Looking at the Linden Premium Plus Homes Ranch theme in Second Life

On Monday June 26th, Linden Lab launched the first Linden Homes theme expressly for Premium Plus subscribers. As had been promised, the theme is “Ranch”, and comprises a total of seven styles. Also as promised, these houses are on 2048 sq metre parcels with a land capacity of 703 LI. For the initial release, a total of 28 regions have been established by LL, located in their own group alongside Bellisseria’s major Stilt Home regions.

The houses themselves are of various footprint, the smallest looking suitable for a 512 s m parcel, and the largest looking like they might feel a little squeezed were they to sit on a 1024 sq m of a Premium home. Here, however, they fit the plots well, although the little cabin-style units do – to my eyes – look very out-of-place.

The landscaping around the houses is well designed, undulating nicely to offer different heights throughout, dirt tracks offering through routes and drives which almost reach onto the parcels. The latter are marked by fences which exist just outside of their boundaries, given a nice sense of property without encroaching on the parcel LI. Lanterns hang from posts which have an unfortunate resemblance to a simple gallows whilst grain silos, water towers, tractors, windmills and other items perhaps common to ranchlands helping to give a sense of place.

As well as presenting different footprints, the houses are a mix of single and two storey units, all framed and clad in wood and incorporating the expected porches. All of those set out for viewing in the region are referenced as “open plan”, even though they have individual rooms. However, whether this means the versions rezzed by default are “open plan”, with their more open spaces to be sub-divided at the owner’s discretion, whilst there are other versions available through the rezzers with their larger interior spaces already sub-divided, or whether these seven styles with their mix of open-plan spaces and individual rooms marks the entire theme, I’ve no idea. However, given I am unsure, the following descriptions may not fully reflect all of the the styles available via the rezzers:

• Buffalo Pastures: a large house with 1.5 floors. A full-length front porch with double doors provides access to to a large front-to-back room with rear door accessing a smaller porch. A second front-to-rear room features a staircase at the front rising to a galleried landing and single upper floor room.
  • Grizzly Point: essentially the same as the above, but with larger footprint to allow a larger main room on the lower floor.
• Creek Stone: a small cabin-style house, with front and rear porches. This appears to either only have a single room, or is presented only in its open-plan format.
• Knotty Pine: a large, single-storey building with full-length porch to the front and half-length porch to the rear. A single front door provides access to a large front-to-back main room with a door to rear porch. A central hallway parallels the main room, providing access to three further rooms, all with doors and with front, side and rear aspect views respectively, as well as connecting to the main room via both an arched entry and a door towards the rear of the room. A hatchway within this hall provides access to a loft area (with fold-down steps).

• Sliver Spurs: a single-storey L-shaped house with full-length front porch and centre-placed rear porch to half length. A single front door provides access to the main room with views to the rear aspect and door to the porch. An inner hall provides access to two additional rooms.
• Stable View: a large two-storey house featuring full-length front and rear porches and double front doors opening into an entrance hall with dogleg stairs to upper floor. Two large connecting rooms (both connecting to the entrance hall on the lower floor. Galleried upper floor landing leading to two side-by-side bedrooms on one side and a further bedroom on the other.
  • Spring View: similar to the Stable view, but with slightly smaller footprint and only featuring the two upper side-by-side bedrooms.

I’m not entirely sure what it is with this theme – or whether I’m just increasingly jaded – but I admit to finding them lacking appeal and character. Out of the seven styles, Grizzly Point and Stable View are little more than Buffalo Pastures and Spring View on a light dose of steroids, whilst several of the builds seem to have deliberately oddly-shaped permanent (i.e. those with fixed doors) rooms, some of which seemed cramped even sans furnishing. And while the Knotty Pine does have a novelty of an attic (with window), it’s not enough to lift it into the realm of “like” for me. There is also the weird novelty of stone chimneys rising from several of the designs but without any connection to an actual fireplace. Whist this obviously leaves a freedom of choice as to any actual fireplace actually installed on the part of the owner, it still potentially limits where any fireplace might go if sensibilities of look are to be maintained, which seems to defeat the object – so why not just include one to start with?

Which is not to say the Theme isn’t proving popular. Whilst writing this piece, the houses around me were being snapped up with horses and stables appearing even before furnishings! For those who are Premium Plus and who like horse riding, will likely find much to enjoy with this theme. For me, however, it’s not enough to tip me anywhere close to considering pumping my subscription up to PP.

SLurl Details

• Generic Ranch Themes SLurl (Clemente, rated Moderate)