This guide is a combination of several posts. Please accept my apologies if they seem a bit disconnected.

Becoming A Plot Owner 

 First off, the questions to consider when buying a plot. Where to purchase can be a matter of things:

• Does your guild have members in that area?
• Is that area plentiful with resources you think you'll use often? (for a mage, stone for spell shards or wisps for essence, for instance)
• What do you think you want to put there (there is an Excel spreadsheet set up Biped Plot template that allows you to roughly plan a plot of whatever size)?
• Is it a high-traffic area for selling products (racial towns, Bristugo, Harro)?
• Is it pretty (yes, some people buy plots based on surroundings)?
• Are there both portal and pad nearby?
• What is the size of plot you're after (in case you want to expand services there)?

Once you have chosen what size plot and location (and it’s available to buy by the white flag above the plot marker) and have the money, it’s time to buy it. Double click on the plot marker. This brings up the main window. Click the Buy button. You may then rename your plot. In the center at the bottom of the window is a button with an image of a piece of paper. The hint will pop up about setting the title of the plot. Click on it and enter what you wish to call it.

Once you have your plot, you have several building choices: houses, guildhalls, libraries, and silos offer storage; crafthalls offer machines for crafting; gazebos, walls, flooring, fountains, rocks, trees, archways, and other decorations give your plot the personalized feeling.

Unicorn's Lady says:

Building on a plot is one of the bigger projects in this game. It's almost like having a real house built as far as time & energy put into it. I think most folk get help to get their plot built, since to do it all yourself you need 5 craft skills and preferably 7. They are Carpentry, Enchanting, Fitting, Masonry, and Weaving; with Gathering and Mining added to help aquire the raw resources at maxium efficiency. I happen to be one of the crazy ones that have a character that does all seven skills (at Tier 2 or lower) and actually enjoys building. It is very satifying to me to see something I've worked hard & long on finally pop!

 

But, except for a few things like tents & tier 1 human houses (which look like very, very ugly brown tents) most things will take some if not a lot of time to finish (unless you're very lucky to have a crack building team available). It took from the end of the Autumn auctions, when Azure Twilight won Carmo, until recently to get most of the plot owners plots in Carmo finished. This was with me & Skirnir pulling sometimes over 12 hours a day working and all the plot owners & some others also working on them. Pop down there to Carmo and take a look to get an idea.

 

The higher the tier that is needed in a building, most likely the longer it will take to get the building built. This isn't always true, but it's a good general rule of thumb. So if you want storage fast go with tents, Tier 1 Human houses & silos, they don't take a lot. For machine and commercial shops stay with Beginner and Tier 1. But if you prefer bigger, better, and prettier, than plan for it to take awhile to complete or plan on alot of cash spent to attract enough builders to get it done fast.

 

If you do decide to pay for work on your plot, you might want to hire some high level builders for at least the most difficult work. Usually there will be someone on Marketplace Chat who knows someone or is such. For the low level work, if you don't want to contract with a builder to do it, just put the money that you are willing to pay for the work done in your construction window and then advertise in here on your shard's appropriate board and again also in Marketplace Chat. If the new, beginning builders know you are paying a reasonable amount and where your plot is, they will come. (This also does work for the high level work, but not as reliably)

Planning Your Plot - Selecting a Structure

Once you have your plot, click on the Planning tab. Here is where you actually design your plot. Click on the + button to add new structures. A window will pop up that has all the structures listed alphabetically, including all the trees, walls, flooring, archways, and buildings of all sorts, as well as festival decorations. You are given a 360 degree rotating view of the structure, as well as info on how many can be placed (for instance, certain houses and tiered guildhalls, you may only place one of each tier, but silos you can place as many as you desire).

Planning Your Plot - Placing the Structure 

Once you have the structure selected, click on the Add button. The structure is now in the middle of your plot. Back in the plot window, highlight the structure name and you can then use the buttons to rotate, align, or move it to position. Recommendation: start at the edges and work inward or start at one edge and work across.

There are 4 alignment buttons: top, bottom, left, and right, which allow you to move the structure as far in that direction as it can go to be built (however, with plot edges, you may have to nudge the structure back onto the plot for successful placement). The rotation buttons offer preset 0, 90, 180, and 270 rotations, as well as a user-defined amount where you can enter the number of degrees you want the structure to move and a button to make the adjustment. Also included are a set of nudge buttons with another incremental amount (usually set to 100 for 100cm). This incremental amount can be entered to be higher or lower depending on your needs to move items besides having them align to the nearest edge or structure. Near plot edging, it is a common tactic to set that amount to 1 and move the structure back in away from the edge so it will build.

The - button is used to remove the highlighted structure from the planning (that you don't want).

The planning window also shows when structures are good to be built (white), in conflict with other structures (yellow), already under construction (light blue) or over the edge of the plot (red). Towards the bottom edge of the plot, especially with walls, this can be a bit tricky to see, especially if overlapped in the preview by another structure.

Planning Your Plot - Previewing the Layout 

While you are planning the plot out, you and ONLY you may actually tour the buildings as if they were finished, seeing where openings are, how walls fit together, where things do and don't fit actually. Also, it is a good idea to keep the entire thing planned without hitting the Build button while you are still adding new structures. It gives a better view of how things will and will not fit because the construction scaffoldings do not give a true indication of where the edge of the structure actually is. A warning: should you end up accidentally or deliberately recalling, running out of the community, teleporting, or either CTD or logging out, the planning will be lost and you will have to begin again. There is currently no feature to allow you to save plans on a biped plot.

Building Your Plot - Committing the Planned Structure

Once you are content with where the structures are planned, it is time to begin the construction. Select each structure in the list and hit the Build button. Be warned, though, if anyone is standing where you are going to build a structure, the build WILL fail. It's always a good idea to plan out where the structure, walk around it to make sure everything is clear and that the gaps are either intentional or nudged shut (in the case of walls), and that people are clear before hitting the Build button. From time to time, a structure will not build even though it is correctly planned. In those instances, re-add the structure and use the nudge buttons to put it back in place. You may have to do some creating nudging of other structures around it to get it to place correctly.

Building Your Plot - Contributing Resources

Once a structure has been successfully planned and accepted by the Planning tab, it shows up on the Construction tab. Here, construction units are placed on the structure. Select a structure from the list, then the resource from the bottom list, then hit the Contribute button. This brings up another window with a slider and shows how many units you will place given your current skill. Your effectiveness at placing construction units depends on your main skill in the construction classes: carpenter, enchanter, fitter, mason, or weaver.

Building Your Plot - Funding Structures 

You may place coin on units in the Construction tab. Select
a structure then click on the Manage button. It allows you to determine
how many units you wish to pay for placing and how much you will pay
for them. When you click on OK from the Manage window, the funds are
removed from your current purse and placed on the structure. Should you
decide to delete a structure with coin on it, you should go back to the
Manage window and set the number of units payable to 0 to get your
money back before destroying the structure.

Building Your Plot - Deconstruction 

You may delete a structure from the Construction tab and from the plot by highlighting the structure and clicking the delete button. Once confirmed, you receive 80% of your placed resources from that structure in your vault as Novian resources. These may only be placed on the plot you own and will place at 1:1 ratio by highlighting the resource in the construction window, clicking the Contribute button, and then checking the box for Novian resources. No skill is required to place Novians, nor is any tool. You also do not receive any experience for placing Novians.

 

Completing Your Plot - Structure Permissions

When a structure is built, a couple other things happen. On the General
tab, you may set structure permissions by highlighting the completed
structure and changing that structure's setting. The three settings are
Deny All, Guild Only, and Allow All, then click Submit.

Completing Your Plot - Activating Machines and NPCs

If the newly completed structure is supposed to have machines or NPCs, you will notice that they are missing.  You need to highlight the
structure in the plot window, then the machine or NPC and click Activate. This actually puts the
machine or NPC in.

Completing Your Plot - Plot Permissions

There are other things to be decided as well. The Permissions tab allows you to set plot permissions as to who may access the plot. Currently, they are Deny All, Guild Only, Allow All, and Friends List. Using the Friends List is a bit more than clicking the button and hitting Submit (unlike the other three choices). when you select Friends List, a window will open with your current list. You may drag and drop persons or folder groups from your Player List window, or you may click on the Add button and add persons individually. You may also remove them from this window. Once you have the permissions set, click Submit.

Steelclaw says:

A Note About Permissions

 

In order for a character (other than the plot owner) to access an NPC or storage on a plot, the character must pass both the plot AND structure access restrictions. 

 

Example 1:  A silo is set to "Allow All" and the plot is set to "Deny All". 

A character tries to access the silo.

The character would be denied access because the plot is set to "Deny All".

 

Example 2: A silo is set to "Allow All" and the plot is set to "Friends Only". 

A character on the "Friends List" tries to access the silo. 

The character would be granted access because they are on the "Friends List" and the silo is set to "Allow All".

 

Example 3: A silo is set to "Guild Only" and the plot is set to "Allow All".

A character not in the same guild as the owner tries to access the silo.

The character would be denied access.  The plot is set to "Allow All", so they pass that check, however, they fail the "Guild Only" check.