.  Once a parcel was selected by a newbie after becoming premium, it was often sold, no longer making it a free newbie parcel.  However, new players kept coming in and they kept building more sims so any new person could claim their free parcel.  Yes all the rest happened too, but they would have needed a lot less if the new player parcels could have reverted back to new player parcels instead of being sold and new ones needing to have been made.  This is not something that happened for a short amount of time.  I joined 2-3 years after SL began, so you had new sims being made before, it also continued a few years after I joined, and this was during the time SL was getting a TON of publicity, including Anshe Chung's notice by national media.  People were flooding in and grabbing their newbie parcels, many sold for profit (a friend sold his 512 after just a couple days for 10K lindens), many bought large swaths from the new players in hopes of being the next virtual land baron.  But more had to keep being made so the incoming newbies could grab their little bit.

It had finished by the end of 2006 when I joined. It was called First Land (I think) and there was none left when I joined, and no more was created.

[Phorumities]

43 minutes ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

I'm an inworld shopper too. MP only to gather store names and items to check out or if I can't find what I'm after inworld at all.

As for abandoning ugly land, I'm not so sure if I agree with you there. After living on that wretched granite for years, when I had to move my priorities were mainland road and grass. Finding abandoned grass wasn't difficult. A friend said that the sim next to his was mostly empty so I went to look, flew around a bit and found something even better. Maybe I got really lucky there but some abandoned land is fine.

Perhaps that points to a simpler beautification project - god-mode some of the abandoned granite into grassland. All of those mountains turned out to be a mistake. There's no real reason why they all have to stay though.

Mountains add visual interest. LL could turn some of that abandoned land into protected land and create parks, with hiking trails to the top.

There is a volcano somewhere on mainland that I hiked to the top of one time and stared down into a caldera of churning, fuming magma.

[Blush Bravin]

5 minutes ago, Phorumities said:

Maybe they will condemn the existing 512 Linden homes continents and repurpose those wasted sims for something useful.

My hope is that they will sink those continents like Atlantis, and we'll never see them again.

6 minutes ago, Phorumities said:

And why isn't anyone going to complain that these new Linden homes are gonna cut the flippers off at the knees because that's thousands of 1024's they won't be able to flip to people and make money off of.

Oh, but someone has!!