Improving the Premium Experience

Perhaps it is the spectre of the inworld ban hammer looming....

Id have thought it was at least an opportunity for long standing premium members to say what they'd like to see...what sort of a company bans people for airing an opinion and a desire to get more quality for cash...

Or maybe people are fed up with banging their heads against a brick wall all the time.

in my opinion its premium members who keep sl running... its time someone listened and answered

Since when did LL rent out parcels on estate land? People saw something LL weren't offering.

It is a parcel, you'll own the parcel with the house on, you can't resell it, you can't terraform it, you can't divide it but it is a parcel.

LL has stated several times that Premiums are not very important to their overall profit

ohhhhhhh...well naturally then I believe them.....

Ian, did you actually look at that site before posting?

haha, I joined around the same time and spent a while looking for this first land that was in the blurb!

But, apparently, putting sellers/rental agents for 512s, as well as makers of small pre-fabs, IS.

In reality it's the Money Laundering and people swho are still paying monthly for dead sims that keep SL afloat.

Or they're creating the market for buildings that cover and fit on top of hobbit holes.

I had no idea that the TOS allowed fotting!

wow they really are dumping the learning curve more and more it seems..

the way i see it is they already peaked awhile ago and we are on the down side of the back of the hill.

to me that is a crappy premium primp..a free house and free land on a 512..ahh but i can't sell it and i can't mod the house..oO

lets get ready for the flood..

i seriously wonder how long it took to come up with this idea.

ok my take on it ...

Looking purely from the perspective of a new person coming to SL with no existing friends here.

It SOUNDS like a good deal. It might well get them to go premium early especially if its a deal like bonuses used to be...do it when you sign up or you are SOL. Totally new people don't KNOW you CAN build your own buildings, or you WANT to be able to sell the land. They don't know that they WANT to be able to hold events or list in search. It's sucker deal plain and simple. LL wants to lure them into premium before they know jack about the world. LL is probably counting on the fact that once they have this land and house they WILL tire of it quickly and move on to something larger. That frees up the land for LL to sucker in a new newbie. Its win/win for LL.

that might work for a program that runs well..seriously this old looking platform runs like crap lol..
we'll woo them with this dinky little studio apartment and our craptastic retro early 90's graphics that lag like they should be rl graphics..

they better hope they learn about the world because it's what keeps people here..not the amazing deals of being a premi

I don't think it's that bad for new people. I remember when I was new - just getting a nice little house would have been far easier than searching for one. As a starting point to see if you like SL and have a little place to call your own (for a limited definition of 'own') it seems ok.

Of course, I would have preferred to see them do something for existing premium customers, too.

edit:

Re: the quoted portion in the OP.

I think it is a great idea. People will be able to settle into SL surrounded by (I'm assuming) trees and water rather than blight.

Yay.

Yet more content provided by the firm.If that doesn't work , let's throw in some furniture and perhaps new clothes as well all made by the firm.
For me just another instance of LL wanting an ever increasing piece of the pie.

On that level yes it is nice. My problem is that these newbies are going to be one heck of alot more concerned with how do I walk than how do I set up house. Getting a place to call home out of the box is fine as far as that goes but if LL makes it a do this now or never get the chance again these newbies are being set up for overwhelmed.

Maybe...

I think most new people probably spend some time getting a bit of a grip on the basics - chatting, moving, inventory, friends, xcite - then decide if they want to try the land thing. I don't think anybody new-new is paying attention to land stuff until the shock wears off a bit.

/me wonders if the head-shrinking types have a term for what it's like for new people in SL, already-conscious entities dropped into a 'reality' that they have no idea how to interact with, or if this is some age-old concept that I'm just now thinking about. Or maybe we're not quite to the level of tech where it actually needs a term.

edit: and yeah, I just finished reading Snow Crash again so my brain's all jammed up with weird stuff. Just ignore me for a bit...

I think you've identified a major problem with this new plan.

LL could solve it, or make a stab at solving it, if they'd construct the new continent in sort of 'neighborhoods', with a sort of Help station as the town square in the middle of the 512s.

The Help station could have the tutorials that used to, er, help newbies back in the days of Orientation Island. (Provision of some staffing would be the ideal way to help newbies, but that's probably not even a remote possibility. Still, even automated tutorials would give new people the feeling that they're not just abandoned and on-their-own.)

But even without staffing, a clearly-marked 'place to get some helpful information' that is---and this is key---right by the newbies' new homes, would aid in retention.

My first impression is that this 'Linden Home' scheme isn't all bad. Sure, to those of use who know the ropes, it may not seem like such a great deal. But for a n00b coming into SL, it gives them a taste of how things can be in SL before setting out on their adventures. Sure they might get a better deal renting from Ravenglass, Ashe Chung, Azure Islands, D'Alliez, Desmond Shang or any of the other major land barons... who knows, maybe further down the line they'll farm out this new first land scheme to the major land barons. Although at present they seem more bent on centralising everything.

If our new arrivals decide the land-owning path is for them then they'll either migrate to the estates (presumably dropping back to basic) or else buy some land on the mainland. Other than that my only fear is that it might be gamed. I hope LL have set it up to be as un-gamable as possible.

A lot of newbies can barely walk - they won't be modding a house for a long time, and when they are, they will likely want to move out and on to buying land. Or some won't want to bother at all.

I still like this notion because I think it will lead to longer stays - that learning curve is awfully steep. Especially for those who maybe haven't done anything similar in life before (as building virtual houses, or even walking in a computer game.) Maybe this will make the place seem 'safer to enter' for such types.

I'd have loved to have a safe, provided, structured enviro to live in when I first joined - but that's just me perhaps.

Will these be available for all premium memberships, or only new ones? Would I be able to take advantage of this if I re-activated my premium membership?



This would be the fastest way to get me to re-activate my PM. 512/117 is just not enough.