No more basic bonus money

Assumptions to work from in an Internet Economy:

1. Internet users are cheap bastards.
2. The lure of easy money trumps even sex when it comes to advertising.
3. If you don't have a link to someone's credit card up front, it will be at least doubly hard to make a sale.

If these three assumptions are right, and I think they are, then you're wrong.

Yes, i took part in development of one in addition to couple other titles; but my presonal experience is largely irrelevant here since a) it's not _my_ view that people take very little time to determine if they stick with a game, but something widely recognized (check out transcripts from GDC in last few years, it's mentioned there often) b) there's enough folded MMOs out there to serve as proof being able to create a game does not prevent one from making silly decisions and/or being ignorant on some aspects, and c) this particular argument "LL knows what they're doing and you have no clue" can be used in response to every single person posting on this forum, including these clamoring for removal of stipends etc. And it'll be equally silly and weak argument in each of these cases.


Both of these require a person to actually stick around for long enough to find out about money trees, or 'make friends' with someone willing to give them money. And no, am not 'concerned about newbies' -- i simply point out the change of policy makes for worse newbie experience and is likely to make them quit faster. In part because it now _relies_ on other players to care about newbies experience to the point of giving them their own money. Can you really argue this is not the case when it's basically part of your own advice how to 'deal' with it?


They do not require cc details to create account. But you aren't going to buy game money without one, and they're going to see this "buy L$?" requester the very moment they quick on anything put for sale, even when it costs just 1 L$. Which if anything creates impression of company being dishonest -- "no cc required to play, my ass!"


Doesn't change the fact initial impression of game with no money whatsoever is worse than one with. Leading to higher probability of new players quitting before they find out about the 'amazing diverity' yadda yadda.

My guess is that a lot of people who join this game find it because their friends told them about it and pushed them into it. That or some group/club/organization they are a part of. (That's definitely the way things are with furs anyway, and I wouldn't be surprised if other fandom oriented groups were the same). Newbies can come in completely broke, head on over to Yadni's (make sure to give out his landmarks a lot more now), and buy up enough freebies to enjoy SL for quite a while.
I think their next stop, however, should be the sand box, NOT the shopping mall. Have them learn how to controll their av, and the world around them. It doesn't cost any $L to create boxes and spheres, and learn how to build their own basic things (basic furniture, toys, and clothing really isn't all that hard).
THEN they could do what most newbs who need money RIGHT NOW do: ask their friends for it. Plenty of people around who wouldn't mind lending $100l or more. Especially if they are the friends who have pushed you into this game and who have an interest in keeping you here for the sake of having you as company. If that fails (which would be hard, considering that even strangers out there are willing to help out newbs with money), there's always the money trees, camping chairs, and at worst, the Lindex.
In regards to land, you don't really need to own it to enjoy it. Plenty of people don't, since they never actually hang out at some specific place anyway. People go where their friends and aquaintances go to hang out, be it someone else's house, or a club, or just some meeting ground in the middle of nowhere. If they want a place to stay, they can do what people do iRL when they first get out into the world and have little money: room with a friend. If they absolutely MUST have land, they either get a job/business in game, or buy off of Lindex. Someone out there is paying real $USD for that land, so it's only fair they somehow pay the land owner back. But, again, land isn't needed to have fun either (I joined in 2003, and am STILL eligible for 512m New Land).

So I seriously doubt the lack of money will deter people from staying here. Especially since, as we see by the decline in $L due to a large influx of it, there's still SO MUCH of it available

Rule #1 of online worlds: People go where their friends are.

Rule #2 of online worlds: EVERYONE burns out sooner or later.

People are (or SHOULD be) extremely wary about giving credit card info to any business on the net. The more difficult the entry process the more you turn away people before they have a chance to discover what kind of person they might become in our world.

Ultimately the 80/20 rule applies. A new player has roughly a 20% chance of sticking around more than a month. Of those that do... roughly 20% of them will be around for a year.... and of those... 20% may still be around 3 years later. (20% -> 4% -> ~1%)

So yes... making it easier to get into secondLife will bring a lot more non-payers, griefers, tourists, etc... but they come and go.
Lowering the entry bar will also increase the number of people that stick around too. So what if it takes them a few months to finally swipe their credit card for their first land purchase. If they weren't going to be here otherwise, that's still positive.

(No, I don't have SL's exact player turnover #'s. I'm extrapolating from other online worlds which I've run or participated in running over the last 18 years)

Oh, for what it's worth.. whenever a friend of mine signed up with SecondLife... I gave them the sign-up bonus I got for referring them.

I'll definitely be sure to welcome my outside-of-secondlife friends with a bit of spending money to get them started, I'm sure that many folks will do the same.

Doesn't help random Joe explorer here on his or her own much... but explorers tend enjoy challenges.

One thing that is different about SecondLife is that things here change, constantly, and very quickly. Other MMOS seem to be pretty much the same, with maybe something in the story line changed, or some new feature added, every 6 months or so. I don't know how much of an effect this has, but my guess is that a lot more people still come back later, even after dropping SL for a while, just to check how things are. I've had one friend completely drop SL for WOW for almost a year, now they're burned out on WOW and are back here. Another dissapeared for I have no idea what reason for almost two years, and now they're a fairly regular visitor again. SL definitely has a leg-up on the rest of MMOG's in this respect

(p.s. yes, I completely agree with you in that opening up the access will bring in more people and is a good thing
p.p.s. in the personal interest of keeping my friends here when they joined after much of my begging them to, I have also given them my refferal bonus ).

Yes, but there's a big difference between having these things around to help out newbies, and depending on them doing so because otherwise the new person will have a negative experience. I try my best to help out new folks when I see them, and I've had great success with that several times, but I wouldn't like to be in a situation of knowing that if I didn't help them they'd probably leave.

Most money trees are already nearly plucked dry, and I'm sure nobody wants large numbers of new players wandering around areas begging.



Yes, but if they're required to buy L$, they'll have to enter their credit card details then. Not having to provide them during registration will reduce their resistance to joining the world, but increase their resistance to buying L$ (and that surely doesn't need any increasing...).



It can't. I'll be blunt here. It's not because SL doesn't have "amazing diversity and scope", it's because people come in, see it, but then think "ok, there's lots of different things here but what do I get to do? Just look around?" (I had someone ask me basically exactly that question in NCI earlier this week.)

When newbs ask me that, I usually just teach them how to use the Find feature to list the events happening that day.

... and have you seen the amount of junk cluttering up the Events Calendar lately? It's just getting worse and worse.

Unlike a lot of people, I came here having seen people raving about the game but didn't specifically know anyone - and nobody encouraged me to come meet up with them to 'do stuff', I just 'arrived', went through OI and HI, then went to the mainland laghell (sorry, welcome area), where nobody wanted to talk. Luckily for you guys, I decided to persevere in spite of the general atmosphere I experienced of ignorance and sex - but not everyone will.

Lewis

Hooray for you. We need more disco in SL (not sarcasm). But boo on you for assuming other people aren't as resillient and per.. perservering(?) as you.

Newbies have lost the free money (removes an attraction), but they also don't need to give cc details just to log on (removes a hinderance). Surely these two things will balance?

Think on this: you can now get into the game AND get money without giving credit-card details; just make a friend or two and ask them for a little money, or find a money tree. If newbies can't do that...well, how do THEY manage to put their socks on?

Musuko.

That's a good point actually. If someone is joining through a friend that's already in SL and can provide the new person with some startup money then aye, can see how it can have more appeal this way...

Damn LindenLabs for thinking things through and making us look like fools!

(myself included on occasion)

Well, i don't think exclusively relying on your existing customers to ensure good experience for your /potentia/l customers, is really thinking things through... it's just a good point that was made, that there is some silver lining to it. -.^

As far as the whole process goes, guessing it was more the case of choosing 'lesser evil' -- if starting new accounts was made easier _but_ there'd be still starting money handed out, you'd see bazillions of alts created for sole purpose of getting that L$ 250, piling the money together and cashing them out. So LL had no option but to remove that starting money or there'd be money influx that'd make current stipends puny in comparison. o.O;

I was thinking about this earlier today after reading about the stipends for free members being taken away.

Now while I am one of the people that thinks its fake money in a fake world buying fake stuff so who cares? I also hate to see all the bickering that results. I realize that some people have more of a vested financial interest in this game than others. So, I came up with an idea. Whether its been suggested or not, I have no idea...but here it goes!

Free accounts means free, no stipends, no bonus for creating an account, nothing. I do believe this game should be a paid for game. Whether that's a one time thing or a monthly fee. That said, I think there are big issues around not asking for credit cards to verify age. I think we will see a few teeny boppers on the adult grid.

Basic accounts should mean no stipends (you're not paying monthly fee you don't deserve a monthly stipend) but there should be a one time bonus of say a buck (USD) in Lindens. Then, its really only 8 bucks for signing up, basic account members get something to play with and its done.

Premium members should remain the same. We pay a monthly fee and so the little bit we get back in L is a good reward for paying for the game. That said, I'm not dependant on the 500L a week and I would continue playing the game even without it.

I just think the stipends should be based on amount being paid to play the game. If you pay nothing you get nothing, if you pay something to start you get something to start and if you pay monthly then you get something monthly (weekly).

Just my two sense!

I can see the reason to eliminate the bonus. Without verification it's easy to farm new accounts for the bonus. However starting with no $L disturbs me. IMO giving BILLABLE(cell phone number does NOT qualify) information either at the point of account creation or any point later should grant a new user a free $500L(I always thought 250 was low and esp so with no stipends) bonus. I also think a 250L bonus with the first purchase from Lindex would be good also. Both bonus's should be restricted to unique users no bonus's to alts. Numbers could be tweaked but if you give Lindens in exchange for registering your billing info no purchase required that could 1 give newbies their starting Lindens without the heightened fraud risk 2 Help get their foot in the door for spending money since they alrdy registered billing info and don't have that barrier to impulse buying.

ps with the above system any account that hasn't registered billable info when they attempt to buy something that costs less than 500L and they would have to buy lindens to get it they should recieve notification that they could recieve the item free just by registering billing info.

Sorry, guys, off topic. But I've just found a rare bird.
Hey, Sophia, use the preview grid to try out.

Does this mean newbies don't get $$L for talking to the parrot at the beginning??

I don't recall getting any money in Orientation even when I joined, which was Sep 2005.

But new players who started after 1 June 2006 recieve no L$50 a week.

New players who started after 6-7 June 2006 also recieve no starting L$250, so they arrive in world with L$0 and stay that way.

Woah, damn, I COMPLETELY forgot about that thing. Or the table that you have to put the ball on top of, or the sign you have to pan around with your mouse. Anyone know if those things still pay out? I seem to remember that back when I joined you could get about $250L to $500L off those things.

Those jobs don't pay. They only give tips. I would suggest all dancer boycott all clubs until such time as they do pay an hourly wage. In fact anyone working for a job without hourly pay should quit. Let them run thier biz without employees. You say no more free money in SL..well I say no more FREE labor in SL.

HELL YES! I totally agree. Free labor = no incentives = shitty work and products. That's what communism essentially was (you did get paid, but it was a tiny salary that didn't depend on the quality of your work). Escorts should set up unions, workers should demand pay, and content creators should expect to have to pay at least a little bit of $L to people they hire to do basic menial tasks. Content providers should also work to find out ways where they can save their own time by outsourcing tsome of their building and scripting tasks (like basic interraction scripts, or checking for errors in builds, or whatever else people can come up with) to newbies or people with less experience. ESPECIALLY because they (the content creators) are MUCH more skilled than newbies and thus their time is much more valuable and well worth spending somewhere else.

I didn't speak to the parrot, but i did try the other gadgets on the island... that was some couple months ago i think, none of these things paid a dime. You'd get a virtual, "cool, you did well" pat on the back and that's it.

If my payment depends on quality of my work more than ever before, why would i want someone with less experience do part of the work, and risk either badly performing end product, or having to waste extra time to go through that other person's work to check and/or fix it... all this as opposed to just reusing such basic components from my already made scripts? And if you want inexperienced person to check for errors in your work... well, since they are inexperienced they don't know what to look for in the first place --glaring errors even inexperienced person can spot the original builder is more than likely to spot themselves while working. If on the other hand the person can spot 'advanced' errors, they have enough experience to do their own work, and simple menial tasks are below what they can do/earn.

There's very little room for inexperienced burger flippers and street sweepers in SL, because there's no need for anyone to flip these burgers by hand, or to manually clean streets. And this room gets smaller rather than larger, as the advanced content creators keep pushing the bar...

As I said, would you rather spend minutes or hours of your own time clicking on each individual prim, and checking that its x,y,z coords match those of the prim next to it, or just pay someone else to do it? Or like in my ship example, I would rather just pay someone else to do something as simple as click on every ship's pannel, delete the script that's in there, and replace it with something else. Or a menu system (like llDialog) that people click on that can return various values, especially if it's a complicated one with menus within menus, can be a pain to set up. Very easy to script, but a pain to make sure the buttons are in the right place, the text shows up right, etc. Spend time messing with it yourself, or pay someone to check things for you, while you work on something else, like the more difficult stuff the actuall manu will controll, passing commands to the piece by saying them yourself as a means of testing. Hell, even when building an entire house, it's fairly easy to dump a crapload of furniture in front of the house, give someone temporary permissions to move it, and have them move the furniture into place so that it looks good, doesn't stick into walls, etc. There we go, a furniture mover job. Easy I'd pay $10 to $50 l for that no prob, too. Even in the scripts that you already have and can recycle, I'm sure there are things that, if written correctly, you can assign others to do. And heck, if we keep instilling the "support the worker and spread the work" idea into SL, maybe scripters will start writing scripts with the assumptions that possibly some newbies will be asked to type and move some things around. Like, a generic easilly customizeable menu/interraction script, or some other generic thing (sorry I'm stuck on menus. It's what I'm busy scripting now). Just as some players are going to have to learn that in SL, $L has real value, be it in time or money, content creators should realize that their own time is also worth real value, and it would help to point out to them that there are ways they can spend less $L than they would waste in their own pressious time, working on basic stuff. Heck, if this picks up (which it probably will eventually), you may even be able to some day hire a team of workers that can scower your builds, configure your scripts, texture your buttons, etc. (hey, there's another one. Doesn't require a lot of artistic skill to draw basic interraction buttons, but does take a bit of time you could spend doing something else while you give someone else $L to spend their time drawing them and uploading them).
Yes, there's very little room for burger flippers in SL, but I think that has much more to do with the curent structure of the economy/production in SL, not with the SL itself.