What would I gain from upgrading to a premier account?

Other than extra costs.

The land you get simply for upgrading, where is it, what is it???


So many questions but I'm very tempted...

You could purchase land in Bay City. (Sorry, just had to say that.)

There will be others more knowledgeable on this subject posting...but basically being a Premium Account holder allows you to purchase mainland with your first 512 m2 of land tier free. (Meaning no additional fees to LL besides your monthly Premium fee.) You also get a weekly stipend of, I think, 300L.

Hope that helps a bit.

You get that warm fuzzy feeling of belonging to the premium club

I've been premium for over two years and still feel warm and fuzzy but in all honesty not really sure what function it serves - as all my land is in private sims I don't need tier anyway and the stipend is well nice, but you can't buy much for L$300... actually that's not true you can buy lots of things for L$300 but it may take you a while to build up a collection of things you like *grins*

Well, $300L a week is about $4.50us/month, so it takes a dent out of the monthly premium fee, which I belive if you pay for a whole year at once is $6/month, so you really only end up paying $1.50us/month.

That is of course assuming you save up your stipend and don't go on "Woo-hoo, Stipends!" shopping frenzies.

You get a small weekly stiped ( linden dollars ) to play with.

Elinah

Mainly, the ability to purchase land. As mentioned, you can have up to 512 sq metres total without having to pay any tier. The 'standard' 512 plot is 16 x 32 Linden metres, which seem to be slightly smaller than RL metres! Such a plot allows up to 117 prims on it, normally. Of course, 512m plots come in other less convenient shapes too.

If you own a plot of land you can rez things on it or build your own stuff, either on the ground or in the sky up to 768 m (4096m if you're using the latest Release Candidate viewer).

Owning land gives you a permament base in SL - a home, shop, somewhere to create an architectural fantasy, whatever. You can also stream internet radio to play to anyone standing on your land.

The 512 tier free allowance could be split among several smaller plots, used for sale stalls or whatever. Any plots owned in the same sim pool the prim allowance, so you can use all that allowance on one of the plots. If the plots atr in different sims, their prim allowances are not pooled.

Land prices have been falling recently and are quite low now - but they might go lower.

Oh, and the weekly stipend too, as mentioned by the previous poster!

Or if you're lucky, more convenient shapes. One of the first plots I bought was closer to 20x25, which was far better for building than a long rectangle. And remember you can create a group with an alt for a 10% bonus in the area you can own. Those extra 12 prims are a lot when you have so few

You gain -$9.95 a month.

That's about it though.

A premium account provides greater support.

(cue the laugh track)

Seriously, on some issues it can make a difference. Regarding a current bug that results in disappearing HUDs (JIRA VWR-6110), premium account holders have been getting help, while basic users are unable to submit a ticket on their losses.

As others have already said you get your 300 lindens a week which does amount to $4.50-$5.00 a month--so pays a big chunk of your membership. You get the land and now you can buy land dirt cheap so if you rent a place and don't need anywhere else you can always use this land for 'storage' buying some of those storage boxes and moving stuff out of your inventory--which does I think improve performance a little.

Finally something no one has mentioned you get far superior access to support than basic members. You can submit a ticket to the help desk, whereas basic members can just go to help island--you can hardly blame LL for not offering great support to people who pay nothing. While the response from a ticket is not always earth shattering it does at least point you in the right direction.

So if you pay quarterly--which seems like a reasonable compromise between the long-term commitment and the more expensive monthly contract--for less than $3.00 a month you get 'free' land and support.

<Miles Beck we think alike!>

A false sense of entitlement to bitch louder and longer!

You don't get land, you have to buy it. However if you buy a 512M parcel you can use that without paying tier, you still have to pay your premium membership fees though.

You mean you can do that without applying to be a mentor first?

Well most of it has been said in this thread. To sum it up:

- Tier for your first 512 m2
- Ability to buy mainland parcels
- 300 linden stipend per week
- access to support

The last one has been ridiculed more then once in this thread and others, but you should not under-estimate it. You have access to live chat, and can put in tickets. Both I have used and I was pleased with the results.

Though I do not have any mainland (I rent a nice parcel of estate) I am premium and will renew. Let's face it, we are talking bout US$ 14 per year (if you pay per year).

I like the fact that the only landowner I have to worry about going *poof* on me is Linden Labs. Of course, if Linden Labs does vanish for any reason, we're kinda screwed anyways.

you have the right to get a e-mail from LL in response to a ticket request for support that says "the issue is resolved" which may or may not make you feel your getting a service!

Well there's always open source... I kinda like the idea of being able to run my own servers with sims that still somehow connect to the one homogenous grid... then I can charge premium accounts myself *grins*

Ok I know it's really not that simple

Yes…but you miss out on unlimited access to a secret cache of Linden Bears

Ya, I'm with you on dat. I would find "renting" land to be far too risky overall. One too many hands and all.

Well thank you very much for all the fulsome replies, I'm still undecided but it's always nice to have a place to call your own.

if i were you, i'd TP around and look at as many 512's as you can find from one continent to the next. get a feel for the prices as tehy relate to the environment. waterfront plots with both land and water are much more expensive than grassy areas, but they obvisouly have more options.

if you see something you really like, and are willing to pay the $72 for the whole year, then after that year has ended you will have only paid $18 for your yearly membership (after receiving stipends).

on a 512, you won't have to pay any monthly tier, so you have no further expensives once your initial land purchase is made.

just be careful. you will become a prim whore, and also probably become addicted to buying more land. *whistles innocently*

That could never happen to me. *whistles in tune with 3ring*

...and a nice cache it is! I plundered it at the mentor party (thanks, K, for getting me into that!).

As to premium: I would have never become one if it wasn't for buying land. As corny as it sounds, though, I knwo it also means providing LL with a small amount of money which pays a part of the servers and the salaries that keep the world running.

Corny, huh?

Mari

It's not $9.95/month, it's only $6/month. Buy annually.

$72/year = L$18000/year = L$346/week.

You get a weekly stipend of L$300/week.

Net cost is 46 Linden dollars per week.
That's the best deal in SL for land use.

If you don't need land, don't bother. I thought it would be cool to have a little store

... now I'm at 2500sq.m. ... what am I doing? *rolls eyes*

Mari, I feel the same way And paying yearly is the best way to go. Specially since one acct still gets 500$L a week stipend hehe