(This is part 2 of a report I started yesterday, chronicling the process I recently went through of buying land in SL for the first time. Please click here to read part 1. Click on a thumbnail below to see a larger version.)

So when last I left off, I had just started talking about the complications of "good location," when it comes to scouting land in SL. It's not as easy a judgment in the grid as you might think; not in a place with no zoning laws, no transportation infrastructure to speak of, where your next-door neighbor can destroy a serenity garden and raise a big-box superstore before you even have the chance to get back from the bathroom. In a world where virtually anything can be built and everything changes on a regular basis, what exactly makes a particular parcel of land desirable among the general populace? And how do you pick an area where your neighbors will complement your own interests as much as possible?

I'm no more of an expert on these questions than anyone else; I did, however, come up with certain list of criteria for myself, things that I thought would lead me to an environment that's as stable in the long-term as possible:

--Located next to an unchangeable topological feature; specifically, the ocean or a mountain. Once a piece of land is owned, a resident can create pretty much whatever they want, from a home to a store to a bordello and more. What residents cannot do, however, is actually terraform the land they own, beyond some minor "smoothing" and "roughing" of various patches for aesthetic effect. When a mountain or shoreline is added by Linden Lab, owners of SL, you can be assured that it's there to stay; and if you can have such an element take up half the view from your own parcel, that's at least half your view you never have to worry about other people tampering with.

--Neighbors who aren't too big, and aren't too small. As mentioned last time, there's a potential danger both to a lot of small neighbors and to one big one; that in the former case, it can lead to a cluttered and unregulated "virtual suburbia," while in the other, a giant mall or casino might be coming at any time. That's why I decided to look for an area with mixed parcel sizes; some "512"s for individual use, some "1024"s for estates, scattered within much larger parcels for commercial use. Now don't forget, this can easily change as well; landowners in the grid always have the power to chop up their parcel into smaller bits, and to sell them off one by one. As far as I can tell, unfortunately, there simply is no way to guarantee the long-term value of one's property within the grid.

--Neighbors who take their building seriously. Again, while acknowledging that this can't be applied in the long term, at least in the short term I figured that the best way to find stable neighbors is to simply find the ones who already have impressive creations up. If a person is going to take the time and energy to erect a great build, I figure that this is a person who takes the grid seriously, takes their land seriously, and is unlikely to erect a 60-foot-tall bright green dildo next to me anytime soon. Who knows if this is actually true; but it's a guiding principle I stuck by while shopping, anyway.

So for example, here above is a piece of land I found that fit all those criteria; the boundaries stretch from the house on the left to the deck on the right, and even that little pond you see in the bottom, and with a great view of the ocean that you can't see from this angle. But alas, it was just a little too expensive for my tastes -- L$13,800, or almost US$50 (30 pounds, 40 euros), which is not what I was looking to spend on what still amounts to digital land. And besides, this lot was actually twice as much land than I wanted -- 1024 square meters instead of 512. And the reason that the number 512 is so important in SL is because this is how much land premium members are allowed to own essentially for "free;" that is, for no monthly land usage fee, but as simply a benefit of premium membership. I didn't want a situation where I had just paid Linden $72 to be a premium member for a year, and then had to pay them an extra $60 a year to own land, which is why it was important to me to find a minimal parcel if I could.

So then this is another space I seriously considered; another great view of the ocean, more mixed-size neighbors, and this time even the 512 square meters I was originally looking for. (The parcel I was considering takes up only half the space of the above photo; the left half there, where you see the floating "For Sale" sign.) The problem with this space, however, is that the beachfront itself is owned by someone else; not a problem now, as you can see, but definitely one in the future if they decide to erect a giant beachfront resort. So a 'maybe' on my list; but I had a feeling I could find better.

So then, a complete change of pace; a trip to the section of the grid that Linden keeps perpetually in winter. I wouldn't mind snow-covered land, after all; I can build a ski resort just as easily as a beachfront cabana. And hey, I even found a 512 that I really loved; right on the crest of a mountain, so that my front view towers over my neighbors and my back view is of the unchanging mountain itself. And as you can see, situated in a quaint valley full of mixed-residential; and with a lot of open space around me in the short term. So, a move to the "strong maybe" list for this property; and then it was time to continue shopping.

Here, however, is the land I did end up buying this week, for around twenty bucks altogether; I've marked it out in yellow in the above photo, and then you can see its location in the big map in the two shots below that. It's in the water! I didn't think I'd be able to find 512 square meters for sale actually in the water, frankly; most shoreline in the grid gets sold as a land/water package deal, and usually only in big giant chunks for big giant sums of money. I'm not sure of the story behind this particular parcel of land, or why such a small chunk of it was being sold in such a prime location; all I know is that there aren't very many deals like it in the grid, so jumped on it fast. For those who are curious, I'm located on what's informally known as the "south continent" of the grid; the newer one of the two, the one being built up like crazy (the continent didn't even exist nine months ago), the one being purposely built from the ground-up with a cohesive topological scheme in mind. It's my favorite of the two major landmasses in the grid, because it's more orderly; the one that "feels" more like a pervasive geographical environment, instead of the random collection of servers that the "mainland" can often come across as.

Now, the freakily panoramic shot above shows you why I love this parcel so much; because the landscaping is beautiful, my neighbors obviously all take their building skills very seriously, and I've got an automatically great view for approximately 190 degrees of my entire vista. And then in the lower photo, you can see the other reason why I love this parcel so much; because all that blue you're seeing, the dark blue in the foreground, is actual scripted water that's been placed there by Linden, water that you can swim in and dive in and sail in and the like. (That's opposed to the grayish blue in the background, which is simply where the servers stop; traveling out there will only get you a featureless screen of solid color for your troubles.) This is a big pastime in SL, sports done on the water, now that more and more shorelines are being added to the grid each day; I love that it'll be so easy to go sailing, scuba diving and more from where my parcel sits.

And then these two pictures show the final reason I ended up buying this parcel; that I still own 512 square meters of land in the grid, and can do whatever I want with it, even if that land happens to be underwater. I'm not sure why the underwater elements of the grid fascinate me so much, either; perhaps because there's so little of it at this point, and with such a strange and beautiful way the game engine renders it, and with almost no one taking advantage of it yet. What I'm going to do with my land is actually build a large glass-walled "seafloor lounge;" something that can hold 20, with its own dancefloor, something that will just be very cool and a highlight of all social events this blog ends up holding there. And then I'm also going to decorate my section of the seabed with plants and wildlife, just like one would with unsubmerged land; and that then will hopefully convince a certain amount of visitors to slip into their swimwear and go diving while they're there. And as you can see in the lower photo, my land holds an expected bonus when it comes to this subject; that it's right on the edge of a giant underwater cliff, plunging into a deep and wide cavern, the perfect environment for scuba-based deep-sea diving (yet another popular activity in the grid).

So that's it for now, and I bid you adieu from the future world headquarters of ITG: where one day soon we will be hosting impromptu dance parties on a regular basis, ambient and drum-n-bass nights, live Skype talks with interesting artists, and all kinds of other great stuff. I'll be filing future reports on the construction here regularly, sharing my saga of learning to build; for now, though, if you happen to want to say hi, feel free to come by and do so [Yongdong 186/177/21]. Keep your eye out for me; I'll be the only one on the beach without a tan!