Are alts necessary to operate in multiple social spheres?

After just browsing the kidspeak thread I was surprised at Mari's statement that she knew a lot of people with child avatars who had "busy alts and didn't get on that much".

A lot of people have told me that they have alts for the purpose of building or scripting without disturbance, too.

This seems a bit sad, to me. Is there really nobody on SL who doesn't get mad if told that a friend wants to do something different today, that doesn't involve them?

I am one - I seldom use my alt and move through several different social circles. If my friends tell me that they want to go do something else, thats no problem for me. Likewise I expect them to return the curtesy.

I do find however like you there are lots of people who do not respect it - even if they say they will.

*sticks out her tongue at Yumi for bringing up something she's been thinking about most of the evening *

I think maybe it depends on how much you identify with your avie, or how much of you is incorporated in it and your whole social network of friends/people you know? My alt looks exactly like me (even the name is similar to the point where many people don't notice it's not me) but I still feel "weird" if I socialize as my alt so I don't think I'd ever be able to use multiple accounts to "play SL" (building as my alt is different for me really since it's just an impersonal activity so the avie isn't very relevant to that for me).

There are some things I would like to try in SL that I don't because I don't think I could integrate it in with what I already do in SL (no it's not what you're thinking ). A silly example would be walking around as a half-neko (the human with ears/tail thingy): it would be fun to act more like a kitty, but at the same time I have some friends who think it's quite "disturbing" (yes, really ) and I really do respect their opinion on it so I'd have to either offend them or accept it's not something I'll be able to do. I don't feel comfortable with the first so I usually just go for the latter.

Obviously I could just create an alt and do it anyway out of their sight (which is what a lot of/many people seem to do), but then I'd just feel like I was hiding from those friends so blah .

Anyway, I'm just rambling now... it's just been on my mind today and I wish I could figure out a good solution that lets me try things I want to try and doesn't upset people I care about or involves doing it "sneakily" .

I agree with you Kitty that is probably is due to how much of yourself you identify with your av. For me my av is how I am personality wise and how I want to look ideally. I love the name I chose and if that was not the case then my alt or an alt I created would become the new me! Maybe that will happen someday but not so far. I love being the av me!

I seldom use my Alt. Eventually I'll get around to clothing & skinning her.

For now she's my "target" for weapons and to help provide an 'outside' view of my stuff. I usually run her on a laptop beside me whle my Main is on the Desktop.

Ok, so once in a while the bitch AR's me for shooting her.

There is just me. Everything I do in SL is with the one Avatar, be it RP or Socializing.

My alt was created only for the ability to easily track transactions. If I had not needed that then she would not exist and there would be just me.

Once I "gelled" as I currently am I started to see divergences from who I am and what I do as disturbing. Alterations from the way I presented myself seemed somehow inconsistent. So I thought about creating an alt and eventually did but it just ended up being an appendage for testing, storage and branding. (sorry, Bona!) The big, even HUGE, surprise was when I found I could be me whether I was the friendly bald guy with nice jeans or the dancing tamago.

EDIT: Sorry, I realized I didn't answer your direct question. I have few friends but the ones I have know me as I am (see above.) I trust them that if I were decide some day to go off and do some completely tangent RP that they wouldn't blink an eye. No alt needed in that respect. Conversely, if someone I knew showed up somewhere/somehow doing something out of the context I know them in, I'd respect their character (at least two meanings) and take them at face (or tentacle) value.

Two alts - One to hold the money, and one that acts as the darkness to Honey's lightness

(If you don't know me, I've got white hair - all the time)

Tal, scritches and hugs.

I find using an alt to separate my furry life from my gor life helps.

The real question is how to reduce the database requirements per alt.

1. My alt has completely different inventory and clothes, so combining inventory's would not help much.

2. My alt has different profile info and I would have to use picks if I combined them.
So this also does not add to the database load.

3. I seldom log both accounts in at the same time.

-
So how do we calculate the cost of an alt?

Note: Camping alts on the other hand do add a lot of load to SL as it increases the number of clients logged in at the same time.

I dunno about the other situations, but most of the kid alts I know are open about their mains with folks who they're close to.

Mari

I have a couple alts, but I rarely log in on them. One was created just to be the second in my land group and I made the other to be some kind of Fey...I would have just transformed my land group alt, but I named her Kitten and that seemed inappropriate for an elf or fairy.

Anyway, I felt odd playing non-Neko, so the second alt is still pretty ratty looking. I think I left her in Fleur. lol

I find it handy at times to have an alt. I dont hide it from anyone and both avs are child avs..... sometimes I find it easy for testing BTW My only alt is Toy Halfpint hehe

It's more than just telling friends you need to work or are busy with other people. My friend is a top designer in SL, well known especially to the competition. When she tries to shop the competition to see what they're doing, price things, etc, she gets banned from the store. Also, she's so busy with so many people, when she logs on, she is inundated with IM's, notecards, requests, issues, friends, you name it. When she logs on with her primary avatar, if I IM her, it can take 10 minutes to 1/2 hr until I get a response from her. Therefore, she has multiple alts for the various things she does. One for her business, one to 'play' with. She's into some RP stuff, and maintains that alt specifically for playing in SL. Personally, I'm usually not that hammered by people when I get on, so I generally only use my main account, but, I do maintain a few alts just in case. Also, alts can serve as containers to hold money, or run bot scripts (there are useful bot scripts around that are no used just to game traffic or whatever). Watch Torley's latest video, he shows what it's like when he logs onto SL. How he gets a bunch of IM's, notecards, objects, etc. Sometimes, it's just something that one has to do to get things done in SL.


http://www.secondscripter.com/

Yep, I even have several alts in one family, one for each aspect of my inner self, Abi is the boy burning cute looking kitty reprecenting my playfull self, anton is the troublesome social impared teenager reprecenting my depressed side then there is ryker who enjoys teasing girls and a bit of an outcast is ari because she is not in the same family, she is extremly bratty and insulting reprecenting my need to get noticed.
It saves confusion to have different alt so people know what aspect I'm highlighting.

My alt is now my main, but my alts do explore cirlces a respectable roo overlord wouldn't be seen in, so I think alts give people freedom to see the broader view of SL, unless of course you just reside luciously in the sensual depths of perversion and debauchery, then you can just go anywhere
Alts avoid awkward moments, like "why has that collared slavegirl got my male business partners tag over her head?"

I have an alt that I eventually made as an identical twin to my main AV. I thought I would use that alt for various, including social, purposes, but oddly enough, even though my alt is my identical twin, it still feels "different" playing her than my main AV. So, I don't use her (or other alts) very often. I have also a "builder" alt which can be handy too but, I'm always forgetting to pass textures back and forth or set the permissions correctly, or give my alts enough money, etc.

My main AV has all the goodies, in inventory, socially, groups, etc. So, I have just accepted that sometimes it will take longer to do things and to be honest, I've started using "Busy" mode a bit more when I'm building or doing something that requires concentration.

I'm generally just me - Amy - but I do have a few alts.

One of the reasons is that if i get a regular guest who I'm not "sure" about - then i test them out to make sure they behave themselves. This may seem a little draconian but it makes sense to me. I let people visit my sim and do what they want really but for example I don't want pervs or stalkers hanging around and obviously when I'm on as me they know it's my place so are unlikely to do that while I'm around... it's a kinda security mechanism

I also have a cute spider monkey alt that only says "uhuh uhuh uhuh"

Thats for when i wanna be in SL but dont wanna actually have a conversation with anybody - seems to work

I am THE social presence of MEE in SL. My alt is a functionary robot with no arms. It has no social life although it is not unfriendly. It is more or less a sleeping partner in my land group and it gets used for testing sales etc. It did build itself and part of my skyclub, though. Credit where credit is due!!

It's a good idea for everybody to have at least one alt for security purposes. For instance it can store copies of all your transferable items in case you lose or accidentally delete your own. It can be a sleeping group member, to stop your group being closed down if membership falls to one. And if you ever find your access to the grid blocked, perhaps after someone's made a malicious false abuse report against you, the alt is there to speak up for you.

I have appeared in-world with my robot once or twice around about my home. Nobody saw us but it's all open and above board - I tell people the robot is mine and it says so in its profile.

I also wanted an near-identical twin, but the Dada surname was no longer available. I'm just wondering - when I see identical twins (apart from male newbies in white T-shirts, that is!), I assume they are both alts run by the same RL. But I suppose that's not necessarily the case.

I don't really understand this robot thing...

Can you leave a robot in sl as an alt of yourself so you can continune to"exist" in sl while you are doing other stuff in RL? Can it wander off and do it's own thing, in which case would I ever see it again or would it just go off and find some other robot alt or human and abandon me?

I don't know! It just gets logged in for a few minutes from time to time and it might totter around for a few steps - it doesn't do very much. It's not me - we are separate characters. Or rather, I'm a character but the robot doesn't have much character. From the RL point of view we are alts, in SL I'm a human it's a machine.

I'll try and get the robot to post a message on these foums in my place and you can judge for yourself!!!

I do have a cheesplant that I hooked up to pandorabots (chatbot thingy) so it can speak for me when i'm not there... but I never thought of it as anything other than static.

Mind you he has been asking me to get him a pot so he can get out and about a bit more. It must be pretty dull being a cheesplant and always being stuck in the same place

Hold on...

Just about everything I do in SL I do in my main. I have three alts...

My "older" alt from when I signed up and found the computer I had didn't like SL... Lost that password. (>_<

Jump, my alt I created when there were major database issues and it would take hours to get my main back online after crashing. (=_=)

And Yuu, my twin, who I like to keep by my side sometimes just for the 'creepy' factor... I still have to get her a proper follower. (o.o)

When ever I'm busy... I just don't respond, my friends understand and I don't feel the need to hide from them or block them from contacting me. Actually... I have map access turned on for most of them and gladly greet them if they suddenly pop up on me, no mater what I'm doing. (^_^)

I'm in SL to be social. I hide enough in RL. Everything I do here is in effort to meet and spend time with more and more people every day. (^_^)y

Ooh... Hi! (^_^)

I have map access turned on for my alts so i can see where they are when I'm just being me. I wouldn't want them sneaking off anywhere dubious