Who Needs it Most? Pt. 2

Since i can't reply to the answer I got in the previous thread...
/139/49/110453/1.html
...I'm compelled to start a new one here.

But WHY PUNISH THE NEWBIES (by removing their meager stipend)?

Your response; "Options are; earn it" was callous. A new person in SL usually needs guidance for simply WALKING - much less earning money!

So, is this a way of doing away with free accounts? Because once a newbie has spent his initial $L what's he/she to do for more? I mean, besides prostitution.

What is their incentive for returning? The "wonderful experience" of lag, crashes, greifing, commercial blight, furry-smut? pfft.

And you're correct - earning $Ls takes time and skill - but that's exactly what a newbie DOESN'T have!

And yeah - sure - they can purchase it from you, if they have a good credit card etc - but what about the casual player that just wants to come in and visit with friends and would like to have a new shirt to wear once in a while?

A Premium account? For a newbie who doesn't know how to control his/her camera? Yeah, good luck with that.

This place is becoming increasingly hostile to new members. It's going to get old without any new people coming in and all we have to deal with are the ultra rich *LAND BARONS* and casino pimps.

Isn't anybody gonna stick up for the newbies? Why am I the only one biatching about this?

I really think this stinks, stinks, stinks - it stinks like the stench of GREED that I get off of *LAND BARONS* and casino pimps.

Moved to General Topics so you and other Residents can reply.

Good for discussion, although in addition to some general cases, you may want to mention exceptions to the "rules" too. SL has lots of clubs and casinos (many of which I have visited) but much more too.

Menubar, I invite you to join our group, "S.O.S. - Save Our Stipends!".

Look for it on the groups tab of "Find."

coco

Cocoanut , what exactly does that group do?

I think LL should impliment a means to "donate" our premium stipend to the poor stipendless newbies.

I mean...I hardly need that extra 500L a week. I could help out 10 newbies with all that! 10! If only there was a mechanism in place to Adopt a Newbie...this could change the world...well...the world of SL anyway. Okay...so it will just change things for those 10 newbies...but it changes THEIR world damnit!*

*sniffles*









* I am insane today. Most days. Okay...all the bloody time!

Apparently it's got something to do with saving their stipends. But I could be wrong about that.

Well yeah ... let me rephrase the question then ...

How exactly does your group intend to save the stipends ?

There , that better then?

I suggested a time limit. Collect a stipend for 7 weeks or so, then its cut off. By then you:

1. Aren't a newbie anymore
   
2. Know whether you want to go premium or not
   
3. Be able to make an income - or not
   
4. Know whether they even want to stay
   

If you want to buy a shirt now and then, play soem games, save some money. In 7 weeks, including your initial 250, you will have 600 lindens. Or you can borrow from friends who I'm sure won't mind parting with 50 lindens for a shirt if you are on good terms.

By 7 weeks, you should be able to control your camera, and you can either buy lindens or go premium..

Its not asking much at that point.

Why do you need an official method? Just go to the welcome area and make some friends. I've given alot out to friends when they were new players.

So now we're whining about the equivalent of 60 frickin' cents a MONTH? Seriously?

I think you're the only one 'biatching' about this because everyone else has more important things to do, like clipping their fingernails.

A coordinated campaign of grey goo attacks and particle spewing lagtowers.

Why exactly do the freebie account holders need thier stipends saved?

Now, the premium account holders have a valid argument or two to save thiers... that they are paying thier way being the cheif one.

But the free accounts? Tell my why they should have an ongoing (if meager) free lunch?

The unbrilliant bit was to eliminate it as a whole. A few L$ in thier pockets over 30 to 90 days carries 'em 'till they decide SL is thier kind of playground. But after that, Go premium and/or buy from the LindeX.

It's "equivalent of 60 frickin' cents a month" to you, and at the same time it's "nearly eveything they're gonna get" to someone who is just starting.

Matter of perspective, really...

I think if someone's 'perspective' allows them to get their panties in a knot at not getting 60 cents a month for free then they need to step back and laugh at themselves for a few hours and then go get a new one. Seriously.

Is this because spending a buck (literally. it'd exceed basic stipend.) on an online service is completely and utterly beyond the pale? I suppose that 'perspective' is one of entitlement.

I really wish someone would explain this to me -- why they're entitled to payments just for showing up.

I'm still waiting for an answer on that one. It's not like Linden is starting to charge people to be here. They're simply not paying people to be here anymore.

That little '60 cents a month' might be what makes someone decide to stay playing SL, upgrade to Premium and buy a nice lump of land, giving LL some much-needed real cash.

Otherwise they'll come here, find they can't do much without money, decide they aren't prepared to risk $20 on something they might not like, log out and never bother to come back.

Actually, given LL's one track marketing policy of 'come here and make money', that's what most people seem to do when they realise it's not as easy as they thought it would be.

Join the Campaign for Real Advertising Potential today.

Lewis

But normal, goth/vampire, bdsm, anime, avie, snuff, etc, porn is okay then? Or maby they just aren't as bad as this evil furry-porn thats in same level of disruptiveness as griefing and crashing. Perhaps you should have just said 'smut' in general and thus kept your bias to yourself. I've seen much much more rl porn all over sl, expecially on the mainland. Most the niche stuff tends to stay in their respective themed areas, or residents own housing. Ex: Furry porn tends to be in furry themed mature areas, or houses. Why would a new resident be in those places unless they either have an interest in the whole (adult)furry thing, or just enjoy sneaking into other peoples housing. Hell, even furries can avoid the 'evil furry-porn', as there are several PG furry-themed areas too.

It doesn't fit in that list. It's not a widespread problem, yetalone even a real problem to begin with.
< /rant >

I have a feeling that any new friends I make that have joined after the 29th will start asking for money much more than my other friends. Alot of people live off the 50L stipend for quite some time, if not indefinatley. Nobody really needs anything on sl, so I'm sure now that the practice of saving up money with stipend, and then spending it all on one item, then rinsing and repeating, is dead, it most likley be replaced by syphoning cash from other players. We already nave enough people wandering around sandboxes asking every person they see for L. Now we get to see it on a whole new level! Bring on the bona fide SL hobos, the leeching friends, the scamming money schemes, and the low grade content! At least we still have money trees. Someone will probably also make some system to mimic stipend, if possible.

I feel lucky myself. I managed to join when ratings actually meant something. On good weeks I could get over $250 L without gaming anything. These poor noobs have it rough.

I think it would help you to understand this point of view if you stopped for a moment to convert everything into real world currency.

Try an experiment when you find a moment. Limit your _weekly_ spendings to L$50 plus whatever you can make and sell in that time, without relying on your already established shops, brands, in0depth knowledge of SL mechanics etc. No buying L$ with real world money, either.

Then a week later try the same thing (starting entirely from scratch again) but without that L$50.

Then tell me how much more fun that second week was, in comparison to the first one.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy that 15 cents a week sways anybody one way or another. You can maybe buy a couple of decent cheap shirts a month with that. Yeah, living the big life now. That's rot. If anything, people log into SecondLife and go 'Wow, this just isn't cutting it, I need to get some money that counts for something to get that sexy new outfit I saw.' Every other online 'game' out there makes you hit the treadmill right away to start earning some gold or whatever, people who come into SL expecting LL to just hand them money are entirely baffling.

As for you 'but I don't want to work in my second life, I do that in my first life!' crowd...get a grip. You have to 'work' in WoW too to get anywhere, why is that so much more acceptable? If you don't want to 'work' in SL, pay a couple bucks a month for your entertainment like you do everywhere else. Every other online game makes you pay a monthly fee for the privilege of spending all your time working. SecondLife lets you play for free, and instead you can use that $10-$15 a month to buy toys. Why is paying for Second Life so much less acceptable than paying for some treadmill MMO?

Honestly, I don't get you people.

Look up "gnubie store". There's quite a plenty places like that in SL.

To state the obvious: it is FREE.

You are being given total access to a 3d virtual world/platform for free for as long as Linden continues this policy, which is unusual. You can either a) make your own content, b) take advantage of the plentiful freebies and the community, friends are free, heh or c) sell your own stuff or work or d) spend a couple of dollars a month and have plenty of lindens to spend.

What do people expect from a free game, jeez? Linden is still giving newbies some money to spend at first, to see if they like SL and what it has to offer, what more do you want? Two dollars a month will buy you over $700 linden. Or you can get a SL job or create and sell your own stuff, and that is the real point of SL, the ability to create your own content on the platform and even make money with it, everything else can be gotten elsewhere in one form or another.

What is the problem? You want something for nothing?

Tell that to EA.

If you want a completely free game and completly free money to spend on content, please tell me where this exists, except for SL previously.

It wouldn't work either way. I went premium straight away when I started cause 5 uploads a week just doesn't work. You basically can't make anything with that, and you can't buy anything either, so I'd be buying L$ whether I got my precious 15 cents a week or not. If it makes me happy, I'll pay for it. If it doesn't make me happy, 15 cents a week ain't gonna keep me here, that's for damn sure.

The Free Dove is another high quality freebie place, I could only find it by searching for "Dove" for some reason, heh. Great clothing, AO's, Skins, all FREE like SL is to you, FREE.

Interesting, since your "wouldn't work either way" worked perfectly fine for me. L$50 a week, no premium, no buying cash. Turned out enough to buy stuff i liked and make a bit of income.

I guess it just shows what you consider universal truth is simply personal experience. So perhaps rather than categorically state what 'can work' or not, you could accept that people are all different, and for number of them your '60 cents a month' can make a vast difference because they are playing by different rules you do...

If you plain refuse to try walking in their shoes, utterly convinced from get-go that it's something impossible... well, your right. But you lose quite a bit of ground here, being unable to speak from actual experience and unwilling to gain it.

Okay good - there's been some great points made.

One point being "Why should Lindens pay people to be here?" is exactly the type of counterpoint I was hoping to hear. And I'm almost convinced you're right.

Linden's shouldn't have to pay anybody to be in SL, IMHO, so your point is well taken.

But as it is right now - they ARE paying people to be here. Many who don't even need it (as small as it is, comparatively). In fact it's the people who DON'T need it who are the only ones getting it! This doesn't make sense from any perspective.

I may join the well intentioned "Save Our Stipends Group" when I log on, but I'm not sure I share their cause. I could also join a Banish The Stipends Group, but I'm not sure I share that cause either. I would like to see the newbies receive some sort of stipend though, just so they can more easily situate themselves. We were all newbies at one time and we remember how hard it was at first - but we persevered, because we had incentive to.

Whenever I see a newbie enjoying a bubble wand they bought, or wearing an exceptionally pretty dress that they're so proud of, it brings a genuine tear of joy to my eye. To coin a phrase, "Someone, please, think of the children".

And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to denigrate the furry-smut community. It's just one of the amusing things that I think is unique to SL

...or maybe I just don't get out often enough. Heh.