Rates of Mainland Supply
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 11:21 AM by: Jack LindenIn recent weeks we have maintained a relatively high level of mainland supply, between twelve and sixteen regions at auction per day on average. This has caused the average price per meter for mainland to slowly fall to the current level of just under L$8 per meter. In order to provide better information to the community we would like to begin announcing our rates of mainland supply in advance whenever it makes sense to do so. If the many land and economic metrics that we track show the need for a change in supply, we will attempt to blog this information as early as we can, to provide more notice going forward.
To that end, I am announcing that our mainland supply will be reducing to an average of 10 regions per day from tomorrow onwards. If we do not auction 10 on a given day, for example due to hardware levels or grid updates, we will catch up on subsequent days. This rate of supply will hold until at least the end of August 2007. As we approach the end of the month we will blog again with our expected supply rates for the first half of September.
We will also display this information on the Linden Estate Services region, in the foyer of the office building there.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:24 AM
Thanks so much for this information! It is very helpful.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:26 AM
There’s a shocker. Took away revenue streams from gambling. People can’t buy things, vendors lose business, can’t afford their spots….
It’s just going to get worse before it levels out.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:29 AM
i have had absolutely no support on the mainland so i just own an island. the mainlnad is always so laggy too @_@
August 14th, 2007 at 11:31 AM
Gee, looks like that little gambling ban of yours that wouldn’t effect the economy so badly is having more of an impact than you thought. Thank you, Corporate SL!
August 14th, 2007 at 11:33 AM
Gracie wrote, “DUR DUR DUR DUR DUR.”
August 14th, 2007 at 11:34 AM
May you please tell us when you will stop pumping out hundreds of useless new regions and features and start focussing solely on fixing sl instead?
August 14th, 2007 at 11:37 AM
TOo much!
Still 10sims is too much, when end users “absorb” only 400,000sqm or thereabouts on average daily.
This has hurt SL real estate businesses all around.
Please reveal your plans, this info does NOT help MUCH.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:37 AM
So, you drop the rate of buying to a more reasonable amount, if the average citizen is able to outbid the land Barons. Meanwhile, the tier costs do not change… L$11,500 for a piece of property large enough to build on. And the promised ‘free’ 512sq m of land continues to be held in reserve and all property purchased is taxed, even the 512 that is supposed to be free.
Interesting. Great incentive for a basic account to convert to premium.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:39 AM
I would be happy to purchase a whole mainland region but I think the price should be lower then an isalnd since you don’t get estate controls. I understand the tier is lower which I do love! But I am not going to buy one until prices lower even more!
August 14th, 2007 at 11:40 AM
So what IS the target cost per meter that LL is shooting for? 6L/m? 4L/m? 2L/m?
You’re really pissing off private sim owners, and turning off many who would otherwise consider buying one.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:41 AM
Isandra, please start using your brain instead of bitching. Part of fixing SL has been the regions. Until they started supplying lots of new mainland, the virtualestate market was out of control. This was a huge problem and lots of people were complaining about it. As for new features, there’s only one on the table right now, and that’s Windlight. Meanwhile, they are fixing bugs whether you know it or not. Hell, they’re pushing the first iteration of HET-grid tomorrow morning. Do you realize we’ve been waiting around a year for HET-grid to hit so as to enable better updates and less need for new viewers? Not to mention the replacement of the old messaging system with proven web tech like http being used for texture loading, just for example. I am appalled at your wilfull ignorance.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:42 AM
(read previous comment)
Nice one! Why bother actually looking at the US laws on on-line gambling and just blame it all on ‘da man!”
Its so much easier than actually bother to discover WHY things are done!
What’s really difficult for many to get their heads around is that the fundamental building block of the rl economy is always resources- in SL- where anything can be created- the only resource is ‘land’ (disk space).
More land means more opportunity for people, but reduces the value of it- thus reducing investment returns for those who own lots of land.
Less land means allowing said investments produce more returns, but limits the experience of those who wish to have land.
The solution?
Make it us as you go along.
ANY previous model of economic development is usually rooted in the rl model, or refuses to take account for the ‘experience’ (which is after all the sole purpose of SL).
I honestly believe that the lindens are actually doing a decent job- balancing the needs of many users with the desire to maintain a working internal economic stability.
And all that talk of the SL economy falling apart is the sign of someone NOT understanding that a- we just had a boom, and b- one persons economic crisis is ALWAYS another persons ‘perfect opportunity to make money’.
thanks for the info Jack
August 14th, 2007 at 11:43 AM
Thank you for the update Jack, many of us watch these numbers and it is good to let us know. Thanks again!
Cheers,
August 14th, 2007 at 11:48 AM
Cheers! Way to go, LL! It’s about time land got down to a decent price again.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:52 AM
Class 5 SIM for sale. IM for details
#6 Josh
Pull your head out into clean air and breathe. Nothing worse than a Linden employee spinning the koolaide.
As is the real world, in-world real estate is worth less than the price paid. If we could be assured good customer service, secure transactons with audit trails and a company that prided itself on quality; blog entries would be filled with accolades. But this really isnt the linden way.
Class 5 SIM for sale. IM for details
August 14th, 2007 at 11:55 AM
what? 10 is too much, market is already at 6L/sq.m. So… the target cost per meter that LL is shooting for IS 5L/sq.m. I hope in less things but better done: I hope you will stop that ugly gray texture of the mountain; where is the snowy land who is in old Continent? ; )
August 14th, 2007 at 11:58 AM
Do you already have plans for another continent after Corsica?
And two other questions I hope you have time to answer,
Can you supply a map of the easements in SL on the different continents, it would be great for traveling and exploring. After the land is buillt out, it is difficult to know where the easements are. It is easy to get trapped between ban lines without a guide.
Last question, have you found the name for the continent that was buillt before Nautilus? I would really love to know the name of it as I own land there.
Thank you for any information you will provide.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:00 PM
One element Sl can do without.. unscrupulous land barons. Pumping land into the economy and banning gambling is killing two birds (vultures) with one heavy stone. The way I see it… If SL makes the money instead of greedy land swindlers, the better chances that money will be spent on SL’s infrastructure. I can hardly imagine the land tycoons offering their profits to buy better hardware or hire more grid techs. It would be nice if LL would make SL on of the few places on earth noobs wouldn’t have to be subject or fall victim to greedy a**holes. Of course SL wouldn’t be SL if it weren’t for greedy bastids and biatches keeping our mentalities in check.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:03 PM
TY, Jack!
Any chance you could put some down south to finish the southern continent??
August 14th, 2007 at 12:05 PM
Good God CaptJosh, calm down a bit. One thing that you should know is that its every persons right to complain. But I would say that your attacks are a bit much.
Sure wish that people could discuss things without resorting to personal attacks. Had my fill of that in the general forums.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Oh! and I forgot to ask another important question! Are you going to connect the “continent with no name” below Nautilus, and Nautilus and Corsica with protected ocean? I see there is only 2 sim widths between the tops and bottoms of each of these 3 new continents. Please don’t let the water easements go under used after putting in all that work for us. Connect The Continents! So we can explore! Please!!!!
August 14th, 2007 at 12:09 PM
it seems to me that if LL slows down producing land the price will go up? I think I am glad I got mine now.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:12 PM
/me waits (pleadingly) for a police blotter entry that says Thebiggdogg has been banned from the blog for repetitive spamming and for TOS Violations: Gambling.
STFU
August 14th, 2007 at 12:12 PM
Keep those manland sims coming! The less people pay for land, the more they have to contribute to the real creative community and economy, and the less people will be put off from staying in SL.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:13 PM
I’m haven’t gone premium yet simply because I know all economy is fake, be it SL or RL economy. I wanted to see if a viable model had been faked here.
Unfortunately no. Stupid moves got made that effect land sales, and the Solution? Pulling back on supply offered. The “law” of supply and demand is thus contorted into an economy-shaping tool, rather than an index, and no longer has anything to do with real supply and real demand.
Users have been scared off, for various reasons ranging from their planned activities being announced as illegal to grid problems making planned activities impracticable. It is only logical that there follow a “housing crash” after the PR hype-induced “housing bubble”, a result of the politics chosen.
It’s been working like this: Draw them in, then (ineptly) turn them out. And now rein in the supply to keep it all from falling to bits.
It’ll only work if you keep the influx of new users going, and have them find a working, stable platform that lets them get comfortable enough to actually get jacked by the system.
With freebie accounts that will not happen, as one waits to see if it’s worth it, and inevitably decides that it’s not.
To those that staked their entire SL on real estate: serves you right. I came here for creativity and fantasy and constantly find the economics of the system interefering with it. Heavily.
A huge RL nation like the US can “fake it ’till it makes it”.
SL has no such luxury.
The only things in SL that would truly be goverend by supply and demand (RL economic models) are land and it’s derivates, i.e. prim allotment. These take up RL resources (servers, electricity, techie’s paychecks), and therefore have to respond to supply and demand.
Most products made in SL should not, as supply of them, once made, is virtually infinite; and most definitely indefinite.
You killed demand with a few off-key blog posts and problematic updates… Dropping prices are the natural way to come back. Supply and demand was first observed, not invented.
Fo those complaining that their real estate deals are now all white elephants, you should have joined in the chorus complaining about the announcements that hurt possibilities in SL and therefore hurt active population totals. Didn’t care until now, did you?
Not gloating at all, as i know big economy problems in SL could kill SL, and i’d rather like it to continue and succeed, otherwise i’d have already cut out.
But very frustrated. that I am for sure.
And I didn’t come in for that at all, at all.
Will it ever be time for me to go premie? I estimated, initially, 2 months from start… and still don’t find it a good idea. Been in since end of January.
Stick that in your statistics.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:14 PM
Oh yeah… great… *now* you Lindenonians do this LOL!
Was trying to buy a sim for the longest time - kept getting outbid by rediculous ‘landbarons’ - sheesh - I just wanted to whole sim for myself - not resell it.
Well, whatever, got an Island I bought from someone with the old tier rate now so don’t care. No, I would not use voice on it and give you a reason to up my tier LOL
And if you up it anyway - gonna sell it and just rent land from that point on I think . Hmmm… maybe should start buying mainland parcels …. when it hits 4L = M2 - I’m on it.
For those of you that don’t understand - Lindens used to offer ‘first land’ at 1L per M2 - it was a great deal. Problem was landbarons where getting people to buy it, then selling to them and then they resold for too much. So Linden discontinued it (good for you, Lindenonians.)
Anyway - used to be a decent ‘public’ price was 4L - 6L per M2.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:21 PM
wow was I ever over the top there! sorry… and there’s no edit function at that….
Let’s just leave it at “somewhat frustrated” and ignore my rant, ok?
peace out..
August 14th, 2007 at 12:21 PM
Well done Jack, it’s about time. It would be nice if we could have a guarantee that the rate of sim release was proportional to the rate of growth in premium accounts, thereby keeping the number of landowners / sims the same over time.
Won’t happen though.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:21 PM
I agree with Isandra (post #2).
The Lindens need to focus on bugs/stability and not new features that nobody wants.
I opened a bug issue on the Jira a week ago (MISC-548) and it is still unassigned and I have not received any reponse to it from Linden Labs.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:25 PM
Thanks for the post Jack. Info from you guys is always appreciated and I like the policy of keeping us informed.
Now…where to buy, where to buy.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:27 PM
Good God Robin Peel, complaining isn’t a ‘right’, it’s a behavior and a childish one at that. And your wish is mine as well :o)
August 14th, 2007 at 12:32 PM
No! Keep the sims coming! I have objected to your fake land scarcity game all along. SL “land” has consistently been too expensive, and as this new plan to inform about intended changes in the market shows, you still favor large corporate entities’ wheeling and dealing over SIMPLY LEASING SERVER RESOURCES IN AN EQUITABLE MANNER.
Why, after four years have you *still* not come up with a way to kill off the land-baron scourge? Why do you continue to insist all your regular residents work through a system that unnecessarily duplicates all the worst features of the real estate market?
I wonder if you have any idea how much pent-up demand there is for simply buying a PRIVATE space directly from you at more reasonable tier levels like 100$ a month?
These are things I’d like to know, because believe it or not I’m tired of holding onto an awkward little chunk of property I can’t really use in a flexible manner, and which by the way I pay you nothing for, simply because my only other options are to get ripped off paying for an entire island, or get doubly ripped off first paying some land baron for new property and then paying inflated tier because I’m a “little guy”.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:35 PM
It is purely a coincidence that while SL is “cutting back” to 10 new mainland sims a day, they feel the need to raise the minimum bid on mainland sims for $1000 USD to $1250 USD. Funny, when most of the sims I checked the bidding on a month ago were going for an average of $2500 USD. Do they suspect sim auction prices are going to go down?
August 14th, 2007 at 12:36 PM
Good on you, Jack. Good on you, LL.
This announcement and the other announcement that we’ll be getting advance notice of scheduled outages, both speak to the constant cries of “Communicate With Us”.
Two small steps in the right direction.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:40 PM
I guess I got into the SL world at the wrong time; jan ‘07. I was SUPPOSED to get first land but it was never available because of land shortages. After a month or so, they discontined it…it was the reason I originally went ‘premium’… Since I wasn’t going to get first land, I decided to buy. Because of the supposed shortage, the prices were around $20-30L/m.
All of a sudden, we’re getting new continents, and all kinds of ‘old’ mainland is getting sold by LL. I really do feel like many of us were, I can’t think of another word, screwed. Where was this land for the folks who qualified for ‘first land’ and went premium when it was still the policy?
I’ve done OK, and now own a substantial amount of virtual land (a sim’s worth), so I guess the joke’s on me…but I’ve been REAL reticent to recommend SL to my friends because I don’t want them coming to me, feeling screwed.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:42 PM
Finally, your screw ups are giving you a surplus an dshrinking the wallets. How’s the new Car payments going for ya?
August 14th, 2007 at 12:47 PM
Hi everyone. We indeed see a drop of the average price of mainland per m2 published on the SL website. My own experience sofar is that that publication has not effected my business land sales sofar. The reason is that most sales are effected by emotions for a nice piece of land, of course at a reasonable price and considering your own added value to your potential clients. During European holidays ( recentlY ) we see that many youngsters are playing the gams… they have no financials to buy at a certain price. Parallel to that we have experienced a dramatic rate of technical drama. This has several times lead to a negative decision of some of my potential clients. They told me that they had been surprised by the technical problems causing them to rethink there investments in sl.
I suggest to stop the developement of all the nonsens features for / in sl and turnaround the level of engineering intelligence, massively upgrade to professional business administration and business governance.
Too many nonsens play may have been created over the years and maybe it’s time to go back to Keep It Stupid Simple !
August 14th, 2007 at 12:52 PM
You know, I would love to own my own Island, but the monthly cost is the killer not the initial cost.
Maybe SL could do something about that .
I know very well I am never going to be able to win at auction so I resighn myself to my little beach plot and watch the sunset on another greedy world, and maybe just one day….
August 14th, 2007 at 12:56 PM
Add more regions, add more regions, add more regions, why is the price of land so low? Panic, panic, panic, provide less regions, provide less regions, provide less regions.
Knee-jerk reaction, what, LL, nooooo? A management of regions and the economy would have been sensible rather than throwing more regions at the problem.
Besides, land can’t go too cheap as won’t cover the initial setup cost of the SIMS.
Foresight and planning please! Not “your world” when it suits you and “tinker tinker tinker” when it doesn’t! Oh the standards! Where are they again?????
August 14th, 2007 at 12:57 PM
Its about time, And last time i looked 10 mins, ago The bottom for land was 6.1 a sq. meter a month ago it was 10.1 so lets see millions of users lost 40% vallue on lets see 13,000 sims, if my math is correct 19.5 million in us dollars lost in value, What the heck lets throw another 300 sims out there see if ya can’t cost your users another 19 million us, Its all fun and games unless it your 10’s of tousands worth of us. And as long as we are at it why not double the tier cost and make us all wear dunce hats in SL
August 14th, 2007 at 1:00 PM
@ Chrysala #14:
Damn good rant
Couldn’t have done better myself - and I have to agree with a lot of what you say.
Apart from the ending, which could have been better by finishing with;
“Stick that in your statistics - AND SMOKE IT!” :-p
August 14th, 2007 at 1:04 PM
Im not a great real estate person, since I dont own any sims, but if the land cost per meter goes down doesnt that make it hard for sim owners that rent out their land to make money and keep their sims??? LL even admitted it was a for profit company. Makes sense doesnt it? But still I dont know if I am right, so i could be completely wrong.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:06 PM
Mainland was beig sold for 5-6 L per meter for the longest time. The reason the prices were so inflated was the stupidity of the current resellers outbidding each other…and of those who were willing to pay the prices. So what’s the problem if things finally start to normalize?
August 14th, 2007 at 1:07 PM
FINALLY Normal people with normal incomes might have a chance to get a reasonably sized amount of land to live on or start business in SL! Tiers are enough to deal with, and I think the realtors will be fine. If I had enough money to buy and sell sims everyday, I know I would be.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:08 PM
Unfortunately, this force-feeding new sims into the SL economy at such a frantic rate is also hurting the average land owner. I own 8K M2 on a private island sim, which I slowly accumulated over the last year or so, expanding as I could manage to. I was offered a great deal on 10K M2 in a new sim, to live with friends. It was too good to pass up, so I accepted the deal, figuring that it shouldn’t be *that* hard to sell my beautiful waterfront parcel, in a peaceful residential sim. Who wouldn’t jump at a fair price on a parcel that faces an openspaces water sim, with 256 M of open water in front of the beach? Yet with this land glut, no one is willing to buy. I’ve lowered the price twice, and now will have to take a hit on paying a month’s maintenance fees on land I am no longer using, because the casinos are dumpuing their land at the same time that LL is dumping 10 regions a day of mainland on the market. Gee thanks, LL.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:14 PM
[...] We will also display this information on the Linden Estate Services region, in the foyer of the office building there. Source: Rates of Mainland Supply [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 1:16 PM
Ceera, if you had looked around enough you wouldn’t have had to pay a penny for “buying” land that you don’t own anywise. There’s enough people like me that correctly call their sims rentals, and what you get is exactly the same, without the buyprice - and without the prestige of saying “I OWN THIS”, which seems to be the most important part in land for many,otherwise this socalled selling would stop…
August 14th, 2007 at 1:20 PM
It seems there are two camps: those who want to buy and sell land as a way to make money (which they hope to be able to turn into real legal tender at some point), and those who just want land so that they can enjoy themselves in Second Life. I think the game can do without those in the first category, so if they become disgusted by an inability to make something for nothing in a pyramid scheme and leave, so much the better. That would allow ordinary, non-greedy SL residents to buy land at reasonable prices and build and use the land, rather than just shifting it around and trying to make a fortunte with smoke and mirrors. I don’t really care what my land is worth, since I didn’t buy it with the intention of reselling it at a profit. The only thing that bothers me is tier (which is the equivalent of paying for the land again and again); the initial price is just a one-time thing and as long as it’s affordable, I don’t worry about the value rising or dropping in the future.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:25 PM
*raps head on desk. Could we please go a few months without drastic changes just thrust on us. The land market is flooded due to LL changes. Of course one big thing changes everything else. To think other wise is naive at best. I’m so tired of trying to keep up all the while trying to create something decent. When all the while the changes that LL creates; depletes my drive and determination to ZERO. We already have there.com.
Fix the bugs.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:25 PM
Interesting that LL posted this today.
I have about 20K m2 of mainland for which I paid L$14.65 to L$23.44 per m2 between November of Last year and February or so of this year.
The falling prices of land DO make it nigh impossible to rent it out and even cover the tier to Linden Labs.
Last night I went and marked all my mainland for sale L$9.76 per m2 which is lower than the parcels around me are marked at (with the exception of a bunch owned by anschechung.com.) Now it looks like I should just save the grief and drop it to L$5 per m2.
Between my high Linden Labs monthly tier and my loss of steady income from playing Texas Hold’em, I can no longer afford SL.
If anyone wants to see how bad it is… just pull up the map and enable it to show you parcels for sale. Much of the OLD mainland has large yellow blobs on it. Yet LL continues to pump new mainland into the system.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:30 PM
@MarmelaGramela
Actually, the sim I just moved to works that way. I didn’t have to pay any up-front cost for my 10K M2 of land. I just will be paying monthly maintenance for my share of sim operations costs.
My former land, for the most part, I acquired at a reasonable rate. (I paid a premium price once, to get 2048 M2 that became available right beside my existing land, and between me and the sunrise.) It was worth buying the parcels to get into a residentially zoned and well-managed community (Garth Fairchang’s sims are great!). Now if I can sell my old land, I’ll recoup a fair part of what I paid for it over time.
I’ve had land before where I just ‘rented’ the land. And I have had it taken from me, or had the tier jacked up, or had the worst sorts of neighbors crop up, or had the water in front of my land suddenly replaced with an empty, grassy field. In my experience, you get what you pay for. And a good landlord is worth paying for. When I left the rented sims, I had nothing to show for it but my rent receipts.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:31 PM
Hmmm… Has the over all price that the sims are selling for at auction dropped? Just wondering if we find the true answer in that.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:34 PM
Be fair and lower the tier. Then the amount of supplied land will be sold quicker to the residents. Because of the increase of land and more residents your income won’t fall down, because more residents can afford the land then.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:42 PM
@10 Meade: I second that call! The gap in Southern is really ugly. I’s also like to see the three eastern continents joined up with Openspaces, there’s only a few sims worth of space between each.
@15 ari: I don’t think it’s been 4L for anything but trash lots in two years, but until the land bots started up late last year 6L was still a good price.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:49 PM
Excuse me, but shouldn’t the rate of new added sims be controlled or at least effected by the total number of land that is CURRENTLY for sale? If half the map is for sale, there seems little reason to add more land.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:54 PM
I find all of this amusing. I have been warning people coming in that the land price were about to fall since I got her the first of may. It is a reflection of the market in the RL in the USA. If anyone didnt see the writing ong the wall, I dont feel sorry for you. And with the rules on gaming it just got worse. I for one have no problem rethinking prem membership now that I can afford to get so land that will be mine and not some island sim owner’s. On privates you dont own it never have unless you bought it and somehow I doubt LL would ever turn down an offer if someone wanted a sim. SO that leave mainland, yes I know it can be laggy but with the casinos going away it will be better. Beside most of them just ripped of newbies.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:56 PM
@9 said “The way I see it… If SL makes the money instead of greedy land swindlers, the better chances that money will be spent on SL’s infrastructure. I can hardly imagine the land tycoons offering their profits to buy better hardware or hire more grid techs.”
Then you obviously haven’t thought about it too much. The more land a person owns, the more they pay in monthly tier, and the more they pay in monthly tier, the more income that LL has to do all the things you just said you want done. LL makes the money whether it’s the greedy land swindler, the reputable land dealer, or a bunch of artsy fartsy types building things that only other artsy fartsy types can appreciate.
What’s about to happen, and is happening now, is the surplus land supply, having driven prices down more than 50 percent, has led to recessionary pressures on the sl economy. This, combined with the gambling ban and the run on SL banks, has ensured the rapid growth of SL will be slowed down substantially and in fact, it may begin to shrink for a while as people who have lost big pack up and never come back.
something that knee jerks never seem to remember when they’re blindly attacking greedy people, is that it is far more than land barons who saw their virtual wealth get slashed by the land collapse, it’s alot of little people, a helluva lot in comparison to the land barons, who bought land and watch it’s value decrease by 50 percent. People who experience that, don’t recover confidence over night. That compared with everything else is really bad.
LL needs to hire a good economist to consult with when they make deciscions like this, if they haven’t already. Listening to the mobs of people who blindly decry boogey men(in this case, “greedy people”) is no way to operate an economy.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:58 PM
@1 The truth is I think most people would really be greatful if casinos and advertising completely vanished from SL, and I’m not talking about event posters, I’m talking about the adfields we all love! The ones where nobody buys the product, but just compalins about it…but on this subject, I’m now looking at the old mainland with some nostalga: I wonder when Simulated Urban Renewal will begin, and old mainland will become “the” place to be?
August 14th, 2007 at 2:00 PM
I find it interesting that we get a change in the volume of main land
Have you seen the stats on land for sale?
Residents With Parcels for Sale 7,032
Total Parcels For Sale 39,691
Total Square Meters for Sale 29,210,928
Thats a bit crazy. We need better control of this economy. As a multi island owner it really bugs me.
August 14th, 2007 at 2:01 PM
I don’t understand this. Of course, I’m not on the inside of LL, but it seems to me that adding sims at the rate of 10 a day to a system in which asset servers are already burdened to the limit just doesn’t make any sense. That’s like adding more weight to a truck with a blown tire.
Why don’t you focus instead on getting the major bugs fixed and THEN start adding more land?
What bugs?
* How about notecards to start with. When are we going to be able to read notecards within notecards again?
* Why can’t we drag scripts directly from one object to another like we used to, without having to use our inventory as a time-wasting middle-man?
* How about the excessive lag when transferring from one sim to another? Surely it doesn’t take 30 to 60 seconds to transfer a simple bit of user data from one sim server to another. And surely that data can be transferred as we approach a sim edge so the new sim is ready for us when we cross that boundary.
* How about having inventory actually delivered when someone buys something (I mean, how hard can it be for the system to perform a simple data transfer?).
* TEXTURES. There is absolutely, definitely a texture bottleneck in the code that is slowing everything down. If we load a texture, it rezzes, rezzes, rezzes…. come on! How long does it take to load a texture on ANY website on the net? If however, we stop that texture from loading then immediately click it again, there it is, right away! There is without doubt a coding bottleneck problem that needs fixed. Texture loading is slowing the system down down down and costing merchants sales. When is this going to get fixed?
Repeat the above for dozens of long-term, persistent, often-cited bugs in the system. Fix THOSE, then start adding islands at the rate of 10 a day. Maybe the system will run better then.
Just a thought. ; )
August 14th, 2007 at 2:03 PM
I just crashed TPing Sim to Sim, for heavens sake whats the point of more land if I cant blessed reach it, must be my recent tab on my inventory thats tooooooo big and weighing my fat ass down
when I relogged hey ho the old no friends onlinre is back again.
Fix it fix it fix it before I learn chimese and bugger off to hipihi or whatever its called
August 14th, 2007 at 2:05 PM
or maybe just learn to type *blushes*
August 14th, 2007 at 2:11 PM
Let us presume for a minute that people are intelligent. The prices for different qualities of land are dependent on supply and demand. There are, for example, only 47 40/40 (full terraform) mainland sims. Also, coastal land does not increase as quickly as inland (basic geometry). Next, when LL announces the creation of a new continent, it does not require a math degree to figure out that prices will be falling in proportion to the type of land produced. Corsica has no white sand beach, for example, but lots of junk green and mountain. Ergo, junk green and mountain will fall faster and further than white sand. On the demand side, LL publishes stats of premium memberships.
So, rather than moaning about ‘land barons’ or LL’s corporate interest in supply, be an adult and make intelligent calculations and then make intelligent decisions on buying/renting/pricing.
August 14th, 2007 at 2:20 PM
Jack what was the average price of mainland a month ago? Then we’d have an idea how big a price drop we’ve seen here.
10 a day sounds a little too high to me still in a market where prices continue to tumble rapidly.
@9 SL are making money off “The greedy land swindlers” as you so disgracefully tar them. It’s called tier payments.
August 14th, 2007 at 2:24 PM
nice what i read here
August 14th, 2007 at 2:26 PM
For much of last year (at least from April-August), prices were at 2.5 L per sqm on the mainland.
Land speculation is a risky business. If you purchase to re-sell, you’re taking a risk, and it’s a risk accepted as soon as you make the purchase.
One thing people need to learn in Second Life (which many have not) is that any land you buy is no longer worth what you paid for it from the moment you bought it. It could be worth more or less at any given moment…… you agree to the risks when you buy it….. anyone who took even the slightest look into the land history of Second Life would realize it’s the riskiest business, bar none.
People who bought land at 19-20 L per sqm might as well have bought swampland in Florida, and those who were charging people 10 - 20 sqm was nothing short of ripping someone off.
If we’re lucky, mainland prices will go back to a more realistic 2.5 L per sqm and stay there…… that will do more good for the economy than can be imagined.
As for island owners versus mainland, I don’t think they can be equated with one another. It’s like living in ugly downtown (mainland) versus living in a gated community (private island). To me, a well maintained island will *always* be worth more than mainland, simply because there’s no regulation on the mainland.
August 14th, 2007 at 2:28 PM
@ 27 - Sly - I couldn’t agree more with you…
January borns like ourselves - LL really did a number on us. Peak growth of SL membership, land grab fever, living the dream… well LL weren’t pumping out the sims when they should have been. We didn’t get the first land we were due. We got burned on the mainland hugely in the end - we were on neighbouring sims - remember?
So I’ve moved to the island life which seems to be working well. But, I wonder how long it will be before that falls apart because of Linden economic tinkering.
Not impressed generally, but I’m pleased to see how few people are using voice on Book Island and Publishing Island. That’s something!
August 14th, 2007 at 2:30 PM
Ok, Nice to see your letting the MG grow. But what about the TG? What are we? Just a Scape Goat to prevent LL getting Sued by are Parrents? The teen grid hasent seen a new sim *Linden Main Land Sim* in a few Months? but you let the Adults on are grid? i vote Ban All Adults from the TG *Excluding Lindens*
August 14th, 2007 at 2:48 PM
At the moment SL has about 80 000 premium residents. It also has over 8 500 000 people who have signed into SL and decided not to bother with premium membership. To keep the SL economy going, SL needs to retain those people as active members of the community. A key turn off is the expense and complexity of the land market (as well as performance of course).
We need to keep those new mainland sims churning out until the price of land drops to well below 5 L per sq m. Also, I would suggest that we need to have the following:
- a tier free allowance at least 1536 sq m instead of 512 sq m
- a transparent pro rata tier fee system for mainland on the basis that 65k is 200 USD per month, 32k is 100 USD per month, 16 k is 50 USD, 8k is 25 USD, 4k is 12 USD and 2k is 6 USD per month
The end result will be MUCH more diversely spread economic activity, as well as MORE creative people STAYING in SL and spending.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:06 PM
Doing the math at the current rate of exchange and considering the minimum bid on a sim now of 1250 USD, the minimum price on land - at least cost wise will never go below 5.26/m which we are currently gettting close to. Unfortunately, much of the recent land is what the majority of residents consider ugly - the textures on Corsica just plain look bad, and considering the amazing textures available out there (look at some of the private islands), I think LL could have done a much better job on creating new land.
There will always be a demand for the nicer and more expensive properties on SL, as ‘generally’ the people who buy large parcels of nice land at prices that keep ad cutters away keep the sim intact and free of both clutter and ugliness. The sudden decrease of land prices has led to people dumping their land while they can to avoid a loss, and too much of this formerly nice land is now ad cut, and destroyed.
When it comes down to it, every sim that is sold at auction is a guaranteed 195 USD a month for LL in tier fees (much more if the land is divided up and sold), on top of the initial auction price - sure they just dumped 300 sims on the market but they also guaranteed themselves a minimum of 58,500 USD in monthly income from tier fees - it’s all business.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:15 PM
I don’t know much about land. But while reading through the posts. I have second the point in Blinders Off regarding the slowness if texture rez. If there is one single bug that makes SL look, feel and act badly.. that is it. Shopping is a “Job” and it should be a pleasure. Why is it that my AV can stand directly in-front of a display, even click on it. And still have to wait, and wait, and wait before it will rez enough so that I can read the sign? It’s a 512×512 texture.. it shouldn’t be hard to put that on my screen.
Oh well, I feel better just knowing that I’m not the only one who finds that silly.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:22 PM
It is because of the stupid things that the Lindens do economically that I have taken all my money out of the banks in SL. Indeed, the only thing I trust the Lindens to do in the future is to make poorly thought out announcements and ruin another bank like they did to Ginko.
Why don’t I leave?
There is still potential here. In fact this is the only online community that does have potential. It will not happen very fast, if it does happen.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:39 PM
Apple @20 beat me to it. Maybe I don’t understand how this is supposed to work, but I believe that LL announced they were trying to keep land prices down and yet they raised the minimum bid on auctions. Isn’t that sort of like taking an upper and a downer at the same time?
I welcome lower land prices, however they happen. I’m trying to build a mainland residential sim where I can offer reasonable rental rates and at least break even on tier with a little left over to fuel my SL habit. It’s awfully hard when land is going at prices in excess of L$12 / m^2. I’m happy to see it under 9.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:41 PM
What about the ” little people” like me?
I’ve been flying all over the grid for 3 days straight, trying to find a decent piece of land.
The cheap (green) land is sitting inbetween tons of adbords.
And the pretty beach land in a non detroyed area runs for about 28k for miesly 1024sq.
I checked out private sims as well, and they are sitting on massive land because no one can pay these 2000L+ weekly tierfee’s to them.
So these Sim Owners are trying to sell and can’t get rid of the land, since LL pushed all the beach/ main/land out for horrendous prices
(and resale business’s clogging these plots up like mad )
It is upsetting, and I’ve invested so much time searching for not BEST but decent mainland but can’t find anything that fits my budget.
Also off the topic, ( sorry if that doesn’t fit in here, but i don’t know where else to bring this up )
The new chat/friends window is a nightmare! Can it not be converted to fade out when not in use, like the old one? And to be more resizeable? It takes 1/4 over my screen when I use IM’s and its so terrible looking. Will this be tweacked in the future?
Thanks and regards,
Zalina
August 14th, 2007 at 3:42 PM
Wake Up!!!!!! To those who think about the good old days of average 2.5L per sqm. PLEASE there is no more first land at 1L per sqm from linden. They stop it!
And WAKE UP!!!! To those who still call for land price to drop below 5L per sqm.
You are obviously very poor in maths!!!!
Minimum bid is US$1250 per sim and the tier is US$195. So the intial start cost is US$1445! In linden term, L382925 (1445 X 265L). So that work out to be 5.84L per sqm!!!!!! Wake up & do the sum. NOW you see who is the trying profit more!!!
IT IS LINDEN LABS!!!! so long as you guys keep buying the auction lands, they are going to be very happy!!!! They are just trying to pump more & more sims into their pathetic infrastructure!!! If they are so “Noble”, then they should just stop charging land whereby we don’t really own anyway and just charge us the tier. And stop this bull shit about irrational profiteering by so called landbarons whereby they are the one who make the most $$$$$!!!!!!
So stop changing the rules as and when it suits you best. Like stop first land sale and then increase minimum bid to US$1250. Then increase land auction as and when you see you can profit more. Just go back few months ago when average land price is much higher. See for yourself how much land they put out for auction. It is much more than now!!!
The issue is, there greed is coming to back to bite them! Too much Sims and all the things on the sims is being support with too few infrastructure = too many bugs and problems = less user growth.
I dare you linden to be transparent about your infrastructure support details.
How servers, support staff, network bandwidth, etc, etc over time vs the tremendous growth in sims.
Sims per server now compare to a year ago, etc etc.
Give us the details. We demand them. We are your paymaster! We are you boss!
August 14th, 2007 at 3:53 PM
Lions and Tigers And Bears…Oh My! Well I’m here to say….That lets see…I’ve paid approx 65000L$ for 6144sqm on an island…I just paid 72000 tier (thru the end of the current year) and I’m happy! If I want to make money…I GO TO A REAL LIFE JOB! This is entertainment. And yes, perhaps the wave of a future yet unseen, but for right now…it,s entertainment. And I love every moment that challenges me here in this life.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
Flurry Splash and CaptJosh Au, above, are the mian two people I agree with:
1. The Lindens HAVE DAMAGED THE GRID.
2. The Lindens ARE FIXING THE GRID.
3. There is still potential here, and it will grow.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
I would seriously love to see LL revamp the current tier system. There’s no doubt they’d be seein MORE of my money per month, but at the current bent curve stacked to get more cash per sq m at lower holding amounts, i wont be giving them another dime. When an eighth of a sim’s tier rate is closer to 1/4 of a full sims tier than the eighth that it should be, the unfairness of the tier curve becomes clear. Releasing more and more sims with the tier rates stacked to rake the lower amounts for more money per sq m is just lame. And they wonder why people aren’t sticking around.. pffft.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:09 PM
I’ve sat here and read all the comments, stone throwing etc. Looking at the map and parcels for sale, I for one can’t see the reasoning behind adding new Sims, but that’s not up to me as a Resident to decide. I was born in the day of 1L per meter land and a tax system, with no land tiers. I understand why that system was gotten away from, but myself am like probably 70-80% of SL Residents…working class stiffs, who really if they used their heads can not afford high monthly tiers for land that really isn’t. After mortgages, insurance, utilities, groceries, diapers, doctor visits, car payment, gasoline and on and on who the hell REALLY can afford tier? It needs to be brought in line, but will it? NO cause the Real World we all live in suffers from the same mentality… If people want it bad enough they will pay for it.
I’ve never made a dime from SL and possibly never will and owned land in so many Sims count has been lost,but where I am now, there is someone I feel that would love to have my land, so an experiment is in progress…..If someone wants something bad enough and drools over it long enough will they pay the price no matter how absurd? I think yes…Been there and done that in SL and RL myself…
August 14th, 2007 at 4:12 PM
So now that you decided it was more important to worry about vrtual “morality ” than improving the basic performance of SL you find youself with extra land on your hands- this also affects the value of the land I own-be that as it may I am watching SL slowly slide from being a business platform of the future to another passing fad, well , it was a gamble anyway, I still think the idea has potential, if Linden doesn’t set legal precedents for other virtual worlds, but I think this censorship disease is more far reaching than people are aware, just liike the gambling, they complained until it was shut down and now are stuck with the results, and are complaining about that
come on Linden, when I got here there were a bunch of pretty cool pretty smart folks running the show- figure out a workaround-we have to all the time.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:22 PM
I have 10k USD sitting here waiting to buy more privet sims with, but at the current mainland rate low I would not sell a damm thing at cost. At least you’ll let us know when you are done destroying the privet sim real estate business.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:41 PM
I love the new land prices. Bought myself a whole region of mainland cheap and am having a blast with it. That would have been impossible to contemplate at the prior land prices.
Of course, if they go cheaper, will I start crying? Nope. Welcome to real estate folks; you speculate, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:43 PM
Its nice to see they care more about selling land then fixing the game. Then again look at voice who wants it? But its here, aanotehr LL in your face and miss understanding how people are and their needs on SL.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:08 PM
Jack, the economic page says 8 per meter but you have said that it includes the estate land also. And most of the estate land sells for 0L$ because of paypal and other outside sources of payment so how does that part of the numbers work, isnt that averaged in to those false numbers. Just a spontaneous thought.
And maybe we can fix the game so the residents dont leave and just sell there land to get out July and August the worse month in SL. Maybe if you ever showed up to your 7am meetings you could explain this.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:17 PM
As there is about 60% -75% of mainland for sale at market rate at any given time why do you need to add ANY more land till the supply dries up to about 15%?
Adding more land devalues ALL new and existing land big time. Why would anyone want land in an old sim when a new class five is cheaper and actually works without lag?! A shrot moratorium on land additions is the answer. Allow the market to set the prices, not LL. This is different than RL as in RL land is finite. In SL its not.
BUt ahh yess the reason you are adding land is because someone is paying tier on that land whether its for sale or not. SO its not really about land prices, but “taxes” (tier). Sound familiar?
August 14th, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Want to Guess why land was so high ? about 6 land barons shilling up the auctions. TOO BAD. Lower land prices means more tier and more premium accounts fo Linden. That is the only way linden can make money. I have watched shilling in the auctions for the last several months and one baron just took a bath
Oh well, keep them sims coming HOT and HEAVY. They cant shill uo 30 sims a day !
I say Increase it to 50 per day ! Great job on the land release there Linden Lab!
August 14th, 2007 at 5:50 PM
Blah. They could be dumping 50 sims in a day and a LOT of us still wouldn’t be able to afford it.
Here’s something to put in the speculator’s pipes: I was just looking at a 4096 plot, until I saw it priced at L$50k. Going rate? Check it out: That would pay tier for a *month* on a private island and I’d STILL have several thousand $L left over. That’s approx. $180 USD. Why the %(^& would I want to buy your damned plot for 180 freaking dollars?!? WHY?!? What did I ever do to you?!?
Bring on Linden Land; bring back First Land (I bought mine in Nari - the LAST First Land sim, last September I think); drop tier. LL will get more of my money, and the land speculators just might get SOME of my money.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:27 PM
Who gave all the residents credit to buy real estate?
Do i see a parallel with the rl us real estate crisis?
Ok this may be a bit heretical thought.
But Sorry, all this look like a normal market move for me.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:54 PM
Amanda, you also have to take into consideration that if land prices drop much more, people wont’ bother to rent from you when they can get it just as cheaply (or cheaper) elsewhere. Your investment in land, with the hopes of renting to other people, will be subverted by ever cheaper land prices.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:59 PM
Hmm .. this subject is guaranteed to produce lots of muddy thinking. Let’s try this.
If land is expensive to buy but cheap to maintain, then people will develop it.
If land is cheap to buy, but expensive to maintain then they will exploit it.
So one metric to be studied is the ratio between average purchase price and representative maintenance (i.e. tier price) costs.
This is badly out of kilter at the moment. You could act to shore up land prices, which LL now seems to be doing. The alternative would be to reduce land taxes, sorry tier, ….. which I can’t see LL doing since that would mean they would share the grief.
Quite apart from its impact on land usage, a reduction in land taxes (tier) might help mitigate what I see as a liquidity crisis and potential for rapid deflation in the current economy.