Alts

Hi, I've been lurking around here for a while and thought I would finally jump in. I have noticed while reading multiple threads, that almost everyone seems to have an alt. I have been in SL ,as Ava Manhattan for about 2 1/2 years now and have only recently gotten curious about it. So, my question is:

If you have an alt/alts why did you create it? Do you use it for business? Storage? For fun?

Just wondering, hope this hasn't been asked a bunch of times before!

~Ava

I use my alt for checking permissions and building irregularities, ie: misaligned prims etc, call it a "PDI Alt" if you like a "Pre Delivery Inspection Alt".

Other than that not much else, except for the occasional double act with a dance, a song and perhaps the odd gesture for the stray females.

Two things for me, both sort of business related. First, having an alt allows me to have a group with two owners without having to worry much about the other person.

Second, since I am learning scripting and building, I can have my alt on at the same time and switch it between male and female avatars to see how different size AVs fit in some furniture I'm working on. Really helps to have that in real time.

I guess an additional reason is that sometimes I get a lot of IMs from friends and such and I just need to be able to work in peace. My alt really has no friends other than a couple of trusted people. So I can log in with that account, go to my workshop and just do what I need to do without interruptions.

I've thought about an alt on several occasions, but I just don't have a need for it, and don't want t go through the bother of starting all over.

Brenda, you could use it as your second wardrobe or dresser, reduce on your inventory and clean out the panty draw.

Aside from checking perms on builds/scriptings I have done, or as a bank to keep biz & pleasure funds separate, I don't use alts.

Oryx gets flooded with IMs all day long. My alt is for when I just can't take it anymore and need to go out and have fun without worrying about the shop for 10 seconds.

As per Victorria Paine's definition here:

/327/a2/217216/1.html#post1720562

Both of my avatars are a cross between the first and second type. They each encompass a significant aspect of my personality - one that sees *some* light in RL, but in most ways, is held back.

Some people like me can, and do, manage to reconcile their different sides if they let them out, while others go to lengths to segregate them and let them come out separately. I'm in the latter camp, as I've discovered over the past couple of months. Hence the alt.

Arguably, neither is the alt, except by an arbitrary assessment based on creation date.

They are not different people (although I do RP them as different people for fun's sake). They are both me, just with a different emphasis.

When I created my alt I did that. Split up myself. Ended up badly.

This is probably OT, but what happened? Maybe IM would be better...

I have one, but I rarely use her now, except to check permissions and to form a group for group land purposes. You get an extra 10% if land is group owned. She's a premium account, too, and bought her tier free 512 lot for the group to add to the 4608 which I own as deeded to group. At first, it was fun dressing up someone new, trying demo skins and trying for a totally different look than Sunni. I also bought her a house because I love Sunni's house, but wanted to do some more decorating, so both houses are currently on my land. I rarely log in as my alt, lately, though. It's weird, and I said this in another thread, Sunni is the avatar I'm most attached to. My alt is more like a barbie doll that I only take out to dress up now and then.

I created my alt, and I say it here because it is on topic (wait, OT means Off Topic, but on topic is also OT), because I couldn't stand being "me" anymore in world after a quick series of friends and people closer than friends disappeared on my in SL. I wasn't yet ready to give up on SL, but couldn't play "me" anymore, so I created an alt. I left part of me in the main and took part to make a new "me."

It ended badly (and this might be more something for PM or IM) because the split was not liked by those in control and they forced a integration. And even more something for PM or IM: and the integration basically forced something to occur in SL that later lead to the dwindling and loss of that part of me that I had left behind. I sometimes confuse myself, but this time I know what I am talking about. I assume I have confused others though, sorry.

Please do not name names

To indulge all embarassing perversions anonymously....umm, I mean, for business.

i was the alt and started to help a friend with business that because of the adult nature of hte business we all started alts to do it so it wouldnt affect our mains businesses now i play me more then my old main she is only logged in to assist customers

To escape a stalker - pure and simple.

I needed a female alt to test couples' animations in progress. Yes, I occasionally get "volunteers" offering to help with that, but it honestly is a boring thankless job that I wouldn't wish on a real person. "Sit, wait 20 minutes while I fix that arm, stand, sit again, oh wait now the hand's buried a bit, wait another 10 minutes, stand, rinse, repeat...."

She also comes in handy for testing perms and such, as she has no mod rights on my stuff and doesn't belong to my land group.

A peripheral note: WHY OH WHY didn't anybody warn me how much more fun (and therefore, expensive) it is to shop as a female avatar????? I don't even take her out in public but still I had WAY too much fun and spent WAY too much money getting her clothing and hair (thank god I created her about the time of a big skin sale at Nomine or the carnage would have been twice as bad.)

i think we alts have more fun.

our mains are always worried about premium vs basic, how to make tier this month, should i buy that land for sale, will business pick up, etc, etc, etc.

my main hardly has time for fun anymore.

i get out much more. dancing. shopping. parties. i'm even partnered while he's still an over-worked single guy.

You WERE warned, Anti. There was a thread a little while back discussing gender and sexual orientation. One of our gay members opined he had no desire to be a woman. One of the ladies pointed out, "...but we have all the good shoes."

I don't know how we could have made it clearer than that.

If your alt wants to go shopping again, have her IM me and we'll get up a little Ladies Only shopping expedition. You'll find that you'll have even MORE fun (and therefore, spend more money) when you've got friends along.

I have no alt.

*edit*

Let me clarify that. Annabelle is the alt to my RL identity.
Although except for hair color and a little boost in confidence. (read cup size) she's pretty much me... I mean the real me. erm, RL me. Why would I need a secret identity to get away from my secret identity?


I think I need another lie down.

I have a female alt and a male alt.

The male alt was created to test products, but i do enjoy now and then exploring the world in male form.

The female alt was made as an escape from the Main that is more conventional these days, and to try and save a relationship that was going Pete Tong. It didnt work.

imogen

Is it really an alt then? Or starting over and not using the first account anymore?

I am having a blast reading all these responses, they are all very interesting! Thanks to everyone who has pitched in an answer so far!

~Ava

Stick around this madhouse long enough, and you'll probably come up with one or more reasons. Several have been advanced in this, and in other forum threads.

- A desire to go in-world and get work done, instead of being bothered by your friends or customers.

- A desire to explore activities that you don't want your main character's friends to know about.

- Sending a character to places a regular character can't go (e.g., Orientation Island).

- Playing a different gender. (A great big hulking guy named "Annabelle" might draw some raised eyebrows).

- Inventory backup device (cumbersome, but possible for copyable items)

- Dressmakers dummy. Also for animators, furniture designers, etc.

- A person you can absolutely trust, to form a landowners' group with.

- A troubleshooting device to see if your difficulties are with your avatar, or due to your computer, ISP, or LL.

- A way to recover Library folders that have vanished due to an SL inventory bug.

- A bomb disposal expert to try out scripted objects given to you by mysterious strangers

- A second $L account in which to store some of your a$$ets...either to protect them from bugs, or from your own profligate spending habits.

- A spy to check on someone's activities. (There are also other, even darker uses for alts which I won't go into here. Suffice it to say that most of them probably relate to the violation of some part of the TOS or other.)

i recently learned someone i know created an alt to partner someone who "stole his heart." he didnt want his rl wife or his sl wife to know about his secret partner. my head hurts thinking about how hard it must be to keep it all straight.

it can make your head spin. really spin at times.

i once had sl neighbors. very nice couple. i'll call them male A and female A.

some time later, female B moved in down the way. females A and B became good friends.

one evening, female A "spilled the beans" to female B. seems male A and female A were both alts having an affair (their mains were both partnered but not to each other).

it turned out that female B's main was partnered to male A's main.

then the fireworks started.

Some use it for cheating or to get away without being bothered.