Just a short post in answer to the rumours that seem to have been circulating inworld over the last few days that there are class 6 regions on the grid. We’re not sure where this has come from, but there is no such thing as a class 6 and we have absolutely no plans to introduce a new class of hardware any time soon.  So consider that rumour squished. We have only class 4s and 5s on the grid.

Due to some cleverness that we call Het-Grid, we are able to run different simulator versions, so we have some Havok 4 regions inworld undergoing trials for example, but these are still on class 5 hardware. There is no class 6.

[RESOLVED 9:58 PM PST] The rolling restart is now 100% complete.

[UPDATE 8:51 PM PST] The rolling restart is now just over 80% complete.

[UPDATE 7:31 PM PST] The rolling restart is now just over 50% complete and all is well.

[UPDATE 6:30 PM PST] The restart is now approximately 30% complete.

[UPDATE 5:58 PM PST] The restart is about 20% complete and is still on schedule.

[UPDATE 5:02 PM PST] The rolling restart has commenced and should finish in approximately 5 hours . Please keep an eye on this blog for further information and updates.

[UPDATE 3:57 PM PST --teeple] A rolling restart to fix this issue will commence very shortly. We’ll keep you posted as it moves to completion.

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[UPDATE 7:37 AM PST] - Information appears to be still erratic. Apologies for any inconvenience.

[UPDATE 6:42 AM PST] - Land information remains backed up for now.

[UPDATE 5:42 AM PST] - The situation remains the same, apologies for the outdated information.

We are aware that land sales information is not up to date at present and this is affecting land searches as well. The amount of land showing in MY LAND may also appear inaccurate at this time.

We apologise for this inconvenience. It looks like one of the databases is running behind at present but we hope this will be resolved as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience.

After a few months without any new mainland regions available on our auction site, starting tomorrow we will resume whole region listings.

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We’re pleased to announce that from the 1st February we will be offering the following private island services via the concierge support team.

Class Upgrade

For those island owners currently on class 4, from the start of February you will be able to request an upgrade to class 5 hardware. If you choose to upgrade, the monthly billing for that island will move to the current level of USD$295 per month, charged on the same bill date as you have currently. There will be no downgrade option I’m afraid, and this only applies to private islands.

Class Switch

For those that have both class 4 and class 5 regions, owned by the same account, you will be able to request that the class designations for the two regions be switched around - the class 4 becoming 5, and the class 5 dropping to class 4. The bill date and fees will follow the class in this case, so whatever bill date you had on the class 4 will remain the same on the new class 4 and vice versa. There will be a fee of USD$100 for each class switch.

To request either service, please log into the support portal with the island owning account and file a support ticket. From 1st February these services will appear under the ticket type of ‘Land and Region Issues’, followed by a Request type of ‘Region Change’.  Your account will need to be in good standing with us to use these services.

If you have any questions, please contact the concierge team.

I’d like to talk a little about land supply for the upcoming period, and also to address the many of you that have asked us whether land pricing changes are coming soon. A year ago, in November 2006, we stated that prices would not change before end of 2007 and so with 2008 fast approaching it is a good time to discuss it.

Firstly, regarding pricing.. our current plan is to keep land prices as they are now through Q1 2008, both for new and existing land, for islands and mainland. Grandfathered islands will also remain the same. So no changes to land pricing in Q1 2008.

Regarding land supply.. the average mainland price per meter has continued to hold at around L$6.3/m, which we feel is a good level, low enough for those coming into the land market for the first time and high enough that both mainland and islands can be profitable for those interested in trading or leasing land.

So with that in mind, we will continue to keep the level of new land we add to the market low, essentially concentrating on recycling abandoned land back into circulation. There will be no whole regions of mainland auctioned in the remaining weeks of 2007. In January 2008 we may begin to auction whole regions once more.

Over the last few weeks we have pushed the amount of abandoned land on the mainland down to around 1 million meters; that probably still sounds like a lot, but in reality it’s the equivalent of less than 16 regions of land or under 0.4% of the total mainland space. We want to keep pushing hard on getting as much of this abandoned land back into use and generally cleaned up, so expect to see more L$ auctions being posted to the auction pages through January.

[UPDATED 1:01 p.m. PST]

Land sales are functional across all regions now.  We apologize to those residents inconvenienced by the interruption.

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Multiple regions are offering “Error fetching data” alerts when residents attempt to buy parcels. Operations is diagnosing and correcting the problem now, and we’ll keep you posted.

The auction page will be unavailable today, November 20th for one hour. It will be unavailable from 8pm until around 9pm Pacific time, so no bidding will be possible during that time (there are no auctions due to end during that period, so this shouldn’t affect any of the live auctions).

Over the last few months the number of class 3 machines running simulators on the grid has slowly fallen as we have migrated machines or used the hardware for other purposes such as web servers. Today or tomorrow, the last of these (around 150 regions in all) will be migrated to class 4 machines as we say a fond farewell to class 3 hardware.

For those private island owners affected, neither your monthly fees or your bill date will change, however your island will be down briefly as we make the switch.

As we do currently allow a paid upgrade from class 3 to class 5 (for a USD$200 fee), should any of the class 3 owners still wish to take advantage of that offer rather than accept this move to class 4 - then please create a support ticket by end of Friday 16th November 2007; we will honour any such upgrade requests we receive.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to update everyone on mainland supply and the new auction system.

Those that have taken a look at the new auction site will have noticed that there hasn’t been much land up for sale since it was launched late last month; there are two reasons for the modest level of supply.

Firstly, we have had a few minor glitches that needed to be resolved - we think most of the issues have been fixed now but have been taking it slowly whilst working to get auctions working smoothly. Secondly, average mainland price has dipped to around L$6.2 per meter and is remaining fairly flat at that rate, therefore we have not been supplying many whole regions for auction.

Going forward, we will continue to hold off on providing any new full regions for auction, at least for the next couple of weeks - however we will be increasing the amount of abandoned land we recycle, so expect to see a larger number of smaller parcels (both USD$ and L$ auctions) which has the added benefit of cleaning up the existing mainland areas.

Today, we are launching the new Second Life Auction system. Our new system will be powered by eBay’s private marketplace technology.

As noted in our previous post, only Linden Lab land auctions (mainland and a small number of abandoned parcels) will be placed into the new system. In the future we may also allow other types of auctions and sales through this new service.

You can get to the site through the “Land Auctions” link in the Land Information page on the Second Life website, or go directly to usd.auctions.secondlife.com

For details on access, eligibility, bidding or tracking your bids, see the auction FAQ.

Happy Bidding!