I have mixed feelings about the whole “catch and release” thing

[Trinity Blakewell]

I know that its really only a relatively small group of people (I mean, I spend enough money in SL with only one account, can’t imagine having multiple premium member alts), but isn’t the whole “catch and release” thing really just complicating things for those who want a home and haven’t been able to get one? Yes, maybe it means that a few more homes crop up from time to time outside the official releases , but it also increases the numbers of people  trying to get a home during the releases.  I’m willing to be that along with the multiple alts, many people who do this are also power users, monitoring the Belli groups and these boards to stay as much in the know as possible. they could even be  logged in on multiple browsers with those multiple accounts, all on auto-refresh!

I know,, you have a right to do as you wish since you are paying the extra dollars for multiple premium accounts, and  are investing so much of your time in trying to get what you want, and its not against the rules or anything. 

But if I was still trying to get a home and coming to these boards to try and figure out how to do it, it would increase my frustration personally to see people vying for the releases only to ditch them right afterwards.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

One could argue the other way, though. (And before I go further... I have never once played "catch and release".) 

The few who are doing this, and yes, who have every right in the world to be doing so, could be doing a favor to the ones who are too slow, have poor connections, etc., who have pretty much zero chance of getting a house from the 3 minute stampede when a new region drops and everyone and his dog and his dog's alt is in there clicking in a frenzy. If you are slower, you are out of luck, but.... look, here's one of the catch and release gang dropping a home later, after the dust settles! And fewer people are around, and... you, with your slow reflexes, get it!

It is what it is. These kinds of posts that have a whiff "of shame on you" to them seldom end well, so we'll see how this one goes. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

The quest for the "perfect" location.  During the initial release, I wanted both a House and a Houseboat -- at the time, I actually had 8 Premium accounts for land reasons.  Anyway, during that release, I used a few of my alts to ultimately get a house location that I like very much - I think it was 17-18 houses that I went through.  I also used multiple alts to get a houseboat location that I was happy with - I went through 12 houseboats before I was happy.   Then when the Squishy Pickle houseboat release was done, I decided I wanted one of those houseboat locations rather than where I was at, so I again used my alts to try for a better location.  That time, it only went through 6 houseboats before I was happy.  

During all of that, I was dropping them back in the pool pretty quickly and someone else was snapping them up just as quickly.  Even now, with only a single region at a time, if people are wanting to find what is perfect for them, they will ultimately put their old one back into the pool for someone else to grab.  I honestly can't see it making any difference.  In the end, the same number of people get homes.  Since many of the abandons seem to be happening outside of LL work hours, it actually seems to be giving people more of a chance during those hours.  There are many folks that just cannot make themselves available during LL hours and so those off-hour abandons help them a lot.

[Brat Spicy]

I have two accounts, a main whois  premium and a group alt who owns nothing. I made her premium, because I didn't really liked my location and this was in april and abandoning your house that time was a risk i wasn't willing to take. Between them I catched about 4 houses, which I thought was what I wanted the most. Then my alt landed on a houseboat, beautiful location, fell in love and not giving that one up, even willing to pay again next year for my alt to keep that location.

As for Brat, she wants what she wants. I did two releases with autorefresh. I didn't like it, since I feel I am way sharper, focused and faster manual. I do not use 20 browsers, I can't be  inworld during refreshing and monitor the groups, because of lag. I rely on my guts and ofc the great people of the Bellisseria topic "last seen" to know when it is time to hit those buttons.

I usually manage to grab a plot and as soon I have the chance to go see it, I decide if I want to keep it, most of the time I release them right away, sometimes I need to explore more. Either way, I always try to mention that in the topic and tell when I will release (valuable information), which resulted in people there actually report back they saw it or even grabbed it.

As @Sylvia Tamalyn mentions there simply are people who are NEVER home during releases due to real, are slower or just have lame connections. Those people benefit from people like me and I do not feel bad about that at all.

[Marianne Little]

I don't think it matters. If an alt should get a home, and release it later, it is picked up by others. Who maybe heard in a group that new homes was released 15 min ago.

I have an alt for that fishing for other locations. I have green grass ground around my house, so now I want to try sand. It is no hurry.

If she gets a house I like, it is just luck.

 

[Layla Claven]

I don't think that the "catch and release" thing complicates house allocation at all. How can it?

Once the plot has been released it is back ready for someone else to claim

Btw, I have a really crappy internet connection and do not use multiple browsers. You appear to assume too much.

On 8/3/2019 at 8:54 PM, Trinity1776 said:

I know that its really only a relatively small group of people (I mean, I spend enough money in SL with only one account, can’t imagine having multiple premium member alts), but isn’t the whole “catch and release” thing really just complicating things for those who want a home and haven’t been able to get one? Yes, maybe it means that a few more homes crop up from time to time outside the official releases , but it also increases the numbers of people  trying to get a home during the releases.  I’m willing to be that along with the multiple alts, many people who do this are also power users, monitoring the Belli groups and these boards to stay as much in the know as possible. they could even be  logged in on multiple browsers with those multiple accounts, all on auto-refresh!

I know,, you have a right to do as you wish since you are paying the extra dollars for multiple premium accounts, and  are investing so much of your time in trying to get what you want, and its not against the rules or anything. 

But if I was still trying to get a home and coming to these boards to try and figure out how to do it, it would increase my frustration personally to see people vying for the releases only to ditch them right afterwards.

 

[Sparkle Bunny]

i don't see an issue with people catching and releasing, because it frees up homes for others who will value them more, and who maybe couldn't get online at the time of release. i don't love that the best locations will end up dominated by those with the time and money to keep house-swapping indefinitely, but it's kind of inevitable.

[Raevyn Addams]

I catch and release at present though its worth mentioning that I was able to land a house in the initial roll out of homes and stayed there for over 2 months before considering moving on to greener pastures. You know what prompted this? The quality of regions being made now. That's no slight on the original regions, I'm at present in one of the oldest regions (as far as Bellisseria's history goes) and it's still a very pretty piece of land, but to me personally it doesn't compete with the level of detail I am seeing the Lindens and Moles creating now. And I want that.

Is it fair? What is fair? Some people argue a waiting list is fair, some say the current system is fair. In the end it all comes down to personal preference. And it's also worth noting that complaints generally die down when personal demand is satisfied, so it's perhaps not even the system so much as it is the availability of homes that is the real issue. But now we're just splitting hairs.

For the records catch and release isn't all smooth sailing. I live in a small town in outback Australia where the average ping time is less than 16MB. When it rains our internet frequently drops out. There is a notable delay in page refreshing, be it manual or automatic, which added to my less-than-stellar reaction times means I see far more homes than I ever catch. A majority of the releases happen during the hours I'm asleep (post midnight AEST), so I don't even have the issue to glance at my phone or jump out of bed with Auto Refresh running for me in the background. As much as that apparently does work for some, it doesn't work for me. Like many of us I have a real life job that requires me to get some decent sleep so I'm not about to jeopardise my health or the safety of others on trying to catch a virtual home. So I accept the fact the homes I catch (on the rare event that I do) are all abandons. I get the same throw-backs that others are vying for. I don't get the cream of the crop like you'd expect. That's just part and parcel of living in a different time zone.

I do use Auto Refresh as well, though the limit is 72 seconds not 60 (if that makes any difference), and I appear to see less using Firefox than I do using Google plug-ins, the caveat being that Google seems to crash a lot more frequently than FF does and clogs up my Task Manager with multiple instances of Google Crash Handlers (that means I need to paying close attention to not just the forums, or the dashboard as the page refreshes, but also task manager). It's a little tedious but again that's the system that I work with in order to have any hope of seeing a new home much less attempt to catch them. And I do all this in a short window of time, generally after tea from around 6 or 7p.m. until I go to bed at anywhere between 2 or 3 a.m. (and on weekends I stay awake all night where possible). It's not just a simple matter of clicking a few times and catching a brand new house in a perfect location and it's all mine every single day with a high success rate, far from it.

At the end of the day I understand why people are frustrated when they see people like me throwing a home back when they would be happy with anything... until time comes when they want a change too a few months down the track (which they likely will, but maybe not applies to everyone). The system we have means we have the freedom of choice to pick and choose as opposed to being assigned one place permanently and for the duration of our Premium membership there we must stay. I'd like to think when I do find the land that resonates with me I won't continue this game of catch and release, but for months I didn't want to move either. And for the record I have 3 premium memberships but only 1 Linden house (with 1 still renting on the Mainland), so while I do technically have a right to claim homes for all 3 I'm not and nor do I have plans to. I don't begrudge those that do as we're all paying for this privilege. I may be envious of the land or the views that they have but I'm not angry or frustrated, I'm just taking each day as it comes. Besides being patient with the Lindens and Moles, and with each other, (or renting land somewhere else) it's all any of us can really do.  

Edited August 7, 2019 by RaeLeeH
Flaunting my typonese.

[anthonytorino]

I'm deciding on leting the Buddhist center go since we are on retreat several times in real life with alot of programs going on, then redoign it for bellesseria at a latter time perhaps inland rather then the boat house. THe center is so isolated on the back end of the pickle region.

We also play on ESO on xbox live a lot these days so im paying basically to hold the land when it not being utilized alot. IF a mountain area becomes available it may be a better spto choice down the line.

 

 

 

 

 

[Cougar Sangria]

On 8/7/2019 at 4:28 AM, RaeLeeH said:

I catch and release at present though its worth mentioning that I was able to land a house in the initial roll out of homes and stayed there for over 2 months before considering moving on to greener pastures. You know what prompted this? The quality of regions being made now. That's no slight on the original regions, I'm at present in one of the oldest regions (as far as Bellisseria's history goes) and it's still a very pretty piece of land, but to me personally it doesn't compete with the level of detail I am seeing the Lindens and Moles creating now. And I want that.

Is it fair? What is fair? Some people argue a waiting list is fair, some say the current system is fair. In the end it all comes down to personal preference. And it's also worth noting that complaints generally die down when personal demand is satisfied, so it's perhaps not even the system so much as it is the availability of homes that is the real issue. But now we're just splitting hairs.

For the records catch and release isn't all smooth sailing. I live in a small town in outback Australia where the average ping time is less than 16MB. When it rains our internet frequently drops out. There is a notable delay in page refreshing, be it manual or automatic, which added to my less-than-stellar reaction times means I see far more homes than I ever catch. A majority of the releases happen during the hours I'm asleep (post midnight AEST), so I don't even have the issue to glance at my phone or jump out of bed with Auto Refresh running for me in the background. As much as that apparently does work for some, it doesn't work for me. Like many of us I have a real life job that requires me to get some decent sleep so I'm not about to jeopardise my health or the safety of others on trying to catch a virtual home. So I accept the fact the homes I catch (on the rare event that I do) are all abandons. I get the same throw-backs that others are vying for. I don't get the cream of the crop like you'd expect. That's just part and parcel of living in a different time zone.

I do use Auto Refresh as well, though the limit is 72 seconds not 60 (if that makes any difference), and I appear to see less using Firefox than I do using Google plug-ins, the caveat being that Google seems to crash a lot more frequently than FF does and clogs up my Task Manager with multiple instances of Google Crash Handlers (that means I need to paying close attention to not just the forums, or the dashboard as the page refreshes, but also task manager). It's a little tedious but again that's the system that I work with in order to have any hope of seeing a new home much less attempt to catch them. And I do all this in a short window of time, generally after tea from around 6 or 7p.m. until I go to bed at anywhere between 2 or 3 a.m. (and on weekends I stay awake all night where possible). It's not just a simple matter of clicking a few times and catching a brand new house in a perfect location and it's all mine every single day with a high success rate, far from it.

At the end of the day I understand why people are frustrated when they see people like me throwing a home back when they would be happy with anything... until time comes when they want a change too a few months down the track (which they likely will, but maybe not applies to everyone). The system we have means we have the freedom of choice to pick and choose as opposed to being assigned one place permanently and for the duration of our Premium membership there we must stay. I'd like to think when I do find the land that resonates with me I won't continue this game of catch and release, but for months I didn't want to move either. And for the record I have 3 premium memberships but only 1 Linden house (with 1 still renting on the Mainland), so while I do technically have a right to claim homes for all 3 I'm not and nor do I have plans to. I don't begrudge those that do as we're all paying for this privilege. I may be envious of the land or the views that they have but I'm not angry or frustrated, I'm just taking each day as it comes. Besides being patient with the Lindens and Moles, and with each other, (or renting land somewhere else) it's all any of us can really do.  

^^^THIS!

A few weeks back I abandoned my initial release traditional.  My alt was able to snag a traditional just one house away from the beach in Wobbly and one house away from the waterway that is located in Foxbridge.  It's a lovely location but I am still gonna try for "that one parcel".  I hope whoever was able to snag my old parcel in Domingos is happy as it has a lovely view of the marina and located just down from the community pool.