Integrated voice as a bonus for premium members only?

A suggestion someone made on the blog intrigued me...

Since voice is going to cost LL (since they're talking about charges for older islands to enable it), why not make it a benefit for premium members only?

This would give a real benefit to going premium for those who want it, and is exactly the kind of added value that some premium members have been asking for.

That I'll go for, and since I'm not premium, people can't make me! ^..^

It could put people off becoming Premium because that way they have an excuse not to voice.

If you own a $195 grandfathered island you should probably get ready for a lot of interest - they could easily become a hot property for sex clubs who want to let their escorts say "oh, sorry, this area doesn't support it" when asked to go to voice, rather than having to say "oh, sorry, I'm really a guy" or "oh, sorry, my husband might hear me"

OR "Oh sorry Im not going to have phone sex with you for 13 CENTS a minute."

It's not that easy trying to piece together how it will work: the spatial element appears to be licensed technology from one company, while another seems to offer the actual hosting solution. I'd guess the first is just a one-time cost(?), while the second the second would be a continual cost I'd guess the same way they outsourced the blog to Wordpress and downloads to Amazon.

Limiting it just to premiums probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, unless premiums can initiate a voice conversation with everyone else, but not vice-versa, although since it's a cost to a third-party, that cost should be paid by those using it, and not with everyone's tier or other fees.

There's still one-on-one voice capability, separate from land. Hiding on "old" sims wouldn't do any good .

It is a logical step and I'd be all for it for premium users. However it adds no value for me at all as I have no interest in ever using it. Wireless devices get poor reception where I am (my wireless mouse is accurate enough for most things, but first-person shooters can become a pain), so I don't know if I'd want to pay for a wireless headset, my current microphone is definitely out as it's crap and wired.

If they made this a premium perk, it would either need something else in addition, or instead of, to slate me. For example I'd still love a little chunk of local web-space on LL's end, since the uptime is at least guaranteed to be consistant with SL itself so relying on an outside web-host won't have the same potential for issues, plus the lower latency and higher speed of being on a local network would be incredibly useful.

Well I own land, so I have to be premium. How much extra would I have to pay _not_ to have it?

Actually might be nice if they charged people like $2 a month for voice (hearing/receiving) - this would give a lot of people who arent interested in using it a "way out" that the majority of SL residents will understand.

Since so many SL residents dont want to pay a dime for ANYTHING.

I don't think that the details of the costs need to be that carefully analyzed. Other costs in SL aren't precisely recovered either: consider that uploading an 8x8 texture and a 1kx1k texture cost the same.

I don't think that follows. After all, Im premium and voice has less than no value for me, but contrariwise the ability to own land has value to me yet may have no value to someone else who really digs voice. I'm suggesting this as one of many possible benefits that LL could add to the premium package, to make it more valuable to some people without removing capabilities that basic users currently have. So, no, I don't think this would need "something else" to compensate either you or me... that's not the point.

First of all there is no such thing as a "premium" account. You do not have anymore advantages in SL than a person with a "Non Premium" account. In SL you can pay property "tax" to the Lindens and be able to own property. This is known as the "Premium" account. In SL you can pay property "rent" to a land owner and be able to own property. This is known as a "non-premium" account. The destruction of the first land award for upgrading to a "premium" account finished what little perks was left of the "prem" account. The stipends you receive equals 1200L a month. You could buy many more with the money you saved from not becoming "prem".
Now as far as a cost to use the voice chat system I fully agree. But it should be available to absolutely anyone who wants it. I say this because I do not want my "prem" account monthly fee to go up to support something I have no interest in. In the long run that is exactly what will happen.

Sure there is. It's not all that "premium" any more, but there is definitely a "premium" account.

Now as to whether this puts you at risk for having a voice surcharge attached to the premium account... I hadn't thought of that possibility, but I suspect its more likely that the premium account fee would be increased because of higher tier prices. And I don't even think that's that likely.

Perhaps following the logic of attracting more premium members with voice, have voice a small paid option (if it HAS to be paid) that only premiums can have?
But I still maintain that voice alone isn't enough to wave the fact that premium memberships are no longer as valuable as they are with first-land gone. Okay so of late first-land has been near imposssible to come by for scammers, but it was still there.

My point is simple. Sl needs to work on fabricating a worthwhile set of options available to persons that pay for the SL service. This would be a premium account. Adding one "major" premium at which time the price for the premium is likely to go up is not acceptable. You may gain some new users so that they can use voice. You will have others that give up their "prem" account so that they won't have to pay for it. I don't see the fee as being "IF" you want it but as being the same if you want it or not. Some better "prem" perks could be implemented without a major cost to SL or cause the "prem" rate to increase. A "Prem" only sandbox, "prem" only voting for SL improvements, "Prem" Teraforming options. You get the idea. I would be much more interested in things that attract non prem accounts to "prem". One online game I am aware of even goes so far as only letting "prem" account holders reply to forums. I don't think that AAA auto club would be as popular as it is if the only advantage was a free jumpstart when needed.

This happens and us verifieds don't get grandfathered, I'm gone. I will sell my L$ and move out. Maybe buy a dragon-for-life for FurCadia.

Argent- I have long since learned not to argue with you... though it does amuse me when others try.

Tana-

I may be off base... but what I expect is that LAND OWNERS (by definition the "Premium Members" responsible for paying tier) may opt to pay extra to enable local voice chat... I'm assuming this will be per private island, though LL may surprise me and open it up for mainland parcel owners as well.

Land RENTERS I'm sure will have to negotiate with their landlord to persuade them to enable/disable the feature.

Wandering residents... I susupect, will be able to use whatever local voice chat features are available where they are on the grid, without it affecting their fees.

While I like Argent's idea of limiting the use of voice chat to only premium members, and LL might have a soft introductory roll-out limited to just premium members... but ultimately I'm fairly confident they'll have it open to all, and make the parcel/sim owner pay for the option of having the service in the areas they own.





--
OWNER: blah blah blah
(Anonymous and noisy wet raspberry heard nearby)
OWNER: Who did that? You're banned whoever you are!
(giggling and more raspberries)
OWNER: I'm serious you twit, cut it out!
(phblblbllblblllblblbllt!)
OWNER: AR-ing! I can't tell who keeps farting on my voice chat channel!!

You know, I do believe that poster was talking about SL. New free accounts after a certain date (don't remember the exact cutoff) can't post on this forum.

I don't see that happening.

LL has made a few compromises along the way, but their ultimate goal seems to be to avoid creating seperate 'classes' of people as much as is possible.

Yes, yes, "land owners" are special... but only over their own land.
Even unverifieds are 'nearly equal' to the rest of us in-world. (with the exception that land owners can easily ban them all from their own parcels.)

New unverifieds can't seem to read the forums... or so I heard yesterday, and new basics, I *think* can't post on the forums, which is unfortunate, but sadly, probably necessary considering how badly abused the forums get.


I'm rambling.

More to the point:

I, honestly, not realy wild about bundling other "freebies" in with Premium Membership. I'm premium for one reason... to own land.

I don't care about and don't want to pay extra for stipend, voice, premium sandboxes or special terraforming options, whatever they might be.

Simply put, if there are costly services that LL wants to make available, I would prefer they set them up as optional additional subscriptions. (ie: No, I don't want caller ID on my house phone, thanks, but I do want call waiting.).

If the 'costly extra service' is something that would make logical sense to offer to verified basic members, then perhaps let them prepay for a few months of that service, and let them renew whenever it lapses if they feel like it.

I'm all for LL finding new things of value to offer us, but I don't want to pay more for something I won't use.

He said "premium" not "verified."
I'm verified, but not premium.

I don`t care because i can`t use it anyways..........Besides i rather see LLabs give us things that are more useful like better stable client.......

Telephone service in general is an interesting comparison, because studies have shown over and over again that the overall cost where unbundled pricing exists is almost always higher than for bundled services, even for users who only pick a few options, unless there's a technical reason why a particular service requires specific hardware provided by the phone company... and sometimes even then it's cheaper for both the phone company and subscribers to toss the hardware in free.