So what do you do with your alts?

Okay, not everybody has one, but those who do, what do you use your alt for? Why did you make it in the first place?

i troll forums.

ahaha

lol, good one too!

Me? I don't use any alts . . .

Pep ( . . . although I take great delight in other people thinking I do. )

I'm currently using mine as a chatbot on my sim. She's set up to answer basic questions about the place and have the occasional snarky remark.

My top alt is purely functional. I have a group that owns my land and the alt is there to keep the group going. It is a robotic black ball that never does anything.

I have one or two other alts that I made as extras for if I ever make any cartoon strips using SL snaphots. I also use them to play around with avatar shapes as I never shapeshift myself. The alts don't log in very much and they never go to the places where I socialise, so I don't engage in 'alt-play'! The black ball, called X7 Mubble, was allowed to make one 'automated' response in the never-ending forum thread, but that was all!

I had an alt but i don't really use him anymore. Too busy with myself as is to do anything extra

Back up and testing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22424687@N05/3393349010/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22424687@N05/2467714468/

Originally created to become a different personality, maybe to do things I wouldn't do especially now that so much of my RL has bled over into SL. So far the latter has never happened though.

you mean you're a dog in real life as well?

My alt is primarily for testing stuff and helping position poseballs, though she does come in useful when I want to get some work done in peace. She also came to the rescue once when I'd crashed on my sim and couldn't get back in because I was "ghosted" and stuck there; she restarted the sim, and thus exorcised my ghostly av.

I have several alts - but two are mains - That is, two have full, independent lives - it just turned out that way. I don't consider it to be so one can do what the other won't since we are interchangeable though and everyone in my social circle knows I am Hera and Hera is me and together we are that one behind the screen that thinks she is running it all .

Mostly I have created alts becuase I enjoy the names. The rest hardly ever go inworld at all though they all have at some point and all have explored a bit. One is a second premium account to hold more land than I could alone with out raising tier

I like having a pack of humans to boss around, so I have my Puppet Army. I use them for testing and to feed my Tiny Empires addiction too.

One of the big reasons for land owners would surely to be have two people in the group at all times, I'd have thought.

I have alts to do different things, first triggered by the group issue and then the 25 group limit.

I am an alt, I keep my manin chained up.

I have two that I use as Builders Helpers, mainly for aligning pose balls. But I also use them as banks. Since I have vendors that pay out occasionally, I do not like keeping large amounts of Lindens in my main account, so I transfer it to them.

i used to use mine for a model for prim clothes and other things like that..it was just easier to set them on her..plus she keeps my group from getting deleted..Also she is good to have if for some reason i can't log onto this one..
otherwise nothing really..i can't really remember the last time i had her logged on..
probably spring time i think..

One thing is missing^_^

ROLEPLAY of course!

Most people I know, use alts for roleplay

No alts here. I am enough trouble for me.

my alts are my zyngo bitches.

You didn't include "inventory backup" in the poll options.

Also, it's nice to have one avie with a non gender specific name, just in case I suddenly have the urge to RP (or shop) as a male. If I use my alt to model and test things, can't use a naked male noob.

One as a placeholder for my land group, bank account and additional tier allowance. This one was my original sign-up.

One for a gender-appropriate name, occasionally used to show people from RL around in SL. I actually grabbed that account because I could get a name almost identical to my RL name, which doesn't happen often.

I must say, these results start to become interesting, and for many probably what they expected them to be. I'm especially happy with the "other" option being more or less in line with the other 3 choices at the top. I admit I forgot a couple of obvious options, like the alts for RP and for playing games like TE or Zyngo, but I was afraid I missed out on some pretty critical ones, which could've pushed the "other" option to as much as 50%, despite multiple options being allowed

But it does make me wonder about some things as to why people get alts, and if those could be called "circumventions to shortages in the system".
-The alt for joining groups is an obvious one, even with the hippogroups we have these days, some people still wish to join more groups. A hippogroup is nice for store updates, but it is still rather limited, so definitely doesn't make a "normal" group obsolete.
-The "build/explore in peace and quiet" one is also an interesting one. People don't want to be seen online at all times. So some additional privacy settings would be welcomed. For example, logging in to SL with a checkbox to show on-/offline, not showing this teleport button on your profile picture, not even when enabling "view admin options", possibly showing offline to direct UUID calls for your avatar, except while in the same sim I'd say. Not show online on the webpage either in "find friends online", this is another one that's long overdue for a fix imho.
-The build helper is a tougher one to find alternatives for. An option to spawn a "clone" of yourself might be something for some occasions, like testing clothes and attachments, but it still wouldn't be ideal, and not help for positioning poses at all. So I guess this is an option where we'll see alt-use for a long while.

But overall, LL could probably reduce some strain on the asset server by looking further into why people create alts, and come up with useful solutions so people won't have to resort to creating alts. There will still be other valid reasons to make one, but that doesn't mean that taking out some of these reasons wouldn't make sticking to just your one main avatar more attractive.