Complaints About Dwell/Money Chairs

Linden Lab really needs to do more to differentiate the value of a premium account. People scream when you suggest that premium accounts have things that the free accounts don't, but there has to be some incentive - and you can't expect every single thing for free, LL does need to have an income.

My complaint is that I sat in one for like 6 hours at the Feted IRC Treehouse, and then it didn't pay me!

Well, if they have a popular event that paying users enjoy, that encourages those paying users to play SL, and keep paying. If they're getting that dwell from freebie accounts sitting in chairs they're encouraging freebie accounts and doing nothing to get more paying users into the system.

Maybe the amount of dwell an account generates should be based on the economic value of that account. How much money it's earned (one way or another, there's no way objectively to tell an IGE Linden purchase from a gift from a sale through a vendor that doesn't use "Buy" boxes) over the previous month, up to some limit.

Why doesn't LL do something? They have these game contests and then don't promote the games in world. Why aren't the game contest winners at the top of Find all of the time? Why aren't they on the daily announcements when you log in at least once a week?

I think one of the main contributors to the divisiveness of this issue, which does tend to polarize people, comes down to Linden Lab's obsession with marketing SL as a way to make money. The story of Anshe Chung is Philip's mantra, and it is told EVERYWHERE. Start with nothing, make 6 figures. How often are the economic stats of SL touted? How often are people told it's all about money, about making money, money money money. No other online environment is marketed this way. Yet there is no solid structure in place in SL for any time of economy beyond a purely retail one.

There is no capacity for a service based enconomy because we have no contracts, no tools to support easily paying wages, and pathetic group support that have no viable permission structures in place to allow someone to really function in any kind of employee capacity. On top of that, honestly, for the same amount of effort, you can certainly make a hell of a lot more money in the real world than you can in SL because of the perception that everything needs to be in substandard hobbyist wages.

It's such a weird mixed message, and it is no wonder that people are constantly fighting over money. The greed floodgates were opened long ago, and Linden Lab has mishandled the message ever since. There is so much more to SL than making money, but you certainly would not know it by a damn thing coming out of Linden Lab. One of the strongest actual driving components of SL - the social and god-forbid SEXUAL nature of SL is completely hidden in favor of COME TO SL AND BE RICH! While there is certainly ample opportunity to make money in SL for certain people, it can't be the entire message - because it is only a portion of the experience.

I've only been in SL for a few days, so at first I had assumed that money chairs and dance pads had always been around. They definitely affected my first impressions of SL for the worse.

I wanted to get a sense of what SL culture was -doing-, so I went to all of the popular places, and just see a bunch of idlers. When I go exploring, it feels like a giant retail ghost town with shop after repetitive shop and nobody around.

The only real fun I've had so far is simply exploring the architecture of the world. I havn't come across anything stimulating to participate in yet.

I think I particularly wish the events board were enforced to only cover -real- events, and if there is a lack of resources to be able to do that, events could be rated by players. Looking at the first page of events right now, it's -all- spam. Isn't that what the classifieds are for?

What's much worse then not being able to find an event for myself, is that why would anybody want to sponsor an event when it can't be found amongst all the spam?

I've only been in SL for a few days, so at first I had assumed that money chairs and dance pads had always been around. They definitely affected my first impressions of SL for the worse.

I wanted to get a sense of what SL culture was -doing-, so I went to all of the popular places, and just see a bunch of idlers. When I go exploring, it feels like a giant retail ghost town with shop after repetitive shop and nobody around.

The only real fun I've had so far is simply exploring the architecture of the world. I havn't come across anything stimulating to participate in yet.

I think I particularly wish the events board were enforced to only cover -real- events, and if there is a lack of resources to be able to do that, events could be rated by players. Looking at the first page of events right now, it's -all- spam. Isn't that what the classifieds are for?

What's much worse then not being able to find an event for myself, is that why would anybody want to sponsor an event when it can't be found amongst all the spam?

The only real fun I've had so far is simply exploring the architecture of the world. I havn't come across anything stimulating to participate in yet.

So now we have yet another principle we're supposed to hold to - that freebie account shouldn't be allowed to do too much.

I agree with this to a degree but wouldnt this add to the problem of the economy being flooded with L's that LL is currently trying to stabilise?

Maybe what we need is more subscription levels. Have L$ tiers like we already have land tiers. If people want $5000L every month, they can pay a few bucks a month for it.

I didn't say any such thing.

That just seems silly to me. Accounts that earn money are already rewarded by earning that money. The point of dwell, I thought, was to incentivise interesting non-commercial builds.

You said that camping chairs were bad because they "encouraged freebie accounts", whereas events "encouraged paying customers". That presumably means you think there are some things which should be out of bounds to freebie accounts, so that being able to get them encourages paying customers.

The point of the developer rewards is to encourage the growth of attractions that bring people into SL who make money for Linden Labs. The point to the freebie accounts is twofold: to give people a way to get their feet wet, and to make SL a more interesting place simply because it's got lots of people in it. If the developer rewards are going to subsidise freebie accounts that don't lead to people participating in SL, then they're a net loss for LL and will go away.

Every time someone says "Anshe built her empire out from a basic account", somebody else hears "if I can't succeed on a basic account, I can't succeed full stop, so why get a premium?"

A small amount of disposable income is easily purchased on Lindex, people who I have referred and brought over to SL do as well. Small content will not cut it, I continue to purchase content from others, my biggest issue is not finding enough diverse quality content and thats what I hear from other avid consumers.

I think Chip is correct that is more to do with peoples's perceptions about SL's Marketing and when they first enter SL.

The people I referred to SL I was sure to inform them this was much more expensive enviroment/game then we had come from. I reffered them immediately to GOM and helped them learn how to purchase money, let them know once they tested SL upgrade to premium .

Most of them have been here a year now none of these people are content creators and have never expressed a complaint about having to purchase money to play the game.

New users who come on thier own get a much different education when they ask about how to get money. If they look at events, popular places everything is screaming FREE Money just sit and collect.

I am not a fan of There I played it for a while and it was not my cup of tea I went there from TSO I asked like every new person how do you get money are there jobs like in TSO? Answer no you go to the website and buy money which I & every other player in THERE does.

I am not saying we should'nt give help to new users but if this is what they learn in thier first few weeks on SL why should'nt they keep expecting everything for free?

Are you kidding?

Well, ok. I'll try to avoid hyperbole and state that there are, out there, folks (I've met quite a few) who think premium is unnecessary because "we can just earn the money" - and I mean by making stuff, not by camping - or that if they couldn't earn the money, they wouldn't want to play.