Pay to Play

Please Please, set the joining to pay to play please, I am tired of greifers this is seriosuly getting out of hand. I understand you want more players but, there are many games that pay to play and there are millions of player's. If you dont change something soon you going to have the worst game, I really love second life, but I cant enjoy it anymore scents there are so many griefers. I mean serious come on if you make it one time pay to play and someone griefes harss they want have a alt chara they can get banned for ever there ip etc, and if the repeat the offense you take it court wise. Please Lindens Please change it back people that pay the game like my self, are getting annoyed I am seriosuly thinking of pulling out of this, and I know I get the respone " then leave we have problems to" but this problems effecting everyone not just me.

Those games that are pay to play and have millions of players have a goal that is very easy to get into progressing towards (levels, equipment). It's not the case with Second Life.

My basic account is only verified because I wanted to lurk the forums. Once I find a good place to hang out I'll probably put some of my money into this, but I don't see myself paying a subscription free for a very long time. Having to pay per month and feeling obligated to ALWAYS be playing the game (or your money goes wasted) is the reason why I immediately dismiss any game (or virtual world) that is subscription based, even if it has a free trial.

Griefers happen no matter what you do, anyway. I'm a newb so I don't really know, but are there enough people available to curb this by moderation? If not, why not?


Honestly, I like what a few people have suggested: Disallow scripting for basic accounts (but not basic plus).

Despite that the fact that I'm partially in agreement your statement Gabriel,we should not penalize everyone for an handful of "assclowns"...Let's not forget there's some interesting people worldwide which their banking systems are still not compatible with US ones,and that could be a great loss for SL too...

Here's the real problem:There is many kids/immature people out there with self-entitlement who see in the unverified free accounts the right to act like jerks and find a way to bypass any of the responsibilites they should square up in RL...You know,that "Heck if I wreck daddy's car;he gonna pay for a new one anyways" mentality

I agree with what Ziibly Isan said.

Removing the free accounts will change nothing. In games you have to play for (Lineage, Everquest, Ultima Online, Star War galaxies... to name a few) there are just many griefers and jerks....

And I disagree with your statement about kids. Growns ups grief and behave rude/bad just as much (maybe even more....).

And before you ask... I am 40+

Morwen

Don't worry I'm aware of that too...The "immature people" part are referring to them

There's no need to remove the FREE accounts - just the UNVERIFIED ones.

QFT

~Jessy

SL use to be pay to play and all was good. I love to see that come back. I am not saying kill off the ones that is free now. Just make it so there is no new ones. If you can not or will not do that just stop "NEW" UNVERIFIED ones.

1. Stop all new UNVERIFIED accounts
2. Stop all new Free accounts
or
3. Keep the free but make it so they have to pay a one time cost of $9.95 or like this #4
same as #3 but they have to play the $9.95 every Year So every 12 months they have to pay $9.95 and still can not own land. And this will be for all NEW accounts.
5. Keep it the way it is and maybe kill off SL.

And yes I know with #3 and #4 it will not Free do to you will have to pay but SO!! pay to play!!

I do not agree with this at all, some people cant afford to go blow their real life money on a virtual world, I know if I start paying for virtual crap I wont be able to stop myself, after spending £300 on Habbo Hotel for no real reason, and getting hacked and loosing it all, I realized that I cant continue paying money for virtual content.

To some people, it becomes an addiction.

I work damn hard on SL, I work my ass off so I can have a decent amount of money coming in to keep supporting myself on SL, without having to spend real cash, and you know what?
Thats a good thing.

I am a valuable member of the community, I create decent products that people pay good money for, and so do many other free accounts, we too help the community.

Account Verification should be focused upon more, which I am willing to do, (when I signed up and verified my account for the free lindens, it said there was an error and it didnt actually verify my account.)

Dont punish all free accounts based on the actions of some griefing assholes.

I agree on the verifieds versus free.

I love to play SL, but on MY own time. I also sub to EQ2. With EQ2, there is progression and there is no other way for them to make money but on subs. EQ2 also spends quite a bit more time dealing with bugs so that the game runs stable and semi-flawless.

However, SL has land tier fees, fees for selling or buying Lindens, fees for being able to even own land, fees fees fees. I know for a fact, if I had to start paying even $10USD a month, there's no way I'd be here. By the time I pay that and all the fees for anything I want to do... I'd end up losing WAY more money for something I enjoy than a sub to a trad MMORPG.

One time fee *might* be feasible.

However, I think the best idea I have heard is to not allow basic non verifieds to script. Sure it may eliminate... what 100 max scripters who are good at it and aren't verified. But as I've always said in an argument like this:

It's risk versus reward. I'd gladly trade 100 good scripters for stability. I'd gladly trade off people who only want to come here to script with no direction to keep grid attacks to a minimum.

While all these people complain that they wouldn't be here if it weren't for unverified, they don't remember how nice SL was when it was up for 2-3 weeks at a time, when our biggest problem was trying to get a server reset. I value their opinion and hell, I ain't even that old, but I know how it used to be for 7 months before 6-6-6. To them, SL down often is normal and they don't know any better and refuse to hear the truth about the way it was. They weren't business owners when the grid was up and see sales decline because people can't buy, won't buy out of fear, or the grid is down.

I'll trade all of them for anything that takes SL and leaves it running for more than 4 days at a time.

Let's not forget that playing SL is a privilege, not a right. Given a choice between playing SL and feeding the family well, sorry but I won't live on Ramen Noodles just to play a computer game.

I am not aware of any other decent online game that allows you to play forever for free. There is a reason for this, and any secure business plan requires those playing the game to pay something to offset the costs.

Essentially, it is those of us who *do* pay to play SL, and the Vulture Capitalists who throw money at Linden Lab without really being sure what it's all about, that are subsidising those who are playing for free.

I think SL would be greatly improved - and financially secure - if the ability to cash out game money for real cash was simply restricted to being only available to Premium accounts.

Lewis

Verified accounts can be problem as well as many of us have up to 7 email accounts and can change them at any time to get around the verifing through email...

You're right...Unlike unverifieds,free basic accounts could be an asset to SL economy.I think the following may keep people happy:

Unverified account= 7-10 days trial period,limited to 1 per household,no stipend,script & LindeX access denied(duh!),option to upgrade to Basic (free) or Premium (at cost);

Basic account= free access,improved verification,first one free & additional at 9.95$,no stipend,script & LindeX access (buy,no sell) limited,option to upgrade to Premium;

Premium account= free access,first one at 9.95$ & additional at reduced rate,limited stipend,illimited access to script & LindeX,current premium privileges.

Some details are subject to arguing,but that should mainly covers most of the bases

And yes,for the sake of SL: a trial should remain a trial.No more,no less...

Pi$$ing in the wind here!! I see this will never go anywhere, we are just stuck. to many other V.W. out on the web to go to and SL does not want to loose anyone when they can make on avarege of $60 us dollars per day per user it what they stated when you break it down how much they bring in in$$$ per per person per day

This sort of thread has went around so many times. dead end

Ah Earl, therein lies my point. You don't even know what unverified means, because you weren't here when it was required. Verification through email is NOT what's at discussion. It's verification through credit card, cell phone number, paypal or umm... I think there was one other way.

And even if it were to mean email verification: that's still another step that juvenile griefers won't spend hours doing.

Exactly.

coco

Unverified, sure. Basic, NO WAY. We shouldn't have to pay tons of money to enjoy a game casually. What you are asking is not only a 'download' fee, but also a monthly fee with ZERO ability to sell Lindens. No way to make money on scripting and those who are verified can't even script, and to sell anything, must make them sell their Lindens through paypal to a premium account. This doesn't stop the way things are done and there is no reason to allow verified people NOT to be able to sell. All it will do is help out the scammers.

If this came in place, I could EASILY set up shop to buy Lindens through paypal for large fees for basic accounts and make money for doing nothing but holding a premium account. LL loses money this way as well.

Opening the door to scammers of basic accounts and making it that you have to pay to play (yes you do, since you'd have to be charged fee after fee with no way to pull money out of your own account) would make basic accounts run away. I know I would and so would many others. Which in turn, takes out assests to the economy, and makes running a business in SL EVEN MORE for the rich (as when they took out dwell), and I've watched too many cute fun small hangout spots that depended on that few L a day go down. You take it further for basic accounts, and even more will go down.

Why do we have people screaming PAY PAY PAY at all? Can you use some logic?

Griefers use scripts for the deed, right? So just don't allow basic accounts to use scripting (or certain commands) full stop. Basic Plus can. Premium can.

If you happen to be good with/interested in programming and not a griefer, then you might be in a slight predicament if you don't want to pay the one $10 fee for Basic Plus. But dropping the free scripters is better than dropping ALL free members, some of which might eventually put our money into this. I'm personally a supporter of games that allow for free play, but have paid content that isn't really required to enjoy yourself. I've already explained the feeling of obligation associated with subscription-based games.


Furcadia's the closest thing to SL that's forever free. Even though the graphics are like 10+ yeras old, it's much like SL in that if you find the right people or have a knack for making content, it can be an extremely enjoyable and rewarding experience.
I only left it because I found interest in other communities, and never bothered to find a new gang once my current one started leaving as well. ^^;

You can't argue for not paying then ask people who want to script to pay. It's hypocritic.

I say after you have payment info USED, then you can be tracked much easier and then you can script. Buy a few L or something to kick that on. This way, you pay, but you still get something back.

What it still all boils down to is that we need a "visitors grid" that unverified accounts can access, seperate from the main grid. You want on the main grid? Get verified. Provide VALID ID. That doesn't mean you have to sign up for some monthly or annual fee, but it does mean you have to provide a valid and tracible identity. No ID, no entry, except to the demo grid.

So much of what SL does requires being able to run scripts that it is impossible to say "Just don't allow this class of people to run scripts!", and make it worth remaining in SL at all. It is NOT a matter of "not letting them WRITE scripts". I'll wager most of these script-kiddies couldn't write a Hello Avatar script from memory. THEY DON'T NEED TO WRITE SCRIPTS TO MAKE TROUBLE WITH SCRIPTS. They just need to pick one up and USE it. It's like street gangs and guns. Most street punks could not make a bullet or a gun if their life depended on it. But any of them can pick those items up and use them as a weapon. So you limit script writing for unverified accounts, or unpaid accounts, or what have you. They just make one "coder" account, use that to make their weapons, and pass it on to their disposable alts.

If you can not RUN a script in SL, you can't:
* use any pose ball
* use any animation
* use any door that works
* use any vehicle
* use any vendor
* make any purchases
* ... Do I need to go on?

If you can't run scripts, you can't do anything but talk to people and watch others have fun doing stuff you can't do. You may as well not even log on.

So, don't limit scripts. Eliminate unverified accounts instead. I am NOT saying "Everyone has to pay a membership fee", or even "everyone has to provide credit card info". I am saying that everyone needs to provide SOME acceptable standard of tracable identity. Can't come up with a credit card? How about verifying your postal address by a postcard that must be recieved and responded to, with a personalized activation code? There are dozens of ways a person COULD verify their identity. It does not have to be a single, one-size-fits-nobody solution.

It isn't rocket science. Every e-commerce software package that exists on the Net has some method of verifying a customer's identity. The excuse of "Oh, but some of them can get around that validation check method" is as bogus as saying that because some people can pick locks, or can crash a car through the wall, that we should eliminate all doors and locks on business buildings! "Oh, it won't keep them all out, so why do it at all?" Get real. ID Validation WILL keep most of them out! And for the rest, it makes them far easier to track down.

Limiting some scripting functionality to verified accounts is not a bad idea. I wonder though, about unverified users using freebie objects that contain scripts they don't have rights to run? Would they see the little script error icon, which when I first saw it, barely noticed and didn't know what it meant?

I doubt they will limit unverifieds to a certain amount of time as long as both resident count and profitability are moving upwards.

Simple answer to the last 2 posts:

Make it so unverified people cannot recieve prims in world.

Or at least not able to accept scripted prims.

and what of verified free accounts such as myself? i have a free basic account with verified pay info. i spend between 100 to 200 usd in this game. as im sure others in my similar situation do as well. i dont grief, although i can be a b*tch, i work, although i dont see SL as the money pot some do, what about me and people like me who rather than pay a monthly stipend, but does have a verifyed free basic account, do? i agree something needs to be done, and im for killin off/stopping the unverifyed/DEAD(not logged in for 30 days or more) accounts and demanding more info(and accountability)in the future from new players.

again a more LOGICAL solution would be:

1) close the open door policy for joining.
2)go thru all unverifyed accounts, those that have not been accessed in 30 days, kill
3)put into place, a way for those wishing to join, but have no credit card or bank account info, some other form of verification(state id card,a bill with your name& address.anything that says you are who you are). and give them 10 days to get it in.
4) get tougher on the griefing, and i dont mean the petty stuff(joe blow pushed me while wearin a gigantic penis)i mean, the ones who continue to constantly be a problem. suspending them for 3-14 days only gives them time to create another account to continue thier garbage.
5)LL should think about doin a sort of game card system. i know im gonna hear a lot of beef on this one, but with those game cards, you do have to have some sort of verifyable info in order to use them.

my two and a half cents.

...
Did you read that before sending it? xD You suggested the same thing you were telling me not to do. The difference is you're buying L$ instead of a Basic Plus account. Anyway, I agree with you.

The holiday season is coming up and i wondering if LLabs is going to even have a signup page anymoe. It cant get anymore simple then what it is. Other then putting a name email pw etc.......i really feel well see a non payment as well meaning no cc infor or pp or anything... well be looking at 2million populas by feb at this rate.