News
25 May 2009 by ElanthiusHomestead Price Increase
You may be aware that Linden Lab are raising the cost for Homestead sims effective 1st July. More details can be found here.
Note that this does not apply to any mainland rentals or our full prim sims Ash, Palm, Maple, Viburnum, Blackwood or Mulberry.
As with the previous increase in January WE WILL NOT BE CHANGING THE RENTAL RATES FOR ANY EXISTING RENTER. The rates for all existing renters will be protected indefinitely.
We will be changing the rates on our unrented parcels. Currently we charge L$2500 for a quarter of a homestead sim. Effective immediately we will be charging L$2750 for a quarter sim or L$5500 for a half sim. Any new renters or existing renters who move to new parcels will be subject to the new rates.
As always if you have any questions contact any of the Arboretum owners - Elanthius Flagstaff, Skye Whitcroft, Liznwiz Wei, Del Peccable
Two new OS sims
We recently brought online two new sims named Fir and Hawthorn. They fill in the two conspicuous holes in our continent. With the addition of these two sims we have connected our two commercial sims to the rest of the continent. These sims are OpenSpaces which means they only allow 750 prims and 10 avatars at a time. We do not plan to rent these out so they will remain available for boating and exploring and will ge left almost entirely as ocean.
Viburnum - our newest sim
NinjaLand is proud to welcome Viburnum our newest sim to join The Arboretum estate. Viburnum is very much a party sim with several large, popular clubs. Drop by if you’re looking for fun.
We’re very grateful to Drakon Cortes for selling the sim to us. We’ve relocated the sim to the south edge of Blackwood. Since Blackwood is full of shops and Viburnum is full of clubs there will hopefully be a very good relationship between the sims, trading customers and foot traffic.
Of course clubs and commercial operations bring performance difficulties and we’re not oblivious to that but these sims are far enough away from the residential sims that we’re confident there will be no problems for our existing renters. In order to get a better grip on performance issues in all our sims we are working on some new tools that may help our residents see the script usage for their parcels and the effect on the sim.
NinjaLand - First Commercial Sim
Everyone at NinjaLand is proud to present Blackwood which is our first commercial only sim. We have a wide variety of parcel sizes and prim counts available. We have a few stores in there already but it’s still looking a little barren and needs more tenants to make it a thriving shopping region. Come by if you want to take part in this new project. Right now the sim is not visible from the rest of the continent but once it settles down and we’re sure it’s not going to turn into some ugly industrial monstrosity we may join it to Silverbell and Birch with an openspace sim in the hole there.
In the meantime check out the commercial estate pages on our website to see the available options.
ninjaland.net now in German.
Our website has now been fully translated into German. You can change the language of the site by clicking the little flags in the top right hand corner. Unfortunately at this time no-one at Ninjaland actually speaks German so that may prove a small hindrance to communication but hopefully this resource will be useful to some of our international residents and customers. We do plan to keep the German version of the site up to date and we also plan to introduce more translations in the future. Feel free to put in requests for your favourite language but probably Portuguese is next on the list.
Eastland Estates
We have purchased all 10 sims that formerly belonged to Eastland Estates.This included 9 OpenSpace sims and 1 full sim.
Firstly, I want to assure everyone that it is absolutely critical to us that all renters that transferred to us from Eastland suffer as little inconvenience as possible. The fact that Eastland was so well run and popular is one of the main reasons we were happy to buy it and so we want to make things as smooth as possible for you.
That said there are some important things you should be aware of:
* All simnames have changed so that they fit in with the theme of The Arboretum Estate better.
* You can continue to pay rent in the same place that you did before. The simname has changed to Mulberry (143, 110, 454) but your old landmarks will continue to work.
* Your rent will not be changing. We will be increasing prices on unrented parcels which new residents will have to pay but this will not affect anyone who already has land with us. You may be aware of pricing changes coming in January for all OpenSpace sims. Rest assured we have figured this into our plans and we do not have any plans to raise rent in the near future.
* The covenant has changed to the Arboretum covenant. It is largely similar to the old covenant but there are some changes particularly around banlines and security orbs. While the transition is underway we will, of course, be considerate of your needs but ultimately we hope that people can enjoy sailing around our estate and want them to be free to do so.
OpenSpace Changes
Some of you may be aware that Linden Lab are changing the pricing and limits on OpenSpace sims. As a result we are making this announcement to inform you of changes to Arboretum OpenSpace rentals.
First note this only applies to the following sims:
Oak, Willow, Elm, Redwood, Birch, Sycamore, Ficus, Dogwood, Sequoia, Hickory, Yew, Pecan, Spruce, Chestnut
If you are renting a different sim such as Ash, Palm, Maple or any mainland sim then you are not affected in any way.
* There is no price increase planned for any existing renter. We will absorb the increased costs and plan to do so indefinitely.
* Effective immediately for all new renters or renters wishing to change parcel the weekly price will be L$2500 per quarter sim, L$5000 per half sim or L$10000 per full sim. This new price will apply until April 1st 2009.
* After April 1st 2009 we currently plan to change the price for new rentals to L$3000 per week per quarter sim. We will confirm or adjust this price closer to the date depending on any changes in the situation. Note that anyone renting at the L$2500/L$5000/L$10000 rate will also have their rates protected indefinitely.
* LL are imposing a limit of 20 avatars per OpenSpace sim. Currently the limit is 100 avatars. Most of our OpenSpace sims rarely have more than 2 or 3 avatars at a time but there are one or two that have larger gatherings. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to override this limit. There may be other options we can offer you if you need to have more than 20 avatars on your sim.
* Please contact any Arboretum employees: Elanthius Flagstaff, Del Peccable, liznwiz Wei or Skye Whitcroft if you have any questions or concerns about these changes.
Open Position
We’re still looking for a rental agent. Weekly pay is L$2000 plus generous results based commission.
We would sign you up to our visitor alert system which will IM you when someone enters our store. You send an IM to the visitor welcoming them and offering help finding land. You can work any hours you like. Due to our innovative system it’s not necessary to stand around in our store waiting for customers you can either teleport in when someone arrives or send an IM remotely.
Visitors to our store in Steamboat are highly targetted, that is to say they are all looking for land and the store is relatively very busy with 30-70 visitors per day. We tend to attract newer players so we seek someone who is familiar with land and SL and can be helpful to people less familiar with the market. Your job will not involve any aftermarket customer service.
Helping new players get on the property ladder
Obviously NinjaLand has a lot of assets in SL in the way of land and cash and I occasionally try to work out ways to use those assets to help new players. The obvious move is to set up an incubator company or a venture capital firm. Let’s be perfectly honest, I’m really looking for a mutually beneficial arrangement. In other words I’m in it for the money. The problem with SL though is that there’s no serious way to enforce contracts so if I give you something now and in exchange you promise to give me something in the future then, let’s be honest, it would be a miracle if I ever get paid.
My latest plan which seemed like a good idea at the time is to offer free rent in exchange for goods. You can see more details here: http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=283086. I’d say the response was generally positive. Of course there’s the usual range of comments including the always amusing flurry of numbers from Desmond Shang proving conclusively once and for all that the plan is mathematically flawed and no-one can possibly ever make a profit at anything. Everyone has a lot of reasons why the whole thing is a waste of *my* time but really only 3Ring had a serious reason why it wouldn’t be worth the builder’s time. His comments struck me though. It seems his point is that new builders don’t need free land what they really need is exposure which is a shame because I dont have exposure to sell. That’s especially the case now that advertising is severely resricted.
I suppose the kind of thing that 3Ring might think worthwhile would be a shopping mall only for new players who pay rent with their creations. Unfortunately I’ve tried running malls before and even with prices close to zero I couldn’t fill it up so I’m pretty much convinced that malls aren’t going to be in my business plans for the future.
Meanwhile all I have is the free land thing. Response, as per usual, has been minimal but maybe over time it will grow. Probably it’s just going to be another amazing idea that never really takes off.