Rabid Cheetah

Thanks for the feedback, Cerebrix! I'm currently in the process of setting up a land rental, haven't even begun to advertise, so knowing what NOT to do is just as important as knowing what should be done. I don't know if it's ok to give a ton of details in this thread or not...some might get upset and think I'm trying to turn the thread into a free ad lol...but maybe if I tell you a tiny bit that would be ok. It's a 4096 that I did a combination of subdividing, terraforming and decorating, and putting in the same group as some other land on the same sim, so that I've got four 512 parcels that I can offer double prims and a free house despite being on the Mainland. It's on Gaeta, the newest continent, at the eastern edge/end of the world, so there's a clear view of a rocky cliff I terrraformed and added some sea spray, and then the ocean. I'm marketing it not against other landlords, because everybody's got special places with their own nuances, but rather against Linden Homes: For roughly the same price as a premium account (which gives one a Linden Home), folks can live in a place with a better view and double the prims, yet still be on the Mainland near various attractions. I hope I haven't overstepped any bounds by giving out too much information in a thread that's not about various rentals, but also figured that the direct approach is what you've been looking for, and that based on some of the other responses thsi thread IS about what life is like asa landlord. I haven't quite "gotten a round TUIT" for the notegiver, or details of a "covenant"/rental agreement, but I also figure a lot of that is common sense (do I REALLY need to say "No giant statues of Bart Simpson mooning your neighbors" ?), or configured a rental box -- there's a reason they call this SECOND Life, ya dig? :womanwink: I'd have to agree with the fellow who said he doesn't like to negotiate the price. I've figured out what I can afford, what I think the land is worth, and what would be competative against Linden Homes. At 555 per week, I'm actually going to be taking a loss for the increased tier this has caused; That said, if it catches on and I've got it all rented and a list of folk who wish there was vacancy, I'll be attempting to replicate the same structure with other great land that I find -- which takes even more time than hunting around for good rentals (and never mind the time to terraform), so trust me, I know what you mean about the frustrations of hunting around for weeks on end... ***Iditted fer teh spilling-impaired...that would be me lol***

That's pretty cool, and cooly pretty.

So because you didn't take the time to research how automobiles work, you wish to impose a law requiring us all to state "Warning: This car requires gas" ? WHY do folks immediately start trying to impose system-wide rules on everyone? Why is that seen not only as the first "solution" to attempt, but the ONLY solution? How was the seller supposed to know the specifics of what you wanted to get out of the land? You couldn't see that it was on a slope? If you don't like it, put it up for sale again. Maybe someone who, I dunno, wants a place to go sledding will buy it. Or get creative and MAKE a sled, or maybe a tram, for folks to go from the club to the hill. Suddenly your land's quirks become not a defect, but a benefit, as you've got a unique feature that will attract folks looking for saomething out of the ordinairy. As a store owner, you couldn't ask for something better than yet another generic flat-box cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all run of the mill yawnscape. Best of luck to you.

When I lived in Hell (I mean Northern Florida), one year they had frost (yes, lol FROST) that evaporated by the afternoon. You would have thought it was The Blizzard of '79 by the way they reacted. This was thuroughly entertaining for us Displaced Yankees, who kept saying stuff like "So THIS is what y'all call snow? No WONDER we kicked your ass in 1865, you pansies!" lol Don't worry, all my redneck brethren: Our teasing was all in good fun. Just like when they pretended to chase us out of town with torches and pitchforks for three whole counties...

omg is this a permanent feature? :womanvery-happy:

I'm a tech rep in RL (NO!!! NOT FOR LINDEN!!!! STOP ASKING ME "HOW DOZ U WERE DIS SHIRT"!!!!), so I frequently am in IM chats with up to four people at once. When I'm in SL, it doesn't bother me much to have multiple IM's open. That said, I take my time in responding, even if I've only got one conversation going. And sometimes, I've got more than one conversation going with the same person, as they or I think of something else to say while the otehr person is typing, and I respond to something they said several lines ago. The only time I lie is when some scuzzy dude is being really really really obnoxious with trying to get me to "cyber". Then I say: My daddy doesn't like it when I do dirty talk on the computer. Hold on I'll let him explain it. (pause) He says he'll be right there after he gets done cleaning his gun. It got dirty cuz he had to shoot a bad guy tonight. Mommy says she wishes he didn't have such a dangerous job, but I'm proud my daddy is a policeman.

lol was speaking allegorically. I could have just as easily said 100 rotating "xXx LaNd 4 $aLe!!! xXx" signs :womanmad:

>>> Not sure if this is the right place to talk, but I am rather agrivated about some unfair sim rule that disallows furry avatars. This is not just for myself; my brother was booted from a sim just for having a furry avatar as well. What a lame sim, then. At least you two found out within seconds how lame it is. The rest of us would have to spend a minute or two. >>> I believe this to be unfair Yes. But it's their parcel, not yours, so that's their perogative. >>> unconstitutional Well, I'm not sure if I should say OMG, roll my eyes, and click the next message button...or inform you that you have a serious deficit in your understanfing of the constitution. Considering that one needs to be at least 18 years of age to use SL, and given that the voting age is only 18 regardless of one's incapacity to understand what the phrase "unconstitutional" means, vis-â-vis the sorry state this country has been in over the last three years due largely in part to vast segments of our population suffering from this same incapacity and coupled with the upcomming presidential nomination process, I choose the latter. Try this for starters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution >>> an indirect violation of the Terms of Service. No. Land owners have every right to determine which individuals they will allow on their land, and which they will not, no matter how illogical their policies may be. If someone wants to ban anyone wearing a robot body combined with a clown head with full circus makeup who dares to do the "WWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" animation on their land, that's their choice. An odd choice, but not a violation of ToS. >>> I would highly appreciate it if there existed somewhere in the Terms of Service something that forbids the persecution and discrimination of even an internet sub-culture. Banning "no furry rules" on sims would be a great step to equality, and possibly make this community a more enjoyable social network. No. Land owners have every right to determine which individuals they will allow on their land, and which they will not, etcetera etcetera as stated above. You can't force people to allow folks they do not wish to allow. How would this be enforced, anyhow? If someone dresses up as a furry, goes to a place and acts like a horse's rear end, would the parcel owner then have to prove that they banned based on behavior, not on avatar clothing selection? And persecution? PERSECUTION? How on earth is running into a banline in a video game persecution? Oh, what sheltered lives we live in this country. Some of us have ancestors who were God Forbid lynched, had crosses burned on their lawns, thrown into ovens, dealt with advertisements for employment that stated "No Irish Need Apply" right in the newspaper, and so on. I suggest that the ground shaking we felt yesterday was NOT an earthquake: It was our ancestors rolling over in their graves, when hearing what their progeny now considers to be "persecution".

Don't you dare move, neighbor! There's no telling what would go in if you did. The last thing we need by the Great Wall is another giant Bart Simspon's Butt statue...

I fully agree with your take on the situation. in fact, I'm working on a parcel I've subdivided into 512's to target-market to folks wanting more from their Linden Homes: Same size, but double prims (by only subdividing some of the original parcel, not all of it, I can offer the extra prims without having to sink a thousand bucks into purchasing an estate), better view (edge of the world, facing east, by water), and for a weekly $L price that works out to be the same as if someone were paying for a Premium Account to get a Linden Home. I'm not quite ready to put it on the market yet, so I don't know how well it's going to go over (and even so, it's not gonna makea profit unless this experiment works and I then repeat it with my remaining tier), but I'm certain that without Linden Homes asa benchmark of "Here's what ya get for ten bucks a month" there wouldn't be anything for renters or myself to figure out the fair market value, and I'd be stuck charging so far bellow tier that I'd, well, do the same thing the original poster's Land Lady is doing...

Bummer. Have her subdivide the land. Then, if she's unable to find a buyer who's willing to let you stay, and she abandons, as far as I know your stuff should stay on the land until Linden comes in and clears the objects (which I don't think they'd do automatically), or until a new buyer does so. It's anyone's guess as to whether the land will immediately go for sale at $L1 per M2 (in which case, if it does, buy it and never again worry about loosing the land), or if it will just become Linden land that's not for sale (I've seen both cases happen). If it's not set for sale, open a ticket with Customer Service and ask them to sell the land to you, or at least set it for auction. On the other hand, she might be intendingto get as much money as she can, FAST, and plans to keep dropping the price until one of those land robots show up. They usually don't show up until a parcel is set at $L0.39 per M2 or lower, so offer her $L0.40 for your portion, and everyone wins (save for whatever new neighbors you wind up with). That comes to rougly $120 USD for the entire sim, or thirty bucks for a 4096. Not a bad price, especailly given your attachment to that particulart parcel. No morer rent, but then you've got to pay tier. Has she considered just raising the rent, instead of selling the land?

Wow. Didn't realize that. Thought is was 1 sim per server. So to actually own an entire serverwould cost 800 bucks a month? Forthat kind of money I could just BUY a server, install The Sims, and let my friends dial a 900 number to acces it! :womanvery-happy:

Everyone's brought up some very good points. The time investment vuersus profit margin is indeed quite low at the moment. So why would anyone get into this? Well, I can think of two reasons. The first would be if you really love the game, enjoy slowly exploring to find new places (as opposed to the focus on reducing the time spent searching with the suggestions of otheres, above), have a creative enough imagination that you can envision a given parcel with the improvements you're going to make, have the disposible income to blow on a hobby, and an understanding that you are doing this all for fun -- Any money that you do happen to make is just icing on the cake. You would then want to follow the advice above, plus think about ways to improve the land if you're going to be doing rentals (like buying the land around your rental area so that you control the view and can offer more prims). The other reason I can think of would be to "buy low/sell high". With land prices at a record low, this is the time to buy up everything you can get your hands on...IF (and that'sa mighty big "if") you think that at some point the prices will go back up. Will they? That's open to debate. Part of what's tanked the market are the things Linden has done vis-â-vis abandoned land, as mentioned by the folks above. But the other thing that's had an effect on what folks are willing to pay for the more juicy areas (such as Bay City) is the RL economy: There's less folks with money to blow on, as a non-SL friend of mine points out, "wait, they're paying all this money for PRETEND land?!?!" If you feel that once the RL economy improves, people will again spend more money on buying land, the way they used to, then prices will rise, and you'd be in a nice spot financially if you are holding a ton of land. This is a huge risk, though, as the $L1/M2 abandoned land thingy may have tanked the market permanently. Other things to consider are whether you feel folks will begin to spend again, or will they have a new habit of saving money and not spending it on, well, "PRETEND land?!?!" And even prices do rise, will they ever be at the levels they were at when SL was a new thing and everyone wanted a piece of the action? Or were land prices inflated to begin with, and despite the economy or the abandoned land thing, their would have been a market correction ANYHOW? There's no right answer to that. No one can predict the future. It's all just matters of opinion. The main problem is that, just like RL, if you invest in SL real estate and plan to hold on to stuff for a few years, you're going to be paying "property tax" (tier) through the nose. Each person would need to decide on their own what they think the market will do, and act upon that feeling. IMHO I'd reccomend against bying up everything in sight, unless you can afford it and have a fantasy of owning lots and lots of land. Yes, some of us DO have a land fetish lol "My name's Rabid Cheetah, and I'm a landaholic..." "HI RABID!" "It all started when I saw this great place by a lake, and..." :womanvery-happy:

Not at a spot where I can log in to SL at the moment, but any place in a region named "Snicker Doodle" has gotta be worth a look. Now I'm hungry for Snicker Doodles! lol What sort of stuff do you sell? You could put something right by the landmark, and make it an item that has a bit of sound to it. For example, if you sell vehicles, the sound of a Harley revving up behind them is sure to make visitors turn around.

That stinks. But I wouldn't necessarily point the blame at the club owner. No, I would blame Linden. If a given sim can only handle a certain amount of visitors or Mb's of scripts, then why do they not ration this out, based on the percentage of the sim that a given user owns? I mean, they already DO have such a system in place for prims, so why not visitors and scripts? Also, for that matter, if the absolute maximum limit of a sim is say "X" prims, visitors, scripts, or whater, but the system starts to lag at, oh I dunno, just picking a number for an example, say once you get 70% of the way to "X"...then why do they even set the amount of prims or whatver that a sim can hold to "X"? That's a receipe for lag, duh. Why not instead set the limit to say 60% of "X", so that lag never becomes an issue? Well, that would mean having to run the game on a lot more servers than they already do. So, at least as far as I can see, the ones stuffing as much as they can onto one lillte ol' server is none other than Linden Labs themselves. Has any one else ever had that notion, or has it been disproven (other than Linden saying "nuh uh!")?

Well, since I much prefer viewers that don't crash or lock up my computer, I'd have to go with Guild Wars. Tons of users all on at once, and no lag. Plus the scenery is stunning, and there's no tier! On the other hand, City of Heroes offers a lot of choices for avatar customization, and the flight keys aren't disabled as they are in the Guild Wars viewer. Still, a mandatory $15 USD per month tier is a little steep. The Sims makes an entire suite of viewers and add ons, but this costs a lot of money in the long run (almost as much as a week's worth of tier in SL). Plus, it's in beta, so you can only use it off-line. :womanvery-happy:

You shoot tank in Second Life? What a country! In Soviet Union, you don't shoot tank...tank shoot YOU!

I have spots near the end-points of Route 12. I love the auto-cars: They add to the scenery, provide a transportation option to those who don't own cars, and bring people to new desitnations they might not have ever thought of visiting before (such as, well, a roadside French chateaux). If for some reason it got to the point where I found this problematic (such as cars pilling up [though I've yet to see it, even though both my places are at the end of the road] and affecting prim count), I suppose judicious editing of the land's object entry and/or object return settings would solve the problem in a jiffy. Much more annoying is trying to sail to Linden waters, only to discover that there's a privately owned water parcel in the way, and they're obsessed with banlines and security orbs. But that's a whole other story...

Not a Mac user, but man, the lag in this game has gone from terrible to excruciating. Having the same issues you are, in Viewer 2 for the PC. Meantime, I doubt it's the regions I'm in, or any of my scripts as I don't have a great deqal of attachments (been wearing the same walking AO and flex hair for over a year and not had problems until a month or so ago). Nor do I think it's my system, as I can handle a user-heavy high-graphics game like Guild Wars (and during increased users online due the Dragon Festival, mind you), without a hitch. Linden really should do something, or I'm going to go back to strolling lag-free through all the beautiful hills and valleys of Cantha, climbing the snow-capped Shiverpeak Mountains, or enjoying the waves rolling in on the beaches of Kryta with no frackin' subscription fee, let alone tier! of course, dealing with hydras, the Charr, and necrotic horsemen does get in the way of my sight-seeing... If you look at Linden's list of approved third-part browsers (sorry, don't recall the link), Viewer2 is actually rated BELOW Phoenix for crash incidents. So, I tried Phoenix, and it seems to have less issues (though it has a clunky, Viewer1-style interface). Good luck...

These are just theories... Why they were naked: Perhaps they didn't strip when they got to your land. Perhaps they were already naked whebn they got there. It is, after all, the adult area. Why they apperared on your land: I've seen it happen to others, even had it happen to myself, where for one reason or another you're tp'd to some random place, and when you log in again, even after leaving, guess where you are -- right back at that spot. Or perhaps they were clicking spots on the map, and tp'd in. Or they had an old landmark for the fury love factory that was on your land fifteen owners ago. No one can say for certain. Why folks who land at your spot feel like they can stay: Have you set the land to not allow folks to be there? Then you are doing nothing to let folks know you don't want them there. The software isn't sophisticated enough to let you set it to only allow people who don't tp in and are wearing clothes. That said, it's wierd that she wouldn't talk to you. Maybe there is a language barrier, or perhaps she was ttrying to type, but there was lag. Or she thought her mic was on and was talking to you, and didn't know the mic was off (the opposite of leaving the mic on while whatching tv lol) What to do: It's up to you. If it's no biggie, nevermind. If it irks you enough, ban 'em. If for some reason everybody and his brother starts showing up, ban everyone. Or put something in the land description (though, sadly, not everyone reads these). If your land is a mix of public and private, think about subdividing it, or putting up polite signs asking folks to remain in the public area.

Don't put it underwater and think that's avoiding public view. A lot of folks like to walk on the bottom of the ocean floor, and it's only 20 meteres below see level (pun intended) at best. Or what if they're on a boat, and stand up? Will they fall overboard, into the water, and right on top of you and...ahem...you get the picture. I'm no rules lawyer, ask others who know better, but I think what's adult and what's mature would be simillar to various pictures I've seen: A picture of a naked female torso? Better not put it on general land, but Mature should be fine. A picture of a naked female torso bound and being penatrated? That's definately crosses the line from "R" to "X", and you'd be ill-advised to put it anywhere but an Adult parcel. A much bigger question is the juxtapositioning of the two parcels. Would a PG make-out place right next to a school be creepy enough that Linden would consider it to be ageplay? Would other residents with various agendas flip their lid if they saw something that's not a ToS violation, but that upsets their sensabilities? Your best bet is to have some open communication between yourself, the other parcel owner, and Linden to figure out what's ok and what's not ok.

If you go premium, you pay $10 USD (or some suc hamount if you're in another country) per month to Linden. With premium membership comes the right to own land, a 512 squar meter alottment to your total tier amount that you don't need to pay extra for, and the opportunity to own a free pre-fab Linden Home in a Linden-owned pre-fab neighborhood should you choose to do so. Paying an additional monthly fee to Linden will allow you to increase your tier and own even more land. You can think of tier as being like property tax. If you'd rather not pay Linden each month, then you'll need to be either "homeless", or find a friend who'll let you build on their land, or find a place that is renting land. Renting on the Mainland can be risky, as the land is "no covenant". You can think of this as renting in the real world without the benfit of a lease. That said, sometimes folks do put in the land description that you agree to the "lease" in a notecard they send you, or posted on their website. If you rent from a rpivate estate, there will be a covenant. As someone else stated, the only way you'll be able to avoid paying anything at all would be to find a friend who will let you build for free. Perhaps one of the sandbox owners would allow squatters as a way to boost traffic, but that's doubtful as they usually frown on such things and reserve permanent buildings on their plots for store owners willing to pay to be in a high-traffic area. Try to figure out which of the above options best fits your budget, then search around for a place that boith suits your fancy and that fits the amount you want to spend each month. Don't be afraid to not not have a home for a while while you learn the game: Even the greediest of landlord's wants her tenants to be happy (at least I know I do), as many renters eventually ask for a rent-to-own option. (P.S. Just in case folks think I'm advertising, nope, got nothing available as I'm a very small fish: Just one friend who became a tenant who became a buyer...)

Not sure what the problem is -- you can't exactly see 'em way up at 2000 meters if you're down on the ground. Just curious how this is creating an issue for you, unless your sim is jam-packed full of avatars already, or the campers have a ton of scripts and it's lagging your sim. Have you tried IM'ing them to find out why they like to hang out on your land...er...sky? Other than the stuff other folks have suggested (though I'm not a big fan of the "LEAVE IN TEN SECONDS OR GET TP'D HOME N00B!" orbs), you could make a giant transparent megaprim -- kinda like a giant panel of glass for the birds to bump into. Great. Now I'm gonna hear from PETA lol

Do you do objects, too? I have a friend who wants a carriage for a horse, but she wants teh horse to be included, and animated, and the carriage must be of a Victorian style (not a stagecoach/American West style). I can't speak for her as to how much she'd pay for such an object, but figured what the heck, might as well see if somebody out there would build the darn thing for her as there doesn't seem to be anyting on the Marketplace that meets all her needs.

I had this happen last night. I was on a land that looed ok to enter, but then I got the "leave in ten seconds or you'll be tp'd home" crapola from a security orb. And I was laggin' pretty heavy to begin with, that always happens at the worst moment lol, so next thing you know I'm home, and see my place for a split second...then suddenly I see the grey-brown sky, the coordinate bar says the name of the plot of land I'd previously been on, but the region says my home region (the two places are on different continents), and the numbers said something four digits long by for digits long, and a height of 89. I clicked on tp home to no avail, and even had a friend try to offer me a tp to her place. Nothing worked, so I logged out, logged in again, and it was fixed, with me at home. Try unpluging your computer, hurling it around your head seven times while holding nothing but the power chord, while singing the Numa Numa song and dancing the hula. :womanvery-happy: If that doesn't work, call Linden...