Desperation Isle Estates

Desperation Isle Estates Homestead and Full-prim Sims

2010-12-29T12:01:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-18T11:10:00.000-08:00

[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

2010-12-14T13:40:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-12T09:37:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-02T16:43:00.000-08:00

[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

2009-09-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

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.

While standing on the sim, go to World > Region/Estate.
On the Region tab, select the desired maturity rating next to Rating.
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

2009-08-31T23:11:00.000-07:00

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.

PayPal Subscription Sign-up

2009-07-08T22:52:00.000-07:00

This post contains the sign-up buttons that you can use to begin paying your rent to Desperation Isle Estates via PayPal, instead of with Lindens purchased in-world. Please see our PayPal announcement to learn how to subscribe, and why you might want to do it.

If you have already requested a PayPal subscription, please click the button that matches your current rent agreement with us. If you don't find a match, please contact me (Wildefire Walcott), and I will fix it right away!

Click the Subscribe button below the parcel size/rental period of your choice.

1024 meter parcel, Weekly: $1.70 USD

1024 meter parcel, Monthly: $6.80 USD

2048 meter parcel, Weekly: $3.40 USD

2048 meter parcel, Monthly: $13.58 USD

Full Homestead, 3750 prims, $29 USD Weekly

Full Homestead, 3750 prims, $115 USD Monthly

Now Accepting PayPal!

2009-07-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

We now offer our customers the ability to pay rent via PayPal! (We always have, actually, just no one's ever taken advantage of it!) You can choose to pay weekly or monthly (and if you do the math, you'll find that paying monthly is a savings, since most months are longer than 4 weeks).

You will be billed automatically until you choose to end your rental. Please note that unlike with rent paid in L$ I cannot offer refunds to PayPal subscribers. (It's complicated, but believe me, I really couldn't afford to do that.)

To begin a PayPal subscription with us, you must already have claimed a parcel of land (or an island) from Desperation Isle Estates, and inform me (Wildefire Walcott) that you wish to pay via PayPal. I will make sure that our subscription page has the correct information for your land and then give you instructions on how to subscribe.

Homestead Rental FAQ

2008-07-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

UPDATE (2010.12.18): The information here is largely out of date. Please see our new Homestead and Full Sim Rental FAQ.

Here are answers to questions I frequently get from current and prospective homestead tenants. Some of my answers apply to any homestead sim rental anywhere in Second Life, while others apply only to those in Desperation Isle Estates.

How much does it cost to rent a homestead sim?
If you rent from Desperation Isle Estates, the cost is L$7750($30 USD) a week, or L$31000 ($118 USD) a month. This gets you a complete 65,536 square-meter homestead island with 3,750 available prims and protected open ocean views on all sides. We do not charge any "purchase price" other than the first week's rent. If you want us to order a new island for you, we typically ask for two weeks' worth of rent up-front, but nothing more unless you have naming requirements.

We also offer discounts to residents with two or more islands:

Two islands: Each island L$7500 ($29 USD), 4 weeks L$30000 ($115 USD).
Three or more islands: Each island L$7250 ($28 USD), 4 weeks L$29000 ($111 USD).

Are these the same as "openspace" sims?
No, 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.

How are homestead sims different from regular sims?
Homestead regions support only 1/4 the number of prims as full sims, and can support a maximum of 20 avatars simultaneously on the island, whereas full regions can have up to 100. A hidden difference is that homestead regions share their physical servers with more sims than regular sims do. There are only 4 regular sims on a given physical server, whereas there may be up to 16 homesteads on the same server.

Can I get more prims?
A homestead region has a hard limit of 3,750 prims, just as a full-sized sim has a hard limit of 15,000. While you can have additional islands, prims do not combine between islands. If you had two homestead sims, each one would have a max 3,750 prims. This is a technical limitation of Second Life.

Can I choose the name of my island?
I like to have uniform names so that people can easily identify my properties, but if you would like to select a unique name for an island we can do that for a fee. If we're talking about a brand new island, it's a non-refundable L$13,750 fee, and I will order the island with the name you requested. If it is an existing island that you are already renting, the fee is L$27,500. The reason for the fee is it costs $50 USD to change the name of an island, and I will need to rename the island in the future if you ever move out. The fee for existing islands is double because I'll have to pay $50 to give the island your name, and then $50 later on to return to the old name. I do not make any profit at all from these fees.

The name you use must follow Linden Lab's guidelines for private region naming:

Private Region or Estate names:
Must be more than 3, but less than 25 characters (spaces count)
Must contain three words or less
Must use only alphanumeric characters (no punctuation)
Must not be the name of a real life city (however, "New York Island" or "Los Angeles City" are fine)
Cannot include SL, Linden, Linden Lab, Second Life etc in the name
Must be PG
Offensiveness guidelines: You may not select as your Private Region name or Estate name:
The name of another person to the extent that could cause deception or confusion
A name which violates any trademark right, copyright, or other proprietary right
A name which may mislead other users to believe you to be an employee of Linden Lab
A name which Linden Lab deems in its discretion to be vulgar or otherwise offensive (obscenities in any language or any form of spelling, racist, sexist or otherwise derogatory in nature)
Must not already be in use
Linden Lab reserves the right to change any Private Region or Estate name for any reason or no reason.

Can I get a different default shape for my island?
While you will have full terraforming abilities on your homestead island, I can upload a different default terrain for you at your request, for no extra cost. Please see the Available Island Designs section of this announcement for our current selection. Also, if you create or buy your own RAW file, you can email it to me, and I will upload it for you.

I thought that the terraforming limits were +/-100 meters, but I can't sink the ground more than 20 meters below sea level.
The +/- limitation really means that you can terraform up to 100 meters above or below the contours of the default terrain, with the limitation that you can never go below an elevation of zero. If you want to make a really deep hole, you should terraform your land very high and then use the region tools to set a higher sea level, giving you more underwater area to work with. The default sea level for any new sim is 20m.

Can I get another island connected to my existing one?
Yes, we can order additional islands for you and connect them to your existing island. So long as the new island is directly north, south, east, or west of your current island, you will be able to both see and cross the border into the other island. Keep in mind that you will not be able to combine prim allotments, and that each island will have its own estate settings. There is no extra fee for having an additional island, other than the rent. Each island costs L$7,200/week to rent.

Can I "back up" my existing terrain in case I make changes I'm not happy with?
Yes, if you've done a lot of work on your island design, I can "bake" the terrain so that if you make future modifications you can use the "revert" tool to go back to the version I stored for you. Just IM me and/or send me a notecard. If you want a copy of your backed-up terrain, I will need to have your email address so I can send it to you. (It's a file format that Second Life does not support.)

Is it possible to add more people as Estate Managers on my island?
Yes, I always grant the primary renter Estate Manager privileges, but I can add anyone else to the managers list for your island.

Is there anything that an estate manager can't do that an island owner can?
Yes, there are a few things that only the person who actually pays the monthly island use fee to Linden Lab can do. Only the island owner (the person listed as owner on the Covenant tab of World > About Land) can do the following:

Set up and manage a telehub.
Download RAW terrain files.
Upload RAW terrain files.
Bake the terrain. (This sets the baseline for the Revert feature of the terraforming tools.)
Add/Remove other estate managers.
Deed parcels to a group even when "Allow Land Resell" is disabled on an island. (Note: Estate managers can toggle the Allow Land Resell flag on an island to temporarily enable the ability for parcel deeding.)

I noticed a name I don't recognize on my estate's "Banned Residents" list. Why is that?
If a resident griefs any of my private or public sims, I ban that individual from all of my islands in one single action. If this individual is a friend of yours, you have the ability to remove them from the ban list on your island. But if they're not, you probably don't want them on your island anyway.

I noticed a name I don't recognize on my Estate Managers list. Who is that?
It might be my business alt or one of my partners. Illana Ireton is my business alt. Vivienne Schell is my business partner, and Kelly Walcott is my SL partner, who also helps out on the estate. If you see any other names you don't recognize, please alert me.

If I get more than one homestead sim from you, will they run on the same server?
There is no way to predict what physical server your homestead sim will run on. The way Linden Lab has it set up is this: Sims run on physical servers that each have 4 processors. Four full sims run on a single server, one processor per sim. With homesteads, 16 homesteads run on one server, one processor per four sims. (This is why homesteads are considered "light use.") Every time a sim restarts, it has a chance of coming back up on a totally different physical server. This architecture allows Linden Lab to have a more dynamic infrastructure that makes efficient use of their available hardware. It also has the added benefit of helping a sim owner fix some lag issues, because if your sim is sharing a server with some very laggy other sims, you can restart your sim and have a good chance of landing on another server with better neighbors. Another thing to consider is that Linden Lab runs several different "colocation facilities." Not all sims are located in the same geographic region. Some are in California, some are in Texas, etc. Most new homestead sims are at the same colocation facility, which is good, because being in the same facility makes border crossings smoother.

How do homestead sims perform, compared to full sims?
New homestead sims generally perform rather well for typical residential use. The one area where you tend to notice a difference between a homestead and a full sim is script performance. If there are a bunch of scripted objects running in the sim, you will start to notice delays- for example, if you have a piece of furniture that displays a menu when you touch it, you might have to wait a few seconds for the menu to appear on a homestead sim with too many scripts running on it. I have tenants running clubs on their homesteads and have not gotten any performance-related complaints, so long as people were careful about what scripted items they placed on their sims. Also remember that many avatars wear huds and other attachments that run TONS of scripts, and all of these can affect your sim. Also, every once in a while you might end up sharing a server with some laggy "server neighbors." If you encounter lag on your homestead that doesn't seem related to anything you're doing on the island, sometimes a restart will help, because your sim will start up on another server, with different "neighbors."

Note that Linden Lab has discussed the possibility of imposing script limitations on homestead regions, but as of January 2009, no limitations had been implemented, and no other specifics were available.

Putting Your Modeling Studio To Sleep

2008-03-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

The N30 Deluxe Modeling Studio is a very popular and useful tool for taking snapshots in Second Life. Unfortunately, it is a very script-heavy device that almost always ends up in a sim's list of "Top Scripts." Heavily-scripted objects contribute to lag, which affects everyone on the island. Luckily, the N30 Deluxe Modeling Studio has an auto-off feature that shuts the studio down while you're not using it. Please follow these steps to ensure your studio isn't wasting valuable resources while you're away. The process is a little weird, but follow these steps to do it right (steps after the picture):

Touch (left-click) the studio's control panel to bring up the menu.
Click Settings.
Click Auto-off.
Click Shutdown.
IMPORTANT: You're not done yet! You need to follow the next steps too!
Touch the control panel again.
Click Settings.
Click Auto-off.
Click Auto-off again. You should now see a message in chat that "Autoshutdown has been activated."

With this option enabled, the modeling table will disable any lighting and special effects, and temporarily turn off the modeling table if no one is in the vicinity for 5 minutes.

Moving Large Unlinked Builds

2008-03-12T12:05:00.001-07:00

Every once in a while you have a need to move a number of unlinked objects together, so that they all maintain their same relative positions, but just move elsewhere on your land. The example I'm going to demonstrate involves the Montana Log Cabin, designed by Cory Edo. The cabin is too large to be packaged as a single linked structure, so you need to know how to select and move all of the cabin's linked components together if you want to reposition the house.

This tutorial assumes that you already know how to use the Second Life camera controls, and you know how to edit and move individual objects.

Increase your draw distance
The bigger your build is, the further away you'll need to zoom out your camera. Your maximum zoom distance is limited by your current draw distance, however. Increase your draw distance so that you can zoom out far enough to see your build and the destination location on-screen at the same time.

Disable camera constraints
By default the Second Life viewer puts limits on how far you can zoom in and out on things. You need to turn these limits off in order to move a large build. If you do not see the Client and Server menus in your menu bar, press CTRL+ALT+D to display them. Make sure that Disable Camera Constraints is checked, while Limit Select Distance is unchecked.

Only select your objects
If you accidentally select any items owned by anyone other than yourself, you will not be able to move ANY of the objects that you have selected. In order to prevent this from happening, make sure the Select Only My Objects option on the Tools menu is checked.

Get a bird's-eye view and clean up your viewing area
Use the camera controls to pan overhead and zoom out far enough that you can see the whole build. Once you start selecting items, the camera becomes more difficult to control, so it's best to start from a good angle before you do anything else.

My screenshots are small so you can view them easily, but ideally you're zoomed out far enough that you will be able to select all the parts of your build without having any windows or other things obstructing your view or your selection area (for example, I have the edit window covering part of my house on my screen in some of these pictures, and that would cause me a problem when selecting in the next steps). I strongly recommend you detach all of your HUDs because they can block your selecting. (Notice that I'm not wearing any HUDs in any of these screenshots.)

Enter edit mode
In order to begin selecting your build, you need to select one object in Edit mode. Do this by right-clicking an object (it doesn't matter which one) and picking Edit on the pie menu.

Select the rest of the build
Once you have at least one item selected in Edit mode you can click and drag on the ground to select the rest of the items. This is where it's very important that you don't have any HUDs or windows blocking your view.

Move the build
Once all your items are selected and your camera is positioned properly, you can move things by dragging the red, green, and blue arrow handles. You can also rotate the build by holding down CTRL or by switching into Rotate mode in the Edit window.

Finalize the move
Once you have everything positioned just where you like it, simply close the Edit window.

Phase 3: Full Island Rental at 1/4 the Price!

2008-03-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

I am excited to announce Phase 3 of Desperation Isle Estates: Full island rentals at the price we normally charge to rent 1/4 of a sim. These are special "Openspace" islands that only support 3,750 prims instead of the normal 15,000. Note that Phase 2 (multi-tenant, full-prim day/night islands) is still going strong, and will continue to grow over time.

Some people call Openspace sims "low prim sim," "sim-lite," or (incorrectly) "void sims." There used to be severe restrictions on Openspace sims: Formerly they were limited to only 1875 prims, you could only order them in bunches of 4 at a time, and they had to be anchored to another island, which meant that you couldn't just put them anywhere on the map. All of those restrictions have been lifted, however, allowing us to provide completely autonomous full low-prim sims to our tenants!

Advantages
There are many benefits to having your own Phase 3 island:

Choose your own default island design. We have a selection of various full-island templates available that we can install when you first move into your sim.
Choose your own island textures. We will texture your island to your specifications- you can make it a lush tropical getaway or a foreboding alien landscape.
Access to Estate Manager tools. We will grand the primary tenant access to the Region Tools for the given island. Tenants can use the region tools to diagnose physics and scripting issues, restart the island, send messages to visitors, and more.
Total creative freedom. Since you have no neighbors to worry about, none of the 'building guidelines' from our covenant apply. Make your island as beautiful (or ugly) as you wish. Specifically, sections 6.2, 6.3, 6.5, and 6.6 of the covenant mostly do not apply to Phase 3 islands.

Limitations
Keep in mind that Openspace islands are not exactly the same as regular private islands. You must be aware of the following technical restrictions:

Total prim limit is 3,750. Once you hit your prim limit on an OpenSpace sim, there is no way to rent "extra prims" from us.
Limited performance. Openspace sims share a processor core with up to three other Openspace sims; they are designed to handle 1/4 the load. This makes them great for residential areas, low-script-load stores, and casual gathering places, but they are not ideal for places with very heavy script load or an unusually large number of textures.

Pricing and Acquisition
The pricing for a Phase 3 island is the same as for renting 1/4 of one of the other islands:

65536m: 3750 prims, weekly L$7200 ($26.97 USD), monthly L$28800 ($107.87 USD)

We will order Phase 3 islands on an as-needed, first-come-first-served basis. It costs us $415 out-of-pocket for every new Openspace sim we bring online, so quantities will be limited. Here's how it will work:

If you would like to rent an Openspace sim, contact Wildefire Walcott directly. If she is not yet prepared to order a new island, she'll add you to her first-come-first-served Phase 3 wait list.
If a new island needs to be ordered and Wildefire is prepared to purchase a new one, you will be required to make a non-refundable cash payment of L$14400 ($54.14 USD) to Wildefire Walcott. This money counts toward your rent, and any back-rent you already have on your existing rental box will also carry over once you move out of your old lot.
Wildefire will put in the order for the new sim, and then alert you when it is ready. The choice of island name will be hers, but she may give you some options to choose from. (You will be able to name any parcel(s) you create on the island.)
Delivery time may take 1-2 weeks, depending on how busy Linden Lab's Concierge team is. Once the island is delivered, you will be able to choose what island design to use, and select island textures. The island design options available to you are listed later. You will have to provide your own full-perm terrain textures to Wildefire if you are not satisfied with the ones in the Linden Library.
Wildefire will add the primary tenant to the Estate Manager list for that island.
If you are an existing tenant of Desperation Isle Estates, you will continue to pay your old rent box at the adjusted fee (Phase 3 islands have no rent boxes on them.) Otherwise, Wildefire will set a new box up for you at one of the other islands in the estate. Please vacate your old land as soon as possible (and notify Wildefire once you're moved out), so she can quickly re-adjust your rent box and re-list your land in.

Available Island Designs
We have the following default island designs available for Phase 3 islands. Four of them are the original island designs that Linden Lab uses when creating new private islands, while the others were custom designed for Desperation Isle Estates.

Desperation Isle Estates: Phase Two

2008-02-17T11:21:00.000-08:00

In the past couple of weeks we launched our first couple of islands in Phase Two of Desperation Isle Estates. The Phase 2 islands are not connected to the original islands that surround New Desperation Isle (so there's open ocean in every direction), and they are on a normal day/night cycle. The first island, Desperation Kelly, is already full, but Desperation Vivienne still has some vacancies. Please see our covenant for a list of prices.

To find spots on our estates available for rent using Second Life's new search box (the one that's in the upper-right corner of the screen), just search for: for rent desperation. In Places Search (Edit > Search > Places), just look for: desperation. Our available parcels will all begin "For Rent:" and you can teleport directly to the parcels from the ads. Also, you can always click the Parcels for Rent link on the right-hand side of this blog.

Using the Sim-wide Teleporters

2007-12-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

All major locations at New Desperation Isle are accessible via our teleporter system. (In fact, some locations are only accessible by teleporter.) New visitors are sometimes confused by the teleporters, so here are some quick usage tips:

1. Touch the teleporter base.
Just touch (left-click) a teleporter base to bring up a menu.

2. Select your destination.
The menu displays a numbered list of all possible destinations. You might have to scroll down in the menu to see all of the destinations. Click the number associated to your desired destination to rez a teleport beam.

3. Touch or sit on the teleport beam.
We have modified our teleporters so that you can just touch (left-click) the blue beam to travel to your destination. Alternatively, you can right-click the beam and pick Transport on the pie menu to do the same thing.

Other teleporters
Some places, such as the Mall and the Castle, have their own simplified teleporter systems. Just touch the labeled buttons to move to your chosen location. The Treehouse and the Goliath Tree have simple systems where you right-click the teleporter, and then pick a teleport option from the pie menu.

Update on the New Desperation Isle Mall

2007-12-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

Thanks to those of you who toured and voted on the mall prototype designs this weekend. Voting for the survey is now closed, and here are the results:

Model 1: The Square 47.4% (9 votes)
Model 2: The Big Circle 31.6% (6 votes)
Model 3: The Little Circle 21.1% (4 votes)

The Square is the second-most compact prototype mall I built in the past couple of weeks, and I believe it is small enough to actually fit on the island where the current mall resides. This slightly changes my plans a bit.

Beginning on Monday, the 17th, I will be return vendor items from the current mall so I can tear down the mall and replace it with the new one. You are free to pick up your things before-hand if you like. (It ill make my life easier if you do.)
I will decorate the mall a bit, and place any teleporters or signs so that you know where things are going to be and aren't surprised by new additions upon later trips to the mall. I'm also decorating a sort of welcome area in the castle. This is where many of the signs currently at my welcome area will go, so they're not blocking the view of stalls in the mall.
Once the mall is in place I will personally invite my long-time tenants to take their pick of spots
Next I will send out a group notice to the rest of my vendors.
If there are any spots left, I will contact vendors currently on my waiting list.
After you claim your stall I will apply any rent that you had remaining on your old rent box to your new box, and give you a free week of rent on top of that. (I have not been charging any rent the past 2 weeks and I know exactly how much rent every tenant had remaining on their boxes.)
Once the mall's sufficiently populated, I will send out an announcement to the New Desperation Isle updates group (separate from the renters group) and do some advertising in several places to get the word out about the new mall.

Here's picture of the winning model people voted on, for those who missed the open house. The others were round, resembling arenas. Folks felt the big one was too big and the little one didn't offer enough visibility.

We should be back in business by this weekend. Thank you.

Changes at the New Desperation Isle Mall

2007-12-03T19:42:00.000-08:00

About 1/2 of my current mall tenants responded to the survey, and the results are clear: I messed up the New Desperation Isle mall. More than half of my tenants who used to be at the original mall on old Desperation Isle said their sales were better there- in fact some folks mentioned that the old mall used to be one of their most profitable locations, while the current mall barely justifies rent. Commonly cited issues were the alpha textures (which contribute to slow rezzing), the "sign spam" at the teleport point, the ease with which visitors are able to escape the mall before it even rezzes, and the fact that some of the changes made after the mall opened blocked visibility to some vendors. So let me just get this out of the way: I'm sorry. Seriously. You deserve better.

The general feeling among people who responded is that a new, better-planned mall will improve sales. I really hate to rebuild, because I know what a hassle it is for my tenants to have to set up their stalls again- but the current mall just isn't serving my tenants or my guests. We need a new one.

Questions and Answers

What will be different about the new mall?
The new structure is much larger and has a completely open, arena-style layout. Every vendor in the entire mall will be visible and easily accessible from the landing point. There are walkways that lead from the landing point to four balconies that line the building where customers will find island teleporters (basically, visitors will have to walk past your products to get to the island). Each balcony will have a teleporter that takes guests to anywhere on the island. There will also be quick-access teleporters to allow visitors to jump between the main floor and the upper level. To reduce lag and to preserve the skyline of the isle, the mall will be moved up to 300m. All building textures are also opaque, and view of the outside is limited to the starry sky and what you can see off the balconies. Some of the signs that currently greet visitors at the existing mall will be spread around the teleport point, but out of the way and at a lower elevation so they do not block the visitor's view of any of our vendors.

Another difference worth noting is that I'd like for this mall to be sorted into sections. For example, one area for latex and fetishwear, one for casual clothes and footwear, one for BDSM furniture, etc. I am aware that several of you have product lines that span multiple categories. You may choose where you fit among the others, in that case. I will have signs up pointing out the desired areas. If people dislike this idea I'll give it up- but I'd like to at least give it a shot.

Is there a policy on renting several stalls?
Glad you asked! ;) While we first set up I would ask that folks not reserve more than two stalls at a time. If, after everyone's been notified, there are still spaces left, you may rent more.

Will the size or shape of the stalls be any different?
There are going to be a few differences. For one thing there will no longer be any crappy "corner stalls." All stalls have open, visible wall space now, and all are a full 10 meters wide. I am installing scripted dividers that vendors can show or hide at their discretion. If you don't see a divider, just go into 'show invisible' mode and click it. It will ask whether you want to show or hide the divider. Only members of the renter group can toggle divider visibility. I believe that dividers make things look cramped, but they're there if you need the extra wall space. Also, if you want to show or hide a divider that separates you from a neighbor, please ask your neighbor first.

Will there be downtime during the transition?
Not really. The existing mall will remain operational until the new one is in place, although I won't be charging you during the transition. I will be picking up existing rent boxes shortly and recording how many days each tenant had on their rent. You will still be able to make sales the whole time. (Note: Due to prim limitations, please pick up your items from the old mall before setting up at the new one.)

When will we be able to move in?
Within a day or two I will be personally contacting long-time renters (people who rented with me back on the old island) to let them claim their spots. Once the old timers have had at least 24 hours to move in I will send out a notice to the group, and individually contact current renters who are no longer in the group.

Will we be compensated for this hassle?
Yes. If you responded to my survey you already got a free week of rent added to your box. If you stay with us and move to the new mall I will give you an additional free week when I apply the built-up rent from your old box to your new one. You do have to pay for at least one week's rent, just because that's how the boxes work.

What do I need to do?
First, wait for me to notify you, whether by group notice or individual contact. Once I say that the mall is ready, you can go to the new mall and pay a rent box to claim your spot. Please pick up your things from the old mall before setting up the new one.

I'm no longer in your rent group. What do I do?
To get added to the rent group you can IM Wildefire Walcott, Clara Hirvi, or Vivienne Schell and request access to Mistress Wildefire's Sub-space so you can place things at the mall. We're an international team, so at least one of us is almost always on.

Survey Results
Here are the results of the survey I sent out, based on responses from 27 people.

Are you satisfied with your current sales at the New Desperation Isle mall?
Yes 29.6% 8
No 70.4% 19

If you used to have a stall at the old mall on the original Desperation Isle, how do your sales at the new mall compare?
My sales at the new mall are better than at the old one. 3.7% 1
My sales at the new mall are about the same. 14.8% 4
My sales at the new mall are worse than at the old one. 51.9% 14
I don't remember. 7.4% 2
I am new and did not have a stall at the old mall. 22.2% 6

How do your sales at the current mall compare with your sales at other malls with similar traffic and price? (Our current traffic is between 14,000-19,000, and we charge around L$10 per prim.)
I generally get better sales at this mall compared to my other comparable locations. 7.4% 2
My sales are around the same. 14.8% 4
My sales at New Desperation Isle are worse than at my other similar locations. 63.0% 17
I don't know. 14.8% 4
New Desperation Isle is my only location. 0.0% 0

How do you feel about the layout of the current mall?
The current mall design is fine, I wouldn't change a thing. 14.8% 4
The current design is okay, but could be better. 37.0% 10
I don't like the current layout. 40.7% 11
I don't know how I feel about it. 7.4% 2

Do you think a mall redesign would improve your sales at New Desperation Isle?
Yes 81.5% 22
No 18.5% 5

If we decided to rebuild the mall from the ground up in order to improve the layout and overall visibility, would you come back to us to try it out?
Yes 96.3% 26
No 3.7% 1

If we rebuild the mall and are ready for vendors to set up again, should we give first pick to the people who already have good locations?
Yes, the people who already have good locations deserve to have the same chance at the newly-built mall. 40.7% 11
No, everyone should have the same chance at getting a good spot. 48.1% 13
I don't have an opinion. 11.1% 3

Thanks for your business and your patience. I'm going to get it right this time.

New Desperation Isle Video Tour

2007-11-10T23:51:00.000-08:00

I produced the following video with some help from my friends and pets. It serves as a brief tour of the isle, showcasing some of the many roleplaying possibilities there. The music is "Midnight in a Perfect World," by DJ Shadow.

My thanks to Redfire, Whinter, Bethany, Vivienne, Ramonna, and Clara for their participation in the filming. You can learn more about New Desperation Isle at the official opening announcement.

Dealing with Chat Spam Griefers

2007-10-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days I've received reports from tenants and visitors that an object has been spamming them with the following annoying text:

[11:44] III||IIl|||||||||||||: HELLO MY NAME IS BLACKPAT HALLARD AND I'M 16 YEARS OLD, NICE TO MEET YOU HELLO MY NAME IS BLACKPAT HALLARD AND I'M 16 YEARS OLD, NICE TO MEET YOU HELLO MY NAME IS BLACKPAT HALLARD AND I'M 16 YEARS OLD, NICE TO MEET YOU HELLO MY NAME IS BLACKPAT HALLARD AND I'M 16 YEARS OLD, NICE TO MEET

Normally you can just mute and report objects that spam you, but this one has been specially designed to make finding and reporting it very difficult. In order for Linden Lab to track down the offender and stop the spam, I need your help in reporting the problem when it happens.

What to do if you get spammed
Please contact me (Wildefire Walcott) or one of my estate managers (Vivienne Schell or Clara Hirvi) as soon as you're spammed. Tell us exactly where you were when you got the spam, and copy/paste the message (including the object name) into the IM you send. We will try to contact Linden Lab support to track down the spammer.

New Desperation Isle is open to the public!

2007-10-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

New Desperation Isle is an adults-only kink and fetish playground in the virtual world of Second Life. If you have Second Life installed, you can teleport there now. If you're new to Second Life, visit What is Second Life? to learn about it and sign up for a free account.

This post covers the following topics:

Recent history
The adult playground and kink mall New Desperation Isle is officially open. Old Desperation Isle was shut down on October 18, but most of the attractions there have made their way to the new island in one form or another. My slaves and I built the new island with our guests in mind, and with a goal of delivering a more focused and immersive experience for you to enjoy. Note that the old island has been renamed to Desperation East, and become one of the rental islands in the Desperation Isle Estates. To see if any land is available for rent, go to Search > Places and look for "desperation." All our rental properties are listed there.

Getting to the island
If you have Second Life open now, you can teleport directly there by clicking this link. You can also find us by going to Edit > Search and looking for New Desperation Isle on the Places tab. I also have a link to the island in the Picks tab of my in-world profile. While you can get there by simply flying West from the old Desperation Isle, I strongly recommend you update your landmarks and profile picks because the old island will be going away soon.

Improving your experience
(Note: If you've got an older, slower, computer, skip this section and move on to the next section about improving performance.) New Desperation Isle is a lot more scenic and visually dynamic than the old island, and if you've got a fast, recent computer and a good broadband connection, here are some suggestions for getting the best total experience during your visit.

Edit > Preferences > Graphics > Draw Distance. I recommend between 192 and 256 meters. Any higher doesn't add too much, but affects performance.
Edit > Preferences > Graphics Detail > Lighting Detail. Set to Nearby local lights for the best effect.
Edit > Preferences > Graphics Detail > Terrain Detail. Set to High.
Edit > Preferences > Adv. Graphics > Nighttime Brightness. If things seem too dark, increase this value until they look better. I strongly recommend doing this instead of using World > Force Sun, because the island was designed for a nighttime experience.

Improving your performance
The sim performance at New Desperation Isle is near-perfect. In other words, the island is not bogged down on the server side and all scripts and download services are running at full capacity. However, if your computer is old or you don't have a very good broadband connection or graphics card, you might have to make some compromises in order do get around easily on the new island. If updating your computer, graphics card, or RAM are not options for you, here are my recommendations:

Play in full-screen mode. Generally you can get more frames per second (FPS) by running Second Life in full-screen mode, instead of "windowed mode." You can switch between full-screen and windowed modes at any time by pressing ALT+ENTER. To see what your current FPS is, enable View > Statistics Bar. Your client-side FPS is the number at the top of the statistics bar. This is different from Sim FPS, which is a measure of how fast the server is operating. If you find that your FPS actually drops when you enter full-screen mode, it might be because your computer's screen resolution is very high. If you set your computer to a normal resolution like 1024x768, full-screen mode will likely be faster for you than Windowed mode.
Edit > Preferences > Network > Maximum Bandwidth. Set this slider to match your broadband connection's speed. The default is 500 kpbs but most cable modem connections are much faster than that. This slider has a maximum of 1500 kbps. It probably will not help you to increase the slider to a speed greater than your broadband connection.
Edit > Preferences > Network > Disk Cache Size (MB). If you have the hard disk space, increase this slider to expand your cache, which will cut down on the time you have to spend re-downloading assets at places you frequently visit. The maximum value is 1000 MB, which is around 1 GB.
Edit > Preferences > Graphics > Draw Distance. Lowering this value will increase FPS by limiting how many distant objects your computer has to display. 96 meters is an acceptable distance, in my opinion, and I wouldn't recommend any less than 64 meters.
Edit > Preferences > Graphics Detail > Lighting Detail. You can get a minor boost by switching this to Sun and Moon only. If you select this, I recommend that you drastically increase your nighttime brightness or force daylight so you're able to see where you're going, as New Desperation Isle makes heavy use of local lighting for visibility and atmosphere.
Edit > Preferences > Graphics > Terrain Detail. Setting this to Low will give you a 1-2 FPS boost. The ground won't look as nice.
Edit > Preferences > Adv. Graphics > Filtering. Uncheck Anisotropic Filtering if it's checked. You probably won't miss it.
Edit > Preferences > Adv. Graphics > Graphics Card Memory. Select the highest number that isn't grayed out. If your graphics card has less than 128MB of memory, you're not going to have the best experience.
Edit > Preferences > Adv. Graphics > Max. Particle Count. New Desperation Isle uses many particle effects to enhance the atmosphere in several parts of the island. Lowering this number to something like 1024 or even less will improve performance in these areas.

Exploring the island
There are many places to discover on the isle. Here's a short guide to the major locations:

The Mall. When you first teleport into New Desperation Isle, you land on the top level of our kink and fetish mall. Please support our vendors- they pay our bills!
The Castle. Seven rooms for seven sins, each area in this castle is outfitted to cater to different kinks and fantasies. See if you can find the hidden dungeon! There have been rumors of dark rites being performed in the ancient ruins behind the castle... are they just stories?
The Treehouse. This scenic location features a bar and slave parking downstairs, as well as a forniphilia lounge and a comfy private area on the second level. Use the teleporter inside the big tree to get upstairs.
The Medical Center. Our experienced medical technicians specialize in gender reassignment (or enhancement) and a variety of brainwashing and fertility services.
The Goliath Tree. Just West of the Medical Center looms the immense Goliath tree. Ride the teleporters to the top level for a 360-degree view of the entire Desperation Isle Estates.
The Atrium. This is Wildefire Walcott's personal gathering place and office, surrounded by trees. Visitors are welcome; it's perhaps the only "safe" place on the isle.
The Barn. At great expense, the Walcott Family contracted to have the most popular building from old Desperation Isle moved to its new, more private location, enshrouded in a ring of trees. Everything you remember is still there, although some stables have been added for keeping your pets where they belong. (The pony wash is now located on the South side of the barn.) Visitors will also find an inviting bonfire outside the barn.
The Love Nest. One of the Walcott slaves contstructed this heart-shaped building as an expression of her devotion to her Mistresses. Find a comfy hammock, warm (scripted) bearskin rug, and a roomy jacuzzi on the top level. This structure has the best view of the giant waterfall and the tragic shipwreck of the Blessed Hellride.
The Pirate Ship. (Coming soon.) This giant unmanned vessel floated into harbor one gloomy Fall morning; no trace of its owners was ever found. It seems too beautiful to dismantle, so we're looking for a use for it.
The Cave. Like old Desperation Isle, the island sits upon a vast network of caves. Explore our 9,600-square meter cave and unlock its mysteries. Note: There is a secret entrance to the cave tucked away somewhere aboveground, but it can also be accessed from the island teleporters.

New Desperation Isle Mall Rules and Info

2007-10-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

Thank you for expressing an interest in setting up shop at the New Desperation Isle Mall. The isle is a dark BDSM roleplaying area whose guests are mostly D/s practitioners and fetishists from Germany, France, Scandinavia, and the USA. New Desperation Isle is a mature, privately-owned sim. As of this writing we get between 12-16K of real traffic at our current home (no campers, no bots)- depending on the day of the week.

*** MALL RENTAL RATES ***
There are different rates depending on the number of prims you wish to use in your stall. Rent is due weekly and should be paid to the rental box in your stall. The rental box will remind you when pay is due (or late). (Note, the default rate is for 20 prims, if you wish to use more or less, please contact me and I will make adjustments/refunds as needed.) Please see the New Desperation Isle FAQ at the blog for other options: http://desperationisle.blogspot.com/
* 1 to 10 prims: L$100/week
* 11 to 15 prims: L$150/week
* 16 to 20 prims: L$200/week
* 21 to 25 prims: L$250/week
* 26 to 30 prims: L$285/week (5% discount)
* 31 to 35 prims: L$333/week (5% discount)
* 36 to 40 prims: L$360/week (10% discount)
* 41 to 45 prims: L$405/week (10% discount)
* 46 to 50 prims: L$425/week (15% discount)
* Over 50 prims: Let's talk. =)

*** REFERRAL BONUS ***
If a new Second Life merchant sets up at the Mall under your recommendation, I will reimburse you for a week's worth of rent! Just have your friends tell me you referred them. (This is important!)

*** HOW TO SET UP SHOP ***
1. Pay the rental box in the stall you would like to rent to claim your spot.
2. Contact Wildefire Walcott via IM and ask to be added to her group for the mall. (I am online every day between 10pm-12:30am PST, but can respond to offline IMs during most days.) I will invite you to the group, "Mistress Wildefire's Sub-space" as an "Associate."
3. Once you're in the group, remember to always activate the group tag before placing your items. If you don't do this your items will be auto-returned within 10 minutes.

*** NOTES ***
- The land is set to 10-minute autoreturn. Be sure to wear the group tag when putting things out for sale.
- Stalls are available on a first-come-first-served basis. Follow the steps listed earlier to claim your spot.
- If you have a business partner who needs group access as well, just tell me.
- Please check the Desperation Isle Estates blog for up-to-date information (check the Mall Renter Resources links on the right side of the page): http://desperationisle.blogspot.com/

*** DETAILS AND RULES ***
- What you sell on New Desperation Isle is up to you. So long as what you're selling doesn't violate the Second Life terms of service and you're not reselling freebies, you should be okay. Items that sell very well at the isle: All types of womens' clothes, latex and fetish wear, scripted BDSM furniture and collars/cuffs/binders, add-ons for popular collars and cuffs.
- Please avoid hovertext when possible, as it can creep between walls and mess up neighboring displays. If you MUST use it, please place the items with hovertext so that they don't cause problems in neighboring stalls.
- Please keep your items inside the stall, specifically I don't want anything obstructing the island view or blocking the aisles.
- You MAY add a sign to the top of your stall if you like.
- You MAY add 'wallpaper' to your stall to give your area a customized look. Note that doing so will count against your prim allotment.
- Please pay the rental box in the stall; do not pay me directly.
- No 'holo' or 'temp-on-rez' vendors are allowed.
- You may not place networked SERVERS on the isle, however networked VENDORS are certainly allowed.
- Please do not use textures greater than 512x512.
- No rotating, shouting, flashing, or blinking objects.
- No casino items, including hippie pay or any other item where you pay money and do not receive an object.
- I repeat: No reselling freebies!

Please contact me with any questions, concerns, bribes, etc.
-Wildefire Walcott

Knowing When to Deed Your Land

2007-09-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

A land group is a Second Life mechanism that gives landowners the ability to grant certain abilities to guests who visit their land, and to prevent unwanted visitors from accessing or disturbing the property. Using a combination of settings in World > About Land and the Roles tab of the Group Info dialog, a land owner can grant a wide number of abilities to group members while restricting the general public from doing the same things. There is one somewhat confusing detail about land groups that not very many people understand: It is possible to "set your land to a group," but simply doing this does not necessarily grant group members all of the abilities that you might intend for them to have. In order to give your group members access to the full range of abilities listed in their respective group roles, you need to deed the land to your group.

Normally, only the person who actually owns the land (i.e. pays the monthly tier to Linden Lab) can deed one's land to a group. There are some private islands that grant tenants the ability to transfer ownership (and thus deed), but that is not possible on the Desperation Isle estates; only I, Wildefire Walcott, or one of my estate managers can do that for you. Simply contact me if, after reading this article, you have decided you want to deed your land. You will have to invite me to your land group as an Officer. I'll deed the land when I'm able, and then quit the group.

I have covered how to create a land group and invite members in another article. This article focuses solely on the difference between setting your land to a group and actually deeding the land.

Setting your land to a group

To set your land to a group, just stand on the land, go to World > About Land, and then click the Set button. Pick your group from the group list and then click Select. Doing this alone only serves some basic purposes. It allows group members to create objects on the land (if group-only building is enabled), and prevents objects with the group tag set from being sent back to inventory if autoreturn is enabled. It's also necessary if you want to limit land access only to members of your group, but please remember that Access lists are not allowed on Desperation Isle (refer to section 6.4 of the covenant).

Unless you actually deed your land to the group, only the following group abilities will be available to group members, regardless of what your group roles say:

Parcel Powers > Always allow 'Create Objects'
Parcel Content > Return objects owned by group (includes object's shared with group by using the Share with group checkbox in the object properties).
Object management > Deed objects to group
Object management > Set group-owned objects for sale
Object management > Manipulate (move, copy, modify) group-owned objects (Moving is always allowed when this is enabled, copying and editing sometimes isn't- even with objects on deeded land.)

Deeding your land to a group

Everything possible on land that's set to a group is possible on deeded land, but deeded land enables many more role-specific group abilities to take effect as well. The following abilities are only available to group members on deeded land:

Parcel Identity > Toggle 'Show in Find Places' and set category
Parcel Identity > Change parcel name, description, and 'Publish on the Web' settings
Parcel Identity > Set landing point and set teleport routing
Parcel Settings > Change music & media settings
Parcel Settings > Toggle 'Edit Terrain'
Parcel Settings > Toggle various About Land > Options settings
Parcel Powers > Always allow 'Edit Terrain'
Parcel Powers > Always allow 'Fly'
Parcel Powers > Always allow 'Create Landmark'
Parcel Powers > Allow 'Set Home to Here' on group land
Parcel Access > Manage parcel Access lists
Parcel Access > Manage parcel Ban lists
Parcel Access > Change parcel 'Sell passes…' settings
Parcel Access > Eject and freeze Residents on parcels
Parcel Content > Return non-group objects
Parcel Content > Landscaping using Linden plants
Parcel Content > Return objects set to group

Should you deed your land?

If you simply want to let group members build on your land while preventing the general public from doing that then setting your land to the group and adjusting your About Land options is all you need to do. If you want group members to have more freedom, such as the ability to set your land as their Second Life "Home" location, then deeding is the way to go. If you're one of my tenants and you wish your land to be deeded, just invite me to your group (as an Officer) and contact me.

A warning to mainland residents

Most of the above information applies to mainland holdings as well as rented land on private estates, but you should know that the stakes are a fair amount higher when you deed mainland properties to a group. Anyone in the group with the proper abilities (like in the Officer's role) can sell group-owned land to another player, or even to themselves. This is not much of a risk on a private island because many islands prevent the sale of their land, and estate managers can easily fix the problem on islands that do allow it- but if you lose a piece of mainland property you lose it forever. Make sure that you only grant those kinds of powers to people you trust VERY much. It's also worth noting that proceeds for any group-owned land you sell are divided between all group members who have the 'credits and liabilities' ability enabled, and those profits are disbursed all at once at a specific time of every day (usually very early in the morning).

Final words

Proper management of your rented or owned land requires your understanding of the About Land options and the abilities of various group roles. You can learn more about the abilities by taking a look at the Abilities subtab of the Members & Roles tab of your group's information dialog.

Big Changes at Desperation Isle

2007-09-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

[Updated October 2, 2007]
If you've been to the Desperation Isle Estates recently you may have noticed that the scenery has changed. The central land mass, Desperation Isle, has actually moved one map slot to the East and a brand new island has moved into its old location. Work has begun on the new island, cunningly dubbed New Desperation Isle, and we are on track to open by Monday, October 8. We are going to great lengths (and expense) to ensure that the transition goes smoothly for visitors, residents, and mall renters. Please read on to learn what to expect in the coming weeks.

General questions

Is Desperation Isle going away?
The island you currently know as Desperation Isle will indeed be shutting down, but this is not going to happen until New Desperation Isle is completely up and running. Eventually "Desperation Isle" will become a yet-unannounced special island that I'm sure regular visitors will be quite pleased with.

How long until New Desperation Isle is ready?
We are tentatively planning to open New Desperation Isle on Monday, October 8.

Will we be able to visit New Desperation Isle while it's under construction?
The island will be restricted to members of the group Mistress Wildefire's Sub-space (which includes mall renters and tenants of Desperation Isle Estates). The general public will not have access until we're about ready for the grand opening.

What's going to be different about the new island?
While we're keeping some of our plans secret, you can expect more dynamic terrain and plenty of hidden gems to uncover. We know our audience, and I promise you that all of the popular items and areas on the old Desperation Isle will be represented on the new island in one way or another.

Why build a whole new island?
I had already been planning to add a new island to Desperation Isle Estates, and decided to take the opportunity to completely rethink Desperation Isle and produce something that more closely met my vision for a dark and intimate adult gathering place. Rather than simply shut down the old island and rebuild, I decided to take my time building New Desperation Isle from scratch while leaving the old island open for my visitors and mall renters. The way I've chosen to do things is actually costing me a fair amount of extra money, but I wanted the transition to proceed as painlessly as possible for everyone involved.

Is the new island going to lag like Desperation Isle has for the past couple of months?
Probably not. While we're ultimately at the mercy of Linden Lab, we are making certain design decisions specifically with lag reduction in mind. We hope to deliver a bigger, better Desperation Isle for you with performance that rivals or exceeds how the island used to perform before the mysterious lag issues that popped up in June. (By the way, performance on the old Desperation Isle has improved recently due to some changes that both I and Linden Lab have made.)

How do I find the new island?
At the time of this writing, the world map still hasn't updated so you can't get there by mapping it. You have a few other options, though:

In Search > Places, look for: New Desperation Isle and click the Teleport button.
Open my profile and look at my Picks. I have a Pick for New Desperation Isle with a working teleport link.
Just go to the old Desperation Isle and fly West. The mall is at the highest point in the New Desperation Isle sim, in the NW corner. The teleport location is on the second floor between the two signboards.

I'm not able to get onto the island!
You must belong to the Mistress Wildefire's Sub-space group. This is the same group that vendors use on the old Desperation Isle. The group is invite-only. Just contact me and I'll add you as soon as I can.

Mall-specific questions

How will this affect mall renters?
The old Desperation Isle still exists, and is still listed in Classifieds and Places Search, so you will continue to get business there until (and probably a few days after) the transition. During the transition to the new mall, you will NOT be expected to pay double-rent. Beginning on Tuesday, October 2, existing vendors are now invited to set up shop at New Desperation Isle. Claim a spot by paying your new rent box only. Any time left on your old rent box on Desperation Isle will be refunded to you (and I will take your old rent box offline so you no longer get notifications from it), and you may keep selling your items on the old island until it shuts down.

Will mall rent remain the same on the new island?
We will have a new rent pricing structure, and the result will actually mean a reduction in rent for many vendors. Our base rent price is dropping from L$200/week to L$100/week, for a reduced number of prims. The rent boxes all default to L$200/week. I will make adjustments and refunds based on your prim usage once you're set up. Here's the pricing breakdown:

1 to 10 prims: L$100/week
11 to 15 prims: L$150/week
16 to 20 prims: L$200/week
21 to 25 prims: L$250/week
26 to 30 prims: L$285/week (5% discount)
31 to 35 prims: L$333/week (5% discount)
36 to 40 prims: L$360/week (10% discount)
41 to 45 prims: L$405/week (10% discount)
46 to 50 prims: L$425/week (15% discount)
Over 50 prims: Let's talk. =)

Will you consider profit sharing instead of a flat rent?
While I prefer a flat rental rate, if you'd like to set up a profit sharing system to cover your rental, this is a possibility. There are several requirements:

You must use a vendor that supports profit sharing.
If your sales don't generate an amount of profit equivalent to my flat rates for rent, I may ask you to adjust my cut of the profits or move out if I get queries from vendors willing to pay the flat rate.

I have more stuff than I can fit in one stall. What can Ido?
You can rent out more than one stall. If you rent out adjacent stalls, I can even remove dividing walls at your request. The price you'll pay for the additional stall will either be L$150/week or higher, if your overall prim usage exceeds what L$150 would cover. For example, if you rented out two stalls and used only 21 prims, you'd pay L$200 for the first stall (up to 20 prims) and L$150 of the second, even though you're only using 1 prim in that stall's allotment, for a total of L$350/week. If you had two stalls and used your full 40 prims, though, you'd pay L$400/week to cover your prims. This actually works out cheaper than the old mall for vendors with large items or boxes who simply need more room, and is the same price for vendors who just have a lot of prims.

All the rent boxes at the new mall are set to L$200/week but I'm going to use more (or fewer) prims than 20 prims. What do I do?
If you know you're going to use a different number of prims than the L$200/week will cover, pay the box at least L$200 to claim your spot and I will make adjustments later, based on the number of prims you're actually using. The rent box only accepts multiples of weekly amounts (for example, L$200, 300, etc.) until I adjust it. If you overpay to cover your first week's rent, I will refund the additional amount when I update your box.

I set up my stall on the new island, but I still have some rent left at the old mall. Can I apply that rent to the new mall?
Since the rent box can only be updated in multiples of weeks, I will simply refund you any remaining rent you have on your box at the old mall once you set up at the new one. I'll also remove your old rent box so it doesn't keep bugging you for payments.

How will the new mall be different from the old one?
I have redesigned the new mall to give merchants bigger stalls (both taller and deeper), provide a less cramped environment, with bigger walkways, and still provide high visibility to a number of vendor stalls when people visit the island. The teleport location is on the east side of the second floor of the mall (between the signboards), and the ground-level entrance is directly below, on the first floor. The new structure is similar in architecture to the existing mall, however it covers a larger area, and has much better-placed staircases that should drive more traffic between levels. It will also be equipped with simple teleporters for moving between the two levels.

Will I need to join a new vendor group?
If you are already in the Mistress Wildefire's Sub-space group you will not have to join any groups to be able to set up shop on the new island.

Can we see a preview of the new mall?
The mall is essentially complete, and is ready for vendors. You can find it in the Northwest corner of the island.

Will the rules for vendors at the new mall be any different?
I will be updating the guidelines for accuracy and readability, but I don't expect there to be any major changes to the rules. I will update the Desperation Isle Estates blog with the new rules when they're ready.

I currently have a free space at the old Desperation Isle mall. Will I still be able to set up shop for free at the new place?
I do not have plans to provide free mall space to anyone but members of my slave family at the new mall. While this was a tough decision, the increased price of the new island necessitated the change. Hopefully the new rental pricing structure will allow you to continue doing business with us. If you're a current vendor at Desperation Isle and you do not think you'll be able to afford staying with us if forced to pay our published rates, please discuss the matter with me.

Resident questions

I'm a resident of Desperation Isle Estates. How will this change affect me?
You'll now see a very different (and more scenic) island at the center of Desperation Isle Estates. This land mass connects all of the four rental islands, allowing visibility of the entire region from all sides. All residents who are members of the Mistress Wildefire's Sub-space group will be able to explore the new island while it's under construction. It is understandable that you may have some concerns about your view. Be assured that we're working hard to make New Desperation Isle both an attractive and fitting centerpiece to our growing estates.

Will the change affect performance on the existing residential islands?
We do not expect performance of the existing residential islands to be affected by this change, however residents of Desperation North and Desperation West should see an improvement in the speed and seamlessness of border crossings when moving between your home island and New Desperation Isle.

Protecting Your Privacy

2007-09-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

NOTE: The covenant policies mentioned here only applied to the multi-tenant full-prim sims we used to operate. We do not have any such restrictions on our current homestead and full-prim sims, since they are all single-tenant regions. This article is for historical purposes only.

The primary reason that I moved off the mainland and purchased my first private island was that I was sick of bumping into ban lines whenever I wanted to fly or walk around my own sim. They're ugly and terribly inconvenient. Many residents on the mainland immediately enable an Access list on their land which only allows group members or specific avatars on the property. Everyone else in Second Life will be faced with an ugly red "No Entry" barrier (or a green "Buy Pass" barrier) if they attempt to walk or fly nearby. This is exactly why Access lists are expressly forbidden in the Desperation Isle Estates covenant (see section 6.4).

You do have other privacy options, however, and I will go over them here. First off, let's take a look at the land options screens that apply to privacy. (Note, I will not cover land groups and build restrictions here. That's all covered in the Protect Your Land From Grief Attacks page.)

Important: If you are having problems with specific individuals who are intentionally trying to harass or spy on you, please both alert me and file abuse reports against them in the Second Life Help menu. I can ban problem avatars from the entire estate, and Linden Lab does investigate harassment issues. This article is about general, day-to-day accidental intrusions.

Privacy Options in About Land
First let's take a look at the Access tab of About Land. (While standing on your land, just go to World > About Land and click the Access tab.) Please do not check any of the boxes on this screen. Doing so will present banlines to every resident of Second Life who isn't in your group or the list of specific avatars.

Next we have the Ban tab. It is definitely okay to add specific people to this list and check the Ban these avatars checkbox. If you have a particularly problematic individual bothering you, contact me and I can ban them from all of my islands. At the bottom of the screen you'll see the Deny by Payment Status options. These will ban anyone who meets the given qualifications, based on how much payment information they've given to Linden Lab. Do not check any of these options; they have the same negative effect as using an access list, as far as I'm concerned.

If you are a Voice user, you can limit spoken conversations to your own parcel, so that people not on your parcel can't hear what you're saying. Choose Use a private spatial channel to keep voice chat only on your property, or choose Disable spatial audio on this parcel to disable voice altogether.

Security Devices
So you're not allowed to use the access list or blanket ban options- how are you supposed to get some privacy? Well, security devices are allowed, so long as they meet certain requirements. I personally use Psyke Phaeton's HomeSecurity Orb. Below I'll describe how to set up one of these orbs in a way that conforms to the Desperation Isle Estates covenant. But the following guidelines apply to all security devices:

The device must warn intruders and give them a minimum of 30 seconds to leave the property.
The device must only sense people on your own land; it should not affect people on neighboring properties.
You should only use the minimum number of devices to protect your land. For example, a single orb with a 96m radius is enough to protect the ground level of an entire 25% of an island. (96 meters in all directions.)

HomeSecurity Orb Setup Walkthrough

First off, place the orb on the ground, in the center of the area you want to be protected. Next, touch the orb to bring up the menu and then click <[SET UP]>. Now click Next>> and step through the wizard, using the following list as your guide. Each numbered item below corresponds to a numbered page in the 15-step setup wizard.

You can actually add orb operators any time, but this screen shows you what you need to type to do it.
Read carefully. You must follow all the steps described here in order for group members to manage the orb.
Remember that the scan range is a radius. In other words a scan range of 30m will have a spherical scan diameter of 60m, or 30m in all directions from the orb. You only need ONE orb with a radius of 96m to cover the ground level of an entire 1/4 of a sim.
Same as step 3.
Do NOT pick anything less than 30 seconds before sending intruders away. Any less than 30 seconds is too short for people to even turn around- especially if they just accidentally teleported in to the sim, in which case they may not even be able to move for 30 seconds.
Read and follow the steps here closely- this will give you steps for automatically making anyone wearing your group tag 'safe.' In other words you won't have to add them to the safe list as long as they're wearing the group tag.
Use these steps if you don't have a land group, or there are people who aren't in your group you want to grant access to.
You can specify specific people to always target here.
Teleport or Eject are preferred; push isn't always enabled, so it might not be effective for you.
Just pick 1% since push isn't recommended anyway.
You must pick On for this step. Your orb should only protect your own land.
You only need to click On here if you own multiple adjacent parcels that are not joined and have different names.
These options don't work if the object is deeded to a group (group-owned). I just pick Off anyway.
No preference here. I click On.
Click Next>>.

Final Words
I am just as interested in ensuring your privacy as I am in maintaining an attractive, friendly environment for all residents. If you have chronic problems with specific individuals, or you need advice on a specific privacy issue, please contact me and we'll work something out.

Covenant Update for Desperation Isle Estates

2007-08-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

[Updated 2008.02.10]
Thank you for considering a Desperation Isle Estates property. There are several sections to this covenant that cover an introduction to the isles, steps on how to find and acquire land, general renting details, and rules for residents. For the latest covenant and answers to frequently-asked questions, visit the Desperation Isle Estates blog at: http://desperationisle.blogspot.com/

*** 1. ABOUT THE ISLANDS ***
Wildefire Walcott's Desperation Isle Estates is a residential adult community; a place to build your home in the company of like-minded folks. There are no taboos here. (Well, except anything that is an outright violation of Linden Lab policy.) The islands are primarily residential, however commercial renting is allowed so long as it adheres to the 'Rules for Renters' guidelines in this covenant. Any businesses should be attractive, should aesthetically 'fit' on the island, and should never be a nuissance for other residents.
As with all private islands in Second Life, Desperation Isle properties are for RENT, not for SALE. The 'purchase' price you pay is a 'refundable deposit,' and immediately grants you the same powers over your land that a full owner would have- but you will not be able to resell the land to another resident, and you must comply with this covenant in order to remain a tenant here.
You do NOT have to be a premium member of Second Life to rent land on these estates.

As of February 2008, there are now two "phases" of Desperation Isle estates. There are a few important differences between the two phases.

PHASE 1:
- The islands that comprise Phase 1 are Desperation North, South, East, and West, all surrounding the adult public playground, New Desperation Isle. You can see and easily see and walk, fly, or swim to neighboring Phase 1 islands, as they are all connected.
- In order to provide a dark, romantic atmosphere, and to remain consistent with New Desperation Isle, it is always night time on the Phase 1 islands. If things look too dark for you to see well, you can usually fix this by increasing the 'Nighttime Brightness' setting in the 'Adv. Graphics' tab of Preferences. If you just need to see things in daylight temporarily, you can use the 'World > Force Sun' menu options to see the isle at Sunrise, Sunset, or Noon.
- The use of privacy devices (also called "security orbs") is allowed at ground level and above on Phase 1 islands due to the potential of foot traffic from New Desperation Isle.

PHASE 2:
- Phase 2 begins with the addition of Desperation Kelly and Desperation Vivienne, and is currently in development.
- The Phase 2 islands are not directly adjacent to any other islands, giving them unobstructed ocean views in all directions.
- Phase 2 islands are on a normal day/night cycle.
- Due to the decreased likelihood of random foot traffic, the use of privacy devices/security orbs is not allowed below 300m elevation. In other words, it is okay to have an orb to protect your skybox, but not your home on the ground.

*** 2. PRICING ***
Lots up to 4096 meters are priced according to a flat rental rate based on the size of your parcel and rounded to the nearest L$25. Lots over 4096m go into a tiered pricing structure after that, where the more land you get the better a value it becomes.

512m, 117 prims, weekly L$225 ($0.85 USD), 4 weeks L$900 ($3.40 USD).
1024m, 234 prims, weekly L$450 ($1.70 USD), 4 weeks L$1800 ($6.79 USD).
1536m, 351 prims, weekly L$675 ($2.55 USD), 4 weeks L$2700 ($10.19 USD).
2048m, 468 prims, weekly L$900 ($3.40 USD), 4 weeks L$3600 ($13.58 USD).
3072m, 703 prims, weekly L$1350 ($5.09 USD), 4 weeks L$5400 ($20.38 USD).
4096m, 937 prims, weekly L$1800 ($6.79 USD), 4 weeks L$7200 ($27.17 USD).
6144m, 1406 prims, weekly L$2700 ($10.19 USD), 4 weeks L$10800 ($40.75 USD).
8192m, 1875 prims, weekly L$3500 ($13.21 USD), 4 weeks L$14000 ($52.83 USD).
12288m, 2812 prims, weekly L$5250 ($19.81 USD), 4 weeks L$21000 ($79.25 USD).
16384m, 3750 prims, weekly L$7000 ($26.42 USD), 4 weeks L$28000 ($105.66 USD).
32768m, 7500 prims, weekly L$13575 ($51.23 USD), 4 weeks L$54300 ($204.91 USD).
65536m, 15000 prims, weekly L$25600 ($96.60 USD), 4 weeks L$102400 ($386.42 USD).

IMPORTANT: Wildefire Walcott is the sole owner of the islands and only she collects rent on Desperation Isle Estates. Her alt, Illana Ireton, sometimes deals with residents, but normally doesn't handle payment matters. Do not trust ANYONE ELSE who attempts to collect your Desperation Isle rent from you. (Contact Wildefire immediately in case this happens, and please provide names and chat logs.)

*** 3. HOW TO FIND AND RENT LAND ***
Here's how to find which lots are available for rent:
1. Go to Search > Places and search for Desperation. Any of our parcels for rent will begin with "For Rent:" and will list which of the Desperation Isles the parcel is on, they also have a special icon that looks like a price tag.
2. You can teleport directly to the parcel for rent by selecting a given parcel and clicking Teleport.

-or-

1. If you're using "New Search" (the search box in the upper-right of the main SL screen), search for the following to get more specific results: for rent desperation
2. If any of our "For Rent:" parcels come up in the listings, click the desired parcel name, and then click teleport.

-or-

If you are standing on one of our islands, you can do this:
1. Enable the View > Property Lines option in the menu to show colored lines around each plot.
2. Enable the View > Land Owners menu option to show which parcels are taken or available. Red land is owned by someone else, Green land is owned by you, Purple land is owned by a group, and brown/auburn land is available to be rented.
3. While standing on the land you intend to rent, right-click the ground and pick Buy from the pie menu. The list price for the land will be shown (see the 'Refundable Deposits' section below), and if you have enough L$ in your account you will be able to buy the land.
4. Contact Wildefire Walcott in IM to say you've started renting. She will invite you to her private group as a resident and set up a rent box for you. This will give you unlimited access to Desperation Isle and also serve as a way to get important notices for residents. This is a non-spam group; only relevant notices will be sent.

NOTE: If you can't find a parcel of just the right size, contact Wildefire Walcott. She can divide or join available lots as needed, although she will not be selling anything smaller than 1024m at this time.

*** 4. REFUNDABLE DEPOSITS ***
The price you pay to acquire your land is a refundable deposit that covers your rent until your rent box is set up. Once you make your first payment to the rent box, Wildefire will return some or all of your deposit to you, depending on how many days pass before you make your first rent box payment. For example, if you're able to make your first rent box payment on the same day that you take possession of your land, she will refund the entire deposit amount to you. If it takes her two days to set up the box, or if it takes YOU two days to pay it, Wildefire will subtract two days' worth rent from the deposit and refund you the rest. You won't be losing money either way; it just sometimes takes a day or two for her to get the rent boxes ready- especially if you're on different time zones. If you go for a whole week without paying your rent box, however, Wildefire will reclaim your land and keep the deposit. You can only get any of your deposit back by paying your rent box within your first week of residence.

*** 5. GENERAL RENTING INFORMATION ***
- As a renter you will be able to terraform your land, manage ban lists, and set the media streams for your parcel- basically anything that a full-fledged land owner can do.
- The number of prims you're allowed to use depends on the size of the parcel (refer to the chart above). The exact calculation is (ParcelSizeInSquareMeters * 15000) / 65536, rounded down. This is because a single sim (65,536 square meters) supports a maximum of 15,000 prims. If you require more prims you can pay for additional prims (in 117-prim increments), assuming Wildefire has extra land in that sim. It's an additional $125/week for every 58 prims.
- Wildefire Walcott does have a number of copiable (but not transferrable) high quality houses she can place on your land at your request, for no extra fee. Due to item permissions, you will not be able to make modifications, but she can (within reason) make alterations if necessary.

*** 6. RULES FOR RENTERS ***
It is impossible to come up with a single set of guidelines that specifically covers everything that you should or shouldn't do. I will revise this section of the covenant as issues arise, but please closely read and understand these rules and use your best judgement when building. As always, you may contact me with questions or concerns about your own land or that of your neighbors. Also, note that some rules only apply to specific phases of Desperation Isle Estates. These exceptions will be clearly noted.

6.1 PAYING RENT
- Wildefire Walcott will set up a scripted rental box in a secluded location on your island that will remind you when rent is due, and you can pay the box as needed. You are expected to pay your rent box as soon as you possibly can once it is first set up; Wildefire will refund you the balance of your initial purchase price as soon as you do so (and notify her).
- Rent is expected weekly, and is to be paid to Wildefire Walcott via your individually assigned rent box. (Your first week's rent is due as soon as Wildefire sets up your rent box. She will tell you how to find it when it's ready. If you do not pay your rent box within a week of claiming your land, Wildefire will reclaim the parcel and return your items.)
- Wildefire may contact you personally if rent is 2 or more days overdue, and may reclaim the land if you go for 5 days or more without paying or responding to her IMs.
- Be sure to inform Wildefire if you know you're going to be away for an extended period when rent would come due. Ideally you would pay your rent forward to ensure keeping your space for when you return.
- VERY IMPORTANT: Please notify Wildefire Walcott in the event that you decide to leave Desperation Isle Estates. She will not be mad at you for leaving, so long as she is able to re-list your vacated land as soon as it becomes available. If you just quietly move away and let your rent box expire, Wildefire loses a MINIMUM of 5 days rent, due to how the rent boxes work (they let you go up to 5 days late before evicting you), and THAT will make her angry.

6.2 BUILDING
- NO UGLY BUILDS ON THE GROUND! The ground level of the island is meant for attractive residences and businesses. The terrain should flow naturally to neighboring lots, and your overall area should "fit" aesthetically with the rest of the island. I don't care so much what you put in the sky (above 300m, please), but if it's on the ground it needs to look nice and cannot negatively affect the rest of the island. A good rule of thumb to follow is to ask yourself, "If this were in real life, would I want to live next door to this build?" If the answer is "No," then perhaps you shouldn't do it. Also, I'm a reasonable person. If there's a look you're trying to achieve, or you have some other design or privacy concern, just talk to me- I will work with you to come up with an acceptable solution.
- No building within 0.5 meters of parcel border without permission from your neighbors.
- No skyboxes below 300 meters in the sky. Specifically, this means any structures below 300m should be firmly on the ground.
- When building, please do not use textures larger than 512x512.
- No freebie houses. There are a number of well-known "freebie houses" scattered all around second life. Some are better than others, but really the sight of them kind of gives a sim a "low-rent" feel. If you are low on funds, please talk to me, as I have a selection of nice low-prim houses to fit lots of many sizes, and can provide them at no cost to you.

6.3 TERRAFORMING
- While you are allowed to terraform your lot, please do so within reason. The end result must still look like natural coastline.
- Do not terraform coastal lots out to the sim border; preserve a natural appearance at the edge of the sim. The land may touch the border here or there, but if you just fill out the land flat against the simline it results in a completely unnatural looking shelf of land that seriously detracts from the look of the beach.
- No terraforming within 1 meter of the parcel border without permission from your neighbors.
- No sharp cliffs between your property and that of your neighbors. Drastic "cliffs" or "shelves" that result when you raise or lower your whole plot break the flow of the land and stretch out the ground textures, resulting in a distracting, unrealistic appearance.
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6.4 PROTECTING YOUR LAND
- All renters must either have autoreturn enabled, or must DISABLE the ability for "All Residents" to create objects on your land. This is an anti-griefing measure to protect your land and that of your neighbors.
- You can only maintain a Ban list- you may NOT have an Access list. (In other words, you may explicitly ban certain people from your land, but you may not set up your land so that only residents on your list can get in.) If you need privacy, use a security device, but its range must be limited to your parcel, and it must give residents a warning and at least 10 seconds to leave your parcel before ejecting them. NOTE: If you become the target of griefing, please Abuse Report the offender and also notify Wildefire Walcott of the names and details. She will look into it and ban these folks from the entire Desperation Isle estate (encompasses all islands) if necessary.
- *PHASE 2 ONLY*: The use of security orbs is allowed on Phase 2 islands, but they must be placed over 300m in the sky. No securty devices are permitted at ground level.

6.5 PLACING OBJECTS
- No shouting objects (i.e. scripts that use llShout).
- No political propaganda in publicly viewable areas.
- No public-facing advertisements (signs inside stores, only viewable to people in the store, are okay). If you have a store, it IS okay to have a sign with your store's name on it, and have products displayed in your windows- just no advertisements for products, places, or services out on open land, please.
- No camping chairs, money sploders, dance pads, or other incentives to get people to camp on your property to artificially drive up traffic.
- Restrict spamming items (notecard givers, landmark givers, greeters) so that their range is limited to your parcel.
- Sound-generating objects must be limited to your parcel (i.e. spatialized sound setting in About Land).
- No particle emitters without permission.
- If you have one of those "weather systems" (which are also particle emitters, by the way) that produce rain and snow, please do not leave them running 24 hours a day. They are a serious script burden on the sim. Please only run those things when you're actually there to enjoy them.
- Do not place any 'physical' objects without permission from Wildefire Walcott. Some items, such as prim inflatables for swimming pools, are physics-enabled, which in itself isn't a problem, but if physics-enabled objects collide in certain ways they can actually crash the sim, which is bad for everyone.
- No rotating objects out in the open.
- No plywood prims laying around. If you're building your home, some exposed plywood during the build is understandable, so long as you clean up when you're done. But please never leave random untextured prims or abandonned builds for the rest of your neighbors to see. (Again, partial builds are more acceptable over 300m.)
- No vehicles left out on the lawn. It's fine to own or use vehicles, so long as they don't disrupt neighbors, but don't leave them just sitting out in the grass. If your house has a driveway or garage, you may place DECORATIVE (non-physical) vehicles in there, but physical vehicles (that is, vehicles that have the Physical property enabled in the Second Life client) MUST be picked up after use.
- Do not block the views of neighbors with walls or privacy screens taller than 3.5 meters. If you wish to give yourself a little more privacy, please do not do it at the expense of your neighbors. There are several alternatives that are better for the rest of the island: Attractive looking bamboo or wrought-iron privacy fences can achieve the desired effect while still letting light pass through. Thoughtfully-placed trees and bushes can also give you a nice private-feeling environment (just please DO NOT make a big straight, unnatural wall of Linden trees, and please try to use plant species that you'd be likely to find on an island.) 'Blight Be Gone' screens by Keith Extraordinaire (KX Designs) come with an option that has nice looking textures on one side, but is clear on all others. When you put them around your parcel, you see the texture, but everyone else around you sees your land. Another option is to move up into the sky. You can safely place your home anywhere between 300 and 700m, giving you the opportunity to distance yourself from neighbors by hundreds of meters.
- Please note that while I won't outright ban so-called megaprims (prims larger than 10 meters in any dimension), they CAN negatively affect sim performance, and I may ask you to remove specific megaprims if sim performance or stability suffers and the Linden Lab collision detection tools point to your megaprims as the cause. Specifically, when avatars stand on or nearby some megaprims, their avatars slightly "interpenetrate" the megaprim, which results in siginificant physical collision events which can seriously hurt sim performance or even crash the sim. The megaprim does not have to be "physical" for this to happen.

6.6 USING YOUR LAND
- No high-traffic public establishments (in other words, no casinos, no gambling, no malls, no busy clubs). You MAY run a store or a low-traffic public gathering place (like a small club or an adult play area), so long as it's not a nuissance to your neighbors.
- No 'temp-on-rezzers' or 'holo-rezzers' without explicit permission from Wildefire Walcott. (I don't really mind that they give you more prims, but each temp-on-rezzer puts an additional load on the asset server, and that affects every single resident in Second Life.)
- Limit the amount of hovertext on your items when possible. It often shows through walls and can creep into neighboring properties if you're not careful.
- No sandboxing below 300m. If you wish to use your land as a sandbox for building projects, that's absolutely okay- but please keep that activity well above the cloudline. The ground is intended for "permanent" homes and businesses.
- When Linden Lab enables the "Restricted" classification for individual properties, only residents who successfully go through the Second Life Age Verification process will be able to access Restricted land. It will be up to individual tenants to decide which classification to give their own properties, and Wildefire Walcott will not be held responsible for user actions.
- As of February 10, 2008, subletting your rented parcels is no longer permitted. In other words you cannot rent land from Desperation Isle Estates only so you can rent it out to someone else at a higher price. We offer some of the lowest island rental prices in all of Second Life, and we don't do that just so people will take advantage of our generosity. These estates are for real residents and businesses, and there is only one landlord here.

Please contact me with any questions.
Wildefire Walcott, owner of Desperation Isle Estates
http://desperationisle.blogspot.com/

New Island Added to the Estate

2007-08-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Desperation South became the newest addition to the Desperation Isle Estates last Friday and is about 75% rented out already! If you're looking for affordable living in a mature and well-managed community with no up-front "purchase" fees, please check us out!

Like the rest of our rental islands, Desperation South is meant for residential and light commercial renting only. No clubs, no casinos, no malls. Please see our latest covenant for pricing and building info.

How to Recover Returned Items

2007-08-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

There are a number of different situations where inventory items of yours that are rezzed in-world might be returned to your inventory. Some people use the Return Items feature of About Land when picking up their things before moving to a different plot. Sometimes you'll forget to wear your group tag when placing items on your property and they'll be autoreturned to you. When this happens, your returned items end up in the Lost and Found folder of your inventory. Due to a technical change made to Second Life last year called coalescing, multiple objects returned to you at the same time are usually lumped together as a single entry in your Lost and Found folder.

This fact has caused endless confusion among Second Life residents, who see that only a single item ended up in Lost and Found and think that the system lost all their other items. What follows is a demonstration of how coalescing works and how you can recover your coalesced items.

Vapor here has several objects set out on her property. Each object has a name corresponding to its color. For example, "Red Cube," "Orange Cube," and so on.
Vapor has rented a bigger plot on one of the other Desperation Isle estates, so it's time to pack things up. Initially she starts returning objects one-by-one. She right-clicks the yellow cube, clicks More, and then clicks Return. The yellow cube is ends up in her Lost and Found folder.
Vapor decides this will take too long so she goes to World > About Land and takes a look at the Objects tab. She selects her name in the list of object owners and then clicks Return Items. The rest of her cubes appear in her inventory- but this time they're bundled together under a single entry. She can tell that even though the entry is simply named "Green Cube," it represents a number of individual objects because the icon for that entry looks like a little stack of boxes instead of one single box. The object name that gets used to represent rezzed items is seemingly random. She could have returned an entire house to her inventory and ended up with a single entry named "Object" in Lost and Found.
Vapor goes to her new location and decides to unpack her things. She steps into a big open area with enough free prims for her to rez her items, and drags the "Green Cube" entry onto the ground. All of her bundled items are rezzed at this time, in their same relative postitions as when they were were initially returned. She can now take them all into inventory one at a time, by right-clicking them and then clicking Take. This will return the items either to their original folders if they were originally dragged from someplace other than Objects, or to the Objects folder if their old folder no longer exists.

Important Note
If items get returned to you, but you don't find anything at all in Lost and Found, it's possible you need to clear your cache and re-download your inventory. Here's how:

Go to Edit > Preferences and click the Network tab.
Click the Clear Cache button and then click OK.
Click OK again and then exit Second Life.
Log back into Second Life (it may take a little while longer as your cache is deleted).
Once you're logged back on, open up your inventory and leave the window open until it is done re-downloading your items. This can take several minutes. While your inventory is downloading there's usually a "Fetching..." message at the top of the inventory window.

How to Join Two Parcels

2007-08-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

If you rent multiple lots it may be convenient for you to physically join them. Joining does not affect your prim usage as your prim allotments are already shared between lots you already rent, but it can make managing land settings easier. I can join land for tenants but in order to do that, I need to reclaim the land, join it, and then sell it back to you. Here's how to do it yourself:

Turn on View > Property Lines and View > Land Owners. Land that you own will turn bright green and individual parcels you own will be surrounded by green borders.
Stand on one of the pieces of land you wish to join and right-click the ground, and then click Edit. This brings up the Edit Land window.

Note: If you don't see the Buy Land, Abandon Land, Subdivide, or Join buttons, click More >> to expand the dialog.
Left-click the land you're standing on once. This should make a little yellow box on the ground.
Now drag that box across the border of the land you want to connect to, so that the box crosses over the border. The box does NOT have to cover the entire parcels- it only has to go across the border. Note that the Join button will now be clickable.
Click Join. This will connect the parcels.
You might have to go back and re-set some of your settings in About Land after joining, as only the settings for one of the two connected parcels are used.

Covenant Update for August 19

2007-08-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

I have updated the covenant to reflect our new way of renting land. Specifically, all vacant parcels are listed for L$1 and you must pay your first week's rent immediately once I set up your rent box. This should reduce confusion we've had in the past where people paid their boxes too early when we used to have a purchase price equal to the first week's rent. There are no rules changes in this version of the covenant.

[Updated 2007.08.19]
Thank you for considering a Desperation Isle Estates property. There are several sections to this covenant that cover an introduction to the isles, steps on how to find and acquire land, general renting details, and rules for residents.

*** ABOUT THE ISLANDS ***
- Each of our rental estates is a tropical residential adult community; a place to build your home in a community of like-minded folks. There are no taboos here. (Well, except anything that is an outright violation of Linden Lab policy.)
- The isles are primarily residential, however commercial renting is allowed so long as it adheres to the 'Rules for Renters' guidelines in this covenant. Businesses should be attractive, should aesthetically 'fit' on the island, and should never be a nuissance for other residents.
- Residents of the Desperation Isle estates have access to all areas of the public playground, Desperation Isle (even when it is closed for organized RP).
- As with all private islands in Second Life, Desperation Isle properties are for RENT, not for SALE. The 'purchase' price you pay is a 'reservation fee,' and grants you the same powers over your land that a full owner would have- but you will not be able to resell the land to another resident, and you must comply with this covenant in order to remain a tenant here.
- NOTE: You do NOT have to be a premium member of Second Life to rent land on these estates.
- Lots up to 4096 meters are priced according to a flat rental rate based on the size of your parcel and rounded to the nearest L$25. Lots over 4096m go into a tiered pricing structure after that, where the more land you get the better a value it becomes.

512m: 117 prims, weekly L$250 ($0.94 USD), monthly L$1000 ($3.75 USD)
1024m: 234 prims, weekly L$500 ($1.87 USD), monthly L$2000 ($7.49 USD)
1536m: 351 prims, weekly L$750 ($2.81 USD), monthly L$3000 ($11.24 USD)
2048m: 468 prims, weekly L$1000 ($3.75 USD), monthly L$4000 ($14.98 USD)
3072m: 703 prims, weekly L$1500 ($5.62 USD), monthly L$6000 ($22.47 USD)
4096m: 937 prims, weekly L$2000 ($7.49 USD), monthly L$8000 ($29.96 USD)
6144m: 1406 prims, weekly L$2850 ($10.67 USD), monthly L$11400 ($42.7 USD)
8192m: 1875 prims, weekly L$3800 ($14.23 USD), monthly L$15200 ($56.93 USD)
12288m: 2812 prims, weekly L$5400 ($20.22 USD), monthly L$21600 ($80.9 USD)
16384m: 3750 prims, weekly L$7200 ($26.97 USD), monthly L$28800 ($107.87 USD)
32768m: 7500 prims, weekly L$13600 ($50.94 USD), monthly L$54400 ($203.75 USD)
65536m: 15000 prims, weekly L$25600 ($95.88 USD), monthly L$102400 ($383.52 USD)

*** HOW TO FIND AND RENT LAND ***
Here's how to find which lots are available for rent:
1. Enable the View > Property Lines option in the menu to show colored lines around each plot.
2. Enable the View > Land Owners menu option to show which parcels are taken or available. Red land is owned by someone else, Green land is owned by you, Purple land is owned by a group, and brown/auburn land is available to be rented.
3. While standing on the land you intend to rent, right-click the ground and pick Buy from the pie menu. The list price for the land will be shown (L$1), and if you have enough L$ in your account you will be able to buy the land.
4. Contact Wildefire Walcott in IM to say you've started renting. She will invite you to her private group as a resident and set up a rent box for you. This will give you unlimited access to Desperation Isle and also serve as a way to get important notices for residents. This is a non-spam group; only relevant notices will be sent.

NOTE: If you can't find a parcel of just the right size, contact Wildefire Walcott. She can divide or join available lots as needed, although she will not be selling 512m or 1536m lots at this time.

*** GENERAL RENTING INFORMATION ***
- Rent is expected weekly, and is to be paid to Wildefire Walcott via your individually assigned rent box. (Your first week's rent is due as soon as Wildefire sets up your rent box. She will tell you how to find it when it's ready.)
- Wildefire Walcott will set up a scripted rental box in a secluded location on your island that will remind you when rent is due, and you can pay the box as needed. Wildefire may contact you personally if rent is 2 or more days overdue, and may reclaim the land if you go for 5 days or more without paying or responding to her IMs.
- The number of prims you're allowed to use depends on the size of the parcel (refer to the chart above). The exact calculation is (ParcelSizeInSquareMeters * 15000) / 65536, rounded down. This is because a single sim (65,536 square meters) supports a maximum of 15,000 prims. If you require more prims you can pay for additional prims (in 117-prim increments), assuming Wildefire has extra land in that sim. It's an additional $125/week for every 58 prims.
- Be sure to inform Wildefire if you know you're going to be away for an extended period when rent would come due. Ideally you would pay your rent forward to ensure keeping your space for when you return.
- Some plots come pre-landscaped with objects such as trees, paths or homes. These items are not transferrable, and thus remain the property of Wildefire Walcott. If you do not wish to keep them on your land, please use the Return Objects feature in About Land after purchasing the land to return the items to Wildefire Walcott (do NOT delete them). I would ask that you not just leave the landscape barren. Do what you can to preserve or enhance the tropical flavor of the isle.
- As a renter you will be able to terraform your land, manage ban lists, and set the media streams for your parcel- basically anything that a full-fledged land owner can do.
- Mistress Wildefire expects her tenants to be good neighbors to other residents of the sim. She will provide you several guidelines regarding expected behavior and aesthetics on your land.
- Wildefire Walcott does have a number of copiable (but not transferrable) high quality houses she can place on your land at your request, for no extra fee. Due to item permissions, you will not be able to make modifications, but she can (within reason) make alterations if necessary.
- In order to provide a dark, romantic atmosphere, and to remain consistent with neighboring Desperation Isle, it is always night time on the Desperation Isle Estates. If things look too dark for you to see well, you can usually fix this by increasing the 'Nighttime Brightness' setting in the 'Adv. Graphics' tab of Preferences.
- If you just need to see things in daylight temporarily, you can use the 'World > Force Sun' menu options to see the isle at Sunrise, Sunset, or Noon.

*** RULES FOR RENTERS ***
It is impossible to come up with a single set of guidelines that specifically covers everything that you should or shouldn't do. I will revise this section of the covenant as issues arise, but please closely read and understand these rules and use your best judgement when building. As always, you may contact me with questions or concerns about your own land or that of your neighbors.
- NO UGLY BUILDS ON THE GROUND! The ground level of the island is meant for attractive residences and businesses. The terrain should flow naturally to neighboring lots, and your overall area should "fit" aesthetically with the rest of the island. I don't care so much what you put in the sky (above 300m, please), but if it's on the ground it needs to look nice and cannot negatively affect the rest of the island. A good rule of thumb to follow is to ask yourself, "If this were in real life, would I want to live next door to this build?" If the answer is "No," then perhaps you shouldn't do it. Also, I'm a reasonable person. If there's a look you're trying to achieve, or you have some other design or privacy concern, just talk to me- I will work with you to come up with an acceptable solution.
- All renters must either have autoreturn enabled, or must DISABLE the ability for "All Residents" to create objects on your land. This is an anti-griefing measure to protect your land and that of your neighbors.
- No shouting objects (i.e. scripts that use llShout).
- No political propaganda in publicly viewable areas.
- No public-facing advertisements (signs inside stores, only viewable to people in the store, are okay). If you have a store, it IS okay to have a sign with your store's name on it, and have products displayed in your windows- just no advertisements for products, places, or services out on open land, please.
- No camping chairs, money sploders, dance pads, or other incentives to get people to camp on your property to artificially drive up traffic.
- No casinos, no gambling, no malls. (Note: By 'mall' I mean a structure whose purpose is mostly to rent vendor space to numerous Second Life merchants. Malls place a very large resource burden on an island (with all the textures and scripted, networked vendors).
- No building within 0.5 meters of parcel border without permission from your neighbors.
- Restrict spamming items (notecard givers, landmark givers, greeters) so that their range is limited to your parcel.
- You can only maintain a Ban list- you may NOT have an Access list. (In other words, you may explicitly ban certain people from your land, but you may not set up your land so that only residents on your list can get in.) If you need privacy, use a security device, but its range must be limited to your parcel, and it must give residents a warning and at least 10 seconds to leave your parcel before ejecting them. NOTE: If you become the target of griefing, please Abuse Report the offender and also notify Wildefire Walcott of the names and details. She will look into it and ban these folks from the entire Desperation Isle estate (encompasses all islands) if necessary.
- Sound-generating objects must be limited to your parcel (i.e. spatialized sound setting in About Land).
- No particle emitters.
- No skyboxes below 300 meters in the sky. Specifically, this means any structures below 300m should be firmly on the ground.
- No 'temp-on-rezzers' or 'holo-rezzers' without explicit permission from Wildefire Walcott. (I don't really mind that they give you more prims, but each temp-on-rezzer puts an additional load on the asset server, and that affects every single resident in Second Life.)
- Limit the amount of hovertext on your items when possible. It often shows through walls and can creep into neighboring properties if you're not careful.
- When building, please do not use textures larger than 512x512.
- No sandboxing below 300m. If you wish to use your land as a sandbox for building projects, that's absolutely okay- but please keep that activity well above the cloudline. The ground is intended for "permanent" homes and businesses.
- While you are allowed to terraform your lot, please do so within reson. Do not terraform coastal lots out to the sim border. While you are allowed to alter the terrain of your land, the end result must still look like natural coastline. I don't care if it touches the border here or there, but if you just fill out the land against the simline it results in a completely unnatural looking shelf of land that seriously detracts from the look of the beach. Finally, no terraforming within 1 meter of the parcel border without permission from your neighbors.
- Do not place any 'physical' objects without permission from Wildefire Walcott. Some items, such as prim inflatables for swimming pools, are physics-enabled, which in itself isn't a problem, but if physics-enabled objects collide in certain ways they can actually crash the sim, which is bad for everyone.
- No freebie houses. There are a number of well-known "freebie houses" scattered all around second life. Some are better than others, but really the sight of them kind of gives a sim a "low-rent" feel. If you are low on funds, please talk to me. I have a selection of nice low-prim houses to fit lots of many sizes, and can provide them at no cost to you.
- No plywood prims laying around. If you're building you're home, some exposed plywood during the build is understandable, so long as you clean up when you're done. But please never leave random untextured prims or abandonned builds for the rest of your neighbors to see. (Again, partial builds are more acceptable over 300m.)
- Do not block the views of neighbors with walls or privacy screens. If you wish to give yourself a little more privacy, please do not do it at the expense of your neighbors. There are several alternatives that are better for the rest of the island: Attractive looking bamboo or wrought-iron privacy fences can achieve the desired effect while still letting light pass through. Thoughtfully-placed trees and bushes can also give you a nice private-feeling environment (just please DO NOT make a big straight, unnatural wall of Linden trees, and please try to use plant species that you'd be likely to find on an island.) 'Blight Be Gone' screens by Keith Extraordinaire (KX Designs) come with an option that has nice looking textures on one side, but is clear on all others. When you put them around your parcel, you see the texture, but everyone else around you sees your land. Another option is to move up into the sky. You can safely place your home anywhere between 300 and 700m, giving you the opportunity to distance yourself from neighbors by hundreds of meters.

Please contact me with any questions.
Wildefire Walcott, owner of Desperation Isle Estates

Desperation Isle Estates FAQ

2007-08-12T18:15:00.000-07:00

[Updated 2007.08.30]
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT DESPERATION ISLE ESTATES

DO I HAVE TO BE A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER TO RENT LAND HERE?
No, any resident of Second Life, verified or unverified, basic or premium, can rent land on one of the Desperation Isle estates.

DO I HAVE TO PAY LINDEN LAB ANY LAND USE FEES WHEN I RENT YOUR LAND?
No, when you rent on one of our islands you do not have to pay any additional fees to Linden Lab. You do not have to worry about "tier" or "land use fees." You simply pay Wildefire Walcott by using the rent box she provides you.

HOW DO I FIND LAND TO RENT?
The first thing you have to do is find a lot that's available for rent. To do that, you just teleport to one of our islands, and then enable the following options in your Second Life client: View > Property Lines and View > Land Owners. Lots that are available for rent will have a brown/orange color, where as land that's already rented will be red, purple, aqua, or green.

HOW DO I RENT LAND ON ONE OF THE ISLANDS?
Once you find a vacant lot, stand on it and go to World > About Land. On the General tab of About Land, click the Buy Land button. If you don't have enough Lindens in your Second Life account, you will be given the option to buy some. Once you buy the land, it should turn green (if you have View > Land Owners turned on) and the land is yours! The next step is to IM Wildefire Walcott and tell her you rented the land. She will set up a rent box for you and send you information on how to find it to pay your rent.

DO I HAVE TO PAY A LARGE 'PURCHASE PRICE' BEFORE I CAN RENT HERE?
In order to acquire a spot to rent, you must "buy" the land for a price equal to one week's rent. This fee is a refundable deposit that covers your rent until your rent box is set up. Once you make your first payment to the rent box, Wildefire will return some or all of your deposit to you, depending on how many days pass before you make your first rent box payment. For example, if you're able to make your first rent box payment on the same day that you take possession of your land, she will refund the entire deposit amount to you. If it takes her two days to set up the box, or if it takes YOU two days to pay it, Wildefire will subtract two days' worth rent from the deposit and refund you the rest. You won't be losing money either way; it just sometimes takes a day or two for her to get the rent boxes ready- especially if you're on different time zones. If you go for a whole week without paying your rent box, however, Wildefire will reclaim your land and keep the deposit. You can only get any of your deposit back by paying your rent box within your first week of residence.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO RENT LAND AT DESPERATION ISLE ESTATES?
Our current prices will always be listed in the covenant of the property you wish to rent. To see the covenant, go to World > About Land and click the Covenant tab. This will list the weekly and monthly costs in both Lindens and USD (American dollars) for different sizes of land. Also be sure to look at the General tab of About Land, because that will tell you how large the current plot is, and will list the weekly rent in the land's description.

WHAT IF I CAN'T FIND THE SIZE OF LOT I'M LOOKING FOR?
Depending on your needs, we can join and split existing properties to give you the amount of land that suits your needs. We do not rent out anything smaller than 1024 square meters, and cannot split land such that it would result in 512m being left over. Otherwise, we're prety flexible.

HOW OFTEN DO I HAVE TO PAY RENT?
You can pay anywhere between 1 and 8 weeks at a time, but you must pay in multiples of weeks. For example, if your rent was L$1000/week, and you wanted to pay for a month in advance, you would just pay your rent box L$4000. You do not need to make any special arrangements to pay monthly.

ARE THERE ANY RESTRICTIONS ON WHAT I CAN DO OR BUILD ON THE ISLANDS?
Our goal is to provide an attractive, comfortable community for our tenants, so there are indeed building guidelines. These are all outlined in the covenant. Basically, no clubs, casinos, or malls, and any buildings put on the ground must be attractive. Go to World > About Land and read the Covenant tab for complete rules.

IS VOICE SUPPORTED ON THESE ISLANDS?
Yes, voice is enabled at the region level for all Desperation Isle estates. Individual renters, however, have the power to disable voice on their own parcels. You can do this by selecting 'Disable spatial audio on this parcel' on the Media tab of About Land.

WILL THIS LAND BE RESTRICTED WHEN LINDEN LAB TURNS ON AGE VERIFICATION?
Renters will be able to choose their own classification. When Linden Lab enables the "Restricted" classification for individual properties, only residents who successfully go through the Second Life Age Verification process will be able to access Restricted land. It will be up to individual tenants to decide which classification to give their own properties, and Wildefire Walcott will not be held responsible for user actions.

CAN I RENT MY LAND OUT TO SOMEONE ELSE?
It is okay to furnish your land and rent it out to other residents for residential purposes, but your tenants must obey this covenant or risk being banned from the estate. Wildefire Walcott cannot be held responsible for any rental losses or advertising fees this may cause you. Also, you may not place "for rent" signs out on open land. If you have an office or store on the island, you may put your signs in there, but public advertising on the island is forbidden.

WHOM CAN I CONTACT FOR MORE INFORMATION?
Please IM Wildefire Walcott with questions. She will respond to you as quickly as she can. You can also find a lot of information at the Desperation Isle Estates blog: http://desperationisle.blogspot.com/

Desperation Isle Estates is Expanding

2007-08-09T12:17:00.001-07:00

With this week's addition of Desperation North, Desperation Isle Estates has expanded to encompass two residential rental islands and the public adult playground, Desperation Isle. If you are looking for an attractive, peaceful, and tolerant place to live, we're looking for you. We currently have vacancies on both Desperation North and Desperation West. See the covenant posting on this blog for full details and pricing information. Here are some links to visit the islands directly:

To see what land is for sale, visit one of the rental islands and turn on View > Property Lines and View > Land Owners in Second Life. Land currently available for rent will show up as orange/brown, whereas rented land will be red. Contact me (Wildefire Walcott) in-world for more information!

Covenant and Pricing Updates for Desperation Isle Estates

2007-08-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

I have made some minor updates to the covenant. The changes include a new pricing structure (for new tenants only; I will not raise the rent of existing tenants), a requirement that you make it so random residents cannot rez objects on your land (to protect against grief attacks), and a clarification on what sort of limited commercial activity is allowed on the islands. I also changed the wording to reflect the fact that there are now multiple rental islands instead of just Desperation West.

[Updated 2007.07.09]
Thank you for considering a Desperation Isle Estates property. There are several sections to this covenant that cover an introduction to the isles, steps on how to find and acquire land, general renting details, and rules for residents.

*** ABOUT THE ISLAND ***
- Each of our rental estates is a tropical residential adult community; a place to build your home in a community of like-minded folks. There are no taboos here. (Well, except anything that is an outright violation of Linden Lab policy.)
- The isles are primarily residential, however commercial renting is allowed so long as it adheres to the 'Rules for Renters' guidelines in this covenant. Businesses should be attractive, should aesthetically 'fit' on the island, and should never be a nuissance for other residents.
- Residents of the Desperation Isle estates have access to all areas of the public playground, Desperation Isle (even when it is closed for organized RP).
- As with all private islands in Second Life, Desperation Isle properties are for RENT, not for SALE. The 'purchase' price you pay is equal to your first week's rent, and grants you the same powers over your land that a full owner would have- but you will not be able to resell the land to another resident, and you must comply with this covenant in order to remain a tenant here.
- NOTE: You do NOT have to be a premium member of Second Life to rent land on these estates.
- Lots up to 4096 meters are priced according to a flat rental rate based on the size of your parcel and rounded to the nearest L$25. Lots over 4096m go into a tiered pricing structure after that, where the more land you get the better value it becomes.

512m: 117 prims, weekly L$250 ($0.94 USD), monthly L$1000 ($3.75 USD)
1024m: 234 prims, weekly L$500 ($1.87 USD), monthly L$2000 ($7.49 USD)
1536m: 351 prims, weekly L$750 ($2.81 USD), monthly L$3000 ($11.24 USD)
2048m: 468 prims, weekly L$1000 ($3.75 USD), monthly L$4000 ($14.98 USD)
3072m: 703 prims, weekly L$1500 ($5.62 USD), monthly L$6000 ($22.47 USD)
4096m: 937 prims, weekly L$2000 ($7.49 USD), monthly L$8000 ($29.96 USD)
6144m: 1406 prims, weekly L$2850 ($10.67 USD), monthly L$11400 ($42.7 USD)
8192m: 1875 prims, weekly L$3800 ($14.23 USD), monthly L$15200 ($56.93 USD)
12288m: 2812 prims, weekly L$5400 ($20.22 USD), monthly L$21600 ($80.9 USD)
16384m: 3750 prims, weekly L$7200 ($26.97 USD), monthly L$28800 ($107.87 USD)
32768m: 7500 prims, weekly L$13600 ($50.94 USD), monthly L$54400 ($203.75 USD)
65536m: 15000 prims, weekly L$25600 ($95.88 USD), monthly L$102400 ($383.52 USD)

*** HOW TO FIND AND RENT LAND ***
There aren't any ugly signs marking plots for sale, but it's still pretty easy to find which ones are available:
1. Enable the View > Property Lines option in the menu to show colored lines around each plot.
2. Enable the View > Land Owners menu option to show which parcels are taken or available. Red land is owned by someone else, Green land is owned by you, Purple land is owned by a group, and brown/auburn land is available to be rented.
3. While standing on the land you intend to rent, right-click the ground and pick Buy from the pie menu. The list price for the land will be shown (this price is basically your first week's rent), and if you have enough L$ in your account you will be able to buy the land.
4. Contact Wildefire Walcott in IM to say you've started renting. She will invite you to her private group as a resident. This will give you unlimited access to Desperation Isle and also serve as a way to get important notices for residents. This is a non-spam group; only relevant notices will be sent.

NOTE: If you can't find a parcel of just the right size, contact Wildefire Walcott. She can divide or join available lots as needed, although she will not be selling 512m or 1536m lots at this time.

*** GENERAL RENTING INFORMATION ***
- Rent is expected weekly, and is to be paid to Wildefire Walcott via your individually assigned rent box. (Your first week's rent is paid when you acquire the lot by using the Buy Land feature in Second Life- in other words, the purchase price of the land is your first week's rent- you don't have to pay again until that week is over.)
- Wildefire Walcott will set up a scripted rental box in a secluded location on your island that will remind you when rent is due, and you can pay the box as needed. Wildefire will contact you personally if rent is 2 or more days overdue, and may reclaim the land if you go for a week or more without paying or responding to her IMs.
- The number of prims you're allowed to use depends on the size of the parcel (refer to the chart above). The exact calculation is (ParcelSizeInSquareMeters * 15000) / 65536, rounded down. This is because a single sim (65,536 square meters) supports a maximum of 15,000 prims. If you require more prims you can pay for additional prims (in 117-prim increments), assuming Wildefire has extra land in that sim. It's an additional $225/week for every 117 prims.
- Be sure to inform Wildefire if you know you're going to be away for an extended period when rent would come due. Ideally you would pay your rent forward to ensure keeping your space for when you return.
- Some plots come pre-landscaped with objects such as trees, paths or homes. These items are not transferrable, and thus remain the property of Wildefire Walcott. If you do not wish to keep them on your land, please use the Return Objects feature in About Land after purchasing the land to return the items to Wildefire Walcott (do NOT delete them). I would ask that you not just leave the landscape barren. Do what you can to preserve or enhance the tropical flavor of the isle.
- As a renter you will be able to terraform your land, manage ban lists, and set the media streams for your parcel- basically anything that a full-fledged land owner can do.
- Mistress Wildefire expects her tenants to be good neighbors to other residents of the sim. She will provide you several guidelines regarding expected behavior and aesthetics on your land.
- Wildefire Walcott does have a number of copiable (but not transferrable) high quality houses she can place on your land at your request, for no extra fee. Due to item permissions, you will not be able to make modifications, but she can (within reason) make alterations if necessary.
- In order to provide a dark, romantic atmosphere, and to remain consistent with neighboring Desperation Isle, it is always night time on the Desperation Isle Estates. If things look too dark for you to see well, you can usually fix this by increasing the 'Nighttime Brightness' setting in the 'Adv. Graphics' tab of Preferences.
- If you just need to see things in daylight temporarily, you can use the 'World > Force Sun' menu options to see the isle at Sunrise, Sunset, or Noon.

*** RULES FOR RENTERS ***
It is impossible to come up with a single set of guidelines that specifically covers everything that you should or shouldn't do. I will revise this section of the covenant as issues arise, but please closely read and understand these rules and use your best judgement when building. As always, you may contact me with questions or concerns about your own land or that of your neighbors.
- NO UGLY BUILDS ON THE GROUND! The ground level of the island is meant for attractive residences and businesses. The terrain should flow naturally to neighboring lots, and your overall area should "fit" aesthetically with the rest of the island. I don't care so much what you put in the sky (above 300m, please), but if it's on the ground it needs to look nice and cannot negatively affect the rest of the island. A good rule of thumb to follow is to ask yourself, "If this were in real life, would I want to live next door to this build?" If the answer is "No," then perhaps you shouldn't do it. Also, I'm a reasonable person. If there's a look you're trying to achieve, or you have some other design or privacy concern, just talk to me- I will work with you to come up with an acceptable solution.
- All renters must either have autoreturn enabled, or must DISABLE the ability for "All Residents" to create objects on your land. This is an anti-griefing measure to protect your land and that of your neighbors.
- No shouting objects (i.e. scripts that use llShout).
- No political propaganda in publicly viewable areas.
- No public-facing advertisements (signs inside stores, only viewable to people in the store, are okay). If you have a store, it IS okay to have a sign with your store's name on it, and have products displayed in your windows- just no advertisements for products, places, or services out on open land, please.
- No camping chairs, money sploders, dance pads, or other incentives to get people to camp on your property to artificially drive up traffic.
- No casinos, no gambling, no malls. (Note: By 'mall' I mean a structure whose purpose is mostly to rent vendor space to numerous Second Life merchants. Malls place a very large resource burden on an island (with all the textures and scripted, networked vendors).
- No building within 0.5 meters of parcel border without permission from your neighbors.
- Restrict spamming items (notecard givers, landmark givers, greeters) so that their range is limited to your parcel.
- You can only maintain a Ban list- you may NOT have an Access list. (In other words, you may explicitly ban certain people from your land, but you may not set up your land so that only residents on your list can get in.) If you need privacy, use a security device, but its range must be limited to your parcel, and it must give residents a warning and at least 10 seconds to leave your parcel before ejecting them. NOTE: If you become the target of griefing, please Abuse Report the offender and also notify Wildefire Walcott of the names and details. She will look into it and ban these folks from the entire Desperation Isle estate (encompasses all islands) if necessary.
- Sound-generating objects must be limited to your parcel (i.e. spatialized sound setting in About Land).
- No particle emitters.
- No skyboxes below 300 meters in the sky. Specifically, this means any structures below 300m should be firmly on the ground.
- No 'temp-on-rezzers' or 'holo-rezzers' without explicit permission from Wildefire Walcott. (I don't really mind that they give you more prims, but each temp-on-rezzer puts an additional load on the asset server, and that affects every single resident in Second Life.)
- Limit the amount of hovertext on your items when possible. It often shows through walls and can creep into neighboring properties if you're not careful.
- When building, please do not use textures larger than 512x512.
- No sandboxing below 300m. If you wish to use your land as a sandbox for building projects, that's absolutely okay- but please keep that activity well above the cloudline. The ground is intended for "permanent" homes and businesses.
- While you are allowed to terraform your lot, please do so within reson. Do not terraform coastal lots out to the sim border. While you are allowed to alter the terrain of your land, the end result must still look like natural coastline. I don't care if it touches the border here or there, but if you just fill out the land against the simline it results in a completely unnatural looking shelf of land that seriously detracts from the look of the beach. Finally, no terraforming within 1 meter of the parcel border without permission from your neighbors.
- Do not place any 'physical' objects without permission from Wildefire Walcott. Some items, such as prim inflatables for swimming pools, are physics-enabled, which in itself isn't a problem, but if physics-enabled objects collide in certain ways they can actually crash the sim, which is bad for everyone.
- No freebie houses. There are a number of well-known "freebie houses" scattered all around second life. Some are better than others, but really the sight of them kind of gives a sim a "low-rent" feel. If you are low on funds, please talk to me. I have a selection of nice low-prim houses to fit lots of many sizes, and can provide them at no cost to you.
- No plywood prims laying around. If you're building you're home, some exposed plywood during the build is understandable, so long as you clean up when you're done. But please never leave random untextured prims or abandonned builds for the rest of your neighbors to see. (Again, partial builds are more acceptable over 300m.)
- Do not block the views of neighbors with walls or privacy screens. If you wish to give yourself a little more privacy, please do not do it at the expense of your neighbors. There are several alternatives that are better for the rest of the island: Attractive looking bamboo or wrought-iron privacy fences can achieve the desired effect while still letting light pass through. Thoughtfully-placed trees and bushes can also give you a nice private-feeling environment (just please DO NOT make a big straight, unnatural wall of Linden trees, and please try to use plant species that you'd be likely to find on an island.) 'Blight Be Gone' screens by Keith Extraordinaire (KX Designs) come with an option that has nice looking textures on one side, but is clear on all others. When you put them around your parcel, you see the texture, but everyone else around you sees your land. Another option is to move up into the sky. You can safely place your home anywhere between 300 and 700m, giving you the opportunity to distance yourself from neighbors by hundreds of meters.

Please contact me with any questions.
Wildefire Walcott, owner of Desperation Isle Estates

Protect Your Land from Grief Attacks

2007-07-17T10:17:00.001-07:00

For the second time, Desperation West was hit by a griefer with a self-replicating scripted object. The thing was a box with a picture from The Simpsons on it, and made copies of itself until it had filled up the properties of 6 or 7 paying residents. The person who commited the attack must have been on a spree, because his account was banned from Second Life by the time I logged on to fix the problem- but this actually presented a problem for me because it meant that I could not use the Second Life Region/Estate Tools to return his objects from my island. (When an account is banned, it will not show up in the resident chooser dialog, which means you can't use any features that require you to select a resident.) To prevent this sort of thing from happening again, I'd like to recommend that you protect your land by preventing random people from creating objects on it.

Create a Land Group

Land groups allow you to prevent unauthorized visitors from doing a bunch of things on your property while granting special priveliges to your trusted friends. Creating a group costs L$100, but they are Lindens well spent! To create a group, select Groups from the Edit menu, and then click Create in the group list dialog.

Really, the only thing you have to put in the Group Information window that comes up is your group's name. The group will automatically come with some reasonable default settings and roles for members. The group will be created (and you will be charged L$100) when you click OK.

Invite People to the Group

A land group must have at least two members (you and one other resident), or it will be automatically deleted within 3 days. Invite at least one other person to your group. Some people invite their alts. If you don't have any friends to invite at the moment, IM me and I will let you invite one of my alts so you can keep your group alive. To invite someone to your group:

Go to Edit > Groups to open up the group list dialog.
Select your new group from the list and then click Info.
Click the Members and Roles tab of the Group Information dialog and then click the Invite New Person button.
In the Group Invitation dialog, click Open Person Chooser.
In the Choose Resident dialog, you can either search for the name of the person to invite or, if the person is in your Friends list, you can choose their calling card from the list at the bottom of the window. Once you've selected the correct name, click Select to return to the Group Invitation window.
If you wish to invite multiple people at once, repeat steps 4 and 5 until all are selected.
At the bottom of the dialog you can choose what role to assign the new people. The Everyone role is sufficient if all you want to do is let group members build on your land. (I do not recommend inviting anyone but you alts as an Owner.) Click Send Invitations when you are finished.
Click OK to close the Group Information dialog.

Set Your Land to Group

You have to set your land to a group in order to restrict access to group members. This does not change who owns the land- it only determines who's able to do what on your property.

While standing on your property, go to World > About Land.
On the General tab, click the little Set button next to "Group."
In the group list that pops up, select your group and then click Select.
The Group property of the General tab should now list your group.

Restrict Build Access to your Group

In the About Land dialog, take a look at the Options tab.
To prevent unauthorized people from rezzing new items on your land, uncheck the All Residents box next to Create Objects.
To prevent people from moving existing objects onto your land (like vehicles), uncheck All Residents next to Object Entry.
Click OK.

Following these steps will keep your land beautiful and stop griefers in their tracks.

Desperation Isle Rules for Visitors

2007-07-07T23:00:00.000-07:00

Desperation Isle is a public adult playground where guests can live out dark fantasies with other like-minded folk. There are very few things not tolerated on the isle, and as a result we have very few rules- but the ones we have are important.

No sexual ageplay. While guests with child avatars are welcome to visit an observe, I have zero tolerance for sexual ageplay involving them. You may have a "small" avatar, but if you want to engage in sexual play on the isle, please do NOT roleplay that you are under 18.
No griefing. It's impossible to describe all that constitutes griefing, but generally you know it when you see it. Use of push scripts, weapons, cages, obnoxious particle emitters, intentional bumping and verbal abuse are all unacceptable unless they're part of a consensual RP. If there's any doubt in my mind as to whether a reported incident is an intentional griefing, I will warn the suspect first. But I will instantly and permanently ban any obvious griefers without warning.
Be respectful. Unless you're already engaged in some consensual form of RP, please address all other guests with the same respect that I hope you would give me. It is not acceptable to call a complete stranger "slut" or "whore." Again, once you're both engaged in an RP all bets are off- but you know what I'm talking about.

Reporting Violations

If you are griefed or encounter any other rule violations, please do not engage the person directly. Contact me via IM. If I am not online, contact one of my deputies if they are around, and report the situation. Note: If I'm not in-world I can sometimes be contacted via live web chat.

Helpful Guidelines

Here are a couple articles I've written about how to approach submissives you meet, and on general roleplaying style:

Updates to this Post

July 12, 2007: Added links to helpful articles. (Thanks, Princess.)

Imposters at Desperation Isle

2007-07-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

There have been some incidents recently where guests of Desperation Isle were pretending to be staff of mine in order to bully other visitors. They have threatened bans against visitors who didn't comply with their wishes and have just been generally rude and strange. I ban these folks when I learn of them, but just so you know- I am the final authority at Desperation Isle. There are several people I consider my 'deputies,' including all of my slaves. A deputy's job is to ban griefers, warn individuals who are violating my rules, and to notify me of potential problems. I will list here all of the Desperation Isle deputies. If someone hassles you on the island and they're not on this list, please report them to me via IM. If I am not available, contact any of the deputies who are online and inform them of the situation. Always contact me first, though.

Friends who are isle deputies:

Bethany Bao
Heinie Fan
Kelly Walcott (my partner)
Lancelot Auer
Vivienne Schell

And my pets:

Brielle Branagh
Charlotte Sin
Evals Heart
Leana Meyer
Numerik Panhandle
Ramonna Villota
Ryuune Cheeky
Slave Princess
Sonya Cheeky
Tallon Bigwig
Whinter Paine

Naturally, if you believe one of my deputies has treated you unfairly or irresponsibly, do contact me about it at once.

Alt Orgy Contest Winners

2007-07-01T01:52:00.000-07:00

Here are the winners for the night's contests:

Most Sexual Encounters: Wine Jewell, with 8. (Prize: devPose Bondage Bed)
Most Sexual Partners: AutomaticJack Oxide, with 3. (Prize: VR Candelabra and VR Human Chair)
Most Treasure Chests Found: Zahara Li, with 9. (Prize: devPose Simple Bed)

Thanks for participating, folks.

Contests at Alt Orgy 4.0

2007-06-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

We will be having three contests at this weekend's Alt Orgy on Desperation Isle. I have some lovely high-linden prizes for the winners. The contests are:

Most Treasure Chests Found: The first persion to collect all 12 treasure chests hidden on Desperation Isle wins the prize. The chests must be discovered during the event (I will know if they weren't). If no one manages to find all 12, I will award the person with the most finds, assuming they locate at least 8 chests. Please report the number of chests you found in IM to Wildefire Walcott before 1am. I will confirm your findings. The treasure chests are all small and have a lock that bears my initials. You can see a picture of one here. Note: In order to "collect" a treasure chest you must "buy" it for L$0. Just touch it or right-click it and click Buy. If you don't do this, I won't be able to confirm you found the chest.
Most Sexual Partners: The avatar who manages to engage in sex acts with the most partners wins this one. Results are tallied by a special HUD (called The Bonometer) designed specifically for this event. Instructions follow.
Most Sexual Encounters: A similar contest to the other one, this contest involves the greatest total number of sex acts, and also requires the Bonometer HUD. Note that 3-ways, 4-ways, or more-ways count as multiple acts (1 with each partner). Read on for instructions.

Ground Rules
These rules apply to all three contests:

The contests run from 7pm-1am. Any prizes found or partners encountered before or after the contest will not be considered when deciding the winner. We have means to identify violations.
Only sex acts committed on Desperation Isle count. (The HUD will only work on the isle.)
In the event of a tie, a winner will be decided based on a random number guessing game.
For the sex act contests, any continuous time you spend with a partner constitutes a single "encounter." If you have oral sex, vaginal sex, and anal sex (hopefully in that order) with the same partner right in a row, that's just one encounter even if it's multiple acts. If another person or people join you, you may count that as an additional encounter (even with the same partner), as the new partners change the dynamic.
Multi-partner encounters (more than one partner) count as multiple acts. For example, if you engage in a three way, that counts as two encounters- one for each of your partners- and you must "tag" each of them to get credit.
I will contact winners personally (probably the next day), and announce the winners here on the Desperation Isle Estates Blog.

The Bonometer HUD

In order to record your sexual encounters and partners, you and all your partners need to wear the Bonometer HUD. Get your free copy of it at the Desperation Isle welcome area. The HUD displays a few buttons on your screen. Here's what they do:

Tag: This button "tags" a partner, requesting their permission to consider you a partner. After engaging in a sex act with someone, click Tag. A dialog will appear on your screen, listing the avatars in your vicinity. Click the name of the person you wish to tag. If that avatar is wearing a Bonometer HUD, they will be asked whether you two had an encounter. If they click Yes, then BOTH of you will get credit for one sex act. If it's the first time you've tagged this person, your "Partners" count goes up by one. If you've tagged that person before, only your "Encounters" count increases. Remember these are both important scores- you can lose the Encounters contest but win the Partners one.
Report: This prints a list of partners you've had that evening and tells you your current tallies.
Submit: This emails the results of your exploits to me. You MUST send your results to me by 1am July 1 (at the end of the orgy) in order to be considered for the contest. Please try to only send your results once.

Notes about the HUD:

The Bonometer only works on Desperation Isle, and is only intended for use during this event.
Both partners must be wearing the HUD in order to tag each other. Only one partner needs to initiate; the Bonometer will increase the encounter counts for each partner upon acceptance of a tag request.
The HUD is copiable. To give one to someone else, just find it in your inventory, detach it, drag it onto the avatar you want to give a copy to, and then re-attach your own copy. The copy you give to your friend will automatically reset itself so they don't inherit your tallies.

Alt Orgy 4.0 on Desperation Isle

2007-06-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

This Saturday (June 30, 2007) Desperation Isle will host the fourth in our successful series of Alt Orgies. The idea behind the event is simple: Create an alt, attend the event, and engage in a multitude of anonymous perversities with other incognito residents. It's like an X-rated costume ball. After the orgy, be sure to stop by the Who Were You thread at Second Citizen to reveal your true identity!

To help financially-challenged alts, the welcome area at Desperation Isle has a notecard giver that hands you a list of great places in Second Life to find free hair, shapes, and skins. There's another box at the welcome area that distributes free sex toys, including a landmark to a place where men/shemales can get nice looking free penis attachment.

This event is only as serious as you make it. I've seen people engage in some thoughtful RP at the events, and I've seen some very silly things there as well. There will also be a couple of contests at this event (well at least one- the other is still in planning at this point), and prizes will be awarded.

While you're there, be sure to check out our huge new area, The Cave (it's only reachable by teleporter). Just be sure watch your step!!!

Rent Box FAQ

2007-06-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

[Updated 2007.10.20 - updated for Desperation East]
Residents of Desperation Isle Estates: I have set up rental boxes for each resident of the isle. This notecard will tell you where they are and how to use them.

WHAT ARE RENTAL BOXES?
Your rent box is just a scripted box that keeps track of your rent payments. When you pay the box the money goes to me (the landlord), but the box will tell you how many days worth of rent you've paid for and it will send you a reminder when rent is due.

WHY SHOULD I USE ONE?
The rent box will make both of our lives easier, as it will remind you when you need to pay your rent and will also give you the flexibility of paying at whatever interval you like. For example, if you wish to pay weekly, just pay for 1 week's worth of rent at a time. Want to pay monthly? Pay for 4 weeks' rent, and it won't bother you about rent being due until a month has passed. It will keep me from having to track you down whenever rent is due.

WHERE ARE THE RENT BOXES?
I have set up a skybox at around 650 meters elevation over the Desperation West club, and placed all the rent boxes there. You can also get to the rent boxes from the ground by going to the gazebo in the welcome area of the isle (near the SE corner of the Vinyl Spike club) and riding the "Rental Boxes" teleporter.

Desperation North has its own set of rental boxes, which are 750m in the air, over the Desperation Isle Productions store. There is also a teleporter to the Desperation North skyboxes near the SE center of the island, in a little stone gazebo surrounded by palm trees.

The Desperation South rent boxes are 650 meters in the air, in the NW corner of the island. You can get there by taking the teleporter in the stone gazebo down on the ground.

The Desperation East rent boxes are 400 meters in the air on the Western side of the island. There's a gazebo on the ground with a teleporter.

WHICH ONE IS MINE?
Every rent box has floating text over it that lists the renter's name and the weekly rent. Please only pay your own box. :)

WHEN SHOULD I PAY?
Your first payment is always due one week after you acquire your land, since the purchase price of the land is equal to one week of rent. Subsequent payments can be in increments of 1 to 8 weeks' worth of rent, and this is completely up to you.

WHAT IF I WANT TO PAY MONTHLY?
If you want to pay monthly, just multiply the weekly amount by 4 and pay that amount. No special changes have to be made to the box. You can pay in any interval from 1 to 8 weeks.

HOW DO I USE ONE?
Couldn't be easier. Once you find your rent box, right-click it and pick Pay. Enter the amount you wish to pay, and that's it.

I OWN OVER 4096 METERS- DO I GET MY DISCOUNT?
Yes, the weekly rent price listed over your rent box is based on the tiered pricing that kicks in over 4096 meters. If you acquire more land, I will adjust the settings on your rent box. (Please IM me if you do get more land on the island... I don't always know until I check my transactions history.)

Desperation West

The welcome area gazebo with the teleporter to the rent boxes is at Desperation West: 128, 83, 30.

The rent box teleporter is in the SE corner of the welcome area gazebo:

Desperation North
The gazebo in Desperation North has a teleporter that leads to several locations. Click the center of the teleporter and use the Next button to pick the Rental Boxes location, then click Energize! to go there. The gazebo is located at Desperation North: 145, 111, 33.

Allowing Guests to Set Their Home Locations

2007-06-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

UPDATE (2010.12.18): As of 2009, land no longer needs to be deeded in order for group members to use the "Set Home to Here" feature. The land only needs to be "set to group."

NOTE: There are two ways we can do this on Desperation Isle Estates. Use this method if you ONLY want to allow people the ability to set your parcel as their home. If you wish to grant them other powers on your land, I recommend deeding your whole parcel to your own land group, which also saves you 3 prims. See this post about deeding to determine what suits your needs best.

When you purchase land on a private island you can set your Second Life 'home' location to your land so that World > Teleport Home (or CTRL+SHIFT+H) takes you there. You will also log in to your home location in the event that the sim you were last in crashed and is still offline when you try to log back in. You don't have to do anything special to have this ability if you're the land owner, but if you have a partner or friends who would like to be able to set their home location to your land, there are a number of steps you need to follow, and I need to be part of the process.

Turn on the viewing of property lines so you can see the boundaries of your lot. Land you own will have a green border: View > Property Lines

Select a 16m portion of land on your lot by right-clicking your land, then clicking Edit Terrain, and then just left-click the ground inside your lot. This should highlight a single 16m square of land. This will be the place where people have to stand to set their home location. Just click another area if you want the home location to be someplace else.
In the land Edit dialog, click Subdivide. (If you don't see the Subdivide option, click the More >> button to expand the dialog.) Next click OK. (As the warning says, you may want to re-check your settings afterward in About Land to make sure everything's set the way you like.) The newly subdivided 16m parcel should now be surrounded by a green border.
If you don't already have a land group, create one. It will cost you L$100 and you MUST have a minimum of 2 people in it, or the group will be closed within a couple of days. To create a group, go to Edit > Groups and click Create.
Invite Wildefire Walcott to your group as an Officer (or any other role in your group that has the 'Deed land and buy land for group' ability under Parcel Management). The default settings of the Everyone role do not have the appropriate settings for her to deed the land back to your group.
Either teleport Wildefire to the desired location or give her exact coordinates to it. She will reclaim and then deed the 16m of land to your group. You will be able to tell the land is deeded by looking at the Owner property of the parcel in About Land. It will say: (Group Owned) Also, the parcel will be surrounded by a blue border instead of green.
Now have your friends stand on that deeded 16m of land and go to World > Set Home To Here.
Wildefire will leave your group after that. Make sure you've got someone else in the group, or the group will disband in a couple days!

Additional Notes

The ability to 'Set Home to Here' is actually a group role option (located under Parcel Powers in the Roles tab of group settings). In a newly-created group, the Everyone role has this ability enabled by default. If you happen to uncheck it, only people who are in other roles with that option enabled will be able to set their home locations to your land.
The steps required to allow guests to set their homes on islands are different from privately owned mainland, where you don't need to do all this business with inviting me to your group and having me reclaim the land, etc. On mainland property that you own, you can just do the following: In the General tab of About Land, click Set... and select your land group. Next check Allow Deed to Group (normally you'll want to check Owner Makes Contribution With Deed on the mainland, too- this option is meaningless for islands), and then click Deed... Click OK and the land will be deeded (as indicated by the "(group owned)" text in About Land). If you rent mainland property, the land is very likely already deeded to the property owner's land group.
On private islands like Desperation West, the Second Life client will let you go through the above mentioned steps for deeding your land to the group, but it won't actually do anything. (You will still be listed as owner after clicking OK.) I consider this a bug.