Now, The Story Can Be Told
Okay. I can finally talk about this. I was hesitant to give any details until I had sold the property in Monti, because the repercussions could have been devastating. Suffice it to say that I’m glad to be out of there. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so paranoid.
Here’s a free lesson in why you should always do your homework when you’re buying property on the mainland. I won the Monti property at auction. I went, I saw, I fell in love, and was determined to get it - and that was my first mistake. I did zero research. Worse, certain extenuating factors made me foolishly insist that bidding on this property was a “matter of principle”. I was determined to own this piece of land at nearly any cost.
Lesson Number One: Research! Had I done my research, I would have discovered that I was surrounded - all of the land surrounding me (and the IDG Sweden building next door) was owned by a single real estate company. This meant that the person with whom I had entered into a crazy bidding war turned out to be the owner of that same company. What does this mean? Well, if you’re bidding against someone who turns out to be a Gorean on a mission to own as much land in a region as humanly possible, prepare to experience his wrath when you play a part in foiling his plans. Shortly after the end of the auction, as soon as the money was debited from my account, I teleported to my new land - to find it (and the IDG building) surrounded by a huge stone wall. When I went to erect a sign that could be seen above the it, the wall suddenly sprang upwards into the clouds and beyond. It was only through a very careful combination of chutzpah, tact, and charm that I was able to talk him down and convince him to chill the fuck out and dismantle the obstruction.
Even then, though, little things were happening. A C-4 explosive attack at a nearby SL Exchange terminal. Someone entering my building unannounced, completely naked and brandishing a knife, and erupting into spasms on the floor. Strange people asking to be let in, and once inside, ignoring repeated requests to leave. It got the point where we were suspecting every hapless newbie who happened across our path. And while I have no evidence to point the finger at anyone, the fact remains that every visit to our property left us with the feeling that we had to watch our backs.
What I did discover was that a cute little shop that had charmed me when I made my first visit to the Monti region had disappeared as the result of alleged shenanigans on the part of the same landowner - she rented from him, and eventually packed up after having snow intentionally bulldozed into her shop on numerous occasions. There are some other accounts which I will not discuss here, for the protection of those involved, but which proved to me that there was a “By Any Means Necessary” philosophy at work - a philosophy that convinced me that ill winds were blowing in Monti, and that I should sell while it was still feasible for me to do so.
I will say that we were never faced with any direct antagonism. In fact, a request to buy an additional 384m parcel of land from the real estate company was granted - with the stipulation that I would sell all 1024m to them if and when I decided to sell.
Which was what I ultimately did.
So the lesson to be learned is do your research. No potentially lovely little parcel of land is worth the headaches that can result from insufficient research into who your neighbors will be - and more importantly, what designs they may have on the property you’re about to purchase. Another lesson is to remember is that not everyone in SL is necessarily a good or nice person. The same things that happen in “real-life” happen here as well. If someone wants something you’ve got, it’s quite likely they will make your second life a living hell in order to get it from you. Every avie you see in sim essentially breathes the breath of a real life. This is one of the reasons why I hesitate to say that the environment that is Second Life is a simulation, and certainly not a game. Everything that happens, happens to a real person. This is precisely one of the major reasons why my “RL” stays completely out of SL, and vice-versa.
Lesson Number Two: Consider Private Sims. Linden Labs stays largely out of disputes, which means that it’s going to take something quite serious for them to intervene. To make matters worse, support for non-premium members is limited and slow at best. So you really have three options if you want to plant some roots. You can upgrade to premium and pay LL for the privilege of buying property on the mainland (along with the tier fees you will pay for any land over 512m that you should happen to purchase). If you’d rather not go premium, you can either rent or buy property from a private sim owner - a transaction which bypasses Linden Labs altogether. On the plus side, you can find land on private sims for often quite less than the going rates on the mainland. On the minus side, the tier fees you pay to the private sim owner can end up being more than the monthly premium fees plus LL tier. You may also have to deal with a covenant - restrictions on what can and can’t be built and what you can and cannot do - but this can sometimes be a definite advantage, as well, as it might keep your neighbors from building a 20-story porn palace next to your new home. Also, there is the advantage of having a sim owner who is probably very available and very concerned that everything runs smoothly and that nobody’s being a jerk.
Barring that, you can stay in a free apartment on Noob Island, but with no locks on the doors and no ability to rez anything inside, it’s hardly an option.
That said, I’d recommend taking a look at Moseley City and Birmingham City. There are some great parcels of land at some great prices right now. 