Sparkle Bunny

this is an excellent idea. complaining won't get you your home any faster. if, however, people start cancelling their premium memberships on the basis that they're getting a second-tier service, it may motivate LL to make some concessions to those who can't currently get a free 1024; whether that's offering two old linden homes per avatar, or offering a temporary discount on abandoned mainland, or any of the other suggestions which have been made. (i doubt it, but at least you'd be saving money in the meantime.)

i am surprised, given the state of mainland, that nobody has done this yet. making people wait and refresh endlessly for their plots does seem to have the fortunate side effect of making them more respectful of what they've been given. i bet all the 'vacant' plots are from the initial release when people didn't realise how scarce Bellisserian homes were going to turn out to be, so they didn't (and still don't) know how lucky they were to get one.

been through this multiple times; you BUY mainland, you don't get given it. given the choice between free land and non-free land, most people are going to go for free, regardless of what they plan to use it for or how many people would appreciate it more.

they'd have to write it into the covenant that if you went for the skybox option you couldn't rez ANYTHING of your own at ground level. no, not even a tree. otherwise people would just be planting their own homes there.

at the same time i can see why, when everyone is going on about the amazing community in Belliseria, it might be a bit dispiriting to find yourself surrounded by empty homes. you wouldn't want to live in a street full of deserted houses in RL, would you?

my houseboat is laggy in spite of the fact i never see my neighbours (or maybe i never see my neighbours because the region is laggy?) i don't think it's a timezone issue because looking at their profiles most of them are either in my timezone or an hour ahead. i know that at least one belongs to someone who also has a house. i think you have a much better chance of getting to know your neighbours if you have a house, just because people are out decorating their yards and such.

define 'reasonable'...

the impression i get is that lindens aren't going to devote any resources to temporary measures when they can focus on building the homes people actually want instead. they're not going to do anything to update the old homes, they're not going to start giving away mainland, they're not going to start copy-pasting new regions unless they start losing significant numbers of premium subs as a result of people not being able to access all the perks (and even then, probably not... fewer premiums means fewer homes to build.) apart from some easily ignored kvetching in the forums, the limited supply of new homes is great for LL. it builds up buzz around the new continent and drives signups from people who know they need multiple alts on premium to have a reasonable chance of getting a home this year. why would they want to reduce the pressure? because it would be fairer and allow everyone to enjoy the same privileges, ok, maybe. but we've already seen that fairness is not a major concern.

interesting indeed. how do you know they don't have premium alts?

while i absolutely believe that the lindens have a timeline on this and it isn't the completely organic and random process some people on this thread appear to believe that it is, i also believe there is no chance in hell of them ever sharing said timeline with their customers. because they're not going to meet it. and people would be super mad about that.

being built? yes, but not right now. most people's homes are still on the drawing board. most people's homes will be in themes we haven't even been told about yet. for those wanting to plan, i'd say, come back in six months and assess the situation then. realistically you're going to struggle to get anything sooner than that. you're up against too many people who want their home NOW. of course the current system isn't fair, since it gives an advantage to people in certain timezones, with 24/7 internet access, who don't have disabilities or other issues in accessing the signup screen, who can afford multiple alts, etc. etc. but then it's hard to think of a system that wouldn't. whatever system was put in place, people would work out how to game it. my prediction is the site will crash entirely when the trailers are released and they'll either have to block auto-refresh or rethink how homes are allocated.

they will NEVER replace all the existing homes. there were too many of them in the first place. some current residents of the old homes won't be renewing their premium membership due to the price increase, some will go super-premium instead, some will just go back to mainland or rentals. some who currently have a new home will drift off for the same reasons. there might be a home for everyone who wants one by this time next year, but i doubt they'll ever be in a position to pick the theme without playing the auto-refresh game.

so... abandoned land is not available to purchase in the usual fashion but may be put up for sale upon request. got it. i got the distinct impression that all resources were being thrown into the new homes now while the old ones were left to wither away quietly. glad to hear that isn't the case.

this must be a new development? it's never shown up as for sale when i've been looking for land. tbh i've spent enough time in freebie skyboxes on otherwise uninhabitable mainland to know that it's not really comparable to Bellisseria, but i'm sure there are others who weren't already aware of the existence of mainland and will find the information useful. people who are happy living in 10LI skyboxes absolutely should live on mainland since it isn't much good for anything else, but given the choice between free and not-free i'm afraid most people are going to prefer free. (i will be heading back there in the near future, since it wouldn't be fair for me to hog a houseboat indefinitely when there are so many people who haven't had the opportunity. that's my release plan.) actually, since the old homes are no longer being maintained, i doubt anyone would notice if you did break covenant by taking a 512 and chucking a skybox up there. not of course that i am advocating such behaviour.

i'm actually not one of those currently missing out, but that doesn't stop me from seeing that it's fundamentally unfair that some premium members get a free 1024 with a built-in house and the majority don't. of course the lindens want scarcity: the new homes, as everyone keeps saying, wouldn't be anywhere near as desirable if there were enough of them to go round. it keeps people logging in and paying for premium alts. also, the premium product they're creating takes longer, so supply isn't going to meet demand until the novelty wears off and demand decreases. so, another suggestion; for a limited time, let people have two old-style homes in lieu of one new one. obviously this is heavily dependent on capacity in the old continents, but, again, it would even things up a bit.

here you go:

you want to maintain your elite status and the kudos of having something not many people have. nothing wrong with that. i've already seen posts by people worrying that new residents might spoil the lovely community they've created.

since when can premium members acquire mainland 1024s for free? last time I checked you still had to pay extra for the actual land, so it wasn't really comparable to Bellisseria where a) you don't have to buy the land and b) the house itself doesn't count against your available LI. that makes Bellisseria a better deal than mainland even for those who have zero interest in landscaping or community and just want to throw up a skybox. most residents would be absolutely fine with copy-pasted homes if it meant they could enjoy the same benefits as the select few, but i can totally see why the lindens and said select few want to maintain scarcity.

if the old homes came with 351 prims then i suspect a lot of people would be quite happy with that option...

knowing the approximate time of release isn't going to help you much when there is a less than 30 second window of availability anyway. i would just wait until the trailers are released, when the window might be more like thirty minutes.

they should also loosen up the covenant on the old homes, if they haven't already, and let people put up skyboxes. more prims would also be useful. i know all mole resources are currently devoted to bellisseria but it surely would not be too difficult to sync up the two covenants (banning ban lines, etc.) to minimise the difference between the two tiers of housing, which might help mitigate some of the sense of unfairness many premium members have about the 1024s not yet being available to everyone.

even with auto-refresh installed it would be impossible for anyone with a visual impairment like the OP, any kind of motor issue, or even just a laggy connection, to hit the right buttons fast enough to get a place in Bellisseria right now. too many people chasing a tiny number of available homes. also, of course, the more people using auto-refresh the more difficult it becomes for those who don't have the option of installing extensions on their work browser, or their phone. (yes, i bagged my houseboat on a phone, wouldn't even bother attempting that now.)

people have multiple alts logged in and are using auto-refresh on them all.

There's an Undine ocean sim off the coast of Jeogeot, so the mariners should be safe...

i don't think the monsters and obstacles are malfunctioning as such; they've just made their bounding boxes much bigger than the objects themselves so it's harder to dodge them. but yeah, it does sometimes look like they're magically sucking you back five metres so they can play those glytch-style animations yet again. it's harder to navigate because there are so many dead ends compared to the old realms, where the sims flowed together really nicely. it feels more like a bunch of disparate sims bolted together than a coherent landscape. maybe that's what they were going for, but it's not as much fun to run around.