Much More Abandoned Land Going On the Auction, and Faster?

[Prokofy Neva]

This is my distinct impression on numerous sims near my land and I won't explain why or how I interpret it until I check if the perception is more widespread.

 

[Feorie Frimon]

I haven’t noticed this. 

[Polenth Yue]

I've noticed this near me. Most of that land has sat there for years and suddenly several bits went to auction at the same time.

[Alexis Crisp]

Interesting point... maybe so. I tend to see Adult, Protected Waterfront and Double Prim lands go almost immediately, as those seem to be the bigger sellers, or rather, lands that will bring in the most money. Still, there must be some strategy for the rest of the lands... as not all lands are created equal on mainland 🙂 

[Lloyd Overland]

Interesting question and my impression was that yes auctions are happening much quicker. I accidentially found a live example in Yongchon in north east Jeogeot. Still yellow on the world map but already in the auction queue.

[Prokofy Neva]

I can make you a long list of where I observe this but if I bother, there will still be people found who either don't own land, don't own land on the Mainland, or do, but never look outside their sim, and won't believe it and will go on and on about how it isn't true.

But after a week of observation, I can tell you it *is* true because I see it happening on dozens of sims, and not only around my sims.

OUTCOME OF MANY YEARS OF LINDEN WORK

So at one level, it's the natural outcome of a years-long dedicated effort by the Lindens to make abandoned land available. They used to put restrictions on this process to make less work for themselves, I suppose, and insist that land be near you. If it were waterfront, you could forget about getting it because they would want to put it on the auction and sell it for more, and who can blame them. 

But one day I woke up and found a 4096 on waterfront that had been empty for years next to my land suddenly sold to a land baron who was flipping it for only $2 for a quick sale, whereupon it would go to another land baron. And that was when I realized they would give land to anyone who asked, adjacent or no, waterfront or prime or no. This awareness came to me about 2 years ago, others more involved in land sales may have learned of it earlier, but there was no announcement of it because the Lindens have always held close their actual internal policies about how to deal with abandoned land requests, they wanted to keep open their own discretion.

It would have been nice if they had announced that policy before I paid $1.5/meter instead of $1/meter (I talked him down as I saw what he did there). But they don't do things like that on subjects like this.

MOVING FASTER AND FASTER

In recent years, I find them more and more fast in getting you abandoned land. That is, I still had experiences where they would balk, take forever, or ask me or another tier contributor in the group requesting the land if this was really near our group land, which was annoying because they could just look and see the group and the member, but whatever.

But in recent months, they have been moving so fast that when I spot a waterfront auction they slipped by me, because my neighbour, whom I requested not to abandon his land but sell it to me did not do so. But I see there are still parcels they didn't flip themselves yet, I ask them if I can have it and they move so fast, the previous defaulting tenant's prims aren't even removed! I mean, that is super fast. The norm for years and years is that Lindens would empty abandon land pretty fast, although not instantly, the previous owners prims might remain, as the lone Syldavian flag remains on a sim dumped right now (or maybe it's rooted to the one remaining little parcel in their group). But it would be cleared, and then sit there. Sometimes years and years. Unless it was prime waterfront.

THE RACE TO ELIMINATE ALL ABANDONED LAND?

Then, about 2-3 weeks ago, before the gatcha policy announcement, I realized they were moving through abandoned land like Sherman through Georgia, as my grandfather used to say. Super fast, and heedless. So there literally won't be any left.

Given that 30% of Linden-owned land out of the 5000 or so Mainland sims not in Bellisseria includes A LOT of abandoned, you can see that they don't want to pay for 500-800-1000 regions with 4 to a server. That's a lot of Amazon to be paying for. So I suspect a policy directive went out, maybe from new owners, maybe from older Lindens trying to impress new owners with efficiencies, to cut this slack. "Front the merchandise," as my boss Kenny at the 7/11 used to tell me. "Time to lean, time to clean." No empty spaces and expired boxes of cereal, please get out the new stuff -- which in this case is a) Bellisseria b) entire Mainland sims that RP groups or land barons are willing to buy.

GOOD AND BAD RESULTS

So this is a good thing and a bad thing. For one, it has now produced more nice Mainland areas, in the hands of end-users who don't put out giant black boxes and clubs and lagging nonsense, but nice homes for the most part, or tasteful stores. If anything, blackbox clubs don't last long, they have a very high attrition rate. That's not the only reason entire sims are abandoned however; mainly they're abandoned because: 1) tier can't be paid 2) people can't get along in a group 3) "transportation games" moved in or some other large concrete-layer and increased the lag or ruined the view; or 4) most common, in my view -- a giant rentals dome went up on one sim very low and stacked up high in the sky -- usually there are 25 of them -- ruining the view from 4 others. I'd like to say this was generally a good policy because it produces more good looking households and more stability and more premiums. BUT...

On the other hand, you now have people with names like Big Dog with pictures of all their harems in their profile who either request for $1/m or  buy up for $1.5-$2/m  a giant tract of General just because it's there, and put up security orbs. Their builds might or might not be nice, but many people lurch for security orbs when they need not do that, especially in General. The Lindens will not do anything about this. That is, they *could* deprecate or ban the script that bounces HOME instead of AWAY just to mitigate it, but they will only do that for Bellisseria with their official Mole scripts and a requirement that any others do the same, as part of the attractiveness of Bellisseria. Why do it for other areas and lose business?

CHANGING LANDSCAPE

So this land that has literally been empty for 15 years. I am not kidding and I will find you pictures to prove it. Because mountainous G is not in demand, suddenly gets put on the auction and sold, or requested by a land baron and flipped (it's not requested by me or any of the other land owners on the sim who have had this giant empty back yard for 15 years).

And now when I use my habit of TPing to a sim by opening up the map and typing that sim's name and just going there, instead of peering at the map and trying to pinpoint a landing, because I have an excellent chance of landing in empty abandoned land, I land in this guy's strange garden and am TP'd home to another sim, because that's how he rolls. Elsewhere, even landing out to sea in water, I'm TP'd home because Lindens let so much water go on the block, which is a conflict driver. All this would be normal enough, but now, flush with the pride of ownership, Big Dog IMs me angrily and asks me why I was on his land. That is, it's not enough that he just bounced me away home; most orbists would leave it at that. He wants a justification for why I even fell into his orb. 

"Because I live there," I said matter-of-factly. "And have for 16 years." This has repeated with other land owners on the sim.

And Water Hog IMs me and says he is permanently banning me from his land, though I live next door, and did before he got there.

LINDEN RIGHT OF WAY

In another sim that has been nearly empty for at least a decade, except for my rentals near the roadside and a few lone end-users, the Lindens suddenly auctioned it off, a baron flipped it, and now there are little squares with various things going on, some good some bad, but more to the point, I now see a "Linden Right of Way" put on that sim where it did not exist before. A sim that already has a road. And that means "SLRR" and that means they may entertain the folly again of ramming a railroad through this sim which would require an ugly overpass and bridge, which used to exist as a resident railroad -- when they could just use their abandoned land a few sims over. There is a very aggressive little lobby of RR enthusiasts who have jammed on the Lindens for years to put this railroad "back", even seizing my land, which they believe is "ill gotten", and I've kept pointing out that they could go a few sims away to all their abandoned land and put it there.

 Oh, except oops, those sims are now full of fresh owners because they auctioned them. And auctioned them for a song. I used to perceive the current auctions as having no history as the old one did; it used to show you the name of the winner and the names of all bidders which was very useful information to have, and the price per meter of the winning bid. Turns out you can find that page. And you will see some items go on the auction and don't get a bid, or go for $0.5/m or $1/m as if abandoned land.

THE STORY OF US

So just to turn this around to the other perspective, before, a couple could get a little 2048 carved out of land that was entirely abandoned and live in wedded bliss for years on end and never see a soul, but now suddenly, they have Prokofy next to them with a pink mansion and tenants. They could try to go and find another abandoned pink mountain but there are less and less of them, so it seems instead they have tried to put their house underground in a bunker, although really, I'm not the worst neighbour, and it can and does get worse on the Mainland. I totally feel for them, because I feel this on other sims. But why am I here? Because I bought the view. I don't want something worse coming in here and my land is on the next sim.

NO MORE GOATS

I see yet another sim which had a giant alfalfa field where we used to graze our virtual goats. OK, it was pretend abandoned land. It gave a great deal of breathing room to appreciate a sim where one sim away, there were billboards, ban lines, and the usual SL trash. Now that's gone, and people feel claustrophobic.

There are lots and lots of other places but instead of writing a wall o' text when you will find this out for yourself in five minutes, here's the operative piece of news I want to convey:

LOOK AT THE GOVERNOR'S CLAIM DATE

If you see land next to you that is NOT purple, and says "Governor Linden" or (hilariously, as they have done in recent years, "Land Abandoned by Governor Linden"), you NOW see a new claim date by Governor Linden. That is, land that I know for a fact was abandoned at least for 2 years, and probably many before that because of a giant rentals dome that obliterated the sun and killed all human and animal life underneath it, NOW you see a claim date in July. Not purple. And not an auction number. Just a new claim date. And a climate where they moved faster on this. I have now counted 5 of those so I think it's safe to say:

If you look at abandoned land near you that you think will remain like that forever, because the Lindens aren't going to bother with General, mountains, snow in August, weird shapes, parcels next to ugly builds, etc., think again if you see a new claim date on it from the Governor in July or August.  That means it is going somewhere, and that somewhere is the auction. MAYBE if you hurry, you can still get the Lindens to sell it to you for $1/m as the person next door so you don't have to see a land baron flip it and a club go up. I'm going to test this soon, although I hate the auctions and hate buying more land now.

WHY?

But I realize we live in a very different world now. Not only does search not work and Oz has not been replaced and worst of all, Ebbe has died, not only are gatcha machines outlawed and killing income for many people, now, what made the Mainland bearable in a funny way, what made it BUYABLE for many -- abandoned land that stayed abandoned -- is going to GET GONE. And the Lindens are not going to make new empty Mainland sims as they did 10 years ago. So good Mainland outside of Blake make get as scarce as a retired Apple Fall gatcha by October. 

The purpose of this exercise is to: 

o Make people go to Bellisseria. Understood.

o Make them get private islands. Understood.

o Pay less in server costs by having all server space re-resented. Understood.

No one can question this activity of theirs as it is in their business interests and makes perfectly good sense and we'll see numerous fanboyz come and lustily approve it because they don't live here. And "here" is an exoticism that most people not only don't care about; like atheists who can't be content with just not believing in God, they want to aggressively make sure no one else does, either, so they have company.

Like a person said in the Apple Fall group this morning about gatcha makers and their resellers, "All these little stores should just close."

Yes, wouldn't the world be a better place without all these "little stores".

THE NEW RANDOM GAME OF CHANCE OF MAINLAND 

And for about 1/3 to 1/2 of the cases, it will make for nice new neighbours who have nice houses they take pride in, or rentals companies that try to make their spaces look good.

But the other half consists of Big Dog and his orbs, a giant black BDSM box club that should go in the sky but didn't, and has orbs to boot; and this guy who delights in making really amateurish and stupid looking towers and then putting them on physics and watching them fall, and then leaving them for weeks until the next time he plays Second Life when his school put students back on Zoom.

And that's normal, because no one promised you that you would have the rose garden of abandoned land forever. It was always a risk factor and always something you needed to request to buy yourself if you wanted to secure your view. If you are done doing that as you have run out of willingness to get more tier and cash, well, expect the worst, hope for the best.

There's just one thing. They should have announced this full court press. They should have given people a chance to request land near them before they wake up to Big Dog or a land baron making them buy it for 4 times as much.

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Feorie Frimon]

I'm certainly not a big dog at all, but I scout out Abandoned Land daily looking for parcels that might be worth buying. I actually made some YouTube videos about this recently encouraging other people to do the same. 

I haven't noticed more going to auction, and almost every ticket I've put in to buy some, has gotten approved - even when I don't own any land on the sim. 

[Prokofy Neva]

7 hours ago, Feorie Frimon said:

I'm certainly not a big dog at all, but I scout out Abandoned Land daily looking for parcels that might be worth buying. I actually made some YouTube videos about this recently encouraging other people to do the same. 

I haven't noticed more going to auction, and almost every ticket I've put in to buy some, has gotten approved - even when I don't own any land on the sim. 

That's nice, and it's great to encourage people to get abandoned, I do it all the time. People can be fearful of all the steps involved the first time but there is a Knowledge article and it isn't that hard. Unlike the auction, where you are forcibly tiered up if you win, and therefore have to have the tier on you before you bid, and *cannot* use "buy for group" as we used to be able to do with auction wins, with abandoned land sales to you, you have time to arrange your tier and funds and can opt to "buy for group" if you put tier in your group. So I think it's less difficult and less scary than the auction and a good option.

I have had mixed experiences with requests, and I don't think we make that many of them, but a fair number of times the answer has come back that it's destined for the auction, even if not purple yet, as this would be "fair"; sometimes if waterfront, sometimes not. Then I point out that the person who won the auction is not a land owner on the sim, but just a random land baron. Yes, people can use alts, but when you see the land flipped -- or even re-abandoned within days -- that's a pretty obvious signal that the person is not an end user on that sim but simply requested it because you can, and got it because you can. Then comes the reply: but the existing land owners on the sim did who up, in this "fair" system designed to go to the highest bidder among existing land owners -- but then, oh dear, a land baron came in and sniped it. Like they did so many resident auctions, which is why we don't have that any more. I realize that creating a system only allowed existing owners on a sim and their alts can be difficult to create. The Lindens probably cannot take staff time to check all this.

I think you need to start right-clicking on the abandoned land you see, and note what its claim date is. And perhaps you'll be persuaded then when you start seeing Governor Linden's claim dates all over the place now as "July" or "August" 2021 -- because they are being wrapped up for auction. Even after you see 100 of these, likely you will not be persuaded about a point that seems to involve criticism of the Lab, but that's fine, pretty soon I won't have to keep explaining this.

[Sister Nova]

40 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I think you need to start right-clicking on the abandoned land you see, and note what its claim date is. And perhaps you'll be persuaded then when you start seeing Governor Linden's claim dates all over the place now as "July" or "August" 2021 -- because they are being wrapped up for auction. Even after you see 100 of these, likely you will not be persuaded about a point that seems to involve criticism of the Lab, but that's fine, pretty soon I won't have to keep explaining this.

 

17 hours ago, Lloyd Overland said:

Interesting question and my impression was that yes auctions are happening much quicker. I accidentially found a live example in Yongchon in north east Jeogeot. Still yellow on the world map but already in the auction queue.

I’ve often found the claim date on Governor Linden owned land to be inaccurate. The case above shown by @Lloyd Overland looks most odd. The map clearly shows that the parcel had been up for sale at a very hopeful price by the original owner and then abandoned when the next tier was probably due (why on Earth they didn’t scale down the price as that date approached is beyond me). But rather than showing a claim date of that day, it shows as May 10. I have seen others in the past that have had a 2005 date which I have known to also be inaccurate.

I have a tiny mainland parcel in Sansara which has a lovely view courtesy of a large tract of abandoned land. I shall be watching to see what happens with that land with great interest, because if it goes, resulting in the loss of view, then my parcel will surely follow suit.

[Prokofy Neva]

8 minutes ago, Sister Nova said:

 

I’ve often found the claim date on Governor Linden owned land to be inaccurate. The case above shown by @Lloyd Overland looks most odd. The map clearly shows that the parcel had been up for sale at a very hopeful price by the original owner and then abandoned when the next tier was probably due (why on Earth they didn’t scale down the price as that date approached is beyond me). But rather than showing a claim date of that day, it shows as May 10. I have seen others in the past that have had a 2005 date which I have known to also be inaccurate.

I have a tiny mainland parcel in Sansara which has a lovely view courtesy of a large tract of abandoned land. I shall be watching to see what happens with that land with great interest, because if it goes, resulting in the loss of view, then my parcel will surely follow suit.

Let me try again. The claim dates you have seen in the past don't matter. Yes, they are inaccurate. They can show the customer's original claim date. They can show Governor Linden's actual claim date -- or not. They can show June 1, 1969 as an error. Whatever.

But when NOW many of them show "July" and "August" 2021 as a NEW claim date in the last few weeks forming a pipeline to the auction, you have to concede that your notion about errors or inaccuracies aren't relevant. Again: a whole bunch of fields of data, wrong or right, became "July or August 2021". That shows human intelligence and a plan, not error.

Look at your abandoned land's land menu and see if it says July or August. If you value it, try to get it now as $1/m abandoned.

[Sister Nova]

6 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Let me try again.

Thank you for your condescension, I should have known you’d take my participation in your thread with a genuine query, as a personal attack.

Although I don’t doubt that the parcels you’ve spotted have had their claim dates revised in preparation, the case shown by Lloyd’s post would indicate that it is not always the case, and it could happen at any time with any date shown.

And with that, I’m done. Have a nice day.

[Prokofy Neva]

21 minutes ago, Sister Nova said:

Thank you for your condescension, I should have known you’d take my participation in your thread with a genuine query, as a personal attack.

Although I don’t doubt that the parcels you’ve spotted have had their claim dates revised in preparation, the case shown by Lloyd’s post would indicate that it is not always the case, and it could happen at any time with any date shown.

And with that, I’m done. Have a nice day.

I should have known that given your history, you would simply dissent from anything I say merely for form's sake and not really comprehend it, and therefore require multiple explanations, and if any effort is shown at patience to try again, you would see this as ill intent.

Let me try YET again because those watching this who are affected by it -- and that's not likely you except in one case -- will grasp it, or have by now.

We all get it that there can be a variety of dates on Governor Linden land. Or any Linden owned land they have seized that is not for parks or roads, i.e. Guy Linden or Midori Linden and others will appear as owners to land until it becomes "Governor Linden" or "Governor Linden abandoned".

All that Lloyd is showing is that the phenomenon I am seeing everywhere on dozens of sims -- are you looking on dozens of sims?! -- may have started in *May* and not July. So far I've only seen July and August as NEW dates, ie. not March 2020 or February 2017.  But good land even merely overlooking sailable land will not sit there now; it will get a more recent look from Governor Linden. He's showing land with an auction number. Yes, they can take months to appear, even with such a number. But I'm talking about land with no auction number, yet a brand new claim date from the Governor when the Governor had already owned it for years. Can you hear that? Land that was ALREADY in Governor's possession for years, NOW has a new claim date, on many sims.

And yes, we have all seen this strange phenomenon where the last would be at $20,000 for General inland with no sailing, a ridiculous overestimation, and then instead of going to $1000 and selling for something anyway, it is abandoned. Because tier is greater than the profit from the land, in a larger set of holdings you can't see in many cases. There could be an easy technical explanation for why may visible on the map in June for sale and still visible which is now abandoned in July gets a May claim date: that was the parcel's claim date from the last owner trying to flip it. I have abandoned land myself, seen Governor Linden take it, and seen that it does not have the date of the event of my abandonment or the date Linden registered it and fixed it up but some other date, and who knows why. Again, that's not what I'm talking about now.

No doubt you're still not hearing the point here, but I'll give up now.

Yes, any abandoned land can change at any time. It can change today; it can change 10 years from now as we have seen, based on practice. Land waits for 10 years; sometimes, amazingly, it flips to auction overnight, and we don't really know how or why this happens as their overall guidelines are shown on the Knowledge base

But what is happening now is DIFFERENT. Lots of land is being picked up and *re-dated* when it was already long abandoned. Land that was two years old now says "July 2021". How do I know? Because I constantly look at these things and study them when I buy land or land is near me. It's not purple. It has no number. Yet it will now go to auction because there is a plan here and a mass action. In the last year, if I saw a new Governor claim date, I simply assumed they got MORE abandoned land and CONSOLIDATED it on that date that is newer. Now I see something ELSE is happening. It's going to auction, and faster!

 Governor Linden didn't just go to abandoned land that isn't in the auction queue, and reset it with a new date for no reason -- consolidation is not a common phenonmenon. There would be no reason for that. Under the old dispensation, they couldn't take the time. There's too many. They'll wait until it is requested. That's why the dates were as long ago as 10 years or 5 years or 2 years. OR, regardless of the date, you knew it had been 10 years because you lived on that sim and saw it. Go look on Snapzilla and see the pictures. That's one form of evidence.

BUT NOW IT'S DIFFERENT. They are going through and flipping the land with new dates and putting it into a queue that is not visible, as it has no purple or auction number, but is still part of a coherent system, which is a bigger and longer auction list, with cheaper prices and turnover.