Desperation Isle Estates Homestead and Full-prim Sims

Desperation Isle Estates offers full-prim and homestead regions for commercial or residential rental in the virtual world of Second Life. With full building and terraforming rights to your own sim, there's really no limit to what you can do with it.

Click here to see what we have available for rent right now.

Click here to learn more about our rental sims.

Click here to visit our rental office in-world.

Click here to visit Desperation Isle in-world. It is the private residence of Wildefire and Kelly Walcott, and shows some of the cool stuff you can do with a 3,750-prim homestead region. Be sure to bump your view distance up to at least 200 meters for best effect!

If you are an existing tenant, have a look at the links to the right for some helpful tips about how to manage your land.

Homestead and Full-prim Sim FAQ

[Updated 2010.12.18]
DESPERATION ISLE ESTATES HOMESTEAD AND FULL-PRIM ISLAND RULES AND INFO
This covenant is the copyrighted, original work of Wildefire Walcott, for use on the Desperation and Annamaria islands only.

* IMPORTANT NOTE *

Desperation Isle Estates offers only true 3,750-prim Homestead sims and regular 15,000-prim sims for rental. As of 2009, the term "Openspace" refers to regions that support only 750 prims and 10 avatars. We do NOT have any 750-prim Openspace sims. Homestead regions are limited to a maximum of 20 avatars on the island at the same time.


* PRICE AND PRIMS *

Desperation Isle Estates offers homestead and full-prim sim rentals with no "purchase price" other than the first week's rent.

NOTE: Sometimes we offer discounts! Trust the price listed on the parcel or search listing over what you read here.

- HOMESTEAD: Full 65536m homestead sim, open ocean on all sides, 3750 prims, weekly L$7500 ($29 USD), monthly L$30000 ($115 USD).

- FULL-PRIM SIM: Full 65536m full-prim sim, open ocean on all sides, 15000 prims, weekly L$23000 ($86.79 USD), monthly L$92000 ($347.17 USD).

* GENERAL INFORMATION *

All of our islands are newer, "Class 5" or higher sims. Linden Lab has designed Homestead regions for "light use," meaning they're perfect for most residential purposes, but might not deliver the best performance if you're running hundreds of resource-intensive scripts (for example, many clubs have tons of rotating lights and other heavily-scripted items that might not perform very well on a Homestead sim). Renting a homestead island or full-prim sim with us will grant you the following abilities:

• Estate Manager abilities, giving you access to most functions of the Region tools in the World menu.
• Full control over who can access your island and individual parcels.
• Full creative and artistic control- build whatever you want, wherever you want it.
• Complete terraforming ability (+-100m) and the power to change your terrain textures.
• Transfer rights enabled, so you can deed the land to your own group. (NOTE: This ability does not entitle you to sell our islands to anyone else. Please see the 'Rules' section below.)
• To claim an island listed for rent, just go to About Land...

All of our homestead and full-prim islands stand alone; you have a full, unobstructed ocean view in every direction, yielding the best possible price and performance.We do not place restrictions on how you use your island, so long as you don't break the law and you follow our few simple rules:


* RULES *

• Rent is due weekly (at a minimum), payable in L$ if you use a rent box or USD if you choose to use a PayPal subscription. Wildefire will set up a rent box for you and let you know where it is. You can pay in weekly increments, up to 8 weeks at a time.
• If you are 3 days late on rent and do not respond to IMs, Wildefire will re-claim your island and return your belongings.
• If you ever decide or need to move out, PLEASE INFORM WILDEFIRE WALCOTT. Second Life does not notify an island owner when a tenant chooses not to live there anymore, and if you don't notify me that you've moved out, I might not notice until 3 or more days after your rent is due, leaving me out a week's worth of rent when I could have found another tenant in that time. I will not pressure you to stay; I just don't like having empty land laying around because no one told me they didn't need it anymore.

* HINTS AND TIPS *

• Please see the Desperation Isle Estates blog for rental information and tutorials on land and object management: http://desperationisle.blogspot.com/
• Only the island owner (Wildefire Walcott) is able to upload RAW terrain files (a technical limitation of Second Life). If you have a RAW file you would like to use, email it to me at wildefire.walcott@gmail.com and I will upload it to your island.
• You should be able to deed parcels on your island to your own groups without my help. If you have problems, I might have forgotten to enable transfer rights. Just IM me and I'll fix it.
• Estate Managers should have the ability to change the ground textures. You do this by going to Tools > Region/Estate and dragging textures onto the boxes in the Ground Textures tab. The textures you use should be 512x512 in size. You can find many sand, grass, and rock textures in the Library folder of your inventory. Just search for "grass," for example, and you will find plenty of usable samples.

For more information, contact Wildefire Walcott or Judah Thunders.

Remaining Sims Have Found a New Home

UPDATE: Please see a list of affected sims at the bottom of this post.

Dear recent tenants of Desperation Isle Estates,

Before making the decision to close our multi-tenant regions, I spent a full week contacting other estates and publishing in estate land transfer groups looking for someone to take over our residential sims and New Desperation Isle- but not one of the dozens of landlords I talked to was in a position to take on the whole group.

To my surprise, Thex Lecker, the owner of Rockhopper Estates, saw a thread I had started at the SLUniverse forum about our decision to close the sims and contacted me. He expressed an interest in taking over the remaining six sims- including New Desperation Isle- and preserving the homes of anyone still remaining on the estate. After checking out his estate and agreeing on several conditions of sale, I approved his proposal. The remaining sims will be changing hands, unchanged, except for the sim names and their location on the grid.

If you have not yet relocated, Thex is offering to give you a few days free rent and to take you on at the same rates you were paying me before. If you have already moved on, I apologize for both the hassle and the interruption. If you haven’t yet picked up your things, I apologize for the drama. It was always my wish to preserve peoples’ homes, and this deal allows me to do that for anyone who wishes to remain on these islands.

PLEASE NOTE: We do not know who has left already and who has not yet moved. You might get one more communication from Thex Lecker, as an offer to anyone who is still on the islands. Please forgive any intrusion. That should be the last you hear about the matter if you have already found a home.

Thanks for your time.
Wildefire Walcott

Affected sims
The following sims will NOT be shutting down. They will just be renamed and moved to a new portion of the grid sometime after December 14. If you have land on these sims and wish to stay, you don't have to do anything:

• New Desperation Isle
• Desperation North
• Desperation South
• Desperation West
• Desperation Kelly
• Desperation Juno
  

Multi-tenant Sims Going Offline

UPDATE (12/14/2010): We have found the remaining sims a home!

When we opened our first residential sim nearly four years ago, I envisioned an adult community where tolerance and mutual respect for privacy were prized more than anything else. Over time we built a small but cohesive adult village around New Desperation Isle, and eventually expanded beyond the shores of New Desperation Isle to support residents with a wide variety of interests and needs.

The estate grew and met with great success until late 2008, when Linden Lab made the first in a very long list of policy and technical changes that would threaten the stability and profitability of hundreds- perhaps thousands- of in-world businesses. We stopped growing then, but we managed to remain afloat thanks to a loyal customer base and healthy profits from our skybox business. But that all changed in 2010. New Search, Viewer 2.0, New Marketplace, fluctuating L$ value, Linden Homes, and unbeatable tier discounts granted to only a handful of the very biggest residential estates chipped into our business steadily throughout this past year to the point where we’re no longer able to compete in the current market without investing a lot more time and money than we can afford. A chapter in the story of Desperation Isle Estates is coming to a close.

WHAT IS HAPPENING

Over the next few weeks we will be shutting down our remaining multi-tenant residential sims. New Desperation Isle will also be going offline. If you are a current tenant of ours, by the time you read this we will have already refunded your rent.

We have arranged a deal for some free time and some reduced rates with another, larger estate- for those of you who wish to pursue it. They are not buying our islands; they are offering a special bonus to residents of Desperation Isle Estates. Please read on for complete details.

AFFECTED SIMS

All of the following sims will be going offline within the next few weeks:
- Desperation Juno
- Desperation Kelly
- Desperation North
- Desperation South
- Desperation West
- New Desperation Isle

Desperation Vivienne and Desperation East are no longer part of the estate.

WHEN IT IS HAPPENING

I am paying to keep the residential sims open to existing residents until Sunday, December 26th. The public island, New Desperation Isle, will be closing on or before Saturday, December 18. It will no longer be viewable from the other islands after that time.

On December 26th, I will reclaim all residential parcels and return any items left on the islands.

WHY THIS IS HAPPENING

Thanks to many decisions Linden Lab has made over the past couple of years, the work and financing required to sustain a competitive residential business in Second Life is just too much for us to bear. We tried to locate buyers for the estate, but were only able to sell two individual sims (with tenants). Most estates these days either aren’t expanding at all, or are simply not in a position to take on the monthly tier burden of eight whole sims, regardless of whether there were existing tenants. Many estates shut down completely this year, and even some of the largest estates have actually shed sims recently, due to decreased demand.

We did consider consolidation (only dropping a couple sims and moving residents to existing vacant space on the remaining islands), but that wouldn’t change the fact that we’ve been losing more tenants than we’ve gained since July.

WHERE WILL EXISTING TENANTS GO?

This is completely your decision, of course, but Solace Beach Estates is offering some special deals to our current tenants. Solace Beach’s owner, Ayesha Lytton, is a forum regular possibly familiar to those of you who frequent SLUniverse, and I trust her to take good care of you. Full details are in the enclosed notecard.

[notecard goes here]

Most of their sims are standalone, meaning they are not connected to and can’t “see” other islands like the sims around New Desperation Isle- but this results in slightly improved performance. Also, most Solace Beach Estates regions are Moderate/Mature. If you are looking for residential living space, please note that you can have adult items (sexbeds, etc.) on Moderate/Mature land so long as you don’t advertise that you’ve got adult content in the Search > Places listings. So, if you currently live on one of our Adult residential sims and you are not running an adult business or public play area, you should be just fine on a Moderate/Mature sim. We only made Desperation North/South/East/West Adult because they were physically adjacent to a public/commercial sim with Adult content. Most of the content residents have placed on our Adult sims would be just fine in most non-PG regions.

If you do have a business or public meeting place that requires the ability to advertise with the Adult classification, Solace Beach does have some Adult commercial sims which should meet your needs. Speak with their representative (mentioned in their notecard) for details.

AREN’T THERE ANY PURELY ADULT ESTATES?

A few adult-targeted residential estates did pop up after we first went into business, but every one that I ever knew about has shut down within the past couple of years (we have housed many of their former tenants). If there are any communities similar to what we formed around New Desperation Isle, I’ve never heard of them. We were unique in that regard, but luckily most content and activities kept behind closed doors (or up in skyboxes) is acceptable on Mature/Moderate sims, so I don’t expect most of you will have trouble finding a place to live.

IS THIS THE END OF DESPERATION ISLE ESTATES?

We are no longer going to be operating multi-tenant sims, and we will no longer host any public meeting places or commercial areas. We will continue to offer standalone homestead and full-prim sims to individual tenants until Linden Lab makes it so that’s no longer possible. Also, my business partner, Vivienne Schell, will continue to operate our skybox business, Desperation Isle Productions, for the known future.

Second Life has been a part of my real life for over five years now, and I will remain here for as long as the grid will have me. I’m very sorry to have to end the multi-tenant sim business and shut down my labor of love, New Desperation Isle- but the financial realities of Second Life in 2010 have made it impossible for us to sustain.

Thank you so very much for your business. I consider many of you friends, and I do wish you the best in your Second Lives.

Sincerely and sadly,
Wildefire Walcott, Desperation Isle Estates

The Return of Voice at New Desperation Isle

[NOTE: If you are viewing this post from within Second Life, click the Open in My Web Browser button to properly view the page.]

A few weeks ago I disabled Voice Chat on New Desperation Isle because I was getting frequent reports of people using Voice to harass other visitors. I have since gotten some requests from regular visitors to bring Voice back, and I am doing that, but I want to equip our guests to deal with voice griefers if we have problems with them in the future.

First off, if you simply wish to disable Voice (so you can neither speak in-world or hear others speaking), you can easily do that by going to Edit > Preferences, then picking the Voice Chat tab, and deselecting Enable voice chat. When you click OK, you will no longer hear other people using Voice.

If you simply want to block a specific individual's voice, there are detailed instructions on how to do that at the Voice FAQ of the official Second Life Wiki.

In addition to muting individual players, I ask that you report people who are obviously griefing other players. You can do this by both filing an Abuse Report against them (Help > Report Abuse), and also by reporting the avatar to me or one of my deputies:

• Wildefire Walcott (island owner)
  
• kelly Walcott (estate manager)
• Vivienne Schell (deputy)
• Lunashee Dagger (deputy)
• Lancelot Auer (deputy)
• Zaldon Barbosa (deputy)
  

It really helps if you can provide snapshots and/or chat transcripts of griefing incidents. Unfortunately, it's not possible to get transcripts of voice griefing, but all the info you can provide helps.

Here's a video produced by a Linden that may provide some additional helpful info on Voice Chat in SL.

VOICE CHAT: Improving your hearing from Torley on Vimeo.

FAQ: Adult Maturity Ratings at Desperation Isle Estates

Important: There are many ways for Linden Lab to consider you age-verified now! You don't have to go through their official age-verification process if that doesn't work for you! Please read on for complete info!

There has been a fair amount of recent confusion among residents all across Second Life because Linden Lab sent out a bunch of emails warning people to flag their land as Adult, but then said that many of the emails were sent out in error. Unfortunately, if you are a resident of Desperation Isle Estates (or any other private estate, for that matter) and you received the email, it was NOT a mistake.

Here's the list of questions we answer below:

• What's going on?
• What happens when a sim is flagged as Adult?
• What's the difference between an Adult sim and a Mature sim now?
• How does a resident become age-verified?
• How do I enable Adult content in my Second Life client?
• What does this mean for the Phase 1 islands?
• What if I am a Phase 1 resident who doesn't want to be in an Adult sim?
• What happens if I'm a Phase 2 resident?
• What if I am renting an entire Homestead or Regular sim?
• How can I change the maturity rating of a sim I am renting?
• When will these changes be taking effect?
• What if I have more questions?

What's going on?

Beginning this month, Linden Lab is going to be hiding Places listings for land with 'adult' keywords in in the Name or Description fields if the parcel is not on a so-called "Adult" sim. You will still be charged for the listings, but no one will be able to see them. Additionally, if you continue to use those adult keywords in your listings while you are on a non-adult sim, you run the risk of getting banned or suspended from Second Life.

We have held out for as long as we could, but unfortunately the time has come: We must convert some of our islands to the Adult maturity rating. Please see this knowledge base article to learn Linden Lab's new definitions for PG, Mature, and Adult sims.

What happens when a sim is flagged as Adult?

Once a region is set to the Adult maturity rating, the following things happen:

• Places listings with adult keywords will show up in searches that age-verified residents perform, assuming they have enabled adult content in their Second Life clients.
• Only residents who are age-verified will be able to access the sim.
  

What's the difference between an Adult sim and a Mature sim now?

It's kind of hard to tell, yeah? Basically, Mature sims are now very similar to PG sims, only you can have sex toys in your private skybox or a store that sells skins with naked bits on a Mature sim without getting in trouble.

If you sell naughty toys that can only properly be advertised with Adult search terms, or if you have a public sex play place, that has to be on an Adult sim. (Strip clubs count as Adult locations too, but I don't allow those on our regular sims anyway.)

Clear as mud, I know, I know. Please check out this Adult Content FAQ with the most comprehensive description of what "Adult" means in Second Life now.

How does a resident become age-verified?

Achieving age-verified status is not as difficult as you might think. You can do it in one of several ways:

• Have a "payment info used" or "payment info on file" status with Linden Lab. This happens once you use some method of payment for purchasing Lindens or paying Second Life premium fees.
• Add US$ to your XStreetSL account via PayPal.
• Go through Linden Lab's official Age Verification process.

Most people who regularly use Second Life are basically already verified. They just need to enable Adult content in their clients. Go to this knowledge base article for detailed information.

How do I enable Adult content in my Second Life client?

You need to be using the latest version of Second Life in order to have access to all the proper content options, or use a third-party viewer that is based upon the latest official code. You can always get the latest official viewer here.

Next, you have to enable adult content in your Second Life preferences and Search settings. Go to this knowledge base article and scroll down to the How to opt in to view Adult content section for step-by-step instructions and a video that walks you through the process.

What does this mean for the Phase 1 islands?

Phase 1 of the estate consists of Desperation North, South, East, and West, as well as New Desperation Isle, which holds them all together. Because New Desperation Isle is an explicitly sexual location (as are several private and public builds on those islands) we must convert those sims to the Adult maturity rating in order to avoid being blacklisted from search, and to avoid having our Second Life accounts suspended.

What if I am a Phase 1 resident who doesn't want to be in an Adult sim?

In anticipation of this possibility, we have just added a brand new class 5 full-prim region to the estate: Desperation Juno. (NOTE: It should be ready for new tenants by Thursday, it may not be visible until then.) This is a Phase 2 (Mature) sim, just like Desperation Vivienne and Desperation Kelly. It is a standalone island (open ocean on all sides) and has a normal day/night cycle like the rest of our full-prim sims.

If you currently live on one of the Phase 1 islands and you decide that you wish to be on one of our Mature sims instead, we will offer you a free week of rent once you move over to the new sim.

If you decide that you no longer wish to rent with us at all, please let me know. If you tell me when you've cleared off your parcel I will refund what remains of your rent. Do note, however, that ALL private estates are facing this same change. (It's not just us!) Any sim that allows places with explicit adult content on their land or in their search terms must convert to Adult status or the land owners will face disciplinary measures.

What happens if I'm a Phase 2 resident?

If you are on one of our Phase 2 islands (Desperation Vivienne, Kelly, or Juno), and you do not have any explicit content on your parcel or in your search terms, nothing will change. If you DO have or advertise adult content, however, you will have to either remove those items/terms or move to an Adult-rated sim. I offer the same deal to my current Phase 1 residents who may wish to move to a mature sim- if you decide to move to one of our existing Phase 1 Adult sims, I will give you a free week of rent on the new island, and roll over any existing rent you have on your current place.

You may be interested to know that we're making a number of improvements to the Phase 1 regions, to make them more attractive. Please check out this blog post for more information.

What about the special islands (Desperation Andromeda, Desperation Lancelot)?

These islands are not really Phase 1 or 2, and they don't really qualify as full-sim rentals either. Depending on the content on those sims, and the Search > Places listings, we will likely have to set those sims to Adult very soon. This is to protect not only the estate, but the tenants currently occupying those sims.

What if I am renting an entire Homestead or Regular sim?

I will not enforce maturity ratings on my Homestead or Regular full-sim tenants, but please understand that it is your responsibility to make sure your sim is flagged appropriately, or Linden Lab might give you problems. See below to learn how to change the sim rating.

How can I change the maturity rating of a sim I am renting?

This only applies to complete homestead or regular sim rentals. In order to change the sim's maturity rating you must be on that island's list of Estate Managers, and you must be using a recent version of the Second Life viewer.

1. While standing on the sim, go to World > Region/Estate.
2. On the Region tab, select the desired maturity rating next to Rating.
3. Click Apply. (Note: You MUST click Apply for this setting to stick.)
   

By default, all Desperation Isle Estate full-sim rental islands are set to Mature, but you may choose whichever rating you like.

When will these changes be taking effect?

As of September 1, Linden Lab is supposedly policing search listings and processing ARs filed against offenders. We are planning to hold off on changing the Phase 1 islands to Adult until next Monday, September 7 to give existing tenants time to decide what they wish to do. If we need to change earlier than that (i.e. if Linden Lab threatens to ban me), I will let you all know.

What if I have more questions?

Please IM me, Wildefire Walcott, directly. Even if I am offline, I am usually able to respond directly to IMs via email. Also, keep an eye on this post. If any new information or clarifications are necessary, I will add them here.

Phase 1 Island Changes On The Way

Last week I conducted a survey of residents on our Phase 1 islands (Desperation North, South, East, and West). I very much appreciate the input I got from respondents and wanted to share with you both the results of the survey and the changes we will be making as a result. (You can view the published survey here, although responses are no longer being tallied.) This is a long article. If you wish you can hop straight to the summary.

Should we have a day/night cycle?

Survey results:

• Yes - 40%
• Don't care at all - 24%
• Prefer dark, but don't really care - 32%
• Would move away if sunlight were enabled - 1%

My response:

While I had always intended New Desperation Isle and the surrounding areas to be an adult playground bathed in moonlight, it is an unfortunate fact that with Windlight and the limitations of some users' monitors and computers, night time in Second Life is often just too dark for many users to see anything. I don't know how many screenshots I've seen that people have taken on New Desperation Isle where they have obviously forced their local sunlight on in order to take pictures. There is also the economic fact that I have lost many potential customers who did not want to live on an island that never had sun. I have chosen to enable "global time" on the Phase 1 sims, including New Desperation Isle, which will add a regular day/night cycle to those islands.

Should we continue to allow security devices at ground level?

Survey results:

• No (keep them in the sky only) - 32%
• Don't care - 40%
• Yes - 28%

My response:

First off, I apologize for the awkward wording around that question (I mixed up the "yes" and "no" but, luckily, clarified what each survey answer meant). Anyway, it is clear that there are at least a few people who really rely on their security devices at ground level, so I am going to allow their continued use on the ground (on Phase 1 sims only), but due to some additional feedback, I am going to require that the warning time be set to a minimum of 30 seconds. In other words, trespassers should have 30 seconds to exit the premises. This will keep strangers off your sex beds but will give someone who accidentally wanders onto your parcel due to grid lag ample time to escape without being ejected from the sim.

How much should we change New Desperation Isle?

Survey results:

• Make it an adult commercial sim where other content creators can sell their wares - 40%
• Rebuild some areas to attract new visitors - 28%
• Leave it as-is - 12%
• Make it a residential island - 12%
• Don't care - 2%
  
• Just get rid of it - 0%

My response:

Well it is clear that people in Phase 1 like New Desperation Isle and don't wish it to just go away. I am now left between updating the island to draw in new visitors and making more space for adult retailers. It will be one of these two options though.

Should we update the ground textures on the Phase 1 islands?

Survey results:

• Yes - 64%
• Don't care - 28%
• No - 8%

My response:

When I first started out I just went with the generic default ground textures for my first few islands, and they remain today on Desperation West, North, and South. This wasn't so much of a concern since at night time you barely notice the textures anyway, but once we enable daylight, I want those islands to look both unique and attractive, so I will be updating the ground textures. They will still be a regular grass/sand/rock progression- just new textures.

Another cosmetic change

One person mentioned that our Vacant signs, while easily visible to people looking for land, can detract from the surroundings of existing tenants. I agree, and I am going to design a new kind of sign which does not impact the view so much.

One last thing (and it's a biggie)

Sometime soon I will be forced to flag New Desperation Isle and the rest of the Phase 1 islands as Adult sims. I and several of your fellow tenants have received warnings from Linden Lab that if I do not mark the sims as adult, that anyone who currently has Search > Places listings with adult keywords will be removed from search, and that Linden Lab may start suspending the accounts of residents who fail to comply. I cannot risk having my account locked, and no one running an adult business or meeting place wants that either. I am about to write another post specifically about this issue, so please keep an eye on this blog.

When's all this going to happen?

I plan to make all of these changes by next Monday, September 7. It will probably happen in phases, but I will try not make the switch to Adult until the 7th. If I am forced to switch over earlier, I will notify all tenants.

Summary:

• Phase 1 is going to be getting sunlight.
• Security devices on Phase 1 islands may remain at ground level, but the warning time before ejecting trespassers must be increased to 30 seconds.
• New Desperation Isle will stay right where it is, but will likely see some changes to bring in more traffic.
• We will be updating the ground textures on the Phase 1 sims.
• We will soon be using Vacant signs which are smaller and less noticeable to existing tenants.
  
• All Phase 1 sims will be flagged as Adult. (We are going to add at least one new sim for anyone who wishes to live on a Mature sim instead of an Adult one. Again, keep watching this blog.)
• All of these changes (except New Desperation Isle remodeling) are slated for completion by Monday, September 7.
  

Thanks for your feedback, thanks for your support, and thanks for your business. I believe that these changes will help improve the quality of living for most residents of the Phase 1 islands and keep us all on Linden Lab's good side.