Search the Community

Purchasing from the land store Delivery Maturity ratings Guidelines for naming Private Regions Ordering adjacent regions Private Region customizations Initial customizations Customizations after purchase Renting a region for a special event Rental rate Details More information Invoicing for special orders Where to get an invoice Verification information Payment Information Private Region types Undeveloped regions are delivered completely empty of objects and ready to be built and shaped to your liking. Themed regions contain a ready-made build which has been optimized to get you started on your new land in minutes, and which can be futher modified to your liking. All themes are available as Full Regions, and most as Homestead Regions. The table below explains the different types of Private Regions available for purchase in the Second Life® virtual world. Full Regions Homestead Regions Openspace Regions Description The premier region product which offers the highest performance. Lower performance than a Full Region and intended for low-density rentals, quiet residential, or light commercial use. Available only to Residents who own at least one Full Region. Intended for very low-impact scenic use such as ocean, forest, or countryside. No longer available for sale. Size 65,536 m2 65,536 m2 65,536 m2 Setup fee US$349 Undeveloped US$600 Second Life Skill Gaming US$149 Undeveloped No longer available for sale. Monthly maintenance US$229 Undeveloped US$345 Second Life Skill Gaming US$109 US$60 Land capacity 20,000* 5000 1000 Max. avatars 100 20 10 Script limits N/A TBD TBD Habitation allowed? Yes Yes No Rental allowed? Yes Yes No Events & classifieds? Yes Yes No Conversion to Full Region allowed? N/A Yes Yes * You can upgrade a Full Region's land capacity to 30,000 for a one-time fee of $30 and an increased monthly maintenance fee by submitting a support case of the type Land & Region > Land Impact Change Request. For more information, please see this post on the Second Life Blog. Purchasing from the land store Note: To purchase land from the Land Store, you must have billing information on file. Add billing information on your billing information page. Log into the Second Life Land Portal. Tip: Read the introduction explaining the difference between developed land and undeveloped land. The former is great for a quick start, while the latter is the choice if you want to create everything from scratch. Click Buy an Undeveloped Private Region. If you don't need the amount of control and space that comes with a region, you can choose to Buy Mainland. You are presented with thumbnail images and descriptions of several appealing choices. These are all starting points for your creative vision, and you can always reshape your land later. Click Continue to proceed. Use the comparison details on the "Land Detail" page to decide whether you want a Full Region or Homestead. Click Choose under your selection to continue. Note: You can only purchase a Homestead region if you own or are also going to buy one or more full regions. EXCEPTION: Educational institutions. See Information for educators. On the "Name your land" page, type a name in the Create a Region Name field and click Check Availability. If your selected name is not taken, you can proceed. Region Coordinates are automatically filled in; these coordinates are where your Region will be physically located on the World Map. If you'd prefer to override them, click [change], then click a map square that isn't crossed out in red. You can click the arrow buttons to look at different areas on the map. You can also search for another region to be near (for example, one that a friend or colleague owns). Take a few seconds to fill out the brief survey at the bottom. Click the Add to Cart button. Once all details have been successfully verified, you can shop for more regions (same steps as above) or click Proceed to Checkout. Note: You may have up to 10 items in your cart at once. Items don't stay in your cart forever; they stay in your cart until you or someone else buys them. A region is held as yours for 30 minutes after your last activity in the Land Store. If someone else buys it (or a neighboring region) after those 30 minutes have elapsed, it will appear in your cart as unavailable. On the "Real Estate: Shopping Cart" page, click Place Order to confirm your purchase. Note: Orders totaling more than US$10,000 can't be processed through the Land Store. If you're planning on buying more than US$10,000 worth of land, consider making multiple orders. Delivery Once your region purchase is complete, you receive an email with the details. A new region is generally delivered within 15 minutes. Occasional service updates may affect that time, so see the Second Life Grid Status Reports page if it's taking longer than expected. Maturity ratings New regions are delivered with a default maturity rating of Moderate. You can customize this using the Region/Estate tools: From the Viewer menus, go to World > Place Profile > Region/Estate. Click the Region tab. From the Rating dropdown, select either or Adult. Click Apply. Note: If your region is Moderate or Adult, only Residents, including yourself, who have set their maturity preference correctly will be able to access the region. Otherwise, if they try to enter, they'll be prompted either to set their preferences or be age-verified. See Maturity ratings for more information. Guidelines for naming Private Regions Follow these guidelines when naming your Private Region (island) or estate. Private Region or estate names: Must not already be in use. Must be more than 2, but less than 26 characters (spaces count). Must contain three words or less. Must use only alphanumeric characters (no punctuation). Must not be the name of a real life city (however "New York Island" or "Los Angeles City" are fine). Cannot include SL, Linden, Linden Lab, Second Life etc in the name. Must comply with General maturity rating guidelines. Do not use the following as a Private Region name or estate name: The name of another person to the extent that it may cause deception or confusion. A name which violates any trademark right, copyright, or other proprietary right. A name which may mislead other users to believe you to be an employee of Linden Lab. A name which Linden Lab deems in its discretion to be vulgar or otherwise offensive (obscenities in any language and however spelled; language that is racist, sexist or otherwise derogatory in nature). Linden Lab reserves the right to change Private Region and estate names as we see fit. Ordering adjacent regions It is possible for two people to order adjacent Private Regions. The first person must: Order a Private Region, then log into the Second Life website and click the Land Manager tab. Click the My Regions tab. Click the estate name of the estate for which you want to allow neighbors. In the Allowed Neighbors column, click the edit link for a specific region. Type the name of the Resident you want to allow as a neighbor, then click Add. Click Close. The second person must Order a Private Region as described in Purchasing from the land store. During the ordering process, you may place your new region adjacent to the first person's region. Private Region customizations Initial customizations With your region order, you can specify the following customizations: Name: You can select a unique name when creating the region. See the Guidelines for Private Region Naming for details. Terrain shape: You can select from one of the six predesigned templates (including flat green land and open water). Estate: You can assign your region to its own estate or to an estate you already own (with other Private Regions owned by you). Your Estate tools allow you to control settings for more than one region at once. Customizations after purchase As estate owner, you have access to the Region/Estate menu (under World > Place Profile). This provides you with several other options to customize your region: Water height: You may specify the height sea level reaches on your region. Terrain textures: You can use almost any texture for terrain. You can specify low-resolution textures as well as high-resolution textures and configure the elevation range at which they shift from one to another. There's more information on terrain textures in the Estate Tools article. Fixed sun position: You can lock the sun at a specific time of day or night. Terraform: You can lower or raise your terrain 100m from the height at which it was created. This is usually sufficient for nearly any type of terrain (including very dramatic cliffs). Custom terrain files: You can save your terrain to a .RAW image file, edit it in a program such as Photoshop, and upload it back into Second Life to make wide-sweeping changes to your Region's terrain instantly. Agent limit: You may control how many avatars can visit your Region at the same time, anywhere from one to over one hundred. Parcel activity: You can decide whether to allow renters to sell their parcels to other Residents, and whether they can subdivide the parcels they rent. Teleport routing: You can use a telehub to force Residents to land at a specific location in your region, or you can allow direct teleporting so Residents can use landmarks or the world map teleport wherever they like. Access: You can close your Private Region to everyone except your friends and colleagues, or you can open it to everyone in Second Life! You may also ban specific Residents by name if they cause trouble. Renting a region for a special event Got a plan for a large event and need a temporary place to have it? Linden Lab offers temporary Full Region rentals. Rental amounts are to be paid in full at the beginning of the rental period. Rental rate Land rental rates are different depending on whether you want to rent Private Regions or space on the mainland. Private Regions are US$50 per region per day. Mainland regions are L$4,000 per region per day. Note: You must have a premium account to rent mainland regions. You can rent a Private Region with any account type. Mainland rental regions are Iridium, Osmium, Palladium, Platinum, Rhodium, and Ruthenium (named after the platinum group metals.) Details Reservations must be made 2 weeks in advance and are on a first-come first-served basis. Residents must include a full description of the event when applying. Minimal rental period is 3 days. Residents are allowed to terraform the land and do not incur tier fees for temporary ownership of the land. Residents cannot transfer the land during the rental period. The original state of the regions will be saved immediately before the rental period. At the conclusion of the rental period, the regions will be restored. More information If you're interested in renting, please submit a Land and Region Issues ticket with the Region Request field set to Region Rental from our Support page. Additional information you'll need to submit includes: The number of regions you want Rental start and end dates Whether or not you need to be able to terraform the regions A full description of your event Invoicing for special orders If you are an educator, non-profits organization, Resident under 18 years old or a business entities that requires a formal invoice, then place your order for private regions with the Special Island Order Form. Use the special order form under these conditions: Orders for eligible educational institution or not-for-profit. There is an educational discount available, and your status as an educator or non-profit does require verification. For all under 18 Resident, non-Linden Home, land orders (requires parental/guardian approval if under 18). Note: users under the age of 18 cannot purchase Linden Homes. Any order requiring an invoice (payments by wire transfer, check or credit card). Specifically for business entities requiring a formal invoice/receipt or PO# type process. PO# not required at the time of ordering. If your purchase does not fall into these categories, then place your order at the Land Store. Note: All orders placed through the Special Island Order Form require advance payment of six or twelve months maintenance fees. If you are approved for the discount, maintenance fees are added to your island order invoice based on the payment cycle chosen at a rate of 124.50 per month. Payment is made from the invoice which is issued upon the delivery of your island. Your first invoice will include both the setup and the first cycle of maintenance. Where to get an invoice Second Life offers the invoicing option though the special orders selection in the Land Store. You can also access invoicing directly from specialorders.secondlife.com. Verification information You need to provide the following information to use the invoicing option. Please read the guidelines below carefully. If your questions are not answered by this document, please submit a Support ticket to request explanation (include "Education" in the ticket summary). Note: Second Life cannot provide invoicing option to Individuals, including educational professionals who wish to purchase a region for personal use or developers who wish to purchase a region for an institution. Approval and Private Region delivery Submitting an order does not obligate you to pay immediately; payment is made once the Private Region has been delivered and the invoice sent. When you place the order, you receive a sales order confirmation. This is merely an order confirmation, not a notice of delivery. Once you place the order, your order enters the approval queue. Once the order is approved, you receive an approval email and your order is placed in the delivery queue. After approval, delivery time under normal circumstances is 10-15 business days. You cannot make a payment until you receive an invoice, which you then have 30 days to pay. Invoices for maintenance are emailed when the payment schedule is ready for renewal. Warning: Late payment may result in the closure of your Private Region and the loss of any inventory it contains. You have access to your account in Netsuite (Second Life's special orders system) through the special ordering website. Note: Netsuite is a different website than secondlife.com. In your Netsuite account, you will be able to: View your sales order. Add your credit card information. Pay your invoice with a credit card. Payment Information You may pay via check, credit card or wire transfer. We neither accept Paypal nor use funds from your Second Life account to pay for your invoiced Private Region order. Note: Currently, VAT is not added to our invoiced orders, but we will inform you if this changes. Find out more about VAT and Second Life in Account balance. Wire Transfer See Account balance for more information on paying by wire transfer. You must pay your bank's wiring charges, which are added to your invoice total. Be sure to reference your invoice number in the wire details. Credit Card To pay by credit card: Log into your Netsuite account. You are directed to menu options. Select Make a Payment. All outstanding invoices appear. Move to the bottom of the page, where you may add your credit card information for payment of the invoices you select. Note: The list of outstanding invoices is not the sales order document. Check or Bank Draft Please submit a check or bank draft to: Linden Research Inc Dept. 34109 PO Box 39000 San Francisco CA 94111 USA Those who use Purchase Order numbers should send us the required vendor forms for completion. We will add the PO# to the invoice as soon as we receive it. Other useful information: Federal Tax ID#: 94-3364615 VAT #: EU826011179

Telehubs and direct teleport Configuring telehubs Hosting large events Covenants Setting the covenant Covenants and reselling land Covenants and communication Improving region performance Statistics Bar Restarting Private Regions Transferring Private Regions Transfer fees Monthly billing Moving and renaming Private Regions Pricing for Private Region Management Services Renaming a Private Region Moving a Private Region Land impact change Increasing land impact Pricing for land impact changes Requesting land impact changes Backing up and restoring Private Region terrain To backup your terrain To restore your terrain Allowing neighbors Land sales in Private Regions Reclaiming land parcels from tenants Private Region auto-saves and restores (rollbacks) Requesting a rollback Consequences Grandfathered pricing Region environment settings Presets Choosing the settings you see Sun settings How to turn off clouds and other features Working with presets Working with day cycles Choosing environment settings for a region Region boundaries Teleports Effects on users of older Viewers In other languages: Deutsch Français Español Português Italiano 日本語 Türkçe Pусский Telehubs and direct teleport There are two basic approaches to controlling where visitors to your estates appear: you can either use a telehub to force all visitors to appear at a set location, or you can allow visitors to teleport directly to wherever they wish. If you choose to use a telehub, you must disable Allow Direct Teleport on the Estate tab of the REGION/ESTATE window (World > Region/Estate). In addition, you should clear any landing points that might be set for the parcels on your estate (using the About Land window's OPTIONS tab), as they can cause the telehub to malfunction. If you choose to allow direct teleportation, you should disable or remove any telehub object that you have in your region. You can, however, use parcel landing points to provide parcel-level control over where people appear when they teleport into the region. Configuring telehubs Telehubs are controlled through the REGION/ESTATE window, on the Region tab. Note: If you are the owner of a Region, you always teleport directly to the center of it instead of to a set telehub or landing point. To connect your telehub: Right-click on the object and select Edit. In the REGION/ESTATE window, click the Region tab. Click Manage Telehub. Click Add Spawn. Click your telehub object again, and click Connect telehub. Here are some things to consider regarding telehubs: Format: The telehub references an object on your Private Region or island. This can be any object, but generally it should be phantom and raised slightly off the ground (avatars arrive in the center of it). You can use any prim. Movement: The telehub is saved as a bookmark to a specific object; it is not saved in the object itself. As a result, you may freely move your telehub object around; the telehub waypoint moves with it. However, if the object ever leaves the region (for example, you accidentally Return it or Take it to Inventory), the telehub waypoint is lost, and you need to create a new telehub. Spawnpoints: You can create multiple spawnpoints for your telehub. Incoming residents arrive at one of the spawnpoints. To make spawnpoints: Create transparent cubes at each location you wish people to spawn. Place the telehub object in the middle. Save the spawnpoints and connect them to the telehub. Spawnpoints are saved as offsets of the telehub (i.e. "two meters west and one meter north of the telehub"). As such, the objects used to create the spawnpoints may be deleted (though the telehub must remain as always). Moving the telehub moves all spawnpoints as a group. Incoming visitors are routed to the nearest spawnpoint or to a random spawnpoint (especially when the nearest gets overcrowded) chosen from the points you designated. Permissions: The estate owner, estate managers, or owners of a group to whom the land is deeded can always freely teleport around the estate. Multi-region estates: Each region in an estate can have its own telehub. If you'd prefer to have one telehub that functions for all regions within an estate, you can try defining a single telehub in just one region on the estate and disabling Allow Direct Teleport at the estate level. Hosting large events Important: If you plan to host a large gathering on a Private Region, please give Linden Lab as much advance notice as possible. Provide the date, expected attendance, location, name of event, event sponsor and event manager. Keep the following technical considerations in mind: The maximum number of avatars on a region can be set to 100, but best practice is to limit each region to 50. Remember to plan for crowd control. Adjust the number of avatars allowed on your region at one time by selecting World > Region/Estate and changing the number in the Agent Limit field on the Region tab. Creating a group can be an effective way to manage Residents and sustain interaction beyond the event itself. Linden Lab recommends considering a multiple-locations strategy for large events. This requires considering how to allocate avatars to the locations manually, via scripting, or by distributing different arrival locations. A four-corners strategy (to get about 200 avatars in one place) has drawbacks, since across-boundary info exchange and drawing will affect performance. If this is your first event, you may want to work with a developer or someone who has already had experience managing large events.You can find developers in the Developer Directory. Event managers can be located through SLClassifieds or one of the many exchanges or periodicals that have grown up around Second Life. Covenants A covenant is a set of terms and conditions determined by an estate owner. It may outline such details as local theme, rental fees, architectural regulations, and rules of behavior in the Private Region. To purchase a parcel on an estate, a Resident must agree to the estate's covenant. You don't need to set a covenant to enable land sale on your estate, but you should do so if you plan to establish zoning or other rules. Covenants are viewable by the parcel owner at all times in the Covenant tabs of the About Land window and the REGION/ESTATE window. Setting the covenant To set or change the covenant for an estate, simply drop a new notecard into the Covenant box in the Covenant tab of the REGION/ESTATE window. Remember: The covenant applies across every region in an estate. Estate managers can set parcels for sale and can reset the covenant. Land parcels can be reclaimed at any time by the estate owner. Deselecting the land sales box does reset parcels already set for sale. Covenants and reselling land To allow Residents to sell or deed land they have purchased from you, select Allow Land Resell in the Region tab. Covenants and communication Covenants are intended to communicate the terms and conditions of owning property on your estate. Do not change the terms of a covenant without informing your Residents — you wouldn't want any service provider you pay to hold you to rules you didn't consent to in advance. Your covenant should be clearly written and include: Features and benefits - Covenants are used for advertising. What makes your land valuable? Do you boast an exceptionally beautiful beach, or do you pride yourself on top-notch service? Payment information - Many estate owners use rental boxes or other automated means to keep track of payments. Your payment system should be as straightforward as possible. Code of conduct - What a renter can and cannot do. Zoning or theming - For example, you can state that no stores are allowed in a residential area; or you can disallow futuristic-looking builds in your ancient Egypt-themed estate. Best ways to communicate with you as the estate owner - If your instant messages easily get capped, make sure to include an email or web form where you can be reached. Some estate owners also delegate support to their estate managers or other staff. Tip: Communication is key! Make sure your renters can easily get in touch with you. Estate owners and managers are the final arbiters of the estate. Individual landowners (renters) on your estate may not directly request rollbacks or other technical support (such as restarts) but should contact you or your estate managers for those needs. Learn from existing covenants Visit Private Regions where estate owners already have covenants before you write your own. Tip: Many estate owners put their covenants on their websites, which are also used to promote their property. Try searching for phrases like "second life land rent covenant". In the Viewer, choose World > Search. The Second Life Search window opens. Choose Land & Rentals from the dropdown menu at the top and click Search (you may specify a keyword if you wish). A list of classified real estate ads appears. In the lefthand column, select For Sale, customize the Area and Price fields as desired, and choose Private Island - Full from the dropdown menu under Type. The filters update the listings automatically. Click on a listing to view more details. When you find a property that interests you, click Teleport. Once you arrive at the region, select World > About Land > COVENANT. Read the covenant to see if it contains anything useful. If yes, take notes. If not, move on. Warning: Do not plagiarize other estate owners' covenants. Be inspired, not lazy. Improving region performance Statistics Bar To gauge the performance of your region, check the region's Frames Per Second (FPS) in the Statistics Bar: Open the Advanced menu by selecting World > Show > Advanced Menu. While standing on your land, select Advanced > Performance Tools > Statistics Bar. Interpreting the Statistics Bar can be a bit overwhelming, so we'll guide you through the relevant parts here. To interpret the Sim FPS performance of your region: 45 FPS: The highest possible value. No action necessary. 35 - 44 FPS: This is good performance; if it never goes below 35 FPS, you don't need to tune if it. 10 - 35 FPS: This is very slow, and should be noticeable. Adjustment is needed to improve your region's performance. 0 - 10 FPS: This is terrible. You may have trouble moving or performing simple tasks. See above. To see more detail on what's slowing down your region, expand the Statistics Bar by clicking on the Time (ms) line; additional region statistics will appear: The Total Frame Time displays the number of milliseconds needed (ms) to display a single frame. Total Frame Time greater than 22.2 ms means your Sim FPS will be below 45 FPS. For a detailed explanation of the values beneath Total Frame Time, see the Statistics Bar article's Time section. Try these tips for improving performance in a region that is running slowly: Having a large number of avatars in a region is the most common cause of low region FPS. Reduce the number of avatars by selecting World > Region/Estate and adjusting the number in the Agent Limit field to specify the number of avatars allowed in your region at any one time. Reduce the number of prims on your region. Reduce the number of objects on your region. In the Statistics Bar, the Script Time line shows how many milliseconds each of the scripts in your region is taking to run. If this value is over 5 milliseconds, check to see which scripts are the busiest in your region by opening the Debug tab in your Region/Estate window and clicking Get Top Scripts. Once you know which scripts are consuming your region's resources, you can remove, replace or optimize them. Also, note that reducing the total number of scripts in your region can improve performance. In the Statistics Bar, the Sim Time (Physics) line shows how many milliseconds your physics calculations are taking. If this value is over 4 milliseconds, check to see which colliders are the most active by opening the Debug tab in your Region/Estate window and clicking Get Top Colliders. Once you know which objects are your top colliders, you can remove, replace or optimize them. Reduce the use of the following items, which slow down region performance: large or numerous textures; sculpted prims, twisted tori, and other geometrically complex objects; particle effects. Restarting Private Regions Region performance can degrade over time due to an accumulation of long-running scripts, physical objects, and object collisions. If your region has not been restarted recently, restarting it may provide a boost in performance. You can restart your regions from inside Second Life using the Region/Estate window, or from the Land Manager on the Second Life website. Restarting a region from inside Second Life To restart a region from inside Second Life: Go to the region you would like to restart. Choose World > Region/Estate from the top menu bar. In the Region/Estate window, click the Debug tab. Click the Restart Region button. A two minute countdown begins and all visitors to the region are notified that the region is about to restart. If you need to cancel the restart within the two minute countdown, click Cancel Restart to cancel the countdown. Restarting a region from the Land Manager To restart a region from the Second Life website: Visit the Land portal on the Second Life website. If you are not logged into the website, you are prompted for your credentials. On the left side of the page, click Land manager to expand the list of Land Manager pages. Click My Regions to see a list of your current Estates. Under My Estates, click the name of the Estate that contains your region. On the My Regions page, find the name of the region you would like to restart and click Restart or Safe Mode: Restart - Begins a two minute countdown and notifies all visitors that the region is about to restart. Restarts initiated from the Land Manager cannot be canceled. Safe mode - Restarting the region in Safe Mode causes it to come back online with scripts, physics, and collisions disabled, which will affect operation of content in the region until those features are manually re-enabled. Safe Mode persists through additional restarts of the region; the only way to return to normal operation is to manually re-enable scripts, physics, and collisions in the region using the Region/Estate window. Re-enabling scripts, physics, and collisions after restarting in Safe Mode To re-enable scripts, physics, and collisions after restarting in Safe Mode: Go to the region that is in Safe Mode. Choose World > Region/Estate from the top menu bar. In the Region/Estate window, click the Debug tab. Un-check the boxes for Disable Scripts, Disable Collisions, and Disable Physics, then click the Apply button. Transferring Private Regions Important: If the buyer's payment fails for any reason, then the transfer is cancelled and no action is taken. Both Second Life accounts must be in good standing for the transfer to take place. Linden Lab can perform Resident-to-Resident transfers of Private Regions (islands), but both buyer and seller need to agree on a price. Both buyer and seller must submit support tickets, via the Support Portal, naming the region to be transferred and the transaction amount agreed upon in either U.S. dollars (USD) or Linden dollars (L$). Both sides also have to confirm other details about the region being transferred. We can rename the Private Region and move it from its original location at the time of the transfer for no additional cost. Please include these requests in the buyer's transfer ticket. Either party can cancel the transfer by closing out their ticket prior to the transfer being performed. Here's how to submit a ticket: Go to the Support Portal and log in with your Second Life account. Open a new support case. Under What type of problem are you having? select Land & Region. Under Land & Region, choose Initiate Region Sale or Initiate Region Purchase as appropriate. Complete the other required fields. The information must be consistent for both the buyer and seller tickets. When all the details have been entered, scroll to the bottom and click Submit. If both tickets match (that is, they state the same details and value), we charge the buyer's Second Life account in either USD or L$, as specified in the tickets. Once the charge goes through, we credit the seller the same amount minus the transfer fee. Note: Buyers using PayPal need to have their PayPal agreements set to a high enough spending limit. By default PayPal limits are relatively low. Private Region transfers usually take 5-10 business days from the time both tickets are received. Transfer fees There is a transfer fee per region, debited from the seller's account, which pays for backend work by Linden Lab, including: Changing estate ownership settings Billing transfer Region name change Moving the region The fee amount depends upon the type of region being transferred, and whether it will maintain its Grandfathered pricing status, if applicable: Region Type Maintain Grandfathered Pricing? Transfer Fee Full Island Yes $600 Full Island No $100 Homestead Island Yes $300 Homestead Island No $100 Openspace Island Not Applicable $100 Monthly billing The new owner assumes the monthly billing, which is charged on the same day of the month as always. Private Regions, unlike the mainland, bill for the coming month. If the Private Region bills on the 12th of the month, it will continue to bill on the 12th of the month. This means that if the Private Region is transferred on the 14th, the current owner pays for that month. If the Private Region is transferred on the 10th, the new owner pays the fee for the month. Moving and renaming Private Regions Pricing for Private Region Management Services If you own one or more private regions in Second Life, there are several special services you may occasionally need, such as region moves and region name changes. The fees for these services depend on the number of private regions you own; please refer to the following chart to determine the cost of each service: To request one of these services, please submit a case through the support portal on the Second Life website. Additional information on how to move and rename private regions can be found in the next sections. Renaming a Private Region To initiate the renaming process, submit a support case stating that you would like to change your region's name and that you accept the fee. The new name must comply with the Guidelines for Private Region Naming. Private region names are granted at the sole discretion of Linden Lab. Moving a Private Region Private region owners can request to move a region to another location on the World Map, subject to availability. Certain areas of the World Map are reserved for special purposes, including the mainland and themed expansions provided by Linden Lab. If you would like to move your region adjacent to another Resident's region, they must allow you as a neighbor in our system prior to your request for the region move. Note that your private region cannot be rotated, so what is currently North will always be North. The fee for moving a region is charged for each private region, for any movement. Note: Moving your private region causes links made from the Picks tab of the Profile window to become inaccurate. Landmarks continue to function after a move, but home locations may need to be reset. The World Map may take several hours to update with the new Private Region location. Land impact change It is possible for you to increase the amount of land impact that your Private Region can support. Increasing land impact Private Region owners have the option to upgrade full Private Regions from 20,000 to 30,000 prims. This option is only available for full Private Regions. Mainland regions, in addition to private Homestead and Openspace regions, are not eligible to upgrade land impact. Pricing for land impact changes The cost to upgrade a full Region to 30,000 prims is $30 USD per region at the time the upgrade is performed, plus an additional monthly maintenance fee of $30 USD per region. If a region's land impact is upgraded, you must maintain the ugraded status for at least one calendar month. Full Region Type Current (20,000 prims) Increased Prims (30,000 prims) +$30 fee Grandfathered/Bought Down $179 $209 Retail $229 $259 Skill Gaming $345 $375 EDU/Non-Profit $124.50 $154.50 If you choose to downgrade a Private Region back to 20,000 prims, a charge of $30 USD per region applies at the time of the downgrade. No pro-rating or discounts are permitted for any of the costs listed above. Requesting land impact changes To request an upgrade or downgrade of land impact, please submit a case through the portal on the Second Life website under the case type Land & Region > Land Impact Change Request. Backing up and restoring Private Region terrain If you own a Private Region, you can back up your region's terraformed terrain to a texture file on your computer and use that file to restore your region's terrain to its saved shape. This is a great safety net in case you experience a terraforming accident, and it is also useful if you want to apply the same terrain to multiple regions you own. To access the terrain backup and restore controls, choose World > Region/Estate in the Second Life Viewer®, and click the Terrain tab. Then: To backup your terrain Click Download RAW terrain. A file browser dialog appears. Choose a location to save to and give your terrain file a specific name so it's easier to find. Click Save. Next, you see: "Terrain file written, starting download." The download process may take several minutes. Do not leave the region, and don't make any other terraforming changes until the download completes! When the download completes, you see: "Finished download of raw terrain file to:" and the directory it was saved to. Click Close. To restore your terrain Click Upload RAW terrain. Select a .raw terrain file on your hard drive that you or someone else saved earlier. Click Open (or Choose on Mac). You see: "Upload started." It may take up to two minutes, depending on your connection speed. When the upload is complete, you see: "Terrain upload done." The terrain changes to the contents of the .raw file. If you would rather not terraform the region yourself, you can purchase terrains on Marketplace. You can upload these as described above to get great results fast. Allowing neighbors If you own an estate in the Second Life® world, you can allow others to buy land in spaces that are directly next to the land you own. You can specify Residents in the Allowed Neighbors list for each region in your estates. For example: Joe Resident and Helen Resident are friends who own their own estates and want to be able to buy land in the Land Portal next to each other. Joe's estate, Joegalaxy, contains a Private Region called Joetopolis. In the Land Portal's Estate Management tab, Joe can specify that Helen is an allowed neighbor for Joetopolis. Helen can now use the Land Portal to buy Private Regions that are next to Joetopolis, including spaces that only share a corner with Joetopolis. To specify a Resident you want to be able to buy land next to yours: Log into the Land Portal. Click Land Manager > My Regions. Select the estate for which you want to specify allowed neighbors. In the Allowed Neighbors column, click the edit link for a specific region. Type the name of the Resident you want to allow as a neighbor into the text field and click add. Click close. The Resident you specified can now buy land next to that region. To remove a Resident from the Allowed Neighbors list for a Region: Log into the Land Portal. Click Land Manager > My Regions. Select the estate for which you want to specify allowed neighbors. In the Allowed Neighbors column, click the edit link for a specific region. Click the X next to the name of the Resident you want to remove. Click close. The Resident you specified can no longer buy land next to that region Be aware that adding and removing other Residents to your Allowed Neighbors list can result in some interesting circumstances. Consider the following example: Joe Resident adds Helen Resident to the Allowed Neighbors list for his Private Region Joetopolis. Helen Resident buys a Private Region next to Joetopolis and names it Helen City. Now, suppose... Joe wants to buy a Private Region next to Joetopolis that also shares a corner or side with Helen City. Joe can't actually do this unless Helen adds Joe to the Allowed Neighbors list for Helen City. Joe removes Helen from the Allowed Neighbors list for Joetopolis. Now neither Joe nor Helen can buy a Private Region that shares a corner or side with Joetopolis or Helen City. Joe removes Helen from the Allowed Neighbors list for Joetopolis, and Helen adds Joe to the Allowed Neighbors list for Helen City. Now only Joe can buy a Private Region that shares a corner or side with Helen City. Land sales in Private Regions The mechanics of buying and selling land in a Private Region is very similar to the process used on the mainland, however there are a few key differences to keep in mind. Similarities As the seller, the Private Region owner can split parcels of the region and set them for sale. The mechanical act of buying the land remains unchanged. Differences Parcels in Private Regions are governed by covenants. If you buy land in a Private Region, it does not count against your land use tier,but the owner of the Private Region may charge you a similar fee for continuing use of the land. The Private Region owner may evict you from your parcel in a Private Region at any time. Private Region owners have absolute power over their estates and are within their rights to reclaim land as they see fit. Make sure to read your region's covenant closely for terms of use before you buy your parcel. Private Region owners control access to their land (using the Region/Estate window), for example by restricting access to Residents based on payment status or by setting region maturity to General, Moderate, or Adult. Tip: If a region owner changes the maturity setting for their region, it may have an effect on who can access your parcel and view search listings made from it. Read the region covenant and communicate with the region owner (or estate manager where applicable) to avoid any disruptions to your parcel settings or access. Reclaiming land parcels from tenants If one of your tenants has violated the terms of your covenant and you wish to evict him and reclaim his land in your Private Region, you can choose the Reclaim Land... button from the ABOUT LAND window: Reclaiming land switches ownership of the parcel, but not the objects on it, back to the estate owner. Private Region auto-saves and restores (rollbacks) Note: We don't perform rollbacks on mainland regions. All regions, including your estate, are automatically backed up at regular intervals throughout the day; we hold several days' worth of these backup states. This saves everything about your estate: the terrain, the land parcels, the builds, the textures and settings. The only things not saved are avatars themselves. This means that under certain circumstances, your region can be rolled back to a previous state. In the event of an emergency, you can request a rollback via the Concierge service. Performing a rollback can have serious consequences and should therefore not be thought of as an "Undo" feature on your estate; rather, it's a safety mechanism to be used only when something goes very badly wrong. Rollbacks are performed at our discretion. Requesting a rollback Rollbacks must be requested via support ticket and can only be requested by the estate owner or estate manager. Generally, regions can be rolled back a maximum of 72 hours before the original event; please be aware that we cannot roll back indefinitely. The longer you wait before requesting the rollback, the greater the chance that we will be unable to help you, so do make the request as soon as the problem occurs. Please explain: What has happened. Why you need the rollback. Which region it is. Precisely how far back in time you need to go to repair the situation. Tip: It helps if you provide the time in 24 hour format. Please use Pacific time, not your local time. If you have a basic account and are an estate manager, you can submit a ticket through the Support Portal. Log in and choose Land & Region from the What type of problem are you having? dropdown menu. Specify Request a rollback in the second dropdown andfill out the form below. We are not responsible for problems caused by estate managers requesting rollbacks against the estate owners' wishes. Rollback requests are processed in the order they are received, with emergency requests taking precedent. Please note that rollbacks that are not time sensitive may take up to 2 business days to process. Consequences The backups taken are exact copies of the state of the region at the exact moment it was saved. We cannot roll back inventory or avatars. When we perform a rollback, we set the estate back to the exact state it was in when the backup was made. All changes — everything that has happened between the moment the save happened and now — are lost, undone or reset. It is very important to understand what this means before you request a rollback. Some examples of unexpected consequences of a rollback include: People who are banned become unbanned for all parcels and the estate itself. People granted access suddenly find they are banned. Any land parcel changes are undone. Land sold or abandoned to tier down reverts to the prior owner, potentially pushing that person back over the new tier. Residents lose any land purchased after the backup, along with any content on that land. Recently edited parcel layouts revert to their prior form. Objects placed (rezzed) inworld after the backup are lost. No-copy objects are lost for good. Conversely, no-copy objects rezzed at the time of the backup but subsequently taken back into your Inventory reappear where they were. Warning: Deliberate use of rollbacks to obtain additional copies of no-copy content can be considered abuse and is dealt with accordingly. Any changes to builds themselves are undone: textures are reverted and prims reset to the state they were in at the moment the backup was taken. This may mean that recent tenants lose their prefab or their furniture and that new sale items disappear. Any terraforming that has been done is undone and any recent changes to land textures are lost. Script changes to objects performed after the backup point are lost. Scripted vendors that updated with new content after the backup have those changes removed. As you can see, rollbacks have significant repercussions and should only be requested when absolutely necessary. Grandfathered pricing Some older regions have "grandfathered" or discounted pricing on their monthly maintenance fees. In February 2010, it was announced that these grandfathered maintenance fees would no longer be offered and that changing ownership or converting a grandfathered region would change its maintenance fee to the current monthly rate for its region type. As of November, 2015, you may now transfer grandfathered-priced Regions in accordance with the transfer pricing schedule. We are unable to swap the price of a current grandfathered region with a non-grandfathered region. Grandfathered pricing stays with the region for the life of the region or until it is transferred or converted. If a grandfathered region is abandoned and subsequently reactivated, its maintenance fee is updated to the current monthly rate for its region type. Region environment settings Region environment settings provide region managers the ability to customize the environment settings for their region. For example, a gothic castle might have a dark and gloomy environment, or a tropical island might be always bright and sunny. Residents who enter the region automatically see those settings unless they have chosen personal overrides. You may also see this feature referred to by its old name, Windlight Environment Settings. Environment settings control how you see the water and the sky (including the air around you) in Second Life. When you enter a region, by default you see the environment settings that have been configured for that region. If no region-specific settings have been configured, you see the default Second Life environment. The environment controls provide some sample pre-defined settings, but you can create your own settings and either use them as personal settings or apply them to any region for which you are an estate manager. There are three kinds of environment settings: Water Settings: the color of the water, how transparent it is, and how turbulent it is. Sky Settings: the color of the sky, the color of the light, the color and behavior of clouds, and how hazy the atmosphere is. Day Cycles: a sequence of sky settings that control how things look at different times in the Second Life "day." Presets For each of the three environment settings you can define a specific configuration as a named preset, saved locally on your computer along with other preferences. If you access Second Life from multiple systems or multiple accounts, each combination of system and account will have its own collection of presets. Choosing the settings you see By default you see the environment setting that the region manager has set. If you prefer, you can change the default so you see the environment settings you specify.To change this option, go to World > Enviroment Editor > Environment Settings. Click: Use region settings to see the shared region settings (the default). Customize my environment to see personal settings that affect only you: Choose a Water Setting preset. Choose a Sky/Day Cycle preset; either: Fixed Sky, displayed regardless of the time of day; or Day Cycle, to display an environment that changes continuously according to time of day. Click OK to apply your selection. Sun settings Instead of using the environment editor, you can choose from a set of four predefined "shortcut" fixed sky settings that affect only you. Choose World > Sun; then choose: Sunrise Midday Sunset Midnight This selection does not affect anyone else and overrides any previous environment selection. How to turn off clouds and other features Follow these steps to hide environment features such as clouds and water: Choose Me > Preferences > Advanced. Select the Show Advanced Menu checkbox. From the Advanced dropdown menu at the top of the Viewer window, select Rendering Types. Uncheck any features you wish to hide. Tip: This may come in handy if you are in a crowded space and Second Life is running slowly. To turn the features back on, simply select them again. Nothing is lost permanently. Working with presets To create, edit, or delete a preset: Choose World > Environment Editor. Choose either • Water Presets • Sky Presets • Day Presets Follow the steps below. To create a new preset Choose New Preset... The Create a New Water Preset, Create a New Sky Preset, or Create a New Day Cycle window opens. Enter a name for the preset in the Preset Name field. Adjust settings until you have the effect you want. Click Save to create the new preset. To edit an existing preset Choose Edit Preset... The Edit a Water Preset, Edit a Preset or Edit Day Cycle window opens. Select a preset to modify from the Preset Name dropdown. Adjust settings until you have the effect you want Click Save to store the new preset. Important: Editing a preset does not affect regions that are already set to use it; to do that, you must go to the region and re-apply the modified preset as described in Choosing environment settings for a region. To delete a preset Choose Delete Preset... Select the preset to delete from the dropdown. Click Delete and confirm the action when prompted. There is no way to undo deleting a preset. Important: Deleting a preset does not modify any regions that already use it; you must go to the region and choose another setting as described in Choosing environment settings for a region. Working with day cycles A day cycle consists of a sequence of up to twenty sky presets, each assigned to be displayed at a selected key time in the Second Life "day." Between the key times, the environment settings are gradually modified in a smooth transition between the settings for the two times. For example, if the sun is on the eastern horizon at one key and overhead in the next, it will gradually rise between them. To create time periods during which the environment does not change, create key times at each end of the desired stable period and select the same sky preset for both key times. The small downward-pointing triangle above the timeline indicates the time in the Second Life day that is currently displayed; drag it left and right to see how things will look at different times during the day. While the timeline is shown with a familiar 24 hour day, the actual Second Life "day" is four real hours long (a full day cycle repeats every four hours). Note: You cannot vary water settings in a day cycle; they are fixed throughout the day, but at most graphics levels the appearance of the water will, like real water, change depending on the light and how the sky above it is reflected on its surface. Key times Key times are displayed on the yellow timeline as round markers. To create a new key time, click Add Key. The new key is created at the current time in the day and is automatically selected. To select an existing key time, click the marker. The time and sky setting for the selected marker are displayed below the timeline. To move a key time, click on it and drag, or change the value in the Time box by typing a new time or clicking the up arrow or down arrow buttons. To delete a key time, select it, then click Delete Key. Choosing environment settings for a region If you are an estate manager of a region, you can choose the region's environment settings: Choose World > Region/Estate. Click the Environment tab. To use the default Second Life environment and day cycle, click Use Second Life default. To use custom settings, click Use the following settings, then: In the Water Setting list, choose a water preset . This updates what you see, but the change is not yet permanent or visible to others. For Sky/Day Cycle, chose either: Fixed Sky, and choose a sky preset to be displayed regardless of the Second Life time. Day cycle, and choose a day cycle preset. This also updates what you see, but the change is not yet permanent or visible to others. Click Apply to make your selections permanent; they will then affect anyone in the region. Click Cancel or close the window before clicking Apply to return the region environment to its previous settings. To apply the same settings to more than one region, just go to the Region/Estate Environment tab for each region and apply the same saved setting. Region boundaries The environment you see depends on the region you are in at the time. If adjacent regions have different environment settings, any parts of the adjacent region you can see still appear with the environment settings of the region you are looking from. When you cross a boundary into a region with different settings, the environment transitions smoothly over a few seconds to the new local settings. Teleports When you teleport into a region, there may be a brief period during which you see your previous environment or the default environment before the local environment settings are established. Effects on users of older Viewers What will users of older Viewers, or of third-party viewers that lack this feature, see in my region? If you select any day cycle setting for your region, then users of older Viewers will see the normal Second Life default day cycle. If you select any fixed sun setting for your region, then users of older Viewers will see the default Second Life day cycle, but with the sun fixed at the time of day chosen in your fixed sun.