Prokofy Neva, Virtualtor
This is from 2021. Sometimes I keep posts I didn't publish for some reason because I didn't finish editing, then I forget to post them
So, thinking of the last few days, there is the ebb and flow that always happens -- and I can't really record it all, even to keep track of all payments and all tenants -- because it's a chore to then make sense of it. That is, I could move to a vendor system that did more of this, but then that's an expense, and it's lag, and I think with this small a data set, it's not worth it, when I can kind of eyeball it. I have always pursued a model of having a number of lots spread out over many sims so that if anything goes wrong on a sim, the land can be abandoned or sold and something else tried. But I also have some compact communities, on 2-4 adjacent sims, and I don't want to be selling parcels out of those, because I could end up with problematic neighbours.
Generally I have this attitude: never get in the way of someone who wants to buy your land IF it is not in a compact community and has no tenants on it.
Since the death of Ebbe, the continued broken search (now some 9 months), the failure to replace Oz (VP of Engineering) and now this very big dislocation in the gatcha policy, I have been steadily selling or abandoning land when I could. I pulled out of Adscita and put it all to sale.
Interestingly, Winning Witte is there, with his land to sale for $9.8/m, and some holdbacks set for higher amounts (not an ethical model in the view of many Mainlanders). At first, he had yellow crime scene tape to show the borders, and I simply IM'd him and said I thought his land would sell better without the crime scene tape. Which is what I call it. Because that's how it looks.
I had a waterfront in a snow sim and an outpost for my rentals and the Mainland Appreciation Society in a sim called Immortalis, and I decided to liquidate both of those. These days, I prefer to liquidate than abandon. It used to be I would never abandon because I thought it was bad for business -- the name of your group is not there (at that time), and it looks like you are joining the general failure of SL rather than trying to reverse it.
If you sell land rather than abandon it, you can then have a land baron buy and hold it and sell it for a profit, most likely, and possibly mark it up so high that the end user who will buy it will keep it nice. More and more lately, I just see land flipping among various rental companies, not ending up with end users. Also some rental agencies use "for sale" as a form of advertising "for rent," something I am really reluctant to do -- because for one reason, you have to be online to turn the land back to the rental group before someone buys it out from under the person who just paid rent. I just think that's a situation to avoid. But if you are a larger company with staff etc or you don't care, you do this. I rarely do. I think it adds to the misleading field of noise in SL advertising. But no one cares about stopping this but me.
So I was interested to see -- at what price will bots eat land now? We have known for years that the liquidation price has to be under $1/m, or the price you would pay Linden Lab to pick up abandoned. So it might be 0.9 or 0.7 or something, which I recall selling some back land in Lost Grounds for more than a year ago. But then I saw when we bailed from Kamalakara with the appearance of a beast there with "admission price" checked on the land (who DOES that? Who has EVER DONE that in the history of SL???), that liquidation was now down to like 0.7 or less.
No, it's worse now, at least from my anecdotal evidence. And there are no bots. I have not seen a land bot in ages, even liquidating may be a dozen pieces in the last few months. So I put my snow at 0.4/m finally, and Winning Witte then personally came and manually picked it up -- not a bot. That is, he's sitting there refreshing the page of search land for sale. And he also appeared in person, manually (unless he puts his account on bot mode at night? I don't think so) to pick up the Immortalis piece for 0.3/m, roadside. That flipped, so he probably set it very low; the snow awaits a buyer.
Usually land barons keep trading tiers, i.e. they will only buy up to X amount of tier so as to avoid tier jumps and lack of planning for the next level at a discount (more than a sim). So maybe small parcels are useful. I think few people value the liquidation role of land barons. I always have. They are there "just in time" to liquidate land in the middle of the night when people fail to sell their land for a high price but don't want to pay the tier about to drop on them at midnight. At least...it used to be that. And it truly isn't any more. I recall one parcel in Kamalakara left to be eaten or liquidated sat for several days. It's bad out there. But of course everyone has a story. This is just mine.
Immortalis seemed like a great name for a sim. I had a vague notion of putting, I dunno, a castle in there? But I don't like vampires. Why did no vampires buy it all this time? I had settled there after seeing that a former tenant had anchored the sim with his store, nicely landscaped. There was nothing else on that sim or the next -- oh, because a giant Bella dome blighting all life on the planet belore. I used to land at the bottom of the sim, where 128/128 was (I always travel by plugging sim names into the map), and look upward, at a vast field, like Wyeth's "Christina," and crawl up, although sighted, keeping my draw down. PS it's not grass but granite mountain. Speaking of which, that mountain top on Motorcyclone was being let go for nothing, after the owner abandoned a lot of other plots all around it. Should have known that someone who has already abandoned many parcels and has one out of $3000, a 1024, and doesn't answer your request to lower it, is someone who will abandon it in two weeks.
Like my neighbour of some 15 years (!) in Winnipeg suddenly abandoned his land the other day. I have no idea why. He had ban lines which were annoying but he was at the edge of the sim. He had elaborate builds in the sky and who knows what his story was, I never talked to him. You live besides someone for 15 years, they have ban lines up which you bang into with annoyance now and then, they return a tree now and then, wordlessly, and that's it. That's Second Life. That's the Mainland.
So then I went over to Cayuga and decided to square up my land and abandon some more, and if the idiot next to me with the orb wants it, great. Because...
For some 8 years, I had a tenant on a ragged triangle on the riverfront in Winnipeg -- before that a famous oldbie lived, then I bought that land, then someone else had it for ages, then finally this last person. She never paid on time. Her rent was US $5.00/mo. If she's from Japan, and not Spain, I think, well, that's affordable. Again and again, she's late, I give her a certain amount of forbearance, because I know this jagged land won't rent. So she gets away with this, knowing it as well. She had a viaduct on the land, and some drab brown Japanese store buildings but not a store, with like, I dunno, barrels of saki -- more like a backdrop than a home. Then perhaps she had a skybox, I never looked. So at some point last year when the pandemic got back, she really disappeared for a long time. I heard from others she was sick. Maybe COVID but it was vague. So since she had been there 8 years, I held her land. So a month, three months, four months, five months go by, and then I notice that in fact she has logged on, but not paid anything. I had asked her to pay me some back rent if she showed up again and said I would hold it -- some people will do that; most won't. So when I see a person logging in after a long hiatus, but not paying, then their stuff is return. A neighbour with multiple lots immediately grabbed it; should have freed it up sooner. She says if that person shows up and pays her back rent up to me, she will give it back to her.
Then another month, suddenly this person drifts back in, pays nothing, and takes a cheaper rental in G, always harder to move than M. So I just leave it. Everyone has a story; I have one too, but I am usually too kind hearted than not, and more and more this has to end. It ended in Cayuga more than a year ago when I scrapped the camping site there because of alt infestations in $50 rentals meant to be just for multiple single avatars, and when it happens one too many times, I end it -- as I ended rentals in Brownless, Obscure, and several others over the years -- too much crazy town. I took Patagonia and Itame, formerly cheap small parcels, and converted them to one large parcel and a few large parcels, respectively. And they rent better, and there is no motivation to go on "helping the poor" -- who, 9/10 are really wealthy people with multiple personality disorder and 12 alts they want to put in my cheap rentals. Often with breedables to boot.
So I get a panicked IM from someone who has rented a large lot in Cayuga which used to be my home -- I took my home out -- why take up valuable real estate with my home?! and moved it to the former camp area. It's a pretty area where everyone has nice builds and waterfalls and always rents. So this person tells me that the returnee has now put out a large store with flashing lights and PS has filled up the commons, going over the border of her small rental.
I fly out there and see that this is like a Japanese Time Square -- a moving chyron, flashing lights, glaring glow everywhere, arcades, and a store "look" if not actual prims taking payments. So I ask her to remove it. I say it's not a commercial area -- and that includes "cities" that are fake -- because the WHOLE POINT of having this rule is so that people are not forced out by large, bright, busy buildings. No, I don't want my cheap land in G being exploited for your business, so you benefit more than I do. But the real issue is that it drives others out. I explained this with my usual triadic repetition of the narrative.
Long ago in a course on "The Morphology of the Russian Fairy Tale" I learned the importance of this thrice repetition, "one for each brain" as some put it (mind/heart/body). More prosaically, if you ever listen to someone making plans on the telephone, they always say the same thing three times. This is hard wired. I accept it. I will say things three times.
Then I'm done.
Then I ask you to scroll back.
I pointed out that I had held this woman's build for months on end for no pay; I had let the requirement to pay me back rent go; and now her rewarding me with this flashing building was not acceptable. Put it in the sky. It's ugly. She says very frankly she likes her ugly building, and wants to keep it out in this pretty area. She does concede that she needs to move out of the commons. This goes on and on, with me repeating the offer: 1) put it up in the sky or 2) move roadside on another sim as these buildings are not allowed in residential. By now, another nervous tenant is IMing me, and I now have likely 3 people who will move out just because they think this situation is not being resolved quickly.
Finally, this woman storms out, crying that I am mean and cruel and unfair, that she does not have a store, etc. etc. Peace is restored to Cayuga.
Then the person for whom I did all this, the tenant on the largest piece of land, refunds two days later because she has bought her own land.
And this is how it is. That's why you can't become too attached to land, or expect tenants to stay -- I can always tell when a tenant will leave fastest. They ask for some special favour, to move the rental box (which isn't special, happy to do it) or move some rock (that's already a favour) and they say, "I'll be a long term tenant here". So then I know that I'll be needing to plan for a clean-up of that lot in oh, 3-7 days lol. Maybe not. But much of the time.
So what else...
Someone moves to a much larger lot. Someone else takes yet another lot. Someone moves back who has been away for awhile. I usually don't ask people why, because it's not my business. I'm not renting charm or socializing; I'm renting self-service land. I try to be pleasant and enjoy talking to people who are civil and decent; when they aren't, only rudeness works. Nobody likes the fact that in cheap rentals, where someone is paying you LESS THAN THE CHEAPEST THING IN THE 99 CENT STORE as I suddenly realize, rudeness has to serve as the brake on their endless, endless ability to drain you down.
So I do ask the one, Bellisseria home getting dull? No, they aren't in that, not interested. They just needed more prims on the rental they have of a much larger lot elsewhere, but that landlord didn't have it, so they decided to go to another sim to store -- whatever. I don't look.
Yet another person resurfaces after a long break from SL -- there are actual new people who take skyboxes -- etc. So is this evidence that in fact the gatchapocalypse won't be so bad?
Why is anyone moving into a bigger rental now? They are unaffected by this? Some of my gatcha store renters have gone on vacation in RL and hope when they get back things will be more clear. Some added space. Some moved out. Hard to tell how this will go.
I think the main factors now for larger rentals or coming back after no rentals are:
o school comes very early this year; my nieces were starting August 1 because they lost so much from COVID. That means stay-at-home parents have more time because they are still working from home as many companies kept remote
o but unemployment is running out, and Grampa Joe is not renewing it and there aren't any more stimulus checks. I read this one economic analysis that says people saved so much while on unemployment, with less travel, less gas, less need for clothes and drycleaners and eating lunch out, that they have money stashed away and are not looking for jobs and can therefore (I think) still play SL.
But I still think there is going to be (and already is) a very stressed economy because:
o people having big fights over things like the glowy store -- that person had no glowy store for 8 years, why now?
o another person first asks to expand her rentals to twice the size, moves in a boyfriend (the last one left in a sad breakup -- he was one of the most avid hunters for the free month rent eggs). I instantly know this won't last. That is, the rebound boyfriends after a longer relationship tend not to last, but the expansion of her home for him moving in is not how it goes usually. Or at least, I see this dynamic: these boyfriends moving in feel somehow embarrassed and having a girl pay for them -- in front of me. So while she may still pay for a rental, they want it to be somewhere else. Or maybe they WILL pay for it, but then she moves in with him, he controls the situation, he can boot her.
o This tenant very pragmatically tells me she is moving out with the bf about a week later, surprise surprise and she wants me to keep her rental as she thinks it won't last long. No, I say, I can't subsidize people's SL any more than I do. I am cutting it in half again; if it is here when you get back, great, if not, well, I will find you another.
Enter Mr. Fundati, because now I am landscaping again LOL. Mr. Fundati is one of my favourite people in SL although I don't really know him, I've only chatted with him a few times. He made this Breaking Bad gacha with the turtle and the head -- you know the one -- and I said "I can't believe you went there."
"I did," he said, endearing himself to my heart, as I liked Breaking Bad, after rejecting it for years but finally watching it all at once over a really bad 3-day long weekend with a toothache. He did a very good job on that gatcha and his other one, with these Mexicans and their machine guns lolling around the tianda. If someone is going to squawk "cultural appropriation," you came to the wrong place because if he isn't Mexican, he's Latino (actually, he's Russian-- same thing lol). He has a husky avatar in a suit with some kind of helmet with horns, not sure what that is, but he is generous with his weekend sales for $75, mixing in also the art work of Silas Merlin. I have no idea how those two found each other as they seem to be from different worlds, but you know, people do.
The other thing I really admire about Mr. Fundati is that he has a Mainland business, in Horizons, on a 1024. A modest little skybox with vendors and signs and very neatly presented. Even some of the trees. I think they have double prims in Horizon. Still, it's a modest but effective business. Because the main thing to like about Mr. Fundati is his trees. They really are among the best in SL, if not THE best for the desert/southwest/Latin America look I want on some sims.
I asked in his group what trees go in Peru or at least roughly in that area because I had a strange assemblage of like his Greek Firs or Joshua Trees which maybe were not quite appropriate, but it's SL, who cares.
To my surprise, he made a housecall, something I have rarely seen an SL merchant do there are some notable exceptions. He put out some suggestions. I didn't like one, I like another, I went back to the store to buy it. Fortunately he doesn't make gachas to stay live -- he had 2 or 3. Mainly he sells the trees. These much larger companies like Heart and Hayabusa of course have many years on him and bigger customer bases. But I hope he keeps going. His trees in fact are not as expensive as theirs, but unlike Little, are better looking in my view, although I will buy Little if they are 50L.
o Another person who had split up with a bf, then moved into a separate rental, then moved out, who knows where, maybe to another rental merely, maybe to another bf, shows up and moves into my "retirement home" which of course I have turned into sky platforms for now because my God, I hate unplanned purchases like that, it has to get something offset.
o Then another person shows up to take another one. Then all of a sudden I realize I am overbooked. There are no more prims. And I was going to make the villa at least sparsely furnished. So then I see the 2048 on the auction had no bids. I spent awhile talking to someone who landed on it, a simple gentleman who seemed never to have bought land, only rented apparently. He wondered if the scripts on it would work and his Tardis would work. Well, yeah. But he better group it and count the prims. I explain all that. People spend years in SL and never learn about these things. I explain exactly what he needs to do to get this land sanely and without panic. But he is too reluctant, he drops out, someone else who flew out there says she doesn't want it, and I consult with my son.
o A day later I have this parcel now to fix up the prims, the 2nd person has already left the rental (this is how you can make sure people leave rentals: make sure you have enough prims for them). I have been told how bad the view is down there, and I fly down and notice that next to all this gorgeous Blake Sea expenso stuff, there are people putting their houses in the sky; plywood; junk; and selling land for only $10/m. Oh. Now I see, you can't really be sure you can sail out of there, the land is owned by someone else who has passage now, but that could change...
o I begin a project of retexturing this villa which has a lot of old grungy textures which never stood out to me when this building was up in the sky with no lighting, and which now really bothers me. You can't just paste texture over a building where someone has made 100 mottled and shadowed textures to give it depth and character, so it means finding OTHER textures that have those features, plus hoping that some of your paste-ups without depth and character won't show...
o Someone is not paying their rent. A Trumpkin. Perhaps their stars are not rising. Someone else then pays the expired box. They want the previous person's stuff removed. I often leave it if I think they may be back soon enough because it may not rent. So why discourage the previous tenant/ I'm changing my thinking on this...
Then after I have removed the house and lots of pink sparkly stuff, not really looking at it, this new tenant says:
"Where's the house?"
They always do.
I say, "It's the previous tenant's house."
"But I want it."
Well, if you remove their prims, you don't leave their house which they will come and take away, especially if a single copy gatcha? So I tell this person, who wants a free house basically, that these are parcels without the free houses. But go to Ravenglass and Jubata, where the houses are free, i.e. don't count on your prims, pick one of those out, and I will put it out for you here, but yes, it will count on your prims, because these are empty lots rented, not houses rented, the pricing is different.
This is repeated three times, as per usual, then she logs, and flies around, and then decides that she would rather live in a smaller lot with the free house not counting, than a bigger lot where it would although I think she'd still be ahead in the prims -- and PS I just cleared that lot for her, and now if she moves out, I will have possibly lost the customer who may show up tomorrow, a day late and a dollar short.
I explain three times that she can refund, and the cancellation fee will be returned manually.
She goes over this another few times and then says, as people do,
[2021/08/15 12:12] [Tenant]: it says 100 l fee
[2021/08/15 12:12] Prokofy Neva: once again, you refund the same box you paid; you move; you pay another box; the fee is manually returned
[2021/08/15 12:12] [Tenant]: oh ok
[2021/08/15 12:12] Prokofy Neva: then that's the fee? and that is manually returned when you rent again
[2021/08/15 12:13] [Tenant]: on other home right?
[2021/08/15 12:13] Prokofy Neva: well, I should think it would be another home in our rentals system and not a spaceship on Mars, but surprise me
Then she tells me she has had a stroke and has a hard time learning things.
Except she was already in my rentals once before, didn't pay, left her things, when I asked if she was staying and could she pay the rent, which was overdue, she brusquely dismissed me.
Then she was back with all this putting and taking.
These are rentals -- could we say it again? -- that you are paying for one week, less than the cheapest thing in the 99 cents store. And maybe US $1.50. $2.50. $5.0. But in this case, it's a $100 rental, that's US $1.44.
I have patience with people who are new, people for whom English is a second language, or people with disabilities, of which there are many in SL, and PS who have the kind of strokes that don't leave them talking as well as this person.
So basically I said, don't pull that on me. Everybody has a story. I would tend to believe a person like this, but you can't be sure. And there's no question she's hustling me. There was a whole extended conversation where she wants to get a radio put in and asks about that over and over -- which I do for 25L usually if not already in a cabin or skybox but usually I don't put them on parcels because people have their own. Here I have come immediately to clear a lot; here I am willing to put another house from another sim; I'm willing to put the radio in for free. And yet I still get drained down further and further.
So then she refunds, I return her cancellation fee since she didn't use it, and she is free to go badmouth me like Silent Mistwalker.
Now this is wild. She claimed that long ago she and someone else rented from me in Ravenglass with a store and I refused to give ban powers. Since this couldn't possibly be true, I've actually researched this by contacting an old tenant who REMARKABLY for arcane reasons had a notecard with every single lot in Ravenglass and its price and prims, something I don't even had. We reviewed the data, the known tenants at the time and realized what this was all about.
I didn't let them use a security orb because I don't allow them in my rentals on the ground. Of course, you wonder why someone would have a STORE but use a security orb, but it happens. Find another landlord to torment, please.
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