Alt limits re-instated?

So, I'm trying to create another alt (I've created them before, and paid the US$10
for all of them), and I now get:

"You are unable to create an account at this time. Linden Lab reserves the right to limit the number of Second Life accounts an individual may have."

I read through the forums and heard that Linden Labs removed the alt limit some time back.
I'm trying to figure out if this is some software glitch (database down, etc.), or if they
re-instated the limit. I don't want to circumvent policy; I just wanted to clarify what
the policy is.

-Chris

I've been limited from creating others also -- not that I really need anymore. I have 5 currently.

Yay, there were people creating dozens to buy first land, jack up the price, and resell it with disposable alts.

Right, cause you only have to flip it for as low as L$4000 to turn a profit. US$9.95 for the alt, flip the land at L$4000 and make about US$3-4... flip it at L$10000 for significant profit. Then have the alt pay a secondary 'banker' alt, and instant get rich quick scheme.

I sure hope they changed it..............I believe 2 to 5 is reasonable.

Personally, I hope it's just a temporary measure until they figure out a real way to deal with the land flippers. But if this stops the land flippers, I am all for it, UNTIL a better solution can be put in place. They need to put something into place that disallows resale of First Land for at least 3 to 4 months. That would make creating premium alts financially unviable for use as a way to scarf up cheap land.

However, for roleplayers, capping verified alts that we are perfectly willing to PAY FOR and provide valid ID for is suicide for LL as a roleplaying venue. Imagine telling an actor that the first 5 roles they perform would be their entire career. That is what you do to a roleplayer when you limit their alts. If all *you* want to be on-line is yourself, then 1 account is plenty. But if you're an actor? It's a closed house and no further roles.

In the NCI class I took on land owning, I was told that my alts weren't eligible for first land. This seems easy enough to implement in software -- if someone's honest enough to be willing to pay the ten U.S. bucks for an alt, then flagging the alt as ineligible shouldn't be a problem.
I wonder if this policy also changed, along with the new limits.

Too bad about the new limits. Had I known about them, I would've planned my alt names differently. Oh well.

Maybe my simple mind is too small to grasp the hurdles it must be for a creator of such a high tech virtual world as Second Life to find a way to see when an account has excessive buying of first land and flipping it. I mean they have a system that keeps thousands of inventory items linked to an account........actually to over 3 million accounts! Why can't they see when someone with the same payment source (or same set of payment sources) abusing a system? I have a few credit cards............but not dozens. There would be a pattern..........and I cannot believe Linden Labs could not pick up on that. And unless I'm really simple........don't credit cards, checks, PayPal accounts have real life, verifiable names attached to them?

Seems to me that is there a way........and not that hard to impliment either. That might solve everyone's concerns. Even Ceera's which I had not thought of. But what does a simple mind know anyway? LOL

Odd i just made a alt tonight and it worked. Although i didn't tie it with my main account. So it was in fact free.

Yiffy............that alt can't buy "first land".

I seriously doubt there is a mass coordinated effort to buy First Land using loads of alts. The amount of time spent searching for the land is not worth the payoff, when one can do the same thing with existing land that is sold, buying bargain land and reselling it, and get better returns. Not to mention having more fun I've made some money land flipping, but mostly I enjoy the hunt, exploring the land, meeting residents, seeing how land is developed, and how the market fluctuates under forces.

i hope so it will cut down onthe camper freeloaders laggin out sims

I recently got my partner to try SL (and now I can't get any sleep because she plays more than I do.). And since she was a new new player, I helped her to find first land. It wasn't easy. She got pretty much the last plot in a section. There were a few other obvious first landers.

And then there were the obviously not new owners. I was showing her how to build and we were putting up one of the freebie treehouses from NCI and watched the land baron at work. (Gorgeous treehouse btw, whoever made and released that as free deserves a gold star.)

Next to us, the entire section next to Linden land was bought, traded, rebundled into 1024 parcels, cleared and leveled, and marked for sale within a short time. It was very very obviously a professional operation from beginning to end. It was the best land in the section. It was all in a block. It was traded almost instantly to a land baron. They were all set and ready to landscape it. There's just no question in my mind that these were disposable accounts used for a profit. You could see how all the newbies were, dancing around their land, rezzing prims, putting out trees and freebie A frames. And then there was this second silent group working quickly and efficiently.

And since we know there are land-buying bots, it's not particularly a difficult exercise to look for the land.

I think you'll find that was a patch of auctioned land next to the first land and not actual first land.

I have to agree with Animon..using alts to buy first land for flipping would be incredibly innefficient.

Quite often nowadays, a sim with first land on it will have a few large sections which are auctioned off separately, and I would bet that is what you saw.

In the old days, entire sims would be given over to first land, with the effect that they looked extremely ugly.

Nope, it was first land for sale when we popped into the sim. I saw it for sale, TP'd there, then TP'd her. She tried to buy but it failed because the automatic upgrade thing isn't working. While she was fiddling in her account on the website everything but the last plot that we got was sold. But no, it was definitely first land.

(There's no way we'd have gotten anything if I hadn't been in the same room talking her through it all.)

Although it's true that there may be large auctioned plots adjacent to first land (I myself own one, right next to some first landers), there are "realty companies" looking for people to join them. What else do you think this is, but getting legit noobs to take part in the first land scam? In fact the group next to mine is called "First Land Finders." Either it's a bunch of alts or it's a "realty company" full of noobs getting first land.

First Land Finders is a genuine group that simply alerts members when first land becomes available. I bet the owners of the land next to yours simply hadn't changed their active group when they got the land, leaving the land set to that group.

But a good old fashioned conspiracy theory sounds so much more interesting, doesn't it?

Sure does! lol mea culpa to first land finders, but when half the plots behind me went up for sale, the theory was easier to believe.