Benifits of having a full account?

and just because they are premium doesn't mean total profit....

i now have a fully committed premium account that is fully supported by nothing more than recycled Lindens.

you do not have to be 'premium' to own land on mainland.

even 'no payment info on file' users can pay 100L to make a group, and then pay someone to donate tier and then 'buy land for group'

the only benifit of paying LL is being able to have your support tickets ignored quicker.

You call that owning? I don't think so. Don't confuse people. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's not something for the average person to consider. If anything happens to the tier donator, the group is screwed unless they can find a replacement in 48 hours. That's not ownership. That's a risky rental.

I currently don't own land and I could buy Lindens for less then what I'm getting in stipend if I needed to buy them. Why do I pay for a premium membership? Because for less than a movie I get a full months of enjoyment. I had my cable disconnected because I never watched anything on it and it was around $50 a month I think.

Do I have to pay? No. I pay because as much as LL pisses me off all the time, I appreciate the product (at least until something better comes along ).

ignorance is bliss....



you have 7 days when tier is withdrawn to find replacement donors.
I have had it go close to 30 days with negative tier in group and nothing happened to my land.


there are quite a few very very reputabile tier renters out there.

I pay .25L per week per SQ meter, much cheaper then paying LL tier if you are owning 1/2 a sim or less of land. You basicly get just a tad higher rate then you would if you had a full sim.

example 4096 of land, 4096L per 4 weeks of tier rental = 14.07USD
that same land from LL and a premium membership at YEARLY level would be
6$ + 25$ tier = 31USD if you paid yearly, 9.95 + 25 = 35USD if monthly

14 bucks is cheaper then 35 bucks.


its not risky, it IS ownership, it IS mainland, it IS easy for a no payment info on file to do.

plus your support tickets gets ignored twice as fast as a paid user!!

I rent a touch of tier too, but to the average person who can't even parse the knowledgebase and decipher the rules, you should not confuse them.

The group owns land, not them. The only people who own any land in SL is the one who pays for both tier AND land. Everything else is a risky rental.

the average person too stupid to figure out how to save money and play this game ?

you hold your fellow gamers in pretty low regard.

1. Cheaply rented land, along with all the many terrible problems as far as ads farmers and a lot more that frequently goes on. Just check the many threads they're constantly posting here regarding these problems unlike in private estates. In private ones you also have problems but not as many as in the mainland you won't.


2. You're happy with sl support I see. I didn't think it was possible. That's a first for me. I called them on phone for a problem. They answered me 3 months later regarding this same problem. I told them I didn't need them then where were they went I first called them. The Linden never responded and left the IM in sl.

I see no benefit from paying for an account, none at all. The service is lousy. Plus, what they give you in Lindens monthly they take away in what you pay for the account. The only benefit I see its you know they won't walk away from the land by selling it or abandoning it like in private places. But at times what you have isn't worth keeping as you're surrounded by many of the problems that plague the mainland.

I'm staying on topic - you will confuse people about what ownership is. Just about every week we have to explain how estate land ownership isn't ownership. Keep promoting the tier rental thing, and soon we will see the rise of the scammers that purportedly rent tier and then walk, leaving some poor joe stranded without their land. Most players don't take time to read what's out there, and few bother to ask before jumping and buying land. Telling people that that is land ownership just muddies the waters. It's rental, if you have to rent tier from someone else.

Ricardo, I'm genuinely curious at what keeps you coming back to SL. You are upfront in your criticisms of just about all aspects of the game, from your nightmare griefing incidents on down, but something still holds your interest. As someone sometimes often wonders why bother myself, it would be interesting to hear, if you'd care to elaborate. If not, that's OK, it's your business.

Ok, this that I just stated in the previous post about land, this isn't true?

Practicallly, non-support from Linden to sl residents, this isn't true either?

We both know it is and I'm just stating and responding to whatever threads there are regarding whatever issue is at hand. Am I the only one that does this? I'll speak out on what I see and know about regardless. All my responses aren't about sl and the many issues at hand, you know.

Maybe it's me you're "genuinely curious" about. C'mon, Connolly, don't be shy now.

/laughing

Especially since Eazel runs a business in SL.

Presumably, he gives his products away?

Compared to some other companies like EA, Dell, and so on...
LL is much better with support of their "players" and trying to improve things.

NOW- the day SL becomes the next "Battlefield 2142", I'm outta here.

I had a premium acct. in the begining but once I found out I didn't need it to own land in the private sector I went to basic. But I was spending an avg of $175 US monthly on Lindens without counting my tier on my land and I did this for over a year.

Now, I don't spend as much being the no-mod everything in shops has stopped me from shopping as much but I still spend a lot more then many people who have premium accounts.

Just not enough. Support should be equal and available to all residents which it's not. As far as their improving things I won't even touch that one.

Why is it so hard to accept that if you pay for something you are more likely to get it?

I'm not disputing that many non-premium accounts pay more into SL than many premiums do. I spend about $60-70 a month including my premium fee. If I had a basic account I would spend $6 a month less. I'm sure that there are many basic accounts that pay in a lot more, and who contribute more to SL in terms of creativity. But the point is that basic accounts, however much they pay into SL, are NOT paying for support. If you want the better support (for what it's worth, which is not much) you have to, in effect, take out a support contract by signing up as premium.

Maybe my cents to this (ignoring the rants towards Linden and premium accounts).

I used to have a premium account and owned land. Because of health problems I had to leave SL and it was doubtful I would ever return. So I sold my land and downgraded my accounts.

Things went luckily very went and I am recently fully back to my work again. And so I started to log into SL every now and then. And by now I can say I am fully back to SL. I am renting now a house in the wonderful Asgaard sim (yeah yeah, I know what I said in the past about renting and owning land, but for now this is very good solution for me).
For now I am staying with my downgraded account. But I am really considering to upgrade again for the stipend and not for buying land (which might be an option in the future again). But for now I am fine as it is.

Morwen.

I cannot say a thing about EA, but I can about Dell. I owe now for years Dell computers. And with the last two I bought an extra service contract. And when you have that they run and fly for you.
When there is a problem they come to your house at the time you want it. And until now all the problems (which are not that many I must admit) I had were solved with 2 working days. That is well worth the money for me.

Morwen.

It's all a matter of perspective and deducing what is ideal for your personal situation. I remember the days when SL did show everyone the same level of support. Back when free accounts verified via a cell phone and there was a max 5000 concurrent users at any given time.

They had chat support readily available for a brief amount of time when the floodgates of totally free accounts went public. You know what happened? They were inundated beyond capacity with those using the help channel for anything and everything. People would message even when they were bored and had no one to talk to.

While it's unfortunate that that's the way the world works. The almighty dollar and all. It's just how it is. I wanted the ability to continue support if it was needed. I also upgraded as a precautionary not knowing how the whole verification thing would go.

One needs to be able to adjust to a changing enviroment. That's business for you. Compared to most other services, I've never had a negative experience when seeking what was sought. Yeah, I'm one of those rare few who had a response to every email filed.

I adjusted. I enjoyed. I paid. I get service. Simple.

What others deduce is ideal for them, hey that's their thing. I did for me. No one else is going to hand me the golden keys to the city. It might seem terribly egocentralized, but how is it if I took the effort to get where I'm at?

How dare I:
-Sign up using a cellphone for a free account
-Utilize free account to learn about the enviroment
-Be productive and find my niche
-Make money from selling items from being productive
-Make enough to pay for premium yearly
-Make enough to own land
-Make enough to cash out a check on a whim

And yes, I'm someone that knows what pennies under the cushions means. That doesn't mean I'm going to allow myself to live under the carpet instead of doing something to better my situation. In this case, it worked.

I love my Dell, I haven't had to use their customer service at all, but the reason I did buy it was based on the recommendations of dell owners I know who had similar good experiences. I think in some circles, Dell is like Microsoft and Aplle in the sense it's hip to hate them. While they do give you reason to get ticked at them, as most large corporations do, it must show you are a bona fide silicon head. It reminds me when I got my first car, my Dad's Plymouth Reliant K. Some of my friends were "Oh I wouldn't take a Dad's car, especialy THAT one. I would always smile and wave at them while I drove past them at the bus stop.

when I need a new computer, hopefully not for another couple of years, I'll be buying a Dell. Especially since I get a discount from my employer.

Same here.

I bought the Dell I have now last year. The systemadministrator of the company where I work and I made a suggestion for a good computer. He did sent that to his contact-person at Dell Netherlanda and some hours later we had a very sharp priced offer. Even better then what we suggested and at a lower price as well.

Morwen.

Um, maybe I'm confused, but this seems exactly backwards to me. L$ don't cost LL anything, but hosting land does. They will make some profit on the $60, true, but selling L$ is essentially free money for LL. The only difference is that they have to be careful doing it in order to not upset the SL economy, but that just means that they can't have an unlimited amount of free money, not that it stops being free for them.



Every piece of content has a whole range of values!

... many still confuse rights with privileges.

To be honest with you all, the OP simply asked what the benefits of having a Premium Account were.

At the end of the day, LL is running a business. They provide a base product.. namely SL citizenship .. free of charge, in the expectation that they will be able to cross sell some chargeable complementary services/products to a proportion of their FOC client base.

It's pretty standard business practice, not rocket science, and more often than not simply called a "Loss Leader". Although the term "Loss" in this case may be misleading because I doubt there is any real marginal unit cost.

There are no "rights" and "privileges", no "respectability" purchased by registering your credit card and paying $10 a month.

The membership plans are laid out pretty clearly and their T&Cs easily accessed from the home page of this site.

Basically you decide what you want to buy.. and you buy it. There are no moral or societal value statements to be made. If there were then we should also judge the person who buys the PC but decides against buying the highly inflated extended warranty and accidental damage cover.

There is no argument that says his/her PC has been subsidised by the purchasers of the insurance policies, or that his contribution to the great society of PC users is any less.

I know it is hard to hear, but to LL we're simply a market which ... not to put too fine a point on it.. they want to penetrate as deeply and milk as vigorously as they possibly can.

Go Premium, don't go premium.. buy land, don't buy land.. but don't read any more into those decisions than you do when you decide to buy a Burger King rather than a McDonalds.

If you pay some cash in the expectation of a higher service level, then make sure you get it. If you don't pay.. and the T&Cs clearly state what you get.. don't complain when you get exactly that..

Also.. the idea that some random unit cost calculations done in a thread like this will in anyway give an idea of the revenue or strategic contributions made by various membership plans to the overall success of LL.. well ..I guess it never hurts to brush up on your basic arithmetic..

Ok.. I've strapped myself into the pillory and I await your pleasure..

... and then the OP proceeded to attack and insult all those who simply answered that question.



No "rights" or "respectability," I agree, but there are some privileges - the privilege of owning mainland, the privilege of receiving stipend, the privilege of access to a different tier of technical support. Some may consider these privileges reasonable value for the cost; others may not. That's an entirely personal decision.

Personally, I like owning mainland; I am not beholden to the whims and tier payments of another resident. I wouldn't want to have to pick up and move at a moment's notice, and that alone is worth the price of full membership to me.

If my land was only my home location, and not also a business that I want other people to be able to find, I might feel that renting was adequate. I certainly have no quibbles or prejudices with people who make that choice, or even with people who don't rent or own at all. Why should I? SL is a lot of different things and each resident can use it however he or she likes.