Polenth Yue

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, so I'll answer a few of the alternatives. You keep the land/house you currently own when you upgrade to premium plus (unless you decide you want to change it). You can't have a premium and a premium plus subscription working on the same account at the same time. You have one or the other. However, you can buy extra tier above the included tier if that's what you're after. You initially pay the amount needed to upgrade your account until your next regular yearly renewal date. Then you pay the usual premium plus cost on that date.

Given the things they've been working on recently and the age limit, it's a reasonable guess that this is about the new user experience. They'd want people who've experienced the current system, without having any previous Second Life experience. If nobody sees it here, I know there are a bunch of newer people in the Bellisseria Citizens group, as I've talked a few through the basics.

It's very rare that an event that randomly spams you is an event that would be worth doing. I've had a whole bunch of invites recently from bots owned by the same person who runs multiple identical events with different names. I just blocked the lot of them. People who know who you are will mention something about you and your products directly (but it doesn't mean you have to do those events either... I've been turning down a lot this summer as I'm taking a break from events). I tend to favour events that run sometimes rather than ones that run monthly. A lot of the RFL/Strides events are good, though you will need some new things to sell for charity, and you might not fit the themes of the events. The only time I've seen roleplay shopping was a roleplay market at Fantasy Faire. It was a limited time event where the whole purpose was roleplaying a market, rather than getting stuff. Sometimes people stay at their booths at SciFi Con, but this is usually things like roleplay communities and similar. The shop owners know to leave their shops alone. This is because you will sell less if you hang out at your shop. The majority of customers want some space to browse without the owner there.

Though a house with no other houses anywhere around isn't a thing, some houses do have water views without other houses in the water direction. Quite a few of the upcoming coastal fantasy houses have a bit of real water and then the void (which is the buffer to keep fantasy separate, so unlikely to end up with stuff).

It's not been stated, but there are patterns in how the border colours are used. For a simpler region, it starts green, goes yellow and then goes red at the last stage. This used to be all there was, but blue, purple and pink also appear now. The other colours are especially likely on regions with added complications, like railroads or a more complex theme. The white borders have been seen on some recently added regions, as a step before the green border. The switch to look for is when it goes from having a border (usually a red one) to the border being removed, the region given a final name and all building markers removed. That means it's probably close to release. Next, the houses will switch from "Protected Land" to "Linden Home", which means it's been released and houses are in the queue/can be requested by ticket for premium plus.

If it isn't possible, I'd suggest holding on for now. They're building a lot of houseboat areas and eventually they will meet demand. At that point, abandons are more likely to remain empty for a bit.

I'm barely taller than the height of the door handles. I just lock all the doors open and don't worry about them (size regardless, I find opening/closing doors annoying). There are disadvantages for designing only for a smaller avatar. It means taller avatars can't visit as they can't get through the doors. It can make decorating tricky, as items are designed for bigger houses. Even when I make buildings for my use, they're never scaled to me, as I'd like other people to use them. It might be neat to make a mushroom village at some point that requires being smaller, but it's a bit of a niche thing. Not something I'd expect to see as a Linden Home.

Basic info: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:New_Linden_Homes_2019

They're ones set as "Linden Home" rather than "Protected Land" and they don't belong to a regular avatar. They've not said that you can't request a house that had an owner and was abandoned... but there's more risk that someone will be automatically assigned to it before your ticket is processed. For older themes where the only ones coming up are abandoned and they're claimed pretty quickly, you're unlikely to have any luck with tickets. But if you see a house you know was abandoned and it's been empty for days, you might be in with a chance.

Another mainland thing is that unless you're in a really popular mainland area, you have more options for changing parcel size. I used to own a lot more of the land in the region I'm in, but finances changed, so I downsized to my included tier level for premium. Then as things improved, I got a bit more land again. It means there's flexibility to shift around parcel size and shape without needing to move and change landmarks.

There are a few regions in the main stilt area that aren't released yet and some were added where the chalet coast meets the stilts area (also not released yet). Nothing else in progress since then, though they're building new areas all the time at the moment.

If people are focusing on the newer themes where there are many empty regions, the chances of it being automatically assigned aren't that high. I also expect this'll clear as the initial rush of tickets dies down.

You seem to have taken what I said and interpreted it in ways I didn't predict, so I'll have one more try. If you're still confused, you can ask me what I mean about those parts. I'm not talking about whether traffic games are really games or not. The point is that they are not good marketing, so stop looking for the next one to try. Instead, try other things, such as doing events. There's more that you could do, but that would get you started. I'm also not talking about slurls in marketplace listings, though I'd assume you have display copies out, so this would be a good idea. What I was talking about was starting a marketplace store and giving people the link to that marketplace store so that they can buy things from your marketplace store. What other merchants do to annoy you is only a concern in the sense that it shows you things to avoid doing. The signature links would be your marketplace store and the slurl for your main shop.

Traffic games bring in people who do nothing except that game. Run them if you find those games fun, but they're not marketing. They're not getting you seen by customers. Taking part in events is a way to make money and advertise your shop at the same time. Don't sign up for more events than you can handle and research the events. Some bring in more people than others. Some are more open to new shops than others. Make sure you have a store group and make it easy to join (free and have a sign at the events you do). If you do nothing else, this will result in regular customers. Make sure your stuff is also on the marketplace and make it easy for customers to find that link. Add your links to your forum signature, rather than just the name of the shop.

Build all the things! It's nice to see things being polished and finished. I see there's also some land for auction next to the new mainland road.

If the system is still trying to downgrade you to basic, it might not let you choose a home. I would try logging out of the site, closing the web browser, opening it again and logging back in, before contacting support. Sometimes these things just need a kick. But if it still thinks you're downgrading to basic, file a ticket for help here: https://support.secondlife.com/create-case/ Even if you do decide to downgrade, don't do it until you're close to the expiry date. Precisely because you can't hold land (including a Linden Home) if you're downgrading. Once that's resolved, you just go to the website and pick one following the instructions earlier in the thread. That was all that was needed from the start.

I see joining groups was briefly mentioned by others, but this is worth figuring out if you haven't already. Once you're in a group, you can chat to other members and will get notices for things like events. Some locations and events have group joiners (which either bring up a window asking if you want to join or give you a link in local to click to bring up the join window). You can also search for groups by name using the search tool and join that way. I would avoid ones that charge a fee at this point and also avoid shop groups unless you want the gifts (most shop groups aren't that social and are filled with people complaining about products). Big multi-day events will often have more going on, an active group, and events where people actually speak to each other. Summer tends to be a bit quiet and the birthday is wrapping up right now, but autumn is usually packed with events. What sort of things do you like doing outside of Second Life? We can probably point you to a few groups and events based on that.

When the first of the chalet coast houseboat regions were released, only the houseboats were released and not the chalets (this is Cariggus and following the coast down a bit). Those chalets are now "Linden Home" and available. (Note it wasn't the case with the later coast regions, as those did release the chalets at the same time.)

They've had the ones with the copies of the final houses for a bit. I'm not sure about the other active regions. The random region ghosts are builds from previous events. I can see Fantasy Faire, RFL track regions and the American Cancer Society. I'd hazard a guess that they were testing out event regions by using clones of past big events. Which isn't much of a guess, as I know they asked Fantasy Faire people to help stress test a clone of an old region at one point.

Another thing that can get you banned would be reversing a payment at your end. So you pay Linden Lab, you get your bank to cancel the payment and return the money to you, and then you get banned. The solution is to always handle this stuff by contacting Linden Lab. For ending a premium membership, that means you change your membership type on the Second Life website, to let them know you're going and not to charge you again. You don't let it renew and then reverse the charge.

I've actually done it twice. Once for me and once for a friend. So here's more info than you'd ever need to know... For me, as soon as I heard about the prorated thing (so my normal renewal date wouldn't change) and that we'd be able to pick a spot, I headed out into the fantasy area to see if there was one I liked more than the house I had. I listed out any region that bordered an uncloned region (there are some decor ones in the middle and the coast edges), as these would be ones with the most unique views. I searched all of these. I also searched all the in-progress coast regions, in case I'd want to wait for one of those. My main goal was a swamp house feel, so either front or back directed at inland water and no roads or bridges by the house. Direct coastal wasn't high on my list, as I find those views a bit plain (I like vegetation, some little islands in view, stuff like that). Messy vegetation areas were a plus. As I searched around, I also liked the little swamp docks some houses had. I found all the stuff I liked in Selinofoto. It's a cloned region that was altered to be coast, placing the two corner houses on their own little island with extra vegetation. The front has the little swamp dock and inland water. The back does look out to sea, but with plenty of trees and mushrooms framing the view and other house islands in the distance. In theory, some of this could still change in the unreleased neighbouring regions, but I doubt they'd do anything major at this point. The name also means moonlight, which I thought was suitable (yue means moon). When premium plus went live, I immediately signed up and got the ticket in within a few minutes of that (I'd prewritten the ticket). No issues with getting it sorted. I doubt there will be a house better for me than this, unless they add a new theme that is even more suitable than a glowing mushroom swamp. I'm not looking to get one of the bigger house plots. People are welcome to visit. It's not very decorated as I picked a different house style this time and I'm still thinking about how to stuff in as many (nonbreedable) pets as possible: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Selinofoto/39/196/23 My friend upgraded to premium plus some days later after seeing my house. I was sent forth with instructions to find a Sakura house for boating (I have a reputation for finding things apparently). Front by the water, close boat rez zone, and a wider channel if possible as it makes it easier to sort the boat after rezzing. Region placement wasn't a concern. I went through the map in a grid noting possible locations (ones close to a wider water area), then checked them all out (seeing how the front looked and the rez zone locations). I found an exact match for the request, with bonus little park area, and talked the friend through submitting the ticket. No link to that as it's not mine to share. The tl;dr version of that is the best bet is newer themes that have a lot of unclaimed houses. Look at the map first to note possible regions (needs a lot of "Linden Home" houses), then run down your list to see which looks best on the ground. This will usually work better than random wandering, especially if you have an idea what features you must have and what ones you want to avoid.

I like the green rocky vibe of the new houseboat areas they're building. It reminds me of the Hebrides, though whether there will be random sheep remains to be seen.

Someone's been busy in the fantasy area. It looks like all of the original interior regions have now been released. That means they're all "Linden Home" and can be requested by premium plus members. This doesn't apply to the coast regions, which were a later addition and are still being constructed.

They're not released yet. This has happened in other areas, though a lot of the backlog in other areas has now been released. I didn't consider them when I was looking around, but someone else can answer if they tried it.

Some people noted that their total didn't go up initially, but they could still join more groups. I didn't need to try it as I'm not in many groups.