Main and Alt????

LOL - You create your alt in exactly the same way you created Neon Dingson.

Hi Neon and welcome ... you really read all that thread?!?

OK, from the in-world login screen, there is a create account button, yes? There ya go, 10$ US I think and you start all over again with a new name, inventory etc

To make an alt, go here, fill out the on-line forms accurately and completely, including payment information, pay a one-time fee of $9.95 USD, and you'll have a shiny new alt account. All legal, verified and "payment info on file". Also called a "Paid Basic" account.

You could also choose at the time of sign-up to make that alt a Premium account, at a higher start-up cost, and incurring ongoing monthly, quarterly or annual fees, but I can't for the life of me think of a good reason to do so.

When I made my 4 alt accounts for various reasons they all were made annual premium accounts for a weekly stipend of L$400 which equals buying L$ for L$288/1 and the best I have been able to do on the LindeX for months is L$277/1. Also when making an alt account have your main account refer them for the L$1000 referral fee that is offered unless that has been removed. The 4 alts have donated their 512 free land tier to a group which is another benefit of a premium account alt.

OK Thanks Folks,
I guess I must have done something wrong as I have ended up with an unpaid basic account.

Note that a couple of weeks ago the option to say you have an existing account and are creating another one had disappeared from the registration pages. If that happens and you end up with another free account and want to stay legit, you need to log in as your new account and provide payment info. It took a couple emails to LL to get this figured out.

EDIT: Ah, I see it's still a problem. Do as I mention above if you wish. I went that route becasue, given the capricious nature of accounts being "disappeared" I didn't want to risk losing all the stuff my alt bought with the money I provided. Silly alt.

Apparently Linden Lab is no longer bothering to collect fees for alt accounts, even if you DO provide payment info!

I just created this account, and the only paid option provided at sign-up was if I wanted to buy a Premium account. There was no "Paid Basic" option, no question about wheather I had an account already or not, nor was I allowed to enter payment info as part of sign-up to collect a 'verified account' bonus. Now, the first thing I did after creating this account, before even logging in to the SL client with it, was to log in to the website and link my new account to my PayPal info, so it will be a "Payment on file" Account. But although that did establish a new billing agreement with Linden Lab, it did NOT bill me the expected $9.95 USD for the new alt.

It will be interesting to see what happens when I go through Orientation island again. To see what has changed, and to see if, by providing payment info before logging in at orientation, I get the "Verified account" bonus that they used to give out. I suspect that has been discontinued as well.

And then I have to figure out what the heck poor Meridith here will end up doing in SL, other than buying a nice she-wolf avatar and some basic clothes and hair. Guess she can always be my main account's maid...

Meredith, I just checked and it turns out I was only billed today even though I gave the payment info five days ago. I sort of expected this. Don't be surprised if it takes a while.

OK. I'll watch my PayPal to see if I get billed. I'm perfectly fine with getting billed for the account, if that happens. But nowhere in the sign-up does it mention that if I decline to go Premium, but voluntarily provide payment info that is accurate, I will get billed $9.95 as a reward for my honesty. It does still say on the "Membership and Pricing" page on the website that there is a $9.95 charge for each additional Basic account. But that information is not linked to from anywhere in the sign-up process.

Don't worry about Meridith, folks. She will be well cared for...

* Ceera gently leads Meridith to her new home... *

Oh dear...

* Smiles serenely as she closes the door behind her. *

LoL

Testing and all that is a good reason to have an alt...but the reason we (me and hubby) made alts is to hide. The main av's have jobs. They come with people..who IM all day. The people we work for, the people who work for us,the ones who want us to work for them ,the ones who bought this but ment to get that or got this and how do i..IM's pretty much nonstop. So to get some quiet time..spend time doing something other than working and still be in SL togeather we had to find a way to hide. So our alts were born. They have so much more fun..no jobs..they are bums...tho they do have PIOF...the mains have to support their SL habbits. They are also good for checking out what our employees are up to when we are not around lol So..they are for ditching out on work and spying. Kinda sounds bad when you say it that way.

Hee hee Alora

There are a number of reasons for alts. I shan't tax you and myself by trying to list them. Suffice to say we all have our own unique blend of needs. Some alts eventually seem to develop a personality of their own. They seem to acquire their own social circles. Sometimes it's a 'clean start' when one has discovered what they might regards pitfalls but yes Alora, some peace is probably the widest single reason LOL

I have a main account which is premium and a basic alt which will probably be used mostly to help maintain a group and for some solitude while (attempting to) create stuff.

In addition my wife created a basic account - however she only uses it once in a blue moon so it's mostly used by me as a guinea pig for testing stuff out on.

*Re-appears, brushing out her now somewhat mussed up hair, and smiling*

I am informed that my "job" in SL as M'lady's alt will be to help entertain when M'lady is holding a social roleplay gathering. I think I shall like it here, very much!

Um. Apropos of nothing in particular, it's not possible to get two avatars owned by the same person in-world at the same time, is it? It would also make transferring inventory easier.

EDIT: And I apologize, Meridith for mis-spelling your name earlier

I assume it would be possible if you had two computers. It would keep you pretty busy unless you had both of them on the same desk.

Of course it is Possible! I do it all the time!

On a PC, you set up a shortcut and add a small string of extra code to the shortcut path, the most important part of which is "-multiple". On Mac, there is an "Arguments.txt" file embedded in the SL application, you duplicate the app and edit that file.

I have my Mac set up with pre-set icons that will allow me to log in with any of my accounts, at any time. I've had as many as 4 on-line at once...

Do a search of the forums for arguments.txt, and you should find the info on how to do it for both OS platforms.

My laptop can't handle SL but there have been times when I've used it in tandem with my desktop (constantly grabbing the wrong mouse, of course). However, that machine is hinting at croaking soon so perhaps its replacement could be employed that way.

*thinking....thinking*

EDIT: Ceera, that's interesting and potentially very useful! I'll look into it. I'm just so used to applications that allow you to run more than one at once. Thank you!

EDIT AGAIN: Bingo? http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=369 Will try it some time this weekend!

Any time. And it actually doesn't take a super-system to do it, either. I have a Mac Mini, which is only barely up to running SL at all. But it runs multiple instances concurrently just fine.

The last update or two have a bug that causes some video breakup when multiple clients are logged in with one PC. I suspect it only does that with really constrained video cards, however.

I have tried to run all 5 accounts at once on the same computer but they crash all the time. I can however run 3 at once with only an occasional crash.

There seems to be no way to create an alt now in the creation page.
Also updating your payment info does not seem to reflect in your in world profile.
As per help, they say going premium is down and to try again Tuesday.

At this time there seems to be no way to create and alt account and link it to your main account, not even during sign up. So those trying to go the legit way and pay their 10 bucks to add an account are out of luck I guess.

No, Linden Lab simply gave up bothering to collect the $9.95 from those of us who were being honest. Why penalize the honest people by charging them for what LL was giving away for free to those who lied?

I created two new alts this last week. I tied both of them to my main by coming to the website right after creating them and adding my payment info. Both are now "Payment info on file", and the Lindens know they are my alts. I got charged for neither of them.

The new registration also now requires a validated e-mail address, and requires you to state the country that you live in.