Premium member or Rent? Stats you need within...

your right Bilbo.... you get 10% group bonus *s*

I think the main point of this is .... lets ALL go free..... then theres nobody to rent from ... SL closes and we all go home.

Its clear that mainland is in the majority and islands REALLLY took off with the freebie guys joined up with the wish of not wanting to pay for membership.
I agree you dodnt REALLLY get a lot for your money from being a member and I think its something that LL REALLLLY needs to look at in order to intise people into joining up

I don't need SL to close to go home .. I'm not addicted ... honest I'm not .. <tap, tap, tap> no, noo! .. I can give up any time I choose! ... Why are you all looking at me like that?!?

hmmm <confused> .. I thought I proved you can get a lot from membership .. <scratches head>

Do I have a premium membership? No! Simply because I do not see a benifit in paying regularly for a game which crashes (on my machine) at least 3 times a day not seldom more often sometimes combined with a nice complete system reboot or where I can't visit some sims because I'm not able to move around there due to lag or where objects I bought simply disappear or ......

Do I live for free? No! I shop for stuff, my girlfriend and I have rented a nice propperty for 1,82 L$/prim/week and we upload textures etc. The money we spend either gathered ingame or bought through Lindex doesn't simply appear out of thin air. Either we or someone else have paid real $ to LL in order to get it. Is LL interested in how they get their $? I don't think so.

I definetly agree with you on the fact that LL has to make going premium more attractive and the simplest way to do so would benefit all: make it more stable and get rid of the bugs

If they do so I will consider going premium a very interesting option and if I do so, the OP has definetly given me some food for thought regarding buying land. Thank you!

Mmm. 117 prims... thats about 35 for the store, 35 for the studio, and 40 for your living area, give or take a few.... You are going to have to be very careful with what you put in it. I would advise you learn about vendors for the store, so you can put lots of items in a few prims, and how to build your building and furnishings with minimum prim usage.

There are building classes to help you with this, and lots of tricks and work-arounds.. see the videos by Torley Linden and others.

Great good luck with your venture..

imogen

I think its important to realise that when I say "free" I dont mean freeloaders .... I mean non premiums... regardless of wether they pay 10 times the amount a premium pays or not.

The discussion is wether its cost effective to own land or rent land ... with the metrics to show the comparison. Things like LAG etc are caused in world ... .NOT by Linden Lab. Each server is running flat out to keep everything in place. IRL you place a cup on the table and it stays there till you move it, in SL that cup only stays there with the system saying "Place asset UUID X at co-ordinates X,Y,Z" and as long as it doesnt more or get effected by light, wind, move .... pretty much things that EVERYTHING in SL gets effected by .. then there isnt a problem. SL is a massie processing draw, as it runs under linux it isnt exactly MS Bloatware of MAC Computing for dummies. SL has a minimum spec for its systems to run well... and to the most part runs well under most systems even the most modest, but yes there ARE big issues with lost stuff ..... performance etc. But the end user ie me and you should recieve SOMETHING better than a fewlindens thrown our way things like the removal of first land and the 45day wait on sign up bonus is ALL day to the abuse of signing up with an account ...getting the first land ... the money then cancelling after a month once you had transfered the land to the main account and given all the money away. So we have the point ... how is it cost effect .... well it isnt ... not for everybody

*Waves to Imogen ........ helly sexy*

*waves back and winks* Hi Marty you dawggggg

Uhmmm kay you see this is why I stuck to a nice simple part of the process. The basic ongoing cost of land for a recently registered person. I already had to add 3 tables for the 3 payment options!

To those of you with older accounts getting more than 300L .... "It works out cheaper!" Heh.

Aside from putting the basic sums out for people to compare against, I did actually go through the exercise so I could compare remaining a paid up member vs. shifting to a free account.

I still haven't decided, but must admit, if I joining SL fresh today, I probably wouldn't be a paid up citizen given the current renting deals out there.

If that makes LL wonder about raising stippend, or reducing mainland cost then cool (but I doubt in a million years it will). I sometimes wonder though if they want less premium accounts. It means less people able to contact support, less of a strain on the services they do provide.

I suppose the raw information for noobs boils down to:
- As far as money alone is concerned. There's no point being a paid member if you don't buy land.
- Make your own judgement on the merits of owning mainland vs. renting private land. There's cost, longevity and the visual appeal of your surroundings to consider.
- Make your own judgement on the additional benefits of going premium. The new land auctions and enhanced support might sway you. Or they might make you snort tea out of your nose
- THEN: If you are going to go premium. Pay yearly. It's worth it.

And just to re-iterate. I'm trying real hard not to be biased either way. Especially since I've recently seriously been considering cancelling my premium account and going basic. Am still putting that decision off. So I'm in the "not sure" boat as well.

Having thought long and hard about paying premium membership I just don't see the benefits, so rent a house on the mainland.

I have no inclination to rent on an island - apart from the few horror stories about it on here, I prefer the mainland.