Living on the Mainland: A peril or a pleasure? Your thoughts?

[HenryCrawford]

Hi, everyone! S'mee, Feral Henry again.

 

This is not a rant or anything 'destructive'. I generally detest the idea of posting in forums due to previous unfavorable experiences I've had on them. This time however, I come to all of you with a question (Or two) in regards to what it's like to live on the Mainland in Second Life. I'd also like to share an experience I had with my newest neighbor, which is still somewhat on-going. This had to do with some pretty massive walls which a new neighbor of mine reluctantly agreed to remove after I asked him about doing so or at least making them invisible and phantom.

 

First my question(s) to you: 1: What is it like to live on the Mainland in Second Life? I have been living on it for at least 6 to 8 years now. And I haven't had to many problems until I moved into my current home. In order to protect my neighbors' privacy, I won't state which region I live on...Yet, anyway. Which brings me to question #2: Have you ever had any problems with neighbors or have they ever given you any trouble about certain items/objects you had rezzed on your land or which they had rezzed on theirs? 3: ...And speaking of rezzed items, have any neighbors rezzed anything right next to the border(s) of your land and/or your other neighbors' parcels, which not only spoiled your view of the surrounding parcels, but also made region-crossing or opening/closing gates you may have had somewhat difficult to impossible to achieve? I ask because I recently had a neighbor 'move-in' and rez HUGE stone walls, which did precisely what I mentioned.

 

I will show you a pictures or two of the walls in question, if this is allowed here. Then, you can all judge for yourself whether this constituted violating any of LL's ToS. Cheers!

Edited December 7, 2020 by HenryCrawford
Added new information.

[Marianne Little]

Judging by the size of your fence, I would guess the wall is 4-5 m high. I can not see it violating any of LL rules.

If your neighbor owns all up to your fence, his wall physically stop you from opening your gate and wander in to his property. That is not unreasonable. And if you aren't welcome, I would not walk on his ground anyway.

I would prefer walls instead of banlines.

Banlines is a greater nuisance because you can fly over a wall, instead of flying around.

I admit that one of the reasons I use Firestorm, is because I can derender walls like this. I have one against me, it is one of those fake cliff walls. Select, derender, problem solved.

I do not like all things around me. The worst is snow set to full bright. Yuck! And flowers. Plus too much glow. Glow and full bright should only be used in timy amounts. Either you have taste, or not. I think maybe their computers have so low graphic that they can't see it. Or they have set a fixed windlight and never see it in the dark.

Around me I have derendered the wall I mention, but also, on the other side, some cliff walls that are really bad. It is dark, almost black rocks that is so 2006 in texturing. Black lava rocks with fake waterfalls. I derender those as well, and lower draw distance, so I can't see the house, that has a lot of glowing parts.

I have not talked to any neighbor when I live on Mainland or other places... I prefer to handle it myself. Derender, set lower draw distance and ignore smaller things I dislike, is the three things I do.

I think this is normal Mainland, normal for me. I live on a region corner, so I always turn to the open water and don't look so much in other directions.

 

 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

Mainland has no covenant, so it's going to be hard to get anything you don't like removed unless it's totally flaunting a region rating, or something like that. The wall in your photo looks to me like it's allowed, and that's just part of Mainland living. It's the Wild, Wild, West for the most part, where (almost) anything goes, so really the only solutions I can think of are to politely ask your neighbor to lower the height of the walls, use Firestorm and derender them, get used to them, or move. I just don't see an AR going anywhere in this case. 

I've seen much, MUCH worse on Mainland, so this does not seem too bad to me.  

[steeljane42]

Unless you live in one of the specific zones (Horizons would be the one. and I forgot others) or LL homes, there are basically no rules for mainland, other than LL ToS. Which means that 50m wall is fine too, so is 4000m one, and glowing neon objects and everything else you can imagine. Unless they break ToS, enroach on your or LL owned parcels you'd either have to deal with it, try to move to another region in hopes that it won't happen there again (which is a game of chance. it can be good now, and completely terrible a few days later), or rent a parcel on a private island with covenant you find good. Or rent/buy homestead/full region, but it's rather expensive, so not a viable solution for most people.

[HenryCrawford]

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

Judging by the size of your fence, I would guess the wall is 4-5 m high. I can not see it violating any of LL rules.

If your neighbor owns all up to your fence, his wall physically stop you from opening your gate and wander in to his property. That is not unreasonable. And if you aren't welcome, I would not walk on his ground anyway.

I would prefer walls instead of banlines.

Banlines is a greater nuisance because you can fly over a wall, instead of flying around.

I admit that one of the reasons I use Firestorm, is because I can derender walls like this. I have one against me, it is one of those fake cliff walls. Select, derender, problem solved.

I do not like all things around me. The worst is snow set to full bright. Yuck! And flowers. Plus too much glow. Glow and full bright should only be used in timy amounts. Either you have taste, or not. I think maybe their computers have so low graphic that they can't see it. Or they have set a fixed windlight and never see it in the dark.

Around me I have derendered the wall I mention, but also, on the other side, some cliff walls that are really bad. It is dark, almost black rocks that is so 2006 in texturing. Black lava rocks with fake waterfalls. I derender those as well, and lower draw distance, so I can't see the house, that has a lot of glowing parts.

I have not talked to any neighbor when I live on Mainland or other places... I prefer to handle it myself. Derender, set lower draw distance and ignore smaller things I dislike, is the three things I do.

I think this is normal Mainland, normal for me. I live on a region corner, so I always turn to the open water and don't look so much in other directions.

 

 

Hiyo, Marianne!

 

First of all, while browsing this section of the forums, I saw another post from you on a totally different topic. So, please allow me to extend my warmest salutations to you and seasonal holiday wishes as well. I'm so glad to actually meet you here in a thread I've started! 😄

 

Secondly, please let me point out the fact this guy actually DID remove his wall. Thus, (At least for now) I don't have to worry about seeing it smack-dab in my face every time I log in. Thirdly, because he and I are not angry (Or hangry) at each other, I do hope to have at least an agreeable relationship with him, until and maybe even after he moves away. Or if he moves away. He has told me he spends between $400 and $600 a month on this game alone...

 

...Let this number sink in for a moment. How much do I spend on it? About $75 to $80 a month. This is a mere drop in the bucket by comparison! And I commend him for being financially-successful to. But earlier today, I received an NC from him, asking me to remove/move certain objects on my parcel so they wouldn't be so close to his. Wanting to maintain an honest relationship with him, I obliged as best as I could and sent him a reply note in response. I even asked specifically what he wanted me to move/remove in said note. I didn't check back in with him yet, but I can only hope we can reach a viable agreement and maintain positivity on both sides of the 'fence'.

[Prokofy Neva]

6 hours ago, HenryCrawford said:

Hi, everyone! S'mee, Feral Henry again.

 

This is not a rant or anything 'destructive'. I generally detest the idea of posting in forums due to previous unfavorable experiences I've had on them. This time however, I come to all of you with a question (Or two) in regards to what it's like to live on the Mainland in Second Life. I'd also like to share an experience I had with my newest neighbor, which is still somewhat on-going. This had to do with some pretty massive walls which a new neighbor of mine reluctantly agreed to remove after I asked him about doing so or at least making them invisible and phantom.

 

First my question(s) to you: 1: What is it like to live on the Mainland in Second Life? I have been living on it for at least 6 to 8 years now. And I haven't had to many problems until I moved into my current home. In order to protect my neighbors' privacy, I won't state which region I live on...Yet, anyway. Which brings me to question #2: Have you ever had any problems with neighbors or have they ever given you any trouble about certain items/objects you had rezzed on your land or which they had rezzed on theirs? 3: ...And speaking of rezzed items, have any neighbors rezzed anything right next to the border(s) of your land and/or your other neighbors' parcels, which not only spoiled your view of the surrounding parcels, but also made region-crossing or opening/closing gates you may have had somewhat difficult to impossible to achieve? I ask because I recently had a neighbor 'move-in' and rez HUGE stone walls, which did precisely what I mentioned.

 

I will show you a pictures or two of the walls in question, if this is allowed here. Then, you can all judge for yourself whether this constituted violating any of LL's ToS. Cheers!

I have lived and worked on the Mainland for 16 years now, and I only have one island and one homestead among my rental offerings because I don't like flying into a dead wall instead of being able to walk or fly or boat from sim to sim. I just don't like it, I don't think teleporting is a substitute, and so I prefer Mainland. I try to make the parts of it I'm responsible for look good, and I try to work with neighbours.

I find that often if you wait for something to go away, it does, soon. So my first reaction to a neighbour doing something I don't like, such as having a ridiculously stupid media on a prim show that can be heard on the next sim, which tenants don't know to right-click on and block to get rid of as an annoyance, is to wait 30 days to see if he leaves or his club fails -- they often do.

Next, I send a short IM asking if they can remove the wall or put clear on one side of it and I explain that they can put "avatars can't see me" and be invisible to get rid of something overbearing like that.

Or I write to the agency that puts giant domes taking up the entire sim into the view, instead of raising them a few hundred feet -- because they can extract more money from the sim in that way. Since they have vacancies like every other agency, they should eliminate that bottom dome, have better relations with their neighbours, and become a better citizen of the Mainland instead of causing people to abandon land for 8 sims around -- thereby enabling them to buy more cheap land and spread the domes further. I collect signatures for a petition. I boycott all their events and companies. They aren't likely to change, but there is a growing coherent sentiment against them, maybe they will.

If someone puts those ridiculous yellow "crime scene" tapes around their lot, I explain that the viewer has a function to make borders visible; midnight mode works best. I operate on the assumption that the person creating the annoyance may NOT know there are other options, although in reality, I find most people doing this sort of thing operate from the "I can do WTF I want on my land and FU" mantra.

So then my next step is to ban them from my land, especially if they have "access only" or security orbs making boats and planes fail.

If they have really obnoxious and ugly builds with horrible messages to boot, and particles flying, I abuse report it, I get others to AR, sometimes that work.

Sometimes I put up my own unattractive poster and sometimes that works.

When all else fails, I take out "Power to the People," a large, glowing nuclear reactor. Sometimes that helps to concentrate the little minds wonderfully. Sometimes not. Solidarity and concerted efforts among neighbours on a sim is vital.

Some people will make one side of a wall clear, but many will not, thinking this helps privacy. So cam in and take pictures of their yard and home, send them to the neighbour, and explain that walls do not create privacy. They create ugliness in the view. So they should turn off "avatars can see me". And think possibly of moving up to the sky out of the view.

If nothing works and you are unhappy, sell or abandon your land and move to another sim. It's a buyer's market.

 

[SarahThe Wanderer]

I'm a Mainlander, I love living in mainland, because i like having total freedom, and i also like the feeling that I'm actually living in big world, not some utopian communities like private regions and Belliseria, I have many big lands in mainland, and I had no problems with my neighbors, but just recently I was working on my winter land I spent hours trying to make things fit in the right places, the next day I logged in and I find some of my landscaping were returned to me! because it slightly just very very slightly crossed my neighbors land (no land impact), there was nothing in the land behind me for months it was empty( he lives in a land right next to his empty land ), but suddenly he decided to have an ugly huge wall with an ugly house and an ugly brightens all over the place right behind my house and he returned all my things without saying anything, I spent hours working on it, and he simply clicked one button and poof!!
That was so rude, and I got so mad, I didn't even want to contact him, so first I banned him so he should see my ban lines as a beautiful view, also I had a huge privacy screen blocking his view completely ( I transparent it from my side ) he can derender it but he will always know it's there.
I've never done these kind of things in all my years in SL!

And that was my first bad experience in mainland or even SL in general.

 

 

[Mollymews]

12 hours ago, HenryCrawford said:

 

Secondly, please let me point out the fact this guy actually DID remove his wall. Thus, (At least for now) I don't have to worry about seeing it smack-dab in my face every time I log in. Thirdly, because he and I are not angry (Or hangry) at each other, I do hope to have at least an agreeable relationship with him

i like this

mainland people are pretty neighbourly I find. I have a neighbour who hadn't logged in for ages and had a half-build on their parcel. So I ninja'd build on their parcel. Like stuck a finished garage over their half-made garage, so their car had a proper garage to park outside of.  Stuck in a couple of walls to tidy up their yard  little bit

they logged in this last weekend and IM me and say sorry about leaving it all a bit of mess and they were cool with my ninja building. So all good

[Lewis Luminos]

I've lived on the same mainland parcel for nearly 12 years now. Started off renting 1500sq.m, increased to about 3000 or so. Then my landlady quit the rental business so I bought the parcel off her and since then I've expanded to 8000sq.m, all in the same region. Most of it is along a strip of lakeshore sandwiched between the lake and a road. It really is a perfect spot and I have been very, very lucky to get it. 

I've rarely had trouble with neighbours and never with anything encroaching. There was the ugly Barbie-pink house next door at one point, when it was still a rental, but that one didn't last long. I have no neighbours east or west and the same guy to the north who's been there nearly as long as I have. Generally speaking, if there's something in my view that I don't want to look at, I de-render it.

My reason for loving mainland best is the same as @Prokofy Neva I feel claustrophobic on a single-region island, but on mainland I can take a boat or a motorbike and sail or drive right out of my own region and go anywhere. And there's no theme so I can do what I want with it. Right now, it's a tropical beach but I've had all sorts, from a Roman villa to a Steampunk warehouse, a forest cabin to a lighthouse. 

But that's also the downside of mainland; you can build what you want but so can your neighbours, and as there's no covenant, they're perfectly within their rights to do so. You have options; de-render (with Firestorm) what you don't want to see. Or reduce your draw distance to the minimum. Or make your home in a skybox. Or abandon the land and buy something else.

[ChinRey]

• The dull monotony of Bellisseria...
• The isolation of a private island
• The claustrophobia in a skybox
• The anarchy in a "generic mainland sim"

If I had to choose between those four, I would simply have left Second Life; I have no interest whatsoever in any of them. That is, I don't mind having a skybox I can retreat to every now and then but I would never even consider having one as my main SL residence.

Fortunately there is a fifth alternative. There are a few places on mainland where people show each other respect and their builds try to compliment rather than kill each other. Those are the only places I'm interested in in SL.

[HenryCrawford]

16 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I have lived and worked on the Mainland for 16 years now, and I only have one island and one homestead among my rental offerings because I don't like flying into a dead wall instead of being able to walk or fly or boat from sim to sim. I just don't like it, I don't think teleporting is a substitute, and so I prefer Mainland. I try to make the parts of it I'm responsible for look good, and I try to work with neighbours.

I find that often if you wait for something to go away, it does, soon. So my first reaction to a neighbour doing something I don't like, such as having a ridiculously stupid media on a prim show that can be heard on the next sim, which tenants don't know to right-click on and block to get rid of as an annoyance, is to wait 30 days to see if he leaves or his club fails -- they often do.

Next, I send a short IM asking if they can remove the wall or put clear on one side of it and I explain that they can put "avatars can't see me" and be invisible to get rid of something overbearing like that.

Or I write to the agency that puts giant domes taking up the entire sim into the view, instead of raising them a few hundred feet -- because they can extract more money from the sim in that way. Since they have vacancies like every other agency, they should eliminate that bottom dome, have better relations with their neighbours, and become a better citizen of the Mainland instead of causing people to abandon land for 8 sims around -- thereby enabling them to buy more cheap land and spread the domes further. I collect signatures for a petition. I boycott all their events and companies. They aren't likely to change, but there is a growing coherent sentiment against them, maybe they will.

If someone puts those ridiculous yellow "crime scene" tapes around their lot, I explain that the viewer has a function to make borders visible; midnight mode works best. I operate on the assumption that the person creating the annoyance may NOT know there are other options, although in reality, I find most people doing this sort of thing operate from the "I can do WTF I want on my land and FU" mantra.

So then my next step is to ban them from my land, especially if they have "access only" or security orbs making boats and planes fail.

If they have really obnoxious and ugly builds with horrible messages to boot, and particles flying, I abuse report it, I get others to AR, sometimes that work.

Sometimes I put up my own unattractive poster and sometimes that works.

When all else fails, I take out "Power to the People," a large, glowing nuclear reactor. Sometimes that helps to concentrate the little minds wonderfully. Sometimes not. Solidarity and concerted efforts among neighbours on a sim is vital.

Some people will make one side of a wall clear, but many will not, thinking this helps privacy. So cam in and take pictures of their yard and home, send them to the neighbour, and explain that walls do not create privacy. They create ugliness in the view. So they should turn off "avatars can see me". And think possibly of moving up to the sky out of the view.

If nothing works and you are unhappy, sell or abandon your land and move to another sim. It's a buyer's market.

 

Oh wow! First of all, I am thoroughly-impressed with all these helpful and friendly replies I've gotten here. @Prokofy Neva I am terribly sorry to hear of the bad experiences you may have had with your neighbors in the past. I try to make my builds as reasonable and lag-free as I can. I also try to reason and reach a fair agreement with him or her or them. I never grief, unless they do so, first. And even then, I never persist. 9 times out of 10, I just block and ban, with a keep calm and carry on mantra.

8 hours ago, SarahThe Wanderer said:

I'm a Mainlander, I love living in mainland, because i like having total freedom, and i also like the feeling that I'm actually living in big world, not some utopian communities like private regions and Belliseria?, I have many big lands in mainland, and I had no problems with my neighbors, but just recently I was working on my winter land I spent hours trying to make things fit in the right places, the next day I logged in and I find some of my landscaping were returned to me! because it slightly just very very slightly crossed my neighbors land (no land impact), there was nothing in the land behind me for months it was empty( he lives in a land right next to his empty land ), but suddenly he decided to have an ugly huge wall with an ugly house and an ugly brightens all over the place right behind my house and he returned all my things without saying anything, I spent hours working on it, and he simply clicked one button and poof!!
That was so rude, and I got so mad, I didn't even want to contact him, so first I banned him so he should see my ban lines as a beautiful view, also I had a huge privacy screen blocking his view completely ( I transparent it from my side ) he can derender it but he will always know it's there.
I've never done these kind of things in all my years in SL!

And that was my first bad experience in mainland or even SL in general.

 

 

And @SarahThe Wanderer it's to bad you to have had to put up with a nasty neighbor, who didn't think twice of returning your hard landscaping work/items. I don't know of anyone personally who doesn't care if any number of objects they placed on their own land have been returned to them. I do have one workaround for this, however: Create a NC and copy/paste the X, Y, Z coordinates of every object you have placed on your land, which anyone living nearby could potentially return. By doing this, you'll be able to replace them (Hopefully without a second return) more easily, as long as you have the note-card with your object's name and coordinates.

 

...And what in blue blazes is this Bellisseria sim everyone keeps mentioning? I've never heard of it, but @ChinRey describes it as a 'dull monotony'. How is this possible, I wonder?

[steeljane42]

2 hours ago, HenryCrawford said:

And what in blue blazes is this Bellisseria sim everyone keeps mentioning?

It's a name for the continent where new LL homes are. It has a special covenant, so it's not exactly a mainland without rules, but not an island either. As for the monotony. Go take a look, here's one of regions for example. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bellesford/200/208/43

I suppose it does beats some lame "50L rentals" or ancient LL homes, and house itself is not counted towards 351li limit for those parcels, but it sure does look almost sterile.

[ChinRey]

5 hours ago, steeljane42 said:

I suppose it does beats some lame "50L rentals" or ancient LL homes, and house itself is not counted towards 351li limit for those parcels, but it sure does look almost sterile.

Actually, I think the Bellisseria design is quite good (except for those tacky fake-painted-on-log-wall houses). But even great design becomes dull and monotonous when it's repeated over and over and over again. If it had been one element in a wide, varied landscape it would have been perfectly ok but it isn't.

Edited December 9, 2020 by ChinRey

[Aethelwine]

I have been lucky to not have too many problems with neighbours.

On one parcel for a while up near the Linden Village a neighbour put up banlines next to me that extended some way in to the water. I tried contacting them about it, but got no reply so I put up a prim with mostly alpha texture but warning lettering about the banline on both sides to give sailors setting out from my parcel and those passing by warning. They could derender it if they didn't like it, it looked less intrusive than their banline did when I had banlines showing so I think proportionate response, but they left soon after.

On another parcel a neighbour built an open sewer facing my parcel, I obscured it with a wall from my side, and set to invisible on their side so as not to cause them a problem, but they left soon after. In heterocera a neighbour cut off my direct access to the road for a while, they might have been hoping to drive me out... but I have plenty of little locations and whilst the access to the road was the reason I got the land it was primarily used for a space station up in the sky... and I have plenty of other spaces... so if their attempt was to get me to abandon it, it was never going to be effective. 

I try to make my mainland builds fit in with my neighbours where I can, and those cases above are exceptions, mostly I find people want the same sort of thing. A nice attractive space for their build experiments with views beyond their parcel that fit in. 

[Prokofy Neva]

18 hours ago, HenryCrawford said:

Oh wow! First of all, I am thoroughly-impressed with all these helpful and friendly replies I've gotten here. @Prokofy Neva I am terribly sorry to hear of the bad experiences you may have had with your neighbors in the past. I try to make my builds as reasonable and lag-free as I can. I also try to reason and reach a fair agreement with him or her or them. I never grief, unless they do so, first. And even then, I never persist. 9 times out of 10, I just block and ban, with a keep calm and carry on mantra.

 

I should explain that I, too, don't grief unless they grief first, and by "grief," I don't mean violate the TOS.

It's rare I have had to put out a glowing nuclear power station. Maybe 2-3 times in my second life? Example: a woman blocks a lake that a half dozen property owners have lived around happily for years and years, all doing their part to keep the lake open. Here the Lindens are conflict drivers, as they would parcel up water to be sold that should have been left as Linden water. The middle of a lake should not be sold. Sometimes this happens because people abandon parts of land once contiguous, but all too often it's their bad parceling which I guess was necessary because they couldn't hold too much untiered land. (But the result was that they ended up holding even MORE abandoned land).

So this woman puts up a huge ugly build AND blocks her land so that no one on that lake can go on it any more. It's truly appalling. The build was bad enough -- the blocking was insane. So we all worked together to get her to stop. That mean everyone banned her, so that she was locked in on all sides. The Lindens will stop you from blocking someone on your own on all four sides, even if they deserve it, e.g. by putting up an ugly ad farm and putting it to sale at an extortionist price. Many a battle with Lindens was held on that account.

But if 4 or 6 property owners all get together to block an obnoxious person, they can't do anything. You can also try ARing such people although there really aren't grounds for it technically. 

Then I put up a glowing atomic station, someone else put up a giant toilet, other people put up other things so that her view was as ruined for her as ours was looking on to her tall, ugly build. I find so often people don't realize when they look out on a lovely view other people are tiering for them, they themselves are creating an ugly view we have to look at with photo real boards and such.

Finally, this woman sold her land to a land dealer. It didn't get purchased again right away because it was set high. The as it happened on Canada Day, I was flying over the water and it said "On sale for Canada Day!" and I decided to buy it and keep it free and clear, with the exception of some plants and fish underneath and some docks around the edges.  I think my neighbours appreciated this, and some of them regularly donate to my land preserve; others don't because they think rentals agents must be wealthy. Oh, well. 

[HenryCrawford]

20 hours ago, steeljane42 said:

It's a name for the continent where new LL homes are. It has a special covenant, so it's not exactly a mainland without rules, but not an island either. As for the monotony. Go take a look, here's one of regions for example. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Bellesford/200/208/43

I suppose it does beats some lame "50L rentals" or ancient LL homes, and house itself is not counted towards 351li limit for those parcels, but it sure does look almost sterile.

Ahh, so this is the region you're all referring to. I like the fact it has trees and many gable-roof houses, but I can completely understand how having this one theme be repeated over and over again can quickly become dull and ordinary. I'm sorry to hear about how the Lindens didn't get this new continent right, either. If I were them, I would have included more of a variety of houses of different styles (No flat roofs, though), such as outdoor spiral staircases, homes with stained glass windows, and perhaps tree-houses!

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I should explain that I, too, don't grief unless they grief first, and by "grief," I don't mean violate the TOS.

It's rare I have had to put out a glowing nuclear power station. Maybe 2-3 times in my second life? Example: a woman blocks a lake that a half dozen property owners have lived around happily for years and years, all doing their part to keep the lake open. Here the Lindens are conflict drivers, as they would parcel up water to be sold that should have been left as Linden water. The middle of a lake should not be sold. Sometimes this happens because people abandon parts of land once contiguous, but all too often it's their bad parceling which I guess was necessary because they couldn't hold too much untiered land. (But the result was that they ended up holding even MORE abandoned land).

So this woman puts up a huge ugly build AND blocks her land so that no one on that lake can go on it any more. It's truly appalling. The build was bad enough -- the blocking was insane. So we all worked together to get her to stop. That mean everyone banned her, so that she was locked in on all sides. The Lindens will stop you from blocking someone on your own on all four sides, even if they deserve it, e.g. by putting up an ugly ad farm and putting it to sale at an extortionist price. Many a battle with Lindens was held on that account.

But if 4 or 6 property owners all get together to block an obnoxious person, they can't do anything. You can also try ARing such people although there really aren't grounds for it technically. 

Then I put up a glowing atomic station, someone else put up a giant toilet, other people put up other things so that her view was as ruined for her as ours was looking on to her tall, ugly build. I find so often people don't realize when they look out on a lovely view other people are tiering for them, they themselves are creating an ugly view we have to look at with photo real boards and such.

Finally, this woman sold her land to a land dealer. It didn't get purchased again right away because it was set high. The as it happened on Canada Day, I was flying over the water and it said "On sale for Canada Day!" and I decided to buy it and keep it free and clear, with the exception of some plants and fish underneath and some docks around the edges.  I think my neighbours appreciated this, and some of them regularly donate to my land preserve; others don't because they think rentals agents must be wealthy. Oh, well. 

Thank you, @Prokofy Neva for pointing all of this out for me and us. I'm sorry to hear about the lady who put up a huge ugly build AND blocked her land so no one could use her portion of the lake. May I ask what size and shape of a build she had? And @Mollymews , I personally love the idea of ninja building for someone. This way, if anyone happens to have an incomplete parcel, and they're willing to accept outside help, I'd be more than glad to do whatever I can to make their look decent.

 

Though, unfortunately for me (And probably them to), they likely won't let me do such a thing, as they prefer to decorate their own spaces on the Grid. Ah well.

[Sister Nova]

7 minutes ago, HenryCrawford said:

Ahh, so this is the region you're all referring to. I like the fact it has trees and many gable-roof houses, but I can completely understand how having this one theme be repeated over and over again can quickly become dull and ordinary. I'm sorry to hear about how the Lindens didn't get this new continent right, either. If I were them, I would have included more of a variety of houses of different styles (No flat roofs, though), such as outdoor spiral staircases, homes with stained glass windows, and perhaps tree-houses!

You need to look at the entire continent of Bellisseria for the new Linden Homes, not just one region. There are currently 5 themes available with a 6th theme pending release, and a 7th theme just revealed (and more themes to come!). Each theme has several different designs of building that you can select for your parcel. The fact that this entire continent is occupied, and with people still waiting for the new releases, it really is a case that the Lindens DID in fact get it right. That said, it's not something that will appeal to everyone, and certainly those that do not wish to be restricted by a covenant still have plenty of mainland to build their dreams.

I'm very happy to have a home in Bellisseria and also a mainland parcel situated next to a wonderful town that I try to support by renting some property there too. With travel (by vehicle rather than teleport) being my main activity in SL, the fact that I can travel between my mainland properties and Bellisseria is a constant delight for me  

The Linden Homes sub forum can be found just along from this one, and will showcase many of the regions there should you wish to have a look without having to travel.

[So Whimsy]

1. It's surprisingly quiet! I've been living on mainland off and on for years as well as on private estates. On mainland it's quieter.

2. Nope, no problems! When an issue arose I always contacted the neighbor and had nothing but pleasant experiences and vice-versa.

3. Yes, but nothing hideous fortunately!

 

Most of my time on mainland has been on snowland parcels and it seems that people there are more chill

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, Sister Nova said:

There are currently 5 themes available with a 6th theme pending release, and a 7th theme just revealed (and more themes to come!).

No, they are only fairly minor variations on the same basic style. But, let's be clear about this: it's not the Moles' fault! All creators have their style and they build within the framework they are familar and comfortable with. There are a few multi-stylists who can cover several - perhaps four or five - bases but no pan-stylists who can do everything. You can't do US style if you're born and raised in Europe or Japan, you can't do Japanese style if you're born and raised in USA or Europe, you can't do European style if... etc., etc. Not unless you're willing to spend ages studying and learning a foreign culture that is.

What I would have loved to see in a virtual world, is a large variety of styles created by people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and with smooth, natural transitions between them - that transition is actually far more about where people build than what they build. Just like the Real World. We still have the variety in SL although there seems to be less of it every day but we never had those smooth transitions. I suppose that was always too mcuh to ask for but I can dream, can't I?

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, So Whimsy said:

When an issue arose I always contacted the neighbor and had nothing but pleasant experiences and vice-versa.

It's amazing how much talking to the neghbors help and, despite what so many seem to think, the TOS does actually allow it.

[animats]

I haven't had much trouble in a while. I have  a cafe, motorcycle shop, and builder's yard in Kama City in Zindra. My main neighbor has an area which looks like a part of Baltimore. I have some waist height fences and walls, but no more than that. Big walls are rare in Zindra, although one place on the same sim has one big tan surface for no good reason. Its owner is never home.

My favorite unnecessary wall:

A wall with a picture of a forest, to hide a forest. Near Caletta.

If you want a backdrop, get some isolated parcel from one of the landlords that rents them. Look at the SL map (when it gets fixed) for areas that look like checkerboards. You can rent a little box in an area of little boxes. Don't clutter up mainland.

Edited December 9, 2020 by animats

[Sister Nova]

33 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

No, they are only fairly minor variations on the same basic style. But, let's be clear about this: it's not the Moles' fault! All creators have their style and they build within the framework they are familar and comfortable with. There are a few multi-stylists who can cover several - perhaps four or five - bases but no pan-stylists who can do everything. You can't do US style if you're born and raised in Europe or Japan, you can't do Japanese style if you're born and raised in USA or Europe, you can't do European style if... etc., etc. Not unless you're willing to spend ages studying and learning a foreign culture that is.

What I would have loved to see in a virtual world, is a large variety of styles created by people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and with smooth, natural transitions between them - that transition is actually far more about where people build than what they build. Just like the Real World. We still have the variety in SL although there seems to be less of it every day but we never had those smooth transitions. I suppose that was always too mcuh to ask for but I can dream, can't I?

Apologies, the term 'theme' is used for each of the different types of home, and that's how they are referred in the Linden Homes sub forum, including by the Linden that's running the project. It would be more accurate if I had stated that the theme is Bellisseria, and that there are currently 5 house choices available, with a 6th pending release and a 7th just revealed. But using the term 'house' makes it seem that there is only 1 design available, when there are in fact 4 - 8 different styles of each house. On the Linden Home page you select the theme of Bellisseria, then select your house choice, and then once you have your parcel you can choose which particular style of that house you wish to rez from the house rezzer. You can change your house style at any point without having to move parcels, unless you want a different house choice. Gets confusing... I can see why the term 'theme' is used 😕 

Regardless, the project has been an immense success, and it took me quite a while to get this screen shot to show the terminology, as Bellisseria theme homes are snapped up pretty much as soon as they appear. Abandoned land is only ever there for a handful of minutes.

 

Perhaps there will be further themes in the future, of the kind you mention. Whether they will be in Bellisseria or their own continent, remains to be seen.

[Prokofy Neva]

20 hours ago, HenryCrawford said:

Ahh, so this is the region you're all referring to. I like the fact it has trees and many gable-roof houses, but I can completely understand how having this one theme be repeated over and over again can quickly become dull and ordinary. I'm sorry to hear about how the Lindens didn't get this new continent right, either. If I were them, I would have included more of a variety of houses of different styles (No flat roofs, though), such as outdoor spiral staircases, homes with stained glass windows, and perhaps tree-houses!

Thank you, @Prokofy Neva for pointing all of this out for me and us. I'm sorry to hear about the lady who put up a huge ugly build AND blocked her land so no one could use her portion of the lake. May I ask what size and shape of a build she had? And @Mollymews , I personally love the idea of ninja building for someone. This way, if anyone happens to have an incomplete parcel, and they're willing to accept outside help, I'd be more than glad to do whatever I can to make their look decent.

 

Though, unfortunately for me (And probably them to), they likely won't let me do such a thing, as they prefer to decorate their own spaces on the Grid. Ah well.

The build was YUGE. Years later, people are still talking about it. Way up in the sky. 

 

[ChinRey]

23 hours ago, animats said:

My favorite unnecessary wall:

...

A wall with a picture of a forest, to hide a forest. Near Caletta.

This reminds me of a story about Salvador Dali. Dali's wife once complained about an ugly radiator in her house and asked him if he could paint a screen to cover it. Dali did as he was asked and painted a picture of a radiator. He later said it was the most realistic painting he ever made.

[ArgontheDevil Ormega]

One of the joys of Mainland is not having to live in Bellisaria which makes me think of something spawned in the deranged mind of Disney.  I avoid their damnable covenant, the architecture I cannot stand and having neighbors whose one joy in life is measuring the height of people's trees so they can AR them.

I'm also a total hard ass when it comes to property lines.  I work very hard to keep from intruding on the neighbors and I consider it simple courtesy for them to return the favor.  If my land gets intruded on, no matter how elaborate the build, by so much as the turning of a hair, any, merely a quarter of scruple, back it goes.  And if they are dumb enough to try blocking me in, have they never heard of teleport?  They are preventing nothing and I will be there long after they have sold and left.  I have lands that face protected beach and waterways.  The rare parcel that does not is no handicap so such people are easily ignored and outlasted.

That fun stuff being said, I have had good luck with my neighbors with only a few exceptions.