Written 17 December, 2009
So, Just What Happened?
It all began when, several weeks ago, my friend Fnordian Link IMed to say his partner Moon Fairymeadow had decided to sell one of her grandfathered sims.
Way, way back at the end of 1996 the Lindens raised the monthly tier on 15k sims from $195 USD per month to $295. People predictably screamed and yelled and the Lindens announced they would for the time being hold the tier for existing sims at $195, even if the sims were resold.
And so grandfathered sims were born.
The grandfathering continues three years later, even when a sim is sold. The new owner inherits the $195 tier.
Grandfathered sims run on Class IV servers, the last such on the grid. On November 10, Jack Linden announced a move away from server class-based services for land. That meant that within a couple of months grandfathered sims would be moved to class V servers and the remaining Class IV servers would be removed from the racks at the Lindens' server farms. Grandfathered sims, despite their reduced tier, would be running on Class V servers.
This made grandfathered sims an even better bargain-- provided Linden Lab didn't do away with their grandfathering and raise the tier to $295.
I've been badly burned twice by the Lab's reversal of their own policies-- first when, just two weeks after I bought Whimsy they reduced the setup fee for full sims from $1695 to $1000 USD, and second when they raised the tier for openspace sims. This made me think long and hard about making an offer on Moon's grandfathered sim, but after discussion with Sweetie and calling the concierge line, where I was assured Linden Lab has no plans to do away with grandfathering, I decided to go for it.
Grandfathered sims aren'tcheap, but Moon was asking a fair price and ultimately it would be to my financial benefit to buy her sim. I made an offer, she accepted, and we met in voice to do the transaction.
As with most everything else in my life lately, there was a screw up. I made payment to the address Moon had given me-- but she had inadvertently left out a digit.
Fortunately the payment had been made directly on my bank account rather than my debit card, so I was able to cancel it and make payment to Moon at her proper eddress. Unfortunately, TWO large debits were made from my checking account. To date, four business days after the transaction, the money from the canceled first transaction hasn't shown up in my bank account, even though the transfer of funds to Moon (which was made minutes after the cancellation) finally cleared.
I hate when that happens.
After I made payment to Moon we each submitted a ticket to the Lindens. Moon indicated that she had sold Celestial Moon to me and she would be paying the transaction fee.
I indicated I was buying Celestial Moon. I asked that the region be renamed Whimsy Escapades and moved to the open ocean north of Whimsy Kaboom.
I also asked that the grandfathered tier amount be applied to Whimsy and Whimsy's $295 tier be applied to Moon's former sim. The Lindens charged me $100 USD for that, but it meant Whimsy would remain just as it was, with the exception of being placed on a Class IV server.
It took the Lindens three days to process the tickets. Yesterday morning I got an e-mail from the Lindens saying the ticket had been filled.
I Opened the Help Menu at the top of the screen and selected About Second Life and noted Whimsy was now sim 820 (it had previously been in the 8000s. Sims with low numbers are, until the remaining Class IV servers are retired, on Class IV).
You are at 147134.5, 296147.3, 21.4 in Whimsy located at sim820.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.11.65:13000)
Second Life Server 1.34.1.141394
Paradoxically, Whimsy is running faster on its Class IV than it had run as a Class V. I expect it had laggy neighbors on its shared server. Script time is still outrageous, but that's because of a half dozen laggy particle Christmas trees that will soon be gone.
Next: Selling Whimsy Escapades
I checked out the ship.
Crap! Camera malfunction!
Woot!
Wow! That one was close!
And the staff! The less said about them, the better.
The place was mostly empty...
I guess because of the new meds
Are those... body bags? It's hard to tell in the gloom.
I have to say, though, I was impressed by the baked textures.
But where was Sweetie?
I was so upset I turned over a table.
