Metaverse SHOCKER!!! — Free SL Accounts Locked Out?
by Alphaville Herald on 13/06/08 at 12:06 am
Why are free accounts sometimes disabled to make room for paying customers?
by Avil Creeggan
Dear Linden Lab,
I am a free account. I have been a free account for the past two years. During that time, I’ve dealt with a lot of stuff that, frankly, shouldn’t be happening; flagrant asset loss and dehabilitation, incompetent customer service representatives, seemingly-random suspensions and bans for which there is no notification, having to provide my identification on multiple occasions… But it’s been pretty much okay.
You see this dialog box?
This changes everything. You know why?
Forget the fact that you didn’t tell me this was coming, at all. Forget the fact that, not only can I not login, neither can my friends. Realize that you consider me to “just” be a free account, now, and nothing else. You are completely wrong.
Step back, and ask yourself:
*How many of your over one million residents don’t pay for premium accounts?
*What happens to the economy when the currency these non-premium accounts hold is effectively frozen?
*How many corporations, content creators, and land barons are paying for simulators and asset hosting for the sole purpose of marketing to these residents?
*Where does your profit go when the grid is composed of premium accounts attempting to sell their content to uninterested premium accounts?
I’ll answer the scenario for you:
Public opinion of Second Life falls from “target of mockery” to “a worthless pit”. Corporations drop their (already worthless and ineffective) simulators due to the reduction of visibility, and reduction of effectiveness, caused by free accounts vacating the grid. New user registration drops to record lows. The emphasis on open source simulator development increases, and open source grids become viable. The Linden Lab grid is outmoded. Linden Labs, lacking additional offerings, fails.
My contribution to Second Life is greater than any hundred premium accounts. Not only do I directly create content (as many Herald readers can attest), I am the reason you can rent your simulators. I am the reason you have a public presence. I am the reason that Linden Labs is a publically traded company. If you’re reading this as a member of Linden Labs, I’m the reason you have a job.
I’m not the reason the grid is less stable than Britney Spears. Your incompetence is.
Fix it, or face the consequences. I am not picking up your tab.
Sincerely,
The Free Account.
Kytec
Jun 13th, 2008
Linden Lab needs to realize that even though they are receiving a massive influx of money from the millions of customers using their service if they devote some of that income towards building their business they could increase that flow exponentially. Maybe they feel the amount they are making is good enough for their lifestyles or something. Maybe they are that naive to think that we are so dependent on their game to actually pay $9 a month to get preferred logins.
-Make the asset server flawless
-Bring back live help and outsource to India so ganesh can bring back my sex gen beds lost in a crash
-Create a business model and schedule projects and deadlines in your offices
-Develop new and innovative ideas
-Utilize the newest graphics and physics engines on optional clients and simulators
If you race with a Honda Civc enough times to afford a Ferarri Enzo get the damn Ferarri and go after bigger prizes, dont lose it all trying to move the same shitty vehicle up in class only to get left behind in some smart bastard’s exhaust.
Ghosty
Jun 13th, 2008
How many of those non-paying logins are bots?
uh-huh.
U. N. Owen
Jun 13th, 2008
I have been a free account for a short while now, and I can’t really say that I’ve contributed anything much to SL, but the animosity that I see towards free basic accounts, however, is just appalling. I have no payment information on file and have not upgraded simply to protect my personal information. Yes, I understand that Linden Labs has a high security server, but even those can be hacked into. With the massive amount of frauds and scams going around, I just don’t feel safe openly giving ANY website my credit card information, and there is no way around it. Even Paypal has the potential to be hazardous to my credit. The strangest thing about all this is most definately the egos of the “premium members.” Think about this for one moment, you are paying for A GAME!!!!!! With any online game, you may be forced to pay to continue or to better your account, but in SL, you don’t really have to. With premium accounts you get a free 512m squared scrap of land, the ability to buy land from the mainland, and you get a small stipend per week worth about US$1.50. You also must pay about US$12 per month. With basic accounts (free firsts) you don’t pay anything. However, you can buy privately owned land, whose weekly premiums are, in some cases, better than LL, and as for the stipend, well, find a job and you will make a lot more per week, possibly per hour. Now, I’m not saying that because we are free users, we deserve better treatment, but just because we have no payment information on file and do not directly pay LL, does not mean that we are all just griefers who deserve to be banned. We still are just as much people as the others that do pay. In reality, LL does not make the majority of their income on paid users, they make it on virtual land sales and other company sponsorships, therefore, you can think that you are the column of Second Life as much as you want, but you are only a single stone in the column.
Dancien
Jun 13th, 2008
All that crying and you still can’t get the name of the company right.
DagnyT Dagger
Jun 13th, 2008
I have a premium account, and I got the top 1/2 of this message several days ago while attempting to login after there had been some problems. So I’m tending to believe this screen is from a similar box, but photoshopped to create controversy, and possibly just to see how many people will actually fall for it.
Unless/Until others come forward who claim (with screens) the same treatment, I don’t see why anyone is getting up in arms.
But if it *is* true I tend to agree that paying customers should get preferential treatment. All those up there who say they contribute by building/selling/buying things but have never seen a benefit to going premium…well…that would be your benefit then wouldn’t it?
lolwat
Jun 13th, 2008
Basic summery of Darkfoxx’s post: LOL I R A BTARD (EVEN THOUGH I’M INSULTING THE CULTURE I SO DESPERATELY TRY TO EMULATE RITE NOW SO RANDUM LOL) EPIC LONGCAT IS LONG ORLY LOL
PN ARE FAGGORTS
I AM NOT BUTTHURT, YOU ARE
SPRINKLE IN SOME CONDESCENDING ATTITUDE
DON’T FORGET THOSE TYPOS
AND SEND
TIME FOR SOME HORSECOCK ^_^;
Sean Linden
Jun 13th, 2008
I pushed the button on this, and it was for about 15 minutes. I had no idea that that was the message it was giving people. The database was running hot because some connections had hung while holding a lock (this is getting fixed with very high priority) and I had to make a call whether to lock everyone out or just some people. I decided to just lock out some people.
Whether or not someone has paid us money on a given account turns out to be a crappy metric for whether or not to lock them out. This won’t be happening again. I certainly had no intention of insulting people, and seeing what the message says I don’t blame anyone for feeling insulted and like we don’t love them.
Solar Legion
Jun 13th, 2008
You know, I find all of this highly amusing. We have some rather smug people who seem to think that just because they have the capability to rent a piece of ‘mainland’ data from Linden Lab they somehow have the right to: Better Customer Service Access, greater transfer rates for cash ion and cash out, and now the ability to log in when the very people who buy their wars cannot get in (I am certain that I missed a few items in here.)
I do hate to be such a wet blanket for such people but I do pay Linden Lab quite a bit through the Linden Exchange. They do not see a cut in the money you pay to purchase in world currency. Now, I may simply be splitting hairs or simply being an asshole but many Basic Account holders spend more per month through the Lindex than most Premium Account holders, even the truly old ones who have established shops.
I agree that No Payment Information on File residents should be locked out during high load times. I do believe that anyone who has ever purchased lindens and has continued to do so should have access to Second Life during the high load times.
Yes, I realize that some people purchase their Lindens through a place that uses the Risk API … They are an unfortunate casualty.
Gareth Nelson
Jun 13th, 2008
Old news: http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/02/16/contingency-measures-to-ensure-service-as-second-life-grows/
If you’re a free user, you have no right to be on SL at all, LL are essentially giving you a free gift with your free account and since announcing thse contingency measures last year they’ve only used them just now?
That’s a good deal in my view
Anon
Jun 13th, 2008
LOL. If the PN are claiming a victory, they’ll find it’ll be hard to digest. I hardly believe they contributed anything to what LL did do.
But where else are they going to get the lulz that they get in SL? You think any other game is going to let them do what they can do in SL? Good luck.
Lord Kamina
Jun 13th, 2008
@Darkfoxx
lol butthurt much?
Hey, So i herd u liek THEY’RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD.
Mathue
Jun 13th, 2008
All I can say it’s about time that paying members get priority over non-paying.
WAT
Jun 13th, 2008
@ Avenger Coocolcan (or whatever, too lazy to copypasta your name)
OpenSIM is a seperate project which was originally a reverse-engineering project by a third party, just like libsecondlife. LL has no control over it, whatsoever. Go cry in a corner.
Aloe Stradling
Jun 13th, 2008
JUST piping up with my observation. To paraphrase, many of you are saying this will ‘DESTROY SL’
Yeah well, when the free accounts were added, the public outcry was exactly the same. “This is stupid! You’ll kill SL!”
I honestly can’t pick a side. I have many dear friends who were and are free accounts. And I know some of the stuff I buy was made by no account info. As a player, I see no reason to differentiate.
As a casual player
As a manager (assistant) at one of SL’s various clubs, while again having no personal bias, I find… Well… Don’t make me say it. The revolving door for griefers has been stated time and again, so I won’t go into it here, but that aside…. 9 times in 10, or even more, it’s not the paying customers making trouble. Sorry to form an opinion based on past occurrence, but, yeah. It’s usually not premium accunt people running around with wang out, soliciting everyone who walks by, or, god forbid begging for lindens.
Also note again I’m enough of a hypocrite that this causes me zero cognitave dissonance. I can curse anon-noobs till I’m blue in the face, then turn around and love my not-credit-info friends. I don’t just automatically assume no pay = Bad. I don’t blurr them all together. I can see all the upsides to what people say about cutting off the flow. I just can’t be a part of denying the good people with the bastards. So… I guess I do pick a side.
BilBroome
Jun 13th, 2008
better Idea- close out those without payment info on file. should be enough.
Artemis Fate
Jun 13th, 2008
“The “I” in “I contribute more than any hundred premium accounts” refers to the collective, as does every “I” after the first paragraph.”
Switching tenses mid-article is fairly confusing, especially when you continue to use “I” and not “we”. Also, you don’t particularly have the right to speak for all of the free accounts.
“To you who say that this has been aired publicly over the blog multiple times”
I’ve known of it before, though I honestly can’t remember from where, there was talk but it seems it was largely unofficial. Which makes this whole thing fairly suspect, but really whether the thing is fake or not, the issue still stands: Do Free accounts deserve the same treatment and rights as premium accounts?
“To those who would call the free account a “Second Class Citizen”, consider the fact that the majority of LL’s customers are not paying premium account owners. While Linden labs has not released key metrics to support this point in some time…”
That doesn’t really invalidate the point that free accounts are second class citizens, that just says that there’s a LOT of second class citizens. Which is how it normally is, the upper class is the minority, the middle to lower is the majority. Of course, comparing class systems to this sort of customer/non-customer system isn’t at all similar except for the whole “minority/majority” bit so don’t take it any farther than that. But I guarantee you, go to any business that offers free service in combination with paid service, and the paid service will always be better treated.
As well, I shouldn’t need to mention with those statistics, of the premium accounts, probably most are active and unique, but of the free accounts, likely most are inactive or alternative accounts. At a rate of about 1.1 million logged in over an expanse of 2 months, I highly doubt that SL has over 5.5 million unique active accounts, unfortunately it’s hard to tell which is which, since that was part of the plan of free accounts, get people to sign up and you can say you have as many people as there are accounts, even though most of them are inactive or non-unique.
“Linden Labs has over 200 employees world-wide… ”
Over 200 employees catering to over a million accounts? Sounds overworked to me.
Really the free accounts in SL have had it VERY nice, more so than most places like Active Worlds, Hellgate or Anarchy Online, where the difference between free and paid is worlds away, in Second Life, the difference is minor. This alleged, temporary and rare event (so rare that there is debate as to whether it actually exists, because apparently not many people noticed it), is about the worst treatment free accounts have gotten in all this time. But they’re allowed to go to the same places, allowed to wear whatever they want, attach as much as they want, hold as much as they want in their inventory, they can have land by renting, and for the most part they’re treated the same as premium accounts when it comes to preference and general resource use. Really this is where I see this indignation of “We deserve better treatment!” as coming from, because you’ve been spoiled by LL giving you wonderful treatment. In Active Worlds (an early precedent to Second Life), free account users could only wear one of two outfits (male and female tourist), were restricted to only certain worlds, and their builds were public mod so anyone could delete them or change them if they chose. So before you start complaining about being treated so poorly, recognize that you could have it MUCH worse, if it were up to me, free accounts would be much much more limited.
Ann Otoole
Jun 14th, 2008
Whether the article is true or false it is still game for entertainment. If false then great job.
There is a very real LL policy to restrict access during periods of system stress. The grid status will say “RESTRICTED” when they flip this bit. And LL has flipped this bit before. And SL did not die a horrible death because of it.
But have no fear basic accounts! SL is still useless while the grid is restricted so your not missing out. If the grid is restricted it is unwise to initiate any transactions or build anything. much less try to tp with that expensive dance chim or those expensive toy bits that will go poof since it is no copy and does not exist in sl while you have it attached and obviously the system is in a state of malfunction.
No. best thing to do if you see grid status RESTRICTED is to not bother till an hour after the grid goes back to open status. This whether you are npiof, piof, piu, or premium.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 14th, 2008
Photoshopped.
who? me?
Jun 14th, 2008
5 million+ accounts…. shortlived PN created griefing accounts = 2.5million… guess the PN have really been helping LL… the dialogs a fake
Darkfoxx
Jun 14th, 2008
Oh I’m sorry Kamia if I gave you the impression I was butthurt.
I was erely commenting on the cfact that well, with this the PN has nothing to do, and that, afaik, SL is still around.
In short, the PN didnt destroy anything, and certainly is not SL.
If you call disagreeing with your statements and calling you and your buddies failures for living in a fantasy world where you’re the scourge of the internets, and laughing about your delusions (cause frankly, clowns would be a better way to describe you) being butthurt, well, then I guess I’m butthurt yes.
I do find it an amazingly odd term for it, I would use ‘amused’ myself.
And yes, the taking the hobbits to Isenguard, I liked. Fun little song, with a nice vid to go wiht it. Very creative.
Marc Woebegone
Jun 14th, 2008
And once the paid accounts become too many to handle, then what? They’ll only allow those that pay the most? Now that’s supporting the creative, and makes Rosedale’s representations even more what ….
http://secondlife.typepad.com
MW
Vince
Jun 14th, 2008
OMG. Premium accounts pay! OMG! They deserve everything! Go to hell, you pompous bastards. You’re saying fuck you to 3/4ths of the fucking population of SL. This was photoshopped, this never happened. They have never implemented their “contingency” measures. People who don’t pay have no right to be on SL, right? Basic accounts will become premiums, but only if LL doesn’t scare them away. Don’t look down on us. We’re the same as you, richfags.
Artemis Fate
Jun 14th, 2008
I wonder if all these people bitching about how unfairly they’re treated as free accounts, and how they should get the same treatment as premium accounts (and as I stated before, they pretty much do), get airplane tickets for Coach (or economy or whatever they’re calling it these days), then walk up to first class and start ordering drinks and fancy stuff, then get pissed off when the stewards tell them that they don’t belong here and to go back to Economy.
Do you have these little civil-rights struggles every-time you go on a plane? I would hope not, like first class, people who pay more get better treatment, and frankly if you look at your treatment in Second Life compared to Premium accounts, you’re getting FANTASTIC treatment right now. As many have said, they can find little reason to turn to premium, because there’s so little difference besides having to drop a bit of money on it a month. The worst thing that you got was a short, extremely rare, and extremely temporary block out from a glitchy grid that even the allowed premium accounts were having trouble operating in? Happening only once in about however many years of free accounts? Boo-fucking-HOO.
J
Jun 14th, 2008
BRAVO to Linden Lab for FINALLY locking out the shiftless parasites as they promised to do last year. They announced that all non-paying parasites would be locked out during heavy load, and we rejoiced! But they were not doing it until now it seems?
About time Lindens!
Stephie
Jun 14th, 2008
Personally I find it hilarious that people would actually PAY for Second Life in the first place.
Shut up
Jun 14th, 2008
Why do you have any right to bitch? You pay nothing, so you are guaranteed nothing! Go somewhere else if you don’t like it.
Tiffany Wilder
Jun 14th, 2008
That is not a valid dialog box- totally photoshopped SL never uses that style of language, should do more investigation before you make up stuff.
Bennie
Jun 15th, 2008
Personally I find it hilarious that people would actually PAY for Second Life in the first place.
QFT.
Marc Woebegone
Jun 15th, 2008
Yep, the elitists are prevailing. All the premium members are “happy” that captialism is prevailing the little oligarchy known as Second Life. Once you spend a Linden (.001?) of a dollar? … you adopt the “not in my backyard” attitude… what’s next, no more furries? LMAO!
http://secondlife.typepad.com
MW
X
Jun 15th, 2008
The problem, for me, with shutting out basic account holders is that I am mostly in SL to see friends who live in other countries, and I can’t persuade them to pay for a premium account just so they can go in SL to see me and play with me once a week. Premmium/basic? I agree with the idea that some of the niftier bits should be limited; e.g. basic account doesn’t allow any bling, any weapons or other scriptystuff, and maybe a max size of inventory too. How to stop griefer revolving-door is a toughie; I can’t see any way without compromising anonymity in some way.
parrhesian
Jun 15th, 2008
fake
just when you think Herald can’t get any lamer, they push the envelope hundreds of light years further.
Geoners
Jun 15th, 2008
I like how those PN guys haven’t actually done anything to force SL into the ground. It’s like how american military works: come in stomp all over everything, then walk out waving flags and claiming victory.
Oh wait they’re mostly american anyway, they succeeded at their own country’s failure of policy management. GOOD JOB!
RR
Jun 15th, 2008
Well as long as they’re not blocking those that *paid* for “Basic” accounts back when those cost money, I don’t really care. As far as I’m concerned they can permanently block every single free account since accounts were free, the corporate interests can close up shop and ship out, and everything could go back to peace and quiet.
By doing this, LL *might* lose some money from potential paying customers, but they’ll also weed out a lot of the griefers who’ll probably get bored once they find they can’t just pop in and screw around like they used to.
Professor Bebb
Jun 15th, 2008
OMG GUYS! THEY WON’T LET ME ON SL ANYMORES BECAUSE I AM A FREE ACCOUNT. Wahhh.
Lighten up. Get a job, pay for a Premium Account. Situation resolved.
Also for the PNers/griffers. Aren’t you kind of stabbing yourself in your own foot by applauding this? If Linden Labs does this regularly, doesn’t that mean, you won’t be able to log on SL anymore to “close the pools down because of AIDS”?
No more LULZ will be had for you. You’ll have to go back to HARBALL HOTEL, or something I guess.
In any event, I for one, welcome this new strategy, since I’ve come out of the closet, and no longer grief on Second Life. I’ve changed my ways for the better guys. Seriously.
Dr. Internet
Jun 15th, 2008
…
you people are all morons.
Get away from the computer. now.
Who Cares
Jun 16th, 2008
Heh… well let me toss my 1/50 $ here as well…
Sure, premium account pays… but
I for example dont pay… Why, well im not too much into SL, I dont want to have land bought there, I dont need tech support, since for most of the time its about asset server down and stuff like that, and most importantly i dont want any of privileges of premium account holders. BUT…
Despite that, i do buy LL from time to time. Not too much, but enough… Why do i say enough, well since premium account holders gets 300L per week for price of 10 bucks monthly, thats about 1200L monthly… just about how much premium account is. So, if you pay for 4 months you get 4800L from LL for “free” so you dont buy them additionaly. If i buy 10K lindens for 4 months period, why should i be “lower” citizen than premium account holder? But, lets go bit further… I also build in SL. And sell my products. So, i buy for example 5000L for four months AND sell items valued about 7000L. So thats about 13000L for 4 months, which is pretty more than premium users are giving for membership to LL. And i bet that even if i convert that 13k to real money, which i cant do actually since my country doesnt support PayPal, i bet tax for converting will still be more than 4 month premium membership leaves to LL. So, where it leaves US lower level citizens? So, if they want to restrict comunity to clesed one, then should we all ask for money back (since after all i did bought lindens even im free account)? Shall they restrict buying lindens for free accounts? Shall they increase membership? Will bigger companies still pay their tier even only premium citizens will be able to see their commercials? List goes on and on. Point is if you wanted OPEN community, then leave it like that. Otherwise, shut up, and fix stuff with hardware that causing more havok than PN can ever do.
Neogrinch
Jun 16th, 2008
You forget the part about it being FREE. FREE FREE FREE FREE.
It is about time SL started putting their paying members first. LL does not make money from the massive amounts of money you spend shopping for clothes. They DO make their money from premium memberships and tier. Quite frankly, given that SL in a completely new concept and they are learning as they go, I think they are doing a really great job, and even tho there are screwups, they are fairly quick fix them.
Like, Duh..
Jun 16th, 2008
Has anyone else noticed that THIS IS NOT WHAT THE FU*KING MESSAGE ACTUALLY SAID WHEN FREE ACCOUNTS COULDNT LOG IN!!
Yet another example ‘the sky is falling’ as the SL herald seeks to destroy itself in a fit of swooning ‘oh my goodness’ idiocy.
So they restricted logins for the first time ever to stop the grid crashing
BIG FUCKING DEAL YOU BABIES!!
It was only for liek 2 mins anyway
Lykurgus
Jun 16th, 2008
(Carmen):I should add as uk based we dont seem to have as many problems as our US counterparts in logging on
(Kiddoh):I can log in just fine it seems. WTF is this article going on about? D;
I know what you mean. In Australia, our broadband capability is just this side of third-world (most inland regions don’t even have a phone service), and with LL being in the US, we cop the brunt of every downtime maintenance or other issue thereof. But I’ve never had anything REMOTELY like the problems most of these freebie-holders are railing about. Not even when I held a “No Payment Info On File” account, so I wasn’t doing too badly out of it.
Especially given that SL would be funded largely by the fact that most of the stipends are getting spent back into it (along with the tiers).
I suppose you could try playing World of Warcraft, or Anarchy Online, or Matrix Online – oh, sorry, forgot; all subscribed.
I know, how about playing Sword of the New World – no, wait, won’t run on Vista.
Or ummm… Cabal – oops, hang on, just remembered; even Premium (subscribed) servers kick you within minutes.
But if staying in SL is such unrelieved torture by comparison, how about… p***ing off?
The Addendum he promised (ie. public-trading flub, etc.) would appear to be absent. But, “I don’t particularly care to debate with you anyway. Go shove it.”
Could’ve just stuck with that, you know.
Vince
Jun 17th, 2008
Go away you fuckwits. Just because you dish out $10 a month on a GAME, doesn’t mean I have to. Without basics, the SL economy will be ruined. We’re what, 3/4ths of the population? The only reason people play SL is because you have the option to play it for free, legally. If they start restricting access or restricting anything more than they do now, I expect to see a huge drop in population. Go die, everybody who supports this bullshit.
Who Cares
Jun 17th, 2008
@Neogrinch
You have no idea what are you talking about… because you paid and you think you are God.
First let me explain Linden Dollar. Its virtual money that you use to spend it on second life. LL doesnt have stash of them in their banks, as they are … guess what… virtual! They dont exists.
Of course, they do have fluctuations as every other money in the world, but its not related to fact that US has been bombed or went to war. So lets stick with fact it is VIRTUAL money.
So you cant go to bank and say “please give me 5000 Linden dollars” because:
1. They dont exists in real life
2. If you do that in bank, they will think you are playing arround with them and will kick you out for being tard…
Now, lets sum it up. How can you buy Linden Dollars?
By paying REAL LIFE MONEY to Linden Labs or some of their resellers. Period. You cant have them otherwise. So, if i dont pay premium membership, and i buy monthly 4000 lindens how much LL will profit from me? Full 4000 lindens. And how much they will profit from you? 10$ or about 2400 lindens. And thats without giveaway since you have 1200 lindens monthly…
So before you write something next time, try to think of it first.
And finally, it was designed in the first place as open online community. Sure, its much better than Yahoo messanger or similar stuff, but, if everyone were thinking like you, there would be no Open Source community at all.
Ronald
Jun 17th, 2008
I have my both accounts disabled without any explanation. My girlfriend account is disabled too. I was googling for something like “SL account problem” and found this discussion.
Maybe I did something wrong which I don’t know. I know I was enjoying my time in SL and never wanted to do something ilegal or to hurt anyone. I have opened a school and I have created original and attractive content. I don’t deserve such a treatment. I would have prefered to receive a message like “we don’t want to see your face again” instead of this silence to my 100 attempts to contact them in-world our out-world. That’s really stupid. If this doesn’t happen to you, you might think that I am exaggerating.
LL have to understand that free accounts are bringing an enourmous value to SL and they would be swallowed by the competition if they wouldn’t have these accounts.
I am still trying to solve this problem while I am looking for other metaverses. If you know good alternatives to SL, please recommend.
Good luck!
Anonymous
Jun 17th, 2008
[Also for the PNers/griffers. Aren't you kind of stabbing yourself in your own foot by applauding this? If Linden Labs does this regularly, doesn't that mean, you won't be able to log on SL anymore to "close the pools down because of AIDS"?]
Think about it. SL closes its doors to freebies = ultimate pool closure. We’re really just watching the ship sink, anyway. You fags troll yourselves.
Artemis Fate
Jun 17th, 2008
@Who Cares
“By paying REAL LIFE MONEY to Linden Labs or some of their resellers. Period. You cant have them otherwise. So, if i dont pay premium membership, and i buy monthly 4000 lindens how much LL will profit from me? Full 4000 lindens. And how much they will profit from you? 10$ or about 2400 lindens. And thats without giveaway since you have 1200 lindens monthly…
So before you write something next time, try to think of it first.”
Well first off, LL doesn’t just make new money to sell, because that would ruin the economy, all of that money you buy is from other people who are selling, LL simply adds a bit of a fee to it every time you buy something. If you check sell price for 4000L$ at 258.73L$ per dollar, and compare it to buy price at 4000L$ at 258.73L$ per dollar, you’ll notice that it costs about 50 cents more to buy 4000L$. So the money they get out of your 4000L$ buy order is about half a dollar, not 15 dollars. To equate how much a premium player pays a month by buying L$, you would have to buy roughly 200,000L$ a month. That would net LL about 10 dollars in buy fees.
Second, how much they profit off of your premium depends on your land ownership, 10 dollars a month (about) is the basic with bottom tier land ownership, but someone like Anshe probably pays thousands a month.
Third, if you’ll notice the announcement about this from a while back:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/02/16/contingency-measures-to-ensure-service-as-second-life-grows/
“When you open your log-in screen and see in the upper right hand corner Grid Status: Restricted, you’ll know that only those Second Life Residents who have transacted with Linden Lab either by being a premium account holder, owning land, _____OR PURCHASING CURRENCY ON THE LINDEX_____, will be able to log-in.”
So basically anyone who pays LL any bit of money is allowed in, only the people who’ve payed LL absolutely nothing are restricted, and that’s only for the short amount of time when they keep that up.
“And finally, it was designed in the first place as open online community. Sure, its much better than Yahoo messanger or similar stuff, but, if everyone were thinking like you, there would be no Open Source community at all.”"
Actually, it wasn’t. It started off first as a flat fee 15 or so dollars a month for everyone game like WoW, land was bought completely through L$ and there was no tiers (You couldn’t officially buy or sell L$ either). Then they switched to a premium account ONLY system, where you had to pick a tier of land you wanted for a certain payment scale, were able to buy and sell lindens (though LindeX wasn’t created yet), and pay for land with real money. Then they made no land accounts similar to the free accounts, but they were a one time fee of 10 dollars, it wasn’t till only recently that they took those accounts and made them free.
“So before you write something next time, try to think of it first.”
Same to you. Get your facts straight.
XTreme Sands
Jun 17th, 2008
Seems to be another wonderful day in paradise. I am a basic account holder(after switching back to it). I couldn’t see myself paying 10 $ a month for nothing. What? I might get my freebie 512 meters of LL mainland with no monthly tier fees after paying some ass 80k in lindens for it. Ohhh… I know, I may get my weekly stipend(which was a whole 300L$ last year)If they get it out on time, or not. Who really cares. I pay my 17k monthly in tier fees to my estate owners and have been doing so for a year now. I won’t pay LL for a premium account. It’s has no advantages that I can see. Better support? Uh huh, go figure. That’s why I “VOLUNTEER” my time as a Mentor and help “EVERYONE” basic and premium daily with issues. It makes the residents of our grid feel like someone does give a damn. If everyone paying the monthly account fee feels that I don’t need to be in SL then please feel free to IM me and let me know how little of a difference I make, and that my parasitic little self should find a world where I can actually stay logged in for more then half an hour. The V-Team has been discussing limitations on Basic accounts for months in an effort to cut down on certain activities by people who create ten alts a day so they can throw out the next Mario Mosh. By the way, even us basic account holders agree that it may help. If the grid continues to run the same way it has since April and the implementation of Havoc. No one will care that much in another six months anyways. So
In the meantime “Can’t we all just get along?” It’s still our grid,we are the contributors.
Witness X
Jun 17th, 2008
A pro-tip for the PN: an ePenis is not a real penis.
Mystra Jewell
Jun 17th, 2008
Most of the sl content was created by free users. So if you ban the free users, or make them become premium members, then you are limiting the creativity you will find in sl. I thought the glory of building and creating was the foundation for sl. If they were to limit the free users, they shouldnt have started allowing ppl to sign in as a free acct to begin with. I believe that they should limit the number of acct alts they make for free w/ the same ISP or email addy to try and reduce the griefers. but to stop or limit the free accts in general just doesnt sound like what SL started out to be.
Geoners
Jun 17th, 2008
Anonymous: Sorry but shit don’t work like that. neglecting to do anything and having your cause met means nothing. it only means you were too lazy of fucks to do the job right yourself.
Artemis Fate
Jun 17th, 2008
Would like to point out that no one has suggested banning all free accounts, what this is, is a very temporary grid restriction for free accounts who have not bought any L$ only during extremely laggy peak times where the grid wouldn’t be able to run otherwise. In this case, it’d be either no one gets access or just premium accounts get access.
Ronald
Jun 18th, 2008
Have you tried other metaverses? Are there any good alternatives to SL?