Unofficial 1.2 FAQ

The problem is they phrased it the same way as lifers.

When they say NO land fees, that is technically true.

You still need to have a premium access account. If you have a basic access account, you don't get your 'grandfathered' land.

That's what Philip says on page 1 of this thread, anyways.

Instead of the 512 sq.m. land grant, you get an allotment of 1024 sq.m.

Remember, as of last night, there are now 2 charges associated with SL.
Access fees, and land fees.

At the last townhall meeting last night, I asked: "So Lifers get 4096m for $0/month, and the rest of us get 1024m, but only if we pay $10/month?" The answer, directly from Philip, was Yes.

I had previously understood that non-lifetime current members got 1024 for $0/month, and had confirmed that with one of the other Lindens; but Philip himself has now said, several times, that that is not the case.

Make your plans accordingly.

bump ...

I am confused too.. I had more than one Linden in SL tell me that current paying members will get 1024 sq for $0 a month, and lifers get 4096 sq for $0 a month.

Now I hear that current members need to pay the $10 a month to own land.

Someone at LL needs very badly to get a web page out that details all the various options.. getting diffrent answered from diffrent employees is getting really old... :-/

The current page is a mess and confusing and contradicts what is being said in game.

Lindens? Help?

Check this out:


I had asked about this in the Mob meeting in the welcome area the first day, and I asked several Lindens about this, and Phillip at I think the second town hall meeting.

Up until when I asked Phil and for at least some time after, I'm certain there intention was for the 1,024 to be free for life. This has now changed, both in the amount of Free land non-lifers get and what they will be expected to play.

I guess LL realised that Way too many people were going to content themsleves with the 1,024 as long as that meant they didn't have to pay again.

I went and did some fairly drastic things to my land situation and current holdings (I know, my fault) based on what I repeatedly asked about.

I know that they can't conceivably do what they said they were going to do.

Really, all I want is an honest response to this question: Non-lifers having to pay to get their land grant - this policy is new as in within the last 12 hours or so?

I know they're thinking did change.

How is this now better for us? We can now pay what we had been paying, $15 a month for a very limited account and less Linden dollars.

My quarterly subscription ends in Feb. I'm going to go ahead and sign up for the Lifetime membership, and hope to god I can pay for it by then. If I can't (which is very likely) unfortunately this new Change to what Was being proposed less than 24 hours ago will be the dealbreaker for me. I love SL so much, but now I won't be able to afford it.

One, and anyone else out there thinking of upgrading to the lifetime. I was told by Colin when i called billing at about 10 am PST that if you upgrade you will be charged the $225 when 1.2 rolls over and not at the end of your billing cycle. And there will be no refunds for memebership plans already paid.

I certianly do not mind continuing to pay a monthly fee. Inf fact I was planning to buy more land just so I could continue paying a fee. I don't think most regular members here woudl put having to pay for SL as a top 10 complaint. We all know such a beast is enormously expensive in computers, bandwidth and people.

So if they have changed from $0 a month to $10, I will not bitch about that. I *will* bitch if they don't also give us more for out $10. An extra 512 is a pretty tiny bonus/bribe/reward for current paying users.

If you change the rules on what we will have to pay, better give us somethign in return.. and at teh VERY least have an ofical page that states EXACTLY what the new rules are.

It's been said before, and I'll say it again.. this has to be one of the worst roll outs of a new system I have been involved with. Massive changes, no information, wrong information, day to day changes in the new system. Someone jumped the gune here, and while that can't be fixed, you have to start getting good information out NOW. I don't care who is at fault or what mistakes happened or what problems were beyone anyones crontrol... I just want to know what is going on, and I want to be reassured.

Uncertanty == Fear.

It's why kids are afraid of the dark and scream for their parents, and why us SL customers are freaking out because we don't know what is happeneing to our world.

Okay, the above is an even more direct asking and answering of the "grandfathering".

And omg. . . what's this about people being billed when 1.2 is released?

I know it has been said multiple times that this is not the case. Lot's of people had their fears assuaged by being told they could pay for a Lifetime Membership when their current subscription runs out.

I understand that we would have to go ahead and switch to the lifetime option before 1.2, but when I switched, on the web site, it specifically still listed my billing date as being in February at the end of my current billing cycle.

This, I think, would be direct breach of contract. How could they just arbitrarily decide to bill everyone early?

All of this before the holidays as well.

I swear, I thought I'd never use the term breach of contract.

I just want to go back to being a peace lovin hippie.

Please, I need a Linden answer on this.

So basically all those who just paid for their yearly or monthly plan are just out luck? Or were they referring to refunding lifetime subscriptions?

Ian Linden Said




And then Later, Oneironaut quotes:



First, where does the second quote come from?

Secondly -- Does Phillip mean that I can pay my one time $9.95 access fee (which is in addition to the month fee I'm already paying), then choose the 15 a month land grant option and get 2048 m of land? Thus my payment remains the same -- 15 a month for 2048 m of land? The "extra" I'm paying is just then for the extra 1024m? So when he says "No Costs" he means I can either be content with paying 9.95 access fee one and if I choose to *not* own any more than 1024m then I pay nothing except the one-time access fee?

Thirdly -- Seriously, we need some clarification on this as well. I want to know exactly what my options are. If I got this right -- with the access fee stuff -- then it's a better deal, as a grandfathered non-lifer, to pay the 9.95 basic fee and then just keep my 15.00 a month land fee, which I'm already paying anyway. That is, if I want a lot of land but a smaller stipend. On the other hand, if I want a larger stipend but less land, I can go with the 9.95 a month access fee and pay either 5.00 a month for a little over 100m of land than I have now and get a bigger stipend.

So my choice is to pay for money, or pay for land, really. And either way, not much changes except that the Lindens get an extra 9.00 bucks out of me for what? I guess upgrading to 1.2.

Zana

Yes, thats the way it looks hun. My question to Colin was ....
"So if my quarterly subscription runs out in March when I upgrade to Lifetime, will I be refunded at least a prorated amount?"
His answer was no.

But then again, so many things have been reworded or revised in the last 2 days so who knows if they have rethought that?

My understanding so far:

Current Lifetimers get:

Up to 4096 m^2 land at no additional cost.
500 L$ a week.

Current members on any other plan have a bunch of options for different lengths of membership. Here's what you get if you go for the $9.95 Monthly membership:

Up to 1024^2 land at no additional cost.
500 L$ a week.

Post 1.2 release, a new member who goes for the $9.95 Monthly membership gets:

Up to 512^2 land at no additional cost.
500 L$ a week.

There are discounted memberships for longer terms, but that's what you get in each.

Then there is a new Basic membership. Current members can switch to this and thereafter pay nothing to access SL. Post 1.2 release, a new member can pay $9.95 just once, and thereafter pay nothing to access SL.

Basic members get:

No land.
100 L$ in any week they actually play.


IN ADDITION:

You can now hold more land by adding to your monthly account fee in $US (rates according to the chart in the support faq). OR, you can hold more land by paying for it with a monthly(?) bill of $Lindens (rates to be determined). Or a little of each.

In other words, land taxes have not actually gone away, they've just gotten real, and can be paid with real money.

I have been away from the computer for a day. Took me forever just to find this again.

I guess this is a bump.

I'd really like to know about whether lifetime memberships will be charged with advent of 1.2 or at the end of a person's current billing cycle.

Thanks. I'll continue digging through the forums to see if this has been answered in the past day.

I am absolutely, 100% certain that if you sign up with a lifetime membership, and you haven't paid for it already, you will pay for it with the advent of 1.2. It MAY be possible to negotiate something different with Linden Labs, but you'll have to do this on a case-by-case basis, and given there are only 60 or so spots left, they might decide to sell them to someone else.

I received an e-mail from Linden Labs regarding this issue:
Hi Bit,

We noticed that you converted to Lifetime membership in Second Life -- Thanks!

It sounds like you are anticipating the bill to come through in February when your quarterly membership is up. _However, currently we are scheduled to convert all lifetime accounts when we release v1.2, to ensure the correct land allocation is made.

I've been in contact with them, and, once again, on a case-by-case basis there MAY be some flexibility, but you shouldn't outright expect it, and you should defintely be in contact with Linden about the issue

Don't take this in a negative fashion, though I still signed up for a lifetime, and I'm still happy with my decision

Just my 2 bits,
Bit

Argh, sorry so unclear. Let me try again:

* SL Lifers will NOT owe ANY monthly fees under the new plan, provided they own less than 4096 m^2 of land. If they choose to own more, they will pay monthly land use fees corresponding to the extra amount they own.

* Existing SL residents who are paying $14.95/month (or less on a quarterly or annual basis) will be converted to paying $9.95 a month. If you own more than 1024 m^2 of land, you will have to pay land use fees for the extra land.

Under 1.2, there are really two different things you are paying for in SL: Access, and land use.

Access costs either $9.95 a month or optionally just a $9.95 signup fee and no monthly fees. If you don't pay recurring fees for access, you get less L$ money and no basic land allocation. If you are a lifetime user, access costs nothing.

Land use fees are totally unrelated to access. If you own more than your basic allocation (which is either zero, 1024, or 4096, as described above), you will owe some fees.

bump

for anyone who needs to read this