AlaskaMetro

I've been watching this thread with interest since I might need to move one of my stores (the sim it's on might be sold, all I hear are rumours lol.)

So, if I have a little store, but need to run the gift card script in every vendor (the TMC one everyone uses, low lag supposedly?) is that going to simply not work at all on an openspace sim?

Does anyone let you rent an openspace (an entire one, not tacked onto other sims) and pay them rent in L$? My PayPal account is broken and I don't own an island already.

Just seeing what the options are.

Jenn Luke

Do you really need the space an opensim gives you for a store As you only looking to rent. There are some nice commercial full sims out there where you would get better performance with a 1/4 sim (assume similar cost).

Wildefire Walcott

If you are the sole tenant of the openspace sim and you don't have a bunch of crazy blackjack tables and disco balls in your sim, you probably won't have any problems at all with your gift card script.

Also, everyone I know of in the business accepts L$ by default and accespts PayPal as an occasional option. I personally prefer L$ to PayPal because the rent boxes track the L$ sales only, and they are very useful since they notify tenants when rent is due, and notify ME when rent is overdue.

__________________

Kesseret

I run that script in all my vendors on my openspace. I have... oh let me go count a minute... oh about 100 vendors... (not a lot but maybe that might give you an idea?)

I've not had a problem with my store on my openspace- and it's not exactly a ghost town.....

__________________

ZATZAi

We'll I'll disagree on the point that only mainland can truly be sold. The way the system works, LL is an estate owner on the Mainland as we are on our own estates. We have access to many of the same tools and capabilities that they do. In fact its the exact same tools, and its why people on the mainland can't access the estate menu but we can on our private estates.

Linden Lab is the largest of the estates, but the land is never "owned". You still have to pay a monthly fee on it all the same, you can resell it but a lot of estates allow reselling as well. LL uses the SecondLife.Com website to manage their tier payments and other estate owners use their own systems. It's just as possible for LL to act in bad faith with tenants on the mainland as it is for a estate owner to do so, and it does happen.

Though it's far less likely for LL to go bottoms up or do something untowards than it is with a small estate owner. Ultimately however your still renting resources on a server, either though an estate reseller or through Linden Lab, you never own any part of the server (Only OpenSim changes this).

EDIT:

Renting directly from LL simply reduces the amount of hops.

__________________
- ZATZAi

Wildefire Walcott

Well I don't think anyone believes that they own the servers. Land ownership in SL is not the same as ownership in RL, that's true. But when I (and just about everyone I know) say I "own" mainland, I mean that I pay the bill to Linden Lab instead of another resident, and the parcel can't be reclaimed by anyone other than Linden Lab. This is distinctly different from having a parcel on someone else's estate and deserves unique terminology.

ZATZAi

I can agree with that, I'm just not sure what the best terminology is. Of course we could use what they do in reality, someone who owns an estate or owns land on the mainland is a leasing the property from LL. Someone who rents that land from an estate owner (Or a land renter as the case may be on the mainland) is a sublet tenant.

These may be more accurate terms but I doubt they'll be adopted.

AlaskaMetro

Yup, that's an option too. Thought it might be fun to terraform an entire sim tho, that's something that's been beyond my reach $ wise until the openspace sims came out.

Aztek Aeon

Maybe not, but the other 3 openspaces on your server may be lagged out as a result.


I finally opted to rent out some of them in an effort to keep some large estates from getting too close to my private sim. I decided on only 2 rules - no clubs/ heavy scripted businesses and its a rental, so they cannot 'resell' all or parts of the sim. (I am not a believer in 'selling' estate land. Charging people 70K to 'buy' an OS is as much a rip off as the 200L/sqm 16sqm lot, IMHO)

I also reserve the right to end their tenancy if they continue to misuse the sim in a way that would have a certain negative impact on others.

So what I have are 6 tenants all using them for residential purposes. They are thrilled to be able to have the privacy and all that space...and our full sim is protected from being closed in on.

However, I also take the time to educate when someone comes looking at one and asks 'why can't I buy more prims for this'?

I had one of those last night and sent her the link to the Knowledge base entry for OS's. She came back and said she didnt understand. I assume thats where most less reputable estate owners would end the conversation.

I took 5 minutes to talk explain the differences and she was shocked that none of the other sim owners she talked to mentioned any of that.

So who do we blame - the greedy estate owners who say 'anything goes-as long as I get your money I could give a rats ass what happens' or 'of course you can put up a club or mall. Dont listen to them, I have 10 others, all with clubs on them!'

or Linden who provides these sims with full disclosure as to the limitations of their product.

No matter the product, someone will find a way to make alot of fast, quick money off of it and most likely in a less than ethical manner. I can only try and help those I come in contact with. It would be wonderful to have a method in which to educate everyone easier and without language barriers.

And yes, I think the Estate owners do have to be held accountable for any misuse.

Dana Bergson

... for certain purposes.

I always loved them and we (OTHERLAND) were probably one of the first real estate firms offering them large style. And to this very day we offer them in many forms, styles and climates and they are the most popular product -- even though we offer full prim land in parallel. Tastes differ ...

IMHO opinion, Open spaces are just perfect to design beautiful landscapes and residential surroundings which resemble the most beautiful locations in RL. They give you room to breathe, more flexibility in placing your buildings and enough area to have a nice garden too, and not just a house in a cramped neighborhood.

That they are abused by some and sold under false claims by others is a different problem. And not the product's fault.

Open spaces (we call them "Large Area/low prim" regions) are perfect for residential purposes and an incredible great offer compared to standard full prim land. For nearly the same price you get the same prim capacity but 4 times the area!

Thats for RESIDENTIAL use, though. And while I would not rule out other forms of use in general, we do include the following warning on all of our web pages related to this type of product:

WARNING: If you want to create very large and complex buildings, or want to use a lot of scripted objects on your land, Large Area/low prim land might not be the right choice for you! Linden Lab has only certified this type of land for non demanding use. Some scripts run slower on low prim land, for example.

This is just a disclaimer, though.

I don't agree with the school of though that sharing a region with 4 others on the same CPU makes this product inherently more risky/laggy than standard full prim land, btw. Usually, you "share" your land with other users on a full prim region, too - as long as you don't own a full sim ...

And I am talking from experience: we have much more problems with lag (or "shared resources" in general) on our full prim regions than on our low prim regions. If a full prim region is cut up into a dozen parcels and sold to different owners, the probability, that one of them runs some scripts, who drag down the server noticeably, is not actually a small one, unfortunately.

Vengence Opus

what is an Open Space sim?

__________________


“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.” ~ Charles Bukowski

Dana Bergson

Well, but there is this terminology, Wildefire
One is called "buying mainland".
The other is called "buying estate land".

I guess, you would not consider this difference in terminology sufficiently different, though.

Actually, this discussion is as old as the possibility of third party ownership of land on Estates. You will find corresponding threads on the LL forums dating back to 2006 at least. Anshe started it first and one of the reasons for the high flying discussions was probably the fact, that Anshe always had her share of opponents on the forums.

As the owner of Otherland, one of SL's largest Estates, I am certainly biased, but I would like to mention, that there is not that much of a difference between owning mainland and estate land, IMHO.

In both cases you have to pay someone else a monthly fee and - to be honest - in both cases you might be thrown off of "your" land in case the Estate owner comes to the conclusion that you deserve this. (On well run estates the cause is usually the lack of payments or a blatant breach of the Covenant/ToS.) Actually, I believe that this happens more often on the mainland than on third party Estates in absolute numbers.

In the end it is all a matter of trust and reputation.

If it is your firm belief, that only Linden Lab merits your trust and you are suspicious of any other resident as an Estate owner, you will usually buy mainland. If you think, that some of the owners of third party Estates merit your trust, too, you will consider owning land there, too ...

Actually, I believe, that at least some of us Estate owners deserve this level of trust. But then again, I am biased.

Aztek Aeon

Aren't you just further confusing the already confused general public by giving Openspaces (the actual product name) your own term for them, 'Large Area/low prim regions'?


Why not call them what they actually are, so when a consumer is comparison shopping, or perhaps looking for more info in the knowledge base, or otherwise, they can do so easier.



Actually, its 4 OS sims to a server, not 5.

Beebo Brink

I would agree that some, even many, estate owners are trustworthy and solvent (which is at least as important), but the problem is that many residents don't know how to make that distinction.

I see dozens of ads for estate land in the Real Estate section of SLU and don't know more than 3 or 4 (at most) of the names I see. So how can I choose wisely? How can I prevent ending up on an island that will close down a few weeks after I move in?

If LL closes down, the entire grid is gone and all of this debate is a moot point. But meanwhile, estate owners are crashing and burning all the time. There are dozens of threads both here and on the SL forums from residents who suddenly had their stuff returned and home yanked out from under them because their land lord went broke, had RL problems, or got bored with SL. So there is, in fact, a much higher risk factor with estate land than mainland.

__________________
Noob: "okay.... im in a house with cages and people in gags and the door just locked and i cant get out :c"

Wildefire Walcott

LOL, I'm obviously not even a blip on your radar. Otherwise you wouldn't have lectured me about trusting estate owners, considering that I'm an estate owner with dozens of occupied regular and openspace islands.

Wildefire Walcott

Actually, it's 16 openspace sims to a (class 5) server, 4 to a processor/core.

Jenn Luke

Well they are certainly good for that and its a lot of fun.

Dana Bergson

Because this name tells potential customers, what this product is about -- and this is never a really bad idea, IMHO

Dana Bergson

I could not agree more, Beebo. On the other hand, this is a problem/question, which is not too uncommon for many products and especially services in SL or RL.

The easy solution to this challenge is usually "buy from the biggest one", based on the assumption, that size somewhat implies security, which certainly is not always true.

Another solution to reach an informed decision might be to collect some more information: check how long the firm is around, ask existing customers etc. Then again: you might consider this too much of an effort and go the easy road ("it was never a mistake buying directly from Linden Lab, Microsoft, Toyota ...") This is certainly not a "wrong" decision. You just severely limit your options available.

Looking at the land market in SL I would say, that buying from well managed, long established firms, like ACS, Azure, d'Alliez, Otherland etc. or on a themed continent like Caledon, does not pose a huge risk of the seller going belly up during a typical tenancy. At least there is huge probability, that the seller is still around, when most buyers have long since left SL again

This still limits your options - depending on your taste, there are interesting offers by smaller and younger firms, too - but at least you have some more options available than just limiting yourself to main land.

Dana Bergson

Please forgive me, Wildefire No offense intended.

Actually I don't watch the competition THAT much. I really don't know more than a few of few of the larger one. The real estate market of Second Life is just too huge. It won't happen again.

Sorry.

Wildefire Walcott

I wasn't offended, just found it funny. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of us now.

Ayesha Lytton

Hi all. I just wanted to say thank you for this thread. I'm pretty new to the land business, and am thinking of offering openspace rentals as well as regular sims (which I have currently). I am researching openspace sims so I can write a covenant for them, and present honest information to potential tenants about their limitations.

I feel ready to start offering full and half openspace rentals, but in terms of subdividing further, how many parcels/tenants would be OK? It would be strictly residential, but I don't want a situation where, as Stroker said, people can't use their sex beds or TVs, etc. because the sim is overstressed.

Aztek Aeon

I stand corrected! This line in the knowledge base confuseth me

-"Normal regions run on their own dedicated CPU, but the Openspace regions run four per CPU; as you would expect, this limits their performance. Openspaces only ever share with other Openspaces on a server."

Aztek Aeon

I have one that I cut in half and rented, but I dont think I would go smaller than that. Maybe its just cuz I am a prim hog myself and don't see the attraction. Or maybe I just feel that if someone is going to buy something that small, they might as well buy a regular prim parcel if they are foregoing the privacy.

For my tenants, its all been about privacy.

Dana Bergson

I would suggest not to cut up such a sim into more than 4 parcels. The perfect size is 1/2 IMHO. It offers customers the feeling that they own the region alone and with 1875 prims there is a lot of capacity for a spacious home and prim based vegetation.

1/4 region with 937 prims is still fine, when you don't plan for a HUGE house but are happy with a tiki-like south sea style building or a simple bungelow. Anything smaller than that doesn't work too well on an low prim region.

This might sound surprising to some. The reason for this advice is a simple one, though: you tend to build a bit larger if there is room to spare With less than 937 prims you quickly run into a situation where you have to decide between furniture and trees/plants etc. And a parcel that is bare of vegetation is usually not a nice thing to see (if you don't style it as desert or tundra) especially when there is a huge area around your home.