motivation for basic members to be premium members

While those are excellent ideas, they still demand a certain dedication and reliability from the employee, and logistics from the employer. Even if the avatars are only serving as NPCs with scripted items delivering their lines (so they don't even have to be decent roleplayers), as the gamemaster, I would want my NPCs to be present on time and for the whole duration, with minimal double-booking to cover no-shows; even more so if players are supposed to get clues from NPCs, making the NPCs a necessary part of the gameplay. Camping chairs don't have those problems - nobody expects one to sit on it from 2pm to 4pm sharp, and if half the chairs stay empty, that doesn't ruin the interactive gameplay for other people.

I would really like to see the NPC model implemented somewhere, and I think it could make for some very cool adventure games, but I'm still somewhat dubious as to the acceptance of that job model in the general popuplation.

monthly rate bonus Keep thing hell lot easyer to own store and still spend some and not hurt for cash.
Even make having premium membership somewhat worth while and now seem like same as basic one now only Diff is stipend day pay and owning land.
Get idea folks Bonus keep L$ Strong and not flake off like it is now.

Could be. Decent role-playing isn't really unskilled labour.

I'm not kidding.

There are actually several motivations for becoming a Premium user:

* You get 512m of land to build on (con: a whopping 117 prims. wowie).

* You get a nice L$ stippend each week which at one time almost covered the cost of premium (con: with the deflating L$, it's worth less and less all the time).

* You help support Second Life (con: who wants to financially support a system that ignores major user needs and lets griefers run rampant?)

There are reasons for becoming a Premium member, but they don't really much stack up. Now if we play the game of "if I were in charge of Second Life"...

* I know of several ways it could be really, really valuable to be a Premium Member.

* There would be no free memberships (not even a free 7-day trial like they used to have). I'd use marketing methods and videos to make the game look really really attractive, then charge $1 to $10 one-time up-front membership fee if for no other reason to confirm credit card and make it harder for griefers to take on alts. Every other board does so (I know of no MORPGs that allow free memberships of any kind).

* I'd put in policies that would make griefing a rarity rather than a constant thing.

... and a lot more things, but the above have something to do with topic. Basically, I see no reason to become a Premium member just to have Linden Lab ignore the problem when someone decides to attack me (or worse, ban users for defending themselves against attackers).

I tried being a Premium member once, but the screwy LL "tier" system messed up my account so much that I eventually abandoned that status and went back to BASIC. I don't mind paying a set fee for good service. I do mind someone ripping me off by setting up undocumented tier functions that stick you with land tier you don't even know you have. Under the current system, I wouldn't recommend Premium membership to anyone.

Premium membership right now for crap. i aggre on that

Anarchy Online, for one. Many others do have a free trial period as a promotional gimmick.

Anarchy Online does have a "small client" free trial, but then they charge. And I suspect that "small client" is very limited in scope and ability.

I wasn't clear in what I said. I was speaking of permanent free memberships as SL has. Free trial periods... maybe. I don't know of any offhand, but it's possible. I think the smart ones don't-- and griefers is a major part of that reason. All you do when allowing free logons is encouraging people to register alts at no cost to themselves, griefing as many people as you can in a short period of time, then when you get banned just sign up with another alt. Very predictable concept. If LL security was what it should be, they could have already reduced the problem by at least 90% or more. There are all kinds of very easy to implement concepts that could stop griefers dead in their tracks.

As it is, Linden Lab is just too lenient. They seem to prefer ticking off multiple victims than taking the logical step of booting an attacker.

This is a bit off the subject, but these days, even newbies don't have an excuse for attacking people. Logon process is pretty clear on that point. So LL's habit of "giving them a second chance" is bogus. Once the attack has been established as fact, a mandatory boot period should be default. My recommendation would be minimum 7 days for any direct attack. And if the person doesn't return to SL... I don't think that will cause anyone loss fo sleep.

But... back to subject... LL doesn't force premium memberships, nor even give people any real benefits for being a premium member. If they did force people to go Premium, frankly, they'd lose tens of thousands of members overnight. They let every griefer and his dog have free memberships. So why should we pay $120 a year for the priviledge of getting griefed over and over? A lousy 512m of land just isn't worth it.

Nope. the free AO is basically the full basic game as it initially launched. Well, not quite as it initially launched, considering how buggy it was, but the basic content.

You pay for the expansions and the right to access those expansions, basically.


But your basic point is valid; the only parallel I can think of is something like Guild Wars (pay for the content, monthly play is free).