Different ways to create an Alt?

I started to create an alt, when I got to the question about adding it to an existing account, for $9.95.

What are the advantages and disadvantages? Why would one pay $10.00 instead of just creating a new character?

Sorry I asked

All accounts after your first need to be paid for. The rule is 1 free account per person.



But then that rule is not really enforced....

Well, to be totally honest, if I were you, just create another account and select that you have no other.

It's free and not tracked.

The rule of having 1 seems to be selective, some are paying while some are not and in LL's words, "it's efficiency is being investigated".

I have 2 accounts on 2 credit cards, both still verified and both are still free.

How's this for a reason? If they catch you, and can prove that you LIED on your registration form to steal extra free accounts, they can cancel your accounts and confiscate their assets.

Yes, they don't check very well, YET, for whether or not the RL person entering his information on the form already has an account. But that will change in time.

Legally, the first account is free, and as many after that as you want cost $9.95 USD each for Basic, or whatever Premium rate you sign up for, to go Premium. You only get one free account - the first one you sign up as. After that, they cost $9.95, or you're stealing from them.

They recently verified that as long as you pay for them, you can have as many accounts as you want. No more "2 per person or payment method, and 5 per household lifetime maximum". That limit has been abolished.

If you like SL well enough to make a second account, isn't it worth ten bucks, to get a lifetime pass? Most people waste more than that for a single movie and snacks at a theatre.

So one free basic account and all others have to be Premium right? What if you have just one premium account the decide to create an alt, when you register that alt don't they ask if you already have an account and if you answer yes you have to provide billing information. Do they not bill you for that alt? I haven't tried this, just curious.

Also, say you have one basic account and a number of others that are premium. Is there anything that would stop you from changing those premiums back to basic and no longer paying for them?

Ah, that makes sense then. I didn't understand that it was a one time fee, I was thinking that you got one Basic and all others had to be Premium.

Thanks for the clarification.

No, you get your first Basic account for free. You can upgrade that to Premium, but it costs the same to do so as just creating a new account and making it Premium to start with. You can purchase as many additional Basic accounts as you desire, and each costs you a one-time fee of $9.95 USD. You can also purchase as many Premium accounts as you desire, bearing in mind that each Premium account does incur a fee that repeats monthly, quarterly or annually.

Okay I am stumped by this one and still haven't found out how to fix it. Ever since the upgrade I haven't had eyes and everyone I see has no eyes also. I know they are there, they come up in pictures others take and other people can see them, but not all. I have tried rebaking my everything, taking my AV down to the basics and then back to where I was, but nothing works. I know it is a bit superficial but it is kind of creepy being able to see the scenery through someones head!

If anyone has had this problem or any suggestion please let me know!

Thanks!

Jeni

You're kidding right? Yes, we know it's not right, but no... they will NEVER EVER EVER EVER spend so much resource to tracking IP's, comp codes, and gaming, just to get that 9.95 or take assets. They'd spend WAY more tracking down and going through the channels, than to 'scare' people into doing it the right way. Not to mention LL's drive to have so many people to show that are online and now, I'd bet a good 1500-2000 are alts of people two boxing and some are 3, 4 and 5 boxing it. They want the numbers over rules.

Hell, some people are even in LA saying "This is me, this is my alt, this is my other alt". Yet, they are still fine. It's not good business sense all around from a PR standpoint to a monetary standpoint to start tracking all these people down. And the longer it would take them to do it... the worse it would look. I don't think LL is smart all the time, but I'm sure they are smart enough to do the math on this one.

When did they bring in this "alt accounts have to pay $9.95" rule?
What happens to those people who signed up for basic accounts after open registration, but before they brought in this rule/question on the join form? Will they later be demanded to pay for all but one of their accounts in order to keep them?

Actually I thought they always charged $9.95 for alts, but my memory in SL only goes back to May.

I don't have time for more than one alt, let alone money!

why have an alt? just wondering.

Some have one that handles all their business vendors and such so they can see where their money goes, what sells and some of the bigger sellers don't want pop ups constantly on their main account telling them so and so has bought. I'm sure some get the blue pop ups every 2-4 minutes.

Another reason is some people like to play two different styles. While one may be meaner, darker, and overall umm... more sexual, the other alt allows them to play the nice, pretty and sweet person. There are tons of reasons, those are just two.

This has been in place for several years I know of for sure and possibly since the start of SL. However, there is a large discussion and a supposed 'we will look into it' from LL as some people are being charged for linked alts and some are not.

Shirley's top ten reasons to have an alt:

10. Play a different kind of person.
9. Play a different gender.
8. Get away from your friends and build in peace.
7. Get away from a stalker.
6. Cheat on your partner.
5. Experiment with alternate lifestyles (gay, furry, Gor, faerie...).
4. Try out the newcomer experiences again (Help Island, money trees, freebies).
3. Test transferability of objects and use of vendors by somebody other than the owner.
2. Go out together with your alt and win couple costume contests.

and the number one answer:

1. Pie! (in other words, for the fun of it)

Extra bonus reason: if your SL business requires you to reveal your RL identity, being able to continue to have an avatar that is not linked to RL. (Do you really want your boss to know what you do with that closet full of poseballs?)

I have done some (but not all) of the above. I know that all ten reasons have been used by others in SL.

For the sake of $10 US honesty is the best policy, it is only a one off fee and it makes you legal, and yes it is not beyond the grounds of possibility Linden Labs could get "difficult" over this issue. With now more than 1.1 million accounts computing resource may well become a problem unless you play by the rules.

Two additional good reasons to have an alt account in addition to your main one (other points above are equally valid)

1) You have the ability to create your own group (two or more members)

2) You can "field test" all your own scripts and builds. When I first entered Second Life and realised this, I was very surprised to discover that some things acted very differently to my alt than that of my main avatar


Regards

John

over 400,000 avies under 30 days? OMG rules nolonger part of the game with creating avies. Its a sad fact that Llabs is just letting them in. Well its their compnay not mine......in the rate will hit 2 million populas by christmas. Does it matter anymore wither alt creation? no! does it seems to matter much to the playablity no. Is its it stressing the servers! YES is it hurtingthe Eco YES! will LLabs stop the creation of alts .NO! So give up and just play its not going t change........ 2 years inthe game and i seen this fine game turn into a joke...............NOlong bitching since nobody cares anymore........

Another reason to have an alt, though its rare. I recently made (and paid) for one just because of the last name.

Indeed. But will they get difficult with those established users who ignored the $9.95USD option when creating a free alt back in early September, considering they only did so in order to get back onto SL after being locked out during the password change debacle?

So many users did that, and the $9.95 option for existing members had been implemented on the sign-up page by that point.

My guess right now is that people who got additional free alts, either because they specificly lied on the entry form to get them, OR because LL failed to bill them, will probably not be retroactively charged for their free alts, unless LL has some other complaint against them. If a griefer or a financial scammer has a dozen alts that they never paid for, that is one more reason to ban them. If someone somehow abuses having multiple alts for other reasons, such as stalking, then LL might force them to get rid of some or all of the 'illegal' accounts.

I know several people who have alts, and in each case they provided all the appropriate information, fully expecting to pay $9.95 each for them. But they didn't always get billed. In that case, it's LL's own screw-up that they failed to collect their money. I would expect that in such cases, at worst the owner of the old account might have to pay for it if LL was doing a massive sweep to catch all the unpaid accounts that should have been paid for.

But in general, LL has been so lax on any 'policing' of past accounts that I would not expect action against anyone unless there was some new complaint.

One more reason.. your primary account's last name is Linden and maybe after work you just want to play ont this game.. er platform er whatever this thing called SL is.

They can do that anyways...