Tips for a Linden Home noob?

[Clem Marques]

When I decided to own land, I went straight to Mainland. Bought a parcel as soon as I got a premium membership, and just never really bothered to give Linden Homes a shot. After several years, I've decided to reconsider that. I've looked at the gorgeous pictures you guys have posted here for a while now, and decided to explore the Linden Homes continents. I had some spare tier, and finally gave in. Now I have a Newbrooke home and love the way it looks, my first proper Linden Home. Before doing anything to it, I thought it'd be a good idea to ask:

What are some tips would you give to someone who's brand new to Linden Homes? What are some things you wish you knew when you got your first Linden Home?

Thanks in advance.

[AzureWaves]

Hop around to all the themes and get all of the content packs before you settle down.

[Nika Talaj]

If possible, do not immediately pay for a whole year of Premium, for whatever avatar will be getting the LH.  You may find that you want to pay for 1 month of PP to get an ideal property, and that is awkward if your Premium avatar has already paid for a full year.

Re: ideal properties.  You may have noticed when shopping for your mainland propert(ies) that waterfront is expensive.  In Belli, gorgeous waterfront properties near to cool places are the same price as inland homes with 4 nearby neighbors, tho getting one may take a little hopping, or perhaps a month of PP.  My houseboat in Kuga has lots of water and is near to the Galaxy, Fourze Lake, Victoribelle River (and therefore Mole National Park).  And if you think the area is crowded with houseboats and therefore perhaps laggy, hey, there are only 5 Linden Homes, total, in Kuga.

[Persephone Emerald]

Explore Belli, much as you might explore Mainland. It's pretty easy to move if you find another theme or parcel you like better. Derender your neighbor's glowy or particle spewing objects that bother you. Send a short hello note to your neighbors. You never know when this might lead to positive interactions.

I always like to have a big open skybox above my parcel. It's a mesh box with a box prim floor, only 1 land impact, as big as my parcel. It's great for rezzing stuff, dressing privacy, and having a low lag home location.  I don't invite strangers there. I use a grass texture for the floor, trees with alpha sky above them for the interior walls, and a sky texture for the exterior walls, so I always have a space that feels big and open.

Carefully monitor your prims and scripts. Use low prim furnishings. Link prims to keep your LI lower. Always keep some LI unused, so you can rez stuff. If you want to build or rez something that could have a large land impact, keep a couple favorite Premium sandboxes in your Favorites or use the Sandbox in the Welcome Hub (if you want an audience).

Look at the add-ons for your Linden Home on Marketplace. You might find little touches to personalize your home or add an extra room.

Get a radio that lets you easily change your music. Use a web-based station if you want to listen to the same music wherever you go in SL.

Edited August 3 by Persephone Emerald

[Vixen Firehart]

The most important thing is: read the covenant. 

Bellisseria is not the same as mainland, where you can do whatever you want.

There are quite some rules that you have to keep in mind. For instance rules about skyboxes and security orbs.

[Lyric Demina]

On 8/2/2024 at 3:57 PM, Clem Marques said:

Now I have a Newbrooke home and love the way it looks,

Excellent choice, congratulations and welcome!  I think the Newbrookes have really great landscape. 

The advice I would give a new Bellisseria resident is if you're going to use a security feature to help regulate who has access to your home, I'd use the one included in the content pack rather than anybody else's -- because you can be certain the one in your content pack is Bellisseria-approved and covenant-safe.  Set it to the group of your land, allow group access, turn it on, and you have the most basic and functional home security ready to go.  I would also advise you to add an alt account if you have one to the Admin feature of that security. 

Then I would advise the new person to talk to people about the House Control Panel and get the ideal settings set up there (i.e. do you want to add people to that house control panel or do you want to just leave it as is... -- it's a quick conversation, if you don't already understand how it works).   It's all pretty intuitive if you're an experienced player, so yay enjoy yourself

[Quartz Mole]

I think the tips I would give are --

• There's lots of helpful info to be found in the Knowledge Base article and in the Wiki article
• Rezzing a new instance of your existing house, using the house controller, is a good way of fixing most issues.  If you decide to do this, though, you may want to make a note of any custom colours you've used in the interior decoration, since the new house won't know about them.  It should remember all other settings, though.  Please stand outside the parcel when you (re) rez a house, and don't try to touch or otherwise interact with it for 30 seconds after it rezzers otherwise you might trigger a weird bug with the mesh physics.  The house will tell you when it's safe to enter.
• Setting a short parcel return time, using the parcel settings, is a good idea.    Allow anyone to run scripts (setting it to group or owner only doesn't stop griefers but does inconvenience friends and bona fide guests).
• Remember that, while you can't set your parcel to group entry only, you can use all the regular parcel tools to eject and ban unwanted intruders -- you don't need to use the security scanner for that.  Just right click on the unwanted visitor 
   

[animats]

Remember that you have to furnish the house yourself. If you get a large house, you have a lot of shopping ahead. This is either a joy or a pain, depending.