Account creation limit?

[Suki Hirano]

Does LL use some other method than IP detection for limiting 5 accounts per "family"? Because I've created some dummy accounts in the past that aren't used anymore and want to create some more. I've got like 4 computers and an iPad at home and all of them say "registration unavailable, LL limits # of accounts per family". They can't all have the same IP address can they? Any way to bypass this annoying restriction? It seems to be more complicated than a simple IP detection as I've even tried changing IP address and it still detects I'm using a computer "from the same family".

[Ansariel Hiller]

Might be worth trying to register with a different email address if you haven't done so.

[Suki Hirano]

Yes I've already tried it with 3 different email addresses. It still detects me as trying to register "from the same family".

[Qie Niangao]

I didn't know that they even tried to limit it, so that's interesting.

But yeah, all the machines in your local area network will have the same IP address to the outside world (using something called Network Address Translation). You can very likely change that external IP address by telling your router to get a new one... something like "release IP address" and "renew IP address" which the ISP satisfies using something called DHCP. (Unless your connection is assigned a static IP address, which is not that common.)

[Porky Gorky]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

I didn't know that they even tried to limit it, so that's interesting.

 

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They try and charge people for going over the "limit" now.

 

Cost

Your first basic account is free, and so are a few alternate accounts. However, if you create an army of alts, Linden Lab may charge a small fee of US$9.95 for the creation of each additional basic account as a way to recoup some of the cost. This is explained further in section 1 of the Second Life Billing Policies, linked to from our Terms of Service. Note that in the billing policies, "Access Account" means basic account and a "Subscription Account" means a premium account.

[Ansariel Hiller]

That paragraph is in place for some years and I never heard of anybody actually being charged for creating more than 5 accounts.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

You are allowed five accounts per household, it doesn't say five ACTIVE accounts.  I have no idea how they are doing this but personally, I'm glad to see that they are starting to enforce the five account limit.  This should cut down on griefers and stalkers creating throw away alts.

 

[Porky Gorky]

Well this policy is certainly not enforced retrospectively as a person who has created allot more than 5 accounts before the restriction was put in place, can still log in all said accounts now.

[Ansariel Hiller]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

You are allowed five accounts per household, it doesn't say five ACTIVE accounts.  I have no idea how they are doing this but personally, I'm glad to see that they are starting to enforce the five account limit.  This should cut down on griefers and stalkers creating throw away alts.

 

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Household AFAIK has always been:

* Email address

* Mac address

* IP address

Apart from that if this really would be enforced would only effect the casual user. Griefers will just laugh about that.

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

The limit of 5-per was removed from the TOS a couple years ago but the account creation system still enforces it in odd ways.  I've typically worked around it via multiple Email accounts and have amassed a total of 25 alternate accounts.  In addition, I've logged in 10 accounts at the same time, from the same IP address, and on the same computer... So I know of no inworld enforcement of alternate accounts at any given time. ()

 

 

[Miserlie]

If your doing it all on the same internet, then ofcourse it won't work. Use your phone's 3g/4g internet, that might just work.

[Attica Bekkers]

It used to be five accounts over a lifetime, eve nif you deleted one. I missed on a superb surname once because I wasnt willing to break the rules. I contacted them at the time (years ago) offering to pay but more werent available even with pay andthe advice i got was to break the rules). They got rid of this account limit  years ago, and its kinda weird that you are having trouble.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Sorry all of you that think that the limit was eliminated are wrong.  If you look up Accounts in the Knowledge base there is a link to the Official Alt Account Policy, which clearly states in the restrictions section that it is still 5.

"Currently, you can create:

• Up to five accounts per household.
• No more than two accounts in a single 24-hour period.

Alt accounts must adhere to all Second Life policies. For example, by agreeing to the Terms of Service (TOS) you agree to provide truthful and accurate information about yourself when you register for accounts; that includes not only your contact information and real name but also whether this is your first free basic account or a new alt (see TOS section 2.1). People who do not provide truthful information risk losing their accounts.

How are these policies enforced?

Linden Lab has various means of detecting illegitimate accounts and enforcing necessary limits to prevent fraud and other disruptive uses of Second Life and LindeX services. For security reasons, Linden Lab does not reveal exactly how fraud detection processes operate."

 

[Ansariel Hiller]

And what do you want to tell us with that? That Knowledge Base article is also wrong as hell. You aren't even asked if it's a first free basic account or an alt during sign-up. Fact is: I have never seen or heard of anyone who suddenly was charged because they made more than 5 accounts or were even prevented from doing so.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Ansariel Hiller wrote:

And what do you want to tell us with that? That Knowledge Base article is also wrong as hell. You aren't even asked if it's a first free basic account or an alt during sign-up. Fact is: I have never seen or heard of anyone who suddenly was charged because they made more than 5 accounts or were even prevented from doing so.

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Actually I doubt that it is wrong.  The article and the policy were updated a year agp.  They would not have left incorrect or obsolete information in it.

The Knowledge base article I referred to was updated on 2/7/2012 by Rand Linden and the Policy I linked to and got the quote from on 2/8/2012 by Rand Linden. 

Obviously this is effecting the OP.   Obviously It is being enforced in her case.  Perhaps LL has decided to enforce it again.  They did enforce it at one time because I was asked if I was creating an alt the last time I created one, which admittedly a while ago.  So I can't speak from recent experience.  That is why I looked it up and verified that it had been updated recently rather than shoot from the hip.

[Phil Deakins]

I can confirm what Immy posted about numbers, and on a much larger scale. But perhaps LL have updated things in more recent times. I haven't created an alt for a long time, and I haven't logged in more than a few simultaneously for a long time. So my experiences are way out of date. Perhaps they are attempting to mildly disuade people from creating an army of bots.

[Porky Gorky]

If you already have more than 5 accounts created then you can currently log them in all simultaneously.

[Ansariel Hiller]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

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Ansariel Hiller wrote:

And what do you want to tell us with that? That Knowledge Base article is also wrong as hell. You aren't even asked if it's a first free basic account or an alt during sign-up. Fact is: I have never seen or heard of anyone who suddenly was charged because they made more than 5 accounts or were even prevented from doing so.

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Actually I doubt that it is wrong.  The article and the policy were updated a year agp.  They would not have left incorrect or obsolete information in it.

The Knowledge base article I referred to was updated on 2/7/2012 by Rand Linden and the Policy I linked to and got the quote from on 2/8/2012 by Rand Linden. 

Obviously this is effecting the OP.   Obviously It is being enforced in her case.  Perhaps LL has decided to enforce it again.  They did enforce it at one time because I was asked if I was creating an alt the last time I created one, which admittedly a while ago.  So I can't speak from recent experience.  That is why I looked it up and verified that it had been updated recently rather than shoot from the hip.

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We are talking about LL here! Lots of wiki pages and knowledge base articles are full of wrong or outdated information. And I didn't have any problems creating another alt using my email address just a few seconds ago. And as already said before: I didn't get asked if this is a new free basic account (it's not called like that for at least 5 years anymore!) or an alt.

[Coby Foden]

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Ansariel Hiller wrote:

 

And I didn't have any problems creating another alt using my email address just a few seconds ago. And as already said before: I didn't get asked if this is a new free basic account (it's not called like that for at least 5 years anymore!) or an alt.

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Confirmed.  I have created few alt accounts.  Never I have been presented a question is this first account or an alt account.  At present the account creation process goes like this:

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

 

The most stupid is the step 2. "Create a Username".

By clicking the tiny question mark in the step two one gets this info:

"Ah ok, I enter something gibberish for my username, login and give a nice name to my avatar for all to see."

After loggin in...

"What!  :smileyfrustrated:   Everybody can see also my username!"

[Sayrah Parx]

They rarely care about enforcing the rules, and approach everything (including account creation) with a total lack of understanding of what it's actually like in SL. Then they wonder why things aren't going well and why most people don't use the official viewer anymore.

[Ansariel Hiller]

They have their own viewer???