> Boo to Linden Labs. Free Accounts are killing Secondlife

OMG those type of bots are sooo much fun! We throw down landmines where we see them pop in & out, and wait!
Yes, the name situation is horrible, and getting worse every day. I don't expect LL would EVER purge old unused accounts... ever. You'd be asking them to seriously shrink their total account bragging number in favor of.. *shudders*... resident convenience *eek*. I don't think marketing and publicity departments would care if they rotated the available last names though

i think SL should purge inactive accounts after at least 6 months and it should also remove inactive names off your friends list.

a 30 day warning in a email will be enough to let people know when their accounts about to expire(this will just be for unverified accounts) because most people log in for the first time
get confused with everything and never log in again but they don't realize that they only
deleted SL off their computers and not close the account completely

im guessing that the people who log on only a few times don't really understand second life
and see it as a big confusing universe or some just come to see what all the big fuss is about only to see that it is not what they thought it would be and quit logging on but again they don't close their accounts they just delete SL and think that its over and done but its not

and what this does is make alot of cool names unavailable for the next person who
wants to live in SL and it also might be the cause of some of the lag, with the inactive accounts using up some space for inventory storage, i mean just look at the total number
of residents witch is 7.9 million vs the number of residents online at any given time witch is
between 19,000 and 40,000 plus and according to the login statistic only 1.7 million accounts are somewhat active within the last two months

so its not really the free accounts killing SL, its the fact that LL is so "nice" to let peoples accounts stay open for a really long time so they can rack up the numbers like one poster
says. i don't even think that yahoo, msn or google put together will let you keep accounts open that aren't active as long as LL will let you keep your SL account open.

if LL will purge inactive unverified accounts then i think that some of their major problems
will be solved, now i know that the number of total residents will suddenly drop way down
but at least LL will have less to worry about and new residents can have cool names to choose from and also more space will be available and some lag reduced.

My name is one reason I feel alienated from the game. Wherever I go online, forums, games everything I always use my own real name, with underscores if necessary. Zephyrin Zabelin's such an ugly name, I don't feel as if I can identify with it.

Agrees with Kevin........there is no rational in the remark. But what freebie accounts are doing is much much more harm then that. I given up on the fight to stop freebie accounts because LLABS thinks they are doing more good then bad..........

We are reaching 8 million soon. But really as someone said earlier how many stayed for 1 to 7 days then left...........

LLABS has stopped cycling in new names, well then again as other have said before the possible combinations of first and last names is endless...... take your pick witch fits.....

But bitching about the taken first names is just senceless ( in all do repect ). Because i doubt people have that much time on their hand in RL to just look for possible First adn Last name combos..........


Usagi

If people don't want to "play" Second Life because they can't have their first name (or other main choices), then they shouldn't be installing it to begin with. That is one incredibly trivial reason not to try Second Life.

Try being creative. It works.


ps. and I'm continually insulted by people bashing free accounts--my account is basic, and I thrive in Second Life. I do not hinder or annoy anyone.

Good Point Michael, but being in the creative field in rl. I never expect that much from the aveage person, when it comes to creative thinking on sl. Until i see the actions of creative thinking first hand on sl i pass judgement.......

As for the "GAME" well game in terms of how most use this "Media" or "Medium" take your choice in words.


Usagi

Yep Tony18E65GH34 is much more comfortable a name anyway

I have my RL name--both first and last--as a registered account. I find myself less associated with it than I do this account. It's so much more me that I feel less me.

When I first signed on I upset I couldn't find my first name so I asked a Linden.

I was told the reason they limit the amount of times a first or last name is used was to avoid having a game full of Mary's or Herdandez's. By limiting it the chances of running into too many of them at one time considering the different times zones were lower and the game would seem more diverse.

So I also used a Gealic version. What else can you do?

A while back 150 per last name use to be the max. then retired the name......
But now! GESHHHHHHHHHH its a nightmare you see people with XdaveX whatever etc....... or worse 1983Bob whatever..........

I suspect - like most things that LL just stops doing - they're getting ready to revamp the whole naming system.

Just like I think these forums are going away soon (hence why BB code is turned off)

Well the signs are not noticeable at this stage. Not only the forums but also the blog are going bie bie........

of course all the common names are going to be taken you idiot. there are a few million accounts floating around now, and with that kind of traffic your lucky to get any sort of common first name. did you honestly expect your freind would be able to find it? this has NOTHING to do with free accounts ether, i'm willing to bet a large sum of lindens that the name your freind wanted was taken by paid account..
if picking your name is your biggest worry, then you really shouldent be complaining in the first place, when there are so many valid problems with the game code, and community that need more attention.

personally, i think if you cant find a name that wasnt taken already, your not even trying to be creative, or interesting, and dont deserve an account anyways. this is a game of imagination and creativity. your going to get awfully sick of things if you plan on just sitting around in a house somewhere dressed the same as you are IRL.

free accounts do as much harm to the game, as all the free content that people keep adding every day. free accounts are the only reason a game this buggy and disorganized could have become as popular and widly recognized as it is. the only excuses ive seen to take away the free accounts so far have generally been petty, innane excuses and hold no valid finacial or socialogical benifits that ive seen yet. if you can form a good valid rational excuse why free accounts are harmfull, other then "they stole my name!" or "they spammed my club!".
hell, my account is a free account, and after 2 years i coown land, build vast sims and complex avatars, and earn enough to pay my rent each month. does any of that harm you in any way? am i taking lindens from your babies mouth, and using it to gold plate my john?

Hmm, are you just insulting people to troll or because it's the way you speak all the time?
Of course it's got a lot to do with free accounts, do you think all those 7million residents holding names that rarely or probably never going to log in again are still paying $10 per month to hold those names?

I think a good suggestion for freeb accounts is maybe limiting them to a degree.

I started out basic. I liked being basic, and I am thinking about going back to basic. I have a lot of problems with LL right now to be shelling out money to them, but that's neither here nor there.

I think what would be nice is one, limiting just how much stuff a basic account can have. I met a girl the other day in Violet who clamed to have well over 12,000 items! WTF do you need that many items for? I barely break 4,500 items, and I'm still deleting useless junk like boxes I took items out of or shapes I made but don't need. I think it'd help cut down on a lot of issues if they limited them to say, 2500-3000 items, total. It's actually not bad, and I figure a lot of basic accounts would hate the idea, but 3000 items is a lot of items. I could get back down to that, and stay around there easily.

Another thing, and I am still somewhat on the fence about this, is taking the basic away again. Making it a trial-run, get it for X amount of days/weeks/months, say 30 days, and then either upgrade or your account goes through the standard deletion shakedown, ie; made dormant for 60 days or whatever it was, and then permanently deleted.

30 days is enough time to decide whether or not SL is worth the 9.95 to someone.

While on one hand I like that idea, on the other I dislike it as I know a great many people who do have basic accounts, and are really awesome, but if that happened would just leave Second Life. It'd also piss a lot of people off, but the way I see it is, I am paying for this damn game. Why am I paying for it?

Anyway, just two suggestions.

Hmm because somebody has to pay for it to pay the developers staff?

I guess, heh. Still, 30 days is plenty enough time to decide whether or not SL is a fit for a person or not. I know within 30 days of playing when I first started that I was comfortable having to pay, if they'd made me.

I agree. I was off the Island in half a day and Premium a week later. I learned as I went along. I always prefer self teaching, which is ironic considering my career choice.

Yeah, well, I wanted the first name John, which is my first name, and my last name is strikingly similar to my SL last name, but, 4 days earlier someone had taken John... "J" is not enough characters, and "Jay" was taken, I eventually settled on Johan, and often times have to tell people I am not German..lol

People with reasonable names they made in 2005 have absolutely NO BUSINESS criticizing people trying to make ANY decent name now and not being able to.

For some reason, LL has decided to stop providing us with any new last names.

The typical LL modus operandi is to decide they are going to revamp something, then just stop doing it altogether.

Then they don't get around to revamping it.

I don't know why in God's name it is impossible to provide new last names on a regular basis. The only reason I can think of (outside of no one wants to do it, and according to the Tao of Linden, no one has to do any work they don't want to) is that they have run into some kind of an odd, unexpected technological brick wall which suddenly won't ALLOW them to put in any new last names.

coco

At the moment they are so busy adding corperation ads, creation of their islands, etc etc etc, they are forgetting the core of the users that have been here for years. They NEVER get around to doing its because to them its small change as they say. Corperations FIRST then US .

What a minute. Linden Labs is owned by the US Government?



Is that the same brick wall that prevents them from billing people without hassle, or answering basic customer service issues?

Yup, I think Bragg put that wall up.

Mandy C

This argument needs to be nipped from the bud of thought. It has NO place in this virtual world, and is only trying to create a pseudo-class-system for us to acknowledge.

As soon as you start charging everyone, this quickly becomes a World of Warcraft model—which is, consequently, what made me stop playing WoW. Forcing me to pay to live in your digital Universe fully created by its users (i.e. ME)? That’s ridiculous.

I run off a basic account. I rent a quaint office space on Silicon Island (a very tidy, well run sim where RL business thrives). I am far from a nuisance to the SL world…I am creating beautiful things, making people happy, putting some actual thought into my designs, and the role I play in this virtual environment.

Griefers will never go away. Just because you have a paying account with SL, does not automatically make you the easiest person to get along with. I’ve met many sim owners that are jackasses. In fact, I think I’ve met MORE paying citizens that are openly jerks than non-paying citizens. “Hey, what are you doing intruding on our private meeting...on my public land retard…get off my land!” (banned for no reason)—do you know how often that has happened to me? Keep in mind, I’m a mature, professional, cool, easy to get a long with dude…there is never a reason to ban me…but people do, because they are idiots (paying or not).

My basic account adds greatly to the environment around you whether you know it or not. Don’t deny us the right to walk beside you…don’t reject us because you can’t cope with trouble-makers.

Real Eyes, Realize, Real Lies.

Thanks for listening. Stop by the studio some time.

I do agree Payment staus is not a good indicator of behavior. I do feel the uncontrolled membership increase has been a drain on the infrastructure. I do think all residents should be verified however, in some sort of logical, non encumbering way, as opposed to the idiotic plan announced several months back, but don't necessarily have to Pay To Play.