What does this comment on stipends mean?

Not really, no.

I have a high-speed net connection and a decent computer because I telecommute full time, and the high-speed line is a requirement of my RL job, and the computer is a perk from my employer. No, to me, $10 a month is not "disposable". Especially when all it does, for ME, is to give Linden Lab a loan of the use of my REAL money in exchange for their L$, which I would normally just cash out anyway.

I can rent for less than I can buy mainland for, and in sims that are zoned and managed effectively, and not Mainland chaos and anarchy.

If they want Premium membership to be worth something, free texture and sound and animation uploads would be a good perk. So would customer support that doesn't blow off your problems as trivial.

Now, if they were to offer Premium membership with a "Chinese Taskeout Menu" of options, each with a seperate price, you might really have something of value.

Choose from the following options (as many as you want to pay for, priced monthly):
A: Ability to own Mainland, and 512M2 free tier per month on land owned. - $4.50 USD
B: Ability to access the full support system, get live help, and submit the full range of tickets. - $1.50 USD
C: Concierge-level prioritized support (Instead of "full" support) - $3.00 USD
D: Stipend of L$300 per week (25% discount off Lindex pricing) - $3.00 USD
E: Stipend of L$600 per week (25% discount off Lindex pricing) - $6.00 USD
F: A "free" Linden home, on a free 512 M2 parcel (restricted rights, and no ability to own other land). - $1.00 USD
G: Unlimited free uploads of textures, sounds and animations. - $2.00 USD

etc...

With discount percentages for paying quarterly or annually.

Then, someone like me, who couldn't give a flying fig about owning unregulated mainland or being paid a stipend that I already prepaid for, could pay for JUST Concierge-level support, plus unlimited uploads, and *nothing else*. Or could add some other perk that they think of in the future.

Why make the only choice the "Super jumbo full meal deal", whan all we may want is an order of fries?

No appeal to me at all.

Now, make that a free store in a high profile area and I could be persuaded to forget my stipend.

Having said that, you can't please everyone all the time, so as Ceera suggested a menu type premium subscription with different choices would probably work the best.

Just read this...so, they are gonna take away stipends? Nice way to shoot the SL economy in the foot. (What else can ya do with that but spend it?)

Maybe if they gave people a choice of either/or. A lot of us already own land or a house or both.

Don't panic, don't panic. Look at the date on the OP.

http://www.forumspile.com/Old-LastYearAirlines.jpg

To me it looks very much like good bye stipend - have a house and some stuff for new folks thats no use to long term members.....

This thread is over a year old...

LL is that stupid, but not suicidally stupid. I hope.

fair enough a curse on the person who a ) resurrected the thread and b) the people who dont operate an archiving system round here

Yes .... if they did that there would be a massive outrush of premiums as suddenly the money they have to put into SL would jump. So less people to buy land that they rent out. Then because less of the former premiums would be buying Lindens less rentors. Add to that their 512s would now be abandoned. LL would have shot themselves in the foot.

LL tends to creep up on its goals when no one's looking and throw them into the back of an unmarked van...

That it has been a year since LL has said "enhance value for premium members" while meaning specifically "find something to replace stipends with" is SOP for the Lab.

I do believe they are going to replace stipends with this new manifestation of First Land by adding the perceived (to the Lab at least) value of a pre-fab that doesn't count toward your prim limit. You and I might not buy it, but new residents just coming in will have no idea that living in a SL ghetto is going to suck.

No stipend for new premium members won't effect people who already get stipends the way that people after 6/6/6 only getting $L300/week stipend hasnt effected me getting my $L500/week.

I'm also going to risk saying that this new First Land package isn't going to impact my free 512m tier. But I would assume that this FL package is constructed in part to help battle those with multiple premium accounts who group their accounts for land and wind up with a nice little chuck of mainland for free.

Coz if I HAVE to give up my free tier and have my premium accounts shuffled off to the Pleasantville Ghetto... that would be 4 less premium accounts for LL to worry about adding value to.

Not that LL would care or anything. They're gearing up for a big Advertising Blitz this year and are expecting many more unsuspecting nooblets to replace me.

Which hurts LL how exactly whether someone has several 512s scattered about or if they are all together? Yes, there is the 10% bonus, but that does not amount to much. Especially when looked at the real avegare bonus, I have seen people afraid to group their land when doing so would even bring them down a tier level (so they have a financial incentive to do it).

You can argue that it *helps* LL for people to generate extra premiums to get more land. There is less abandoned mainland (usually also not using proportional script and/or agent recources) and more money in their coffers.

Not all premium members get a free house and land. I still have yet to get that. And I do have 512 free and currently own no land.

It's in the testing phase at the moment so most people who could be offered it haven't been offered it - including me. I would have turned it down anyway as I've no desire to help LL by testing anything for the company.

I'm a premium acct holder. I co own 2 full sims and one homestead sim. I co-own b/c my sl partner is in Europe and VAT is more than what either of us can afford. I use my 300L a week for tiers..hey, every little bit helps and before I had sims, I used it to shop with. I've put in several support tickets and have used live chat and all have worked great. No real issues with time frames. (I've heard the nightmare stories as well so maybe I'm an exception to the rule)

One thing I keep in mind is LL is a profit making company. Costs are rising for every business out there. Does that mean they should blow us off? Heck no! Just means they have to think outside the box and get creative. I would like to see them listen more to the average player as well. I'm not sure where they get their info from as most of the surveys I see are the usual...Has your sl experience improved or declined? Check yes or no. The add info box is normally not long enough to actually put any real input in unless you are less long winded than I seem to be lol

Things I would like to see for Premium Accts:
1. Higher allowances but of course not gonna happen lol
2. More allowed groups would be sweet! Hippos are awesome but they don't work for everything.
3. I don't want to see restrictions on basics but at the same time, if they must be done, maybe lower invo rates.
4. The mainland land holding doesn't interest me. Course if I can rent mine out, maybe it would. I rarely spend any time on Mainland and would never live on Mainland altho I did when I first started. Rented a very small house as a total noob and was so frustrated to not be able to furnish it due to prim limits. Course this was in 07 and I was new and clueless. No longer new but still mostly clueless.

ROFL - I'm with you. Goddamned necroposting.

Yup, the attitude towards Linden Homes is about what I expected and have stated. It's geared toward new premiums, because us older ones would rather deal with mainland and all it's issues than the cut-n-paste housing straitjacket of Linden Homes.

So, no. Linden Homes DOES NOT add enough value to existing premium accounts to take away the stipend. If they're gonna use that as an excuse, then they might as well do away with premium accounts and start charging us straight tier.

Is it just me or is the only thing about SL that's not truly scalable Linden Labs?

fixt

Pwned by a necroposter

Ok I am co-fused . We tell people who come here, survey folks and others too, hey there was already 100 threads on this issue, couldn't you be bothered to Search before posting a new thread about it? (Whatever the issue may be). So, then, they do, they find one, and bump it up with a post, and then we are mad at them for Necroposting?

Oh-oh, double jeopardy!

Hehe. Catherine Cotton was just pointing out that whatever LL said 2 years ago is still irrelevant, coz it doesn't follow up on whatever it says it's going to do. That, and that the Linden Homes thing might be an attempt to phase out the stipend. Anyway, I was just grumbling because I was all alarmed, reading the thread, because I thought it was just One More Thing that LL is throwing at us now, as opposed to 2 years ago.

Edit: I responded without reading when the thread, and the blog post on which it was based, was posted. I have to learn to check the dates, lots of old threads have come back from the dead recently.

Well since it has already been "necroed" and had several additional posts added to it on top, my additional thoughts about some of what was stated on the value of premium in terms of stipend and the ability to own land:
The former statement is purely a matter of opinion and the latter is not true. It currently costs me the equivalent of about $20 a month to rent 3,056sqm of waterfront Estate Land with 699 prims. Even on an annual membership pay schedule for Premium it would cost me $21 a month to own 2,560sqm of land with 585 prims (on a monthly payment plan it would be $24.95). So owning less Mainland and fewer prims than what I have now would actually cost me more than renting my Estate Land. Granted rental rates vary, but even if my rent were a few dollars higher per month it would still be no more expensive than Mainland ownership.
It reimburses around 70-80% of your premium account costs if you are on an annual payment schedule and were to otherwise purchase those linden dollars.

Although reviving a thread about a persistent issue can be quite interesting to see how views develop and change over time and what, if anything, has been done to resolve the issue, discussion of a point that came to naught in the first place is unnecessary. I would go so far as to say it is even alarmist.

In this case, it seems speculation on the Lindens' proposal from over a year ago was a pretty futile exercise, which wouldn't exactly be a 'first' for the 'Residents Answers' forum. But c'est la vie, I say. That's the way the cookie crumbles. It's a game of two halves, you know. Or maybe six of one, half a dozen of the other. And vice-versa.

Best let sleeping dogs lie.

Oh.