Linden Labs READ THIS!

I used to have a premium account but shortly after the last DOWN GRADE, not this new one, the one before that, I changed my acct from a premium to a free account. I recently sent in a tech support ticket and I was told that Linden Labs does not offer tech support to anyone with a free account. So, my most recent tech/bug report was ignored because I am not a premium account. Yet all the premium account holders suffer from poor performance because the infrastructure of the game cant support the load and the people that work for LL are not of of a caliber to even try to get this thing to work. I guess I have to upgrade my account back to a premium acct for 1 month to get my ticket looked at. In essance I have to PAY for tech support. Ok so here is my solution:

Cancel all free accounts and offer them up as a basic account for 9.95 a month, that gets you into the PG parts of the game only!

Then offer a Gold account for 12.95 a month that gets you into the mature areas ( where almost everyone wants to be ).

And finally a Platinum account for 14.95 a month which then allows you to buy land! Ok now before everyone wants to flame me, or send a hit squad to my house hear me out.

Imagine if Linden Labs was able to hire programmers that knew what they were doing, imgaine more band width, imagine better graphics, imagine allot of things.

Here is some stuff on my wish list, does anyone have one as well?

I want to save a note card without seeing "the system has experienced a unexpected difficulty, please try again later -

I want to upload a texture - see above message

I want to open AND talk in a group chat more than once in awhile - see above message.

I want to port more than twice in a row without getting a teleport disconnect -

I want to rez a object to use in a build project and I'd like ti appear without seeing "the asset server did not respond in a reasonable amount of time etc etc etc -

I want to play a music stream without logging, loading the stream into winamp, then logging back in -

I want to sit on a poseball in my house without visiting the inside of the ground below my house for 3 min first -

I want to pan my camera and move a build object without crashing -

I want to find a dance pole that is actually smooth ( murder on my thighs ouch) -

I want to talk to a male avi that can remember my name and not call me sweety -

I want to meet ANY guy that realizes that it is not HUN as in Atilla the HUN, but its HON as in short for Honey

Desmonia I believe the employees at LL are of a good caliber-I believe they go in with many bright ideas and expectations. I think once ensconsed they discover they can only do what LL directs them to do. Making the game completely playable isnt one of them. It costs money LL will not part with.

LL is here to make money only, they wont read this,
its best to not pay money to them if your not happy with the service
they havent changed in the 4 years i been here.

Excuse me but i'm a free basic member of SL and i was able too write out a support ticket which was answered and solved too by the way, so you must have done something wrong.

I certainly don't want them too delete all basic accounts and make us upgrade thats not very fair too people that can't afford it. I'm on a low wage at the moment and i don't really have any spare cash too spend on Linden and i'd sooner buy my lindens than sign up and get 300L a week that's nothing i can spend that in 3 mins. Just saying think off all the little people too.

I agree-downgrade and stay on basic as a protest to the poor service. I used to pay alot in land fees and all myself. Soon someone will be coming up with an SL type game to compete with them and then SL will be abandoned in droves. Till then hang in there-

Right money is the bottom line. Too bad Linden Labs doesnt read these posts-they definitely have a responsibility to keep the game halfway playable. Their big mistake was allowing all the free accounts to be created for far too long. And still the alt number climbs......

Some very good ideas here. It would work mostly. But cancelling all freebie accounts and offer then a 9.95 is nothing to them from the kind of money they are gettng from the paid commercial islands...and the kickbacks they also get in return.

As for better programmers, well they did hire a new support time that is working 24 hours now. But again, the quility is yet to be seen. Problem is there are too many "RAH RAH "people going around scream everything is perfect and wonderful. But really we are not even close to 30% of that.
You don`t get a flaming remark from me, because what you said is true and atleast there are some that are NOT scaried to voice their thoughts.

Usagi

It's not fair to cancel free accounts. If I convert that 10 bucks USD into my currency which would be around 30 dollars, I'll be broke.. because I don't even earn that much since I"m a college student. Beside, I don't want to pay LL because it's not worth wasting money on it as I play SL as a hobby.. and they earn a lot anyways.. commercial stuff, plus sim sold and monthly tiers.. etc etc etc etc

Not fair? Do you think it isn't fair you can't have anything you can't afford?

I think I need a rubber stamp for this.

LL will not close free accounts; it would prevent the platform becoming dominant as a virtual world protocol, make it useless for outside commercial and non-commercial groups alike, reduce the influx of new residents who create content without being paid, and reduce inworld economic activity generally which attracts paying customers.

I would estimate that we have had at least one thread per week since free accounts with this proposal. It is particularly ironic now that we have effectively no Lindens reading the forums anyway (well, if they do, they keep it very quiet).

Not really. Nothing that you said would be an issue if SL offered a product that was worth paying for. People would find a way to pay for it just like they do all their other hobbies and habits.

LL wants Second Life to be like the Internet.

Something anyone with a connection can use. Most people will only spend money when they want to buy something.

With a large chunk of what people are buying via Second Life being RL products.

Unrealistic? perhaps

But thats the 3D web/ Metaverse of the future idea.

You cant get there by making Second Life more insular. Even though in many ways it was better when it was insular.

the 3D internet will be "sims" we can run on our on servers not LL controling all uploads, and every thing i create i can back up and keep if they want to be the 3D internet we need to get rid of LL perminatly and completely! hehe
wont happen so ill just wait for a better program to come along they always do

Adrianna , there was a time where after 7 days we had to PAY to Play after 7 days.
Don`t people like yourself make enough money with money giving devices ( dance pads, money chairs etc?to say $9 .95 per month? What do you do withall the money you earn on sl? I am not going to say freebie accounts are bad, but there needs to be limits set.

We are getting to another summer and during this time its scary. LLABS pulled the all the rules out on 6/6/06 when they open this nightmare of freesignups without and personal information of credit card information. Here we are at the year 2008 and wonders what LLABS is thinking to pull off reaching say 25 million accounts by summer end.....

The past history was a wonderful time in the game of second Life. But what is now is a different game with different rules and objects. We will move on. But with many many people bitching and screaming about ad farms, free accounts etc.......Many that have been around for awhile just wonders how much more will people in the subject of crashing, badly write UI, features that are just looks and no value. People with more ego then realy understanding of the workings of the codes.......

Your parents support you while in college right? and you say you don`t have 9.95 a month to pay for a hobby? You own a computer right? Maybe a MP3, a cellphone, etc etc etc etc. And you say its unfair to pay for a game?

Usagi

Come September 7th and if SL isn't worth logging on for I'll cease to come to the forums as my life drains away into Spore.

People who can't/don't buy L$ don't cause any economic activity (of relevance) by definition since they lack the means to spend any significant amount. Kicking them all out won't affect the economy in the slighest.

It also doesn't really matter if there's one decent content creator among the NPIs or one NPI resident that manages to create a sucessful business without cashing it all out, in the whole of their group their personal success is drowned out since they're a rare exception.

Just in case you haven't noticed, you can already run your own offline SL-style sim and visit it using a number of branching SL clients. Or, take that offline sim and hook it to one of the growing alternative grids.

Or forego SL altogether and try another of several virtual environments in development. Avoid the rush, get in on the experimental ground floor. Not much in the way of commerce or population, but that's how SL (and the Web) were for quite a while.

Free accounts pull in social groups for population, some percentage of that population will add value (content or cash) to the virtual world. It is in the best economic interest of the virtual world's management, and arguably best for the world itself, to encourage continual growth.

Provided they are a verified unique human being. I didn't mind things when it asked for CC info or to give a cell phone number or paypal account. Sure, having 2 CCs, a bank account, and three cells meant you could have (potentially) 8 accounts as "unique" it was better than a new one every 12 seconds forever.

I'm a free account holder too and i really do not agree at all with this at all, you should think off all the people on here that are free account owners. We are mostly free account holders for a reason WE CAN'T AFFORD TOO PAY ANY EXTRA!!!. And i really am not gonna waste my money on a bit off land and 300L a week, i'd sooner spend £5 and get the money too spend on whatever i want.

So forgot all this bullshit cause LL aint gonna get rid of the free accounts there are too many people with them spending there money.

I just got here, and I love it, but i hate the lagg and the fact that my hair, jewelry and shoes end up in my BUTT, when rezzin into a club or a place with lots of animations. Then I get this horrible thing where I fall thru the floor or crash. I don't understand what is going on with them. I like Second life, since I got over the learning curve, I sure hope they decide to do something with it, before it dies out. Another great idea and opportunity killed by the lack of priorities.

Oh, I'd forgotten that I had posted on this thread, and thus did not reply, how rude of me.

On that fairly narrow point, charging for accounts as per the first post here also excludes accounts which _do_ buy L$ and pay out a fair amount to creators.


Collette says it well, but to add a bit, quite a lot of what I say certainly would be an issue. To pick a couple: people who wanted to create something for external residents to visit (e.g. pretty much every corporate advertiser or conferencer, discussion group, non-profit organisation and so on) would be crippled, as nobody is going to pay $10 or whatever it is to visit something that they saw on somebody's blog when they have a spare hour or two. Amongst the scripters and creators that I know that joined since free accounts were available, almost 100% when asked will say that they would not have bothered continuing initially if they had been asked to pay, regardless of how much tier they pay now. And when it comes to popularising the protocol so that it becomes dominant, user numbers are paramount, regardless of what they do.

You see where I come from, people that cant afford something dont get to use it. It's a very simple fact of life. When the "paying" population has to support people that can't afford the necessities of life it's called "welfare". I don't see how your "free" game is a necessity of life and I don't see where the paying accounts have to support you!

In addition, do you really think your 5 pounds spent on something is going to really matter to the economy in general? Don't you know that the people that can afford to pay can also push the economy further and faster than someone that is choking on 5 pounds?

There has been much trash talked about Premium and Basic accounts on these forums. THE only real difference between them is with a Premium account, you can buy land direct from LL.

With the trade of around 2 millions USD per DAY, and land sales, teir, which ALL goes back to LL, exchange rate payments when buying/selling L$'s, Advertising in Search and Classifieds, LL are raking in a small fortune... and you want to make 3 types of account? The 'Premium' one will buy you what?.. the ability to have a Linden deal with YOUR issues?

When I joinned SL 4 years ago, I paid for a 'Life Time Membership' a one off payment equivilant to a one year subscription, when SL has little to offer, let alone a future. 6 Months after paying that, they withdrew all LifeTime accounts and made us Basic/Free account status. Why the hell would I want to pay them twice? Lifetime, is Lifetime.

I have personally turned over in excess of 5 million L$'s (17-18k USD) in this platform, owning land, tier, employed many people, buying things etc, and still do. I have only taken out a few hundres USD to pay for our servers that we host our media on. On a very basic calulation, given that around 10% of the economy goes back to LL, I've paid them around $1,800 USD.. and you think I should add to that? Do I not qualify, along with everyone else in the platform, to have a quality service?

Whatever you are smoking, please pass it around.

You'll have a long wait on that "hun" thing. That has bugged me for years.

coco

In other words, imo, LL is hell-bent on throwing away the baby with the bathwater.

coco