Did you guys also had a pre-ICO for Decentraland tokens? The only way to participate in the ICO will be by ETH right?

It's all so quiet in here, where has everyone gone ?
Is there some other forum I'm not aware of where all the chatter on Decentralalaland is happening.
I'm sure there was another bitcointalk forum but it seems to have vanished, maybe I'm mistaken.

I'm very excited for the upcoming token sale. The team behind this project really knows their stuff and has been active in the blockchain world for years. They've posted their smart contract code online and had it audited -- both good signs: https://blog.zeppelin.solutions/decentraland-mana-token-audit-ee56a6bca708

Plus one of the guys behind OpenZeppelin, which a lot of ICO-related ventures use as the basis for their contracts, is on the board: https://blog.decentraland.org/introducing-the-decentraland-team-3071f7c947a

The slack channel is very active too.

Not to mention, this could be the start of the Metaverse! 

Hello, I can see the 20% of the total supply will be distributed to the team and early investors, and I want to know if there is any holding plan for this part of funds. Thank you.

Dear community,

The reception to our whitelist announcement on Wednesday has been overwhelming, and we can’t thank you enough for your unwavering support. The open metaverse is coming and you’re the protagonists making it happen.We were deeply saddened to learn that on Friday several community members were targeted in a phishing attack. Scammers have replicated our fundraising platform on the similar-looking domain decentraiand .org, which when written with a capitalized ‘i’ looks identical to the real domain. Watch out for this domain, it’s not us.We are very aware of how expectant you are to receive the instructions on how to guarantee your spot in our upcoming token sale, but sadly, we are not the only ones who know this. The scammers do as well, and we believe they will try to capitalize on it.Given how well-executed their trap is, we’ve decided to cancel our community whitelist( to prevent people from being scammed out of their funds. Instead, we are going to offer everyone who registered before the August 14th 00:00 GMT deadline a *guaranteed 40% discount on the token sale, regardless of when you contribute. You still will have to contribute before the sale ends.Remember that Decentraland will not ask you individually to send funds to any address. Ignore every email and every direct message you get about this, even if it looks to be coming from a Decentraland team member. It’s very likely it’s a scam.We hope to see you when the token sale starts on August 17th 8pm EST.Once again, we appreciate the community’s overwhelming support as we continue building Decentraland.

We’ll see you in the metaverse,
The Decentraland Team

I've been digging deeper into the Decentraland project. I think this team can really make this grand vision happen. (They are leagues ahead of some of the other "VR on the blockchain" projects out there -- which shall remain nameless -- that only have a white paper and a website, and no experience in this industry).

Decentraland has struck up important partnerships with other respected blockchain projects too. For example:

District0x to support the sale and resale of Land in the Decentraland world: https://blog.district0x.io/decentraland-districts-40b9ada0431b

Aragon to enable decentralized governance within the Decentraland world: https://aragon.one/

This article does a great job of explaining these partnerships and the overall plan for MANA tokens and LAND in Decentraland: https://vrscout.com/news/decentraland-metaverse-blockchain/#

With the token sale coming up on August 17th, this is one to watch.

Here's an article they posed about how to participate: https://blog.decentraland.org/how-to-participate-in-the-decentraland-token-sale-1833cf0b8137

Is this the official thread for this "thing"? I am trying to find it but all the threads I find regarding Decentraland look nothing like an official ANN.

The most robust project in District0X.

How and when will people be able to view the plots of land available? Is it a first come first serve type of deal?

Yes, I confirmed on Slack that this is the official thread.

Some other people have put up competing threads, but those others are not associated with the Decentraland team. Keep checking this one for official announcements and such.

The token sale is only two days away.