Mac Lifetime Memberships!

Since we've just been invited to SL with the intro of the Mac Beta - I'd love it if LLs would create a life-time Mac membership catagory.

Wiff something like "Mac Charter Member" showing in our Profiles.

What say thee?

The problem is someone could claim to be a Mac user, borrow a machine even to log in a few times, just to get a lifetime membership.

It does seem kind of unfair for the mac users who missed the opportunity to get lifetime memberships. Perhaps if/when they are re-offered, that will be the opportunity that balances this out.

Kex I didn't think of that!

This could be solve by requiring the Mac user to allow verification of registration of hardware and or Systems X software with Apple.

I'm certain anyone who wants to pay for a life time membership will agree to this.

What about people who own a Mac, but bought it second-hand? Or who are the original owner, but didn't register it with Apple? Are they not entitled to the lifetime membership offer?

And if not, what's to stop me from buying a $499 refurbished eMac (from the Apple Website: eMac 700MHz/128MB/40GB/CD-ROM - Refurbished ... $499.00), registering it with Apple, getting the lifetime membership and then turning right around and selling it on eBay to completely recoup my costs?

Not only do I get a lifetime membership, it also appears as though I stand a chance to make a bit of a profit on the deal.

The logical argument to my counter-argument is "well, only people who have owned a Mac and logged in before a certain timeframe before the offer was made are eligible." But what about people who saw SL somewhere, realized their crappy beige G3 wasn't going to cut it, then bought a new dual G5 specifically to run SL?

Or consider me. I own a Mac, but I haven't been able to log in, because I'm only running OSX 10.2. It's registered with Apple though, can I get a deal now? Or three or four? I have some friends who want lifetime memberships.

The problem with limiting who lifetime memberships are available to is that if it's fair, the system can be easily circumvented, and if it's not, people who should be eligible get shut out.

That said, the beta discounts when SL went live were for the world, not the client. And the reason lifetime memberships stopped being offered with the switch to 1.2 was because the economic model was changed, and the two were not inherently compatible.

Thanks Cat for your thoughts.

I first heard of Second Life through Tidbits - and that was in August 03. I'm not multi-platform kinda guy, and am not into the PC online-game world and thus heard about Second Life through the Mac network. For me it doesn't matter that the Charter Memberships were for the world back when - thus my perception that Linden's put real dollars into developing a Mac client and under the hood it's an investment.

And there have been Mac people who wouldn't subscribe to SL cause it was just the Mac Beta and in fact many here running Macs have be told by Linden Labs that the non-beta will correct many of the difficulties we experience inWorld.

Linden Labs are smart, they know they can make the cost of a Mac Lifetime membership different from the first-all-world-life-time memberships so folks won't feel it's worth FRAUD to get the Mac Lifetime membership; and so folks here from early times won't feel like it takes anything away from them...

And I know of no one who would go buy a G5 just to run second life. I do know a business person in the SF Bay Area who owns a multi-platform digital printing company who is considering buying a G5 for processing archival off-site backups. To me buying a G5 to run SL is like using my Rolls Royce to drive to my mailbox on the street.

Damn that's a fine auto!

And what about the people who joined after lifetime memberships stopped being offered? We missed out too. What makes us so different?

At the end of the Mac Client Beta, why not just offer the lifetimes again for 2 weeks?

Excellent!

Open it up for everyone - hey, even for just a week!

Great idea James!

This would be a very nice thing for us Mac beta users. I've heard that there are people that are doing more documented testing, but I do feel like we're helping out. I almost always submit crash reports when my client crashes. I don't really feel like we're getting anything for it.

I don't want to seem like I'm whining about it because I'll still play Second Life. I think it would be nice to see a little extra from LL since we're helping and enduring more than the average user. How many of us are there, anybody know?

I would think LL (or the SL servers anyway) *should* be able to sniff what client software you are using (PC or Mac Beta)... Persons who have used the Mac Beta now or get into SL once the Mac Final version is done should get the Lifer status, even if it's a *teensy* more expensive than the original Lifers paid. We've had to go thru the pains of getting our Av's stuck in "gee I can rotate but I can't DO anything" mode and "if ONE MORE TREE sways and causes my frame rate to drop to 0 ONE MORE TIME!!!" mode or my personal favorite, after spending time in SL you go back to RL and COMMAND CLICK to CONTROL CLICK and it makes Photoshop copy everything you have in a layer 80 billion times. We should be rewarded for sticking with SL despite it's quirks!

Taun Patel