1. How does it compensate for reduced revenue if no mainland sim ever sells for its reserve, usually it's at least double and sometimes nearly triple the new amount?

The only thing it might do is give LL some insurance if land prices collapse...

You think they know something we don't?

Posted at 12:17PM on Aug 1st 2007 by Eris

2. Well, you don't increase the reserve unless you expect that there's a possibility that that's all you will get. Well, it's _smart_ to make sure that the reserve covers you.

Possibly, they foresee something that we aren't.

Posted at 12:19PM on Aug 1st 2007 by Tateru Nino

3.
I don't know much about land, but raising the floor bid may just be something to ensure that prices won't fall.

I assume (but don't know) that previously, through shortage of land, most regions were traded above that level anyway. But with possible reasons for people to exit (new continents, casinos and fed up users selling out) it may be more of a trick to stabilize prices.

Posted at 12:24PM on Aug 1st 2007 by Nicholaz Beresford

4. The last sim to go for its starting price was back in November, so this won't make much difference to revenues.

However, I guess LL can only assume it will get the starting price when writing its balance sheets. Doing this has just increased its recordable future income from auctions by 25%, despite nothing really changing.

Posted at 12:59PM on Aug 1st 2007 by Stephen Zenith

5. I call land glut.

Posted at 1:32PM on Aug 1st 2007 by KirbyMeister

6. perhaps this is related with the ban of casinos.....

Posted at 3:14PM on Aug 1st 2007 by TigroSpottystripes Katsu

7. Private estate owners have been paying US$1650 for a sim since November of last year; this is still US$400 below what they pay, AND the tier for a mainland sim is US$100 less.

Posted at 3:25PM on Aug 1st 2007 by Chance Unknown

8. True, but for that US$400 less and US$100 per month less, you don't have as much of a say as to how the region should be run at all.

You can't keep the sun up all night.
You can't texture the ground oddly.
You can't force people to start at a specific point in the region when TPing over.
You can't take back land when idiots start building fscking annoying giant towers loaded with advertisements, unless you resort to crazy byzantine grouping and deeding + rental procedures. With private regions, taking back land is possible for reasons, so you can give your tenants more of a semblance of ownership.
You can't lock down access very well (private region owners get to vet access to the island on a 'allowed groups' basis if they so choose, mainlanders have to be content with parcel-based access controls)
You can't force a reboot ahead of Linden Lab scheduling (which is quite a problem on days when the grid is crashing massively, but not as much when the region itself is already inaccessible even to the owner)
More often than not, you can't get one contiguous full region and the full 15k prims that entails when buying mainland. This is not the case with a private region either fresh out of the manufacturer's box or bought over from another landowner.
You don't get to pick a name for your region.
You don't get to terraform elevational changes of +/-100m between adjacent cells on mainland regions (excepting the oldest regions for legacy reasons), or decide to have a deeper ocean.

Having said that, private region ownership is not for everyone.
You have to be more hands-on as Linden Labs only interferes in issues that estateowners cannot solve at all with their available estate controls.
You have to pay the tier for the entire region regardless of how much uptake there is, and how much income you're getting as a result (this may be irrelevant if you're getting a island for reasons beyond raw income, but you have to remember that you can't partially detier from a region except by finding other residents to share the tiering load with you)
You have to start paying attention to matters of governance. Abuse reports on private estates are routed to estate owners and their elected managers to handle, not Linden Labs.

it's a matter of what sort of poison you prefer, I say.

Posted at 4:14PM on Aug 1st 2007 by Patchouli Woollahra

9. And honestly, Chance, the extra money you pay to be on a private sim, versus mainland, is worth it.

Connected sims suck. Totally blocked in landlocked ones suck even more. 40 people max in the sim sucks if you have more than 2 lots that get any steady visitors at all.

With all of the ex-casino land now for sale, it's just going to drive the value of the land even lower, so raising the reserve is a stop-gap measure to keep them from losing even MORE money, especially once this new continent opens up, and land values continue to plummet.

Honestly, opening up a new sim, with all of the land I see for sale right now, is absolutely pointless. Especially with their "daily numbers" showing a decrease in subscribers. More land for sale WILL NOT equate to more customers becoming premium members. Especially not with the crappy server performance lately.

Seriously, screw voice. Fix the servers first.

Posted at 11:51PM on Aug 1st 2007 by Kahni Poitier