“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”

Prokofy Neva · October 30, 2021

I am reinforced in my determination not to buy on the LL land auction because like buying micro-parcels set to extortionist prices, it rewards bad behaviour.

I'm use to everything that Mainland and other avatars and the Lindens can throw at me, truly I am, although recently I learned of the "filet" tactic used on hapless buyers in a Scottish themed community, so they bite on a parcel and then the land baron sells the easements and affordances all around it either for a high price to "help a sale" or a low price but in large quantities to "help a sale" to avoid ad farmers. A rather devious new variant of the old "donut" and "holdback" techniques of unscrupulous barons -- but now I have been put in a sandwich of the Lindens' making.

So on this lovely Hetero-Etcetera parcel, with it's toxic blue chemical waste sand that is not to everyone's taste (hint: this is not Blake Sea) -- which is still rather nice just because most of the people on it have built nicely and I put my rentals there -- my tenants of five years -- five years! -- come to me alarmed. The water in front of their waterfront has been "re-set" as they put it.

(Why is there water in front of waterfront that was ever for sale and not protected? This is a question one can always pose to the Lindens and never get good answers on, but obviously tiering all that water wasn't an economic proposition they wanted to face, so they sold the water, which meant it could be chopped or re-sold or abandoned or handled in any way under the Double Windlight Sun.

So yes, the Lindens set up conflict vectors back in 2004-2005 when they rolled out these continents and sold them with their choppable and sellable water, and we are still reaping that whirlwind, but ok, in this case, it held for five years as various people with various dreams came through; I remember one had a water laboratory with some kind of creatures in it. And so on. It's not as if these tenants thought the water in front of them was "mine" or "Governor Linden's" -- we could all see it was "someone else's" with a parade of owners and builds, but they were on a smaller parcel *and the rest was abandoned*. You tend not to look for and notice long standing abandoned water.

Suddenly, the current owner abandons his land. While abandoned land parcels can sit cooking in the glare of always-on "Use Region Settings" for literally decades in Second Life, nowadays, they are immediately seized and auctioned or made available to others for $1/m at lightning speed, as I have commented. I totally get if there is a mandate to speed things up and get that unsold merchandise off the shelves, it's a drag on the company.

In this case, instead of offering one separate water parcel in front of an existing, tiered waterfront parcel -- my group's -- the Linden who set this up bundled it with other abandoned land on the sim.

In an idea world, the Lindens would IM you and say, would you like to buy this abandoned land in front of your land with tenants of five years' standing to save your customers? They could even ask every one on the sim (2 owners? 3 owners? Aside from Governor Linden) if they want it -- before throwing it to the wolves on the auction.

But curiously, not ALL abandoned land -- the abandoned 1024 which I let go last summer because inland seaside sims are hard to rent even as cheap skyboxes, plus a 384 m parcel (that may have been mine too once) -- was not bundled with this huge, awkwardly shaped and tiered parcel.

If you are making a 16,640 + parcel out of two pieces of bread around the sandwich filling of Prokofy's land, why not add the pickle to that sandwich? It's not like an exact tier level was in fact drawn. That would have been 16,384, you know? It's just slightly more than what an end user could reasonably expect to tier up to -- but not the amount of 1024 that he might put to his Bellisserian house, but an amount deliberately 254 over. We all know what that means! The buyer is forced BEYOND that quarter sim level to a new, higher tier level with bunches of tier they don't need. Sure, they could apply their 1024 not to Bellisseria but to this auction, but they will have an odd amount left.

So why not add the 1024 and 383? Or we hoping to "leave some" for other hapless residents who need land? But if that's the case, why not leave the hindland rather than bundling it? In addition, in a separate auction, a square of water is also on auction.

When I see these deliberate bundlings with myself in the middle, ignoring my own abandoned land, set at a tier level that is just a smidge above the quarter sim, I think it's almost conscious. Has to be.

So what are the possible outcomes here?

1. You can try to bid for it because it's an odd piece and maybe no one else will bid it up -- but you look at the auction -- nearly closed, because it became visibly purple so quickly -- and it has 9 bids on it already. You would already have to pay US $60 to get in this game -- oh, and anticipate US $67 in tier to hold it, because you'd have to start a new account. I personally don't carry a half sim or quarter sim "trading tier" like a land baron to fill and flip all day as I obsess about whether I'm at the top of the land for sale list. I generally don't buy or sell land unless I absolutely have to, to save the view, and prefer a more predictable request on abandoned land -- which we also do only when really pressed -- a tenant wants more prims, the view has gone south next door, etc. \

2. I quickly determine that I will simply not get near this auction in any form. I tell my tenants that; but I offer to buy other nearby land that is roughly equivalent on another sim. So the Lindens/land barons/desperate neighbours are going to get a sale out of me yet, even if I spurn this induced auction.

3. A land baron will get it, chop out the waterfront and try to sell it -- first of all to me, setting it at a very high price that he hopes will help me "do the right thing" to save my tenants of five years and their home which has been precious to them. People who have a steady SL relationship for many years and a home as well and live their lives are very attached to them. He might cut out and sell or dump or chop up the hindland. If small enough, it will entice people to the sim to buy land and maybe buy more land -- so the theory goes. In reality, the people are just other land barons in a war to cheapen land to stay at the top o f the land sale list.

4. If I don't bite, the land baron may chop up the water to smaller sizes at either lower prices to encourage ad farmers to buy them or end users with plans for their big black boxes, or have a mixture of smaller with holdbacks and higher prices mixed with low to encourage me to play chess.

5. Of course it's always possible a lover of nature will come in, and put 16,000+ meters to a lovely wetlands preserve marsh with swans which we can all enjoy. I did see that happen once on Second Life.

Once.

16 years ago.

6. What's most likely is what finally happened: a working girl purchased it to put up her palace. This could be a blessing because end users are usually preferable to deal with than land barons any day of the week. Most people are decent and they either naturally don't try to inflict their vision on their neighbours, i.e. giant walled fortresses right in front of their (former) waterfront, or a black box club on the water. Yes, you can de-render such things on Firestorm, but sometimes there are so many changing...inventions...in these boxes that you can't de-render them efficiently, I'm told. Maybe she will go up in the sky -- great! Maybe not. In that area, we already witnessed how an oldbie builder with connex put up a giant tower with many floors for a building sandbox.

7. My tenants, now rattled, may stay -- I tell them that the land may flip and flip again, may be abandoned, anything is possible -- I always try to give everything in SL 30 days to change, and it often does on its own without intervention. Or they may not, in which case since I am looking at a very long list stretching back into infinity of rent payed on time and in full, I will offer to buy other land for them. Why not? It's not like I can keep renting the land they are on now. I can only abandon it or put it to sale for 0.2/m and let vultures eat it -- the only people who will buy it. My new neighbour may buy it, but not likely, since she just took on a quarter tier without even getting a quarter tier's worth of land -- meaning she either doesn't need her Bellisseria house and can apply 256 of her 1024 to her new dream and have 768 left over to...to...um... OR! she already had the next tier level up available -- a half sim of 37,268 - free and clear to keep building. Or, wait, I know! She can abandon 768, well, anywhere -- in front of me, behind me, by the road, intact, in pieces -- or set it to sale for a big price to help make back what she just spent on the auction. Yes, that makes sense...