Thought of a Reason for an Alt finally

[Love Zhaoying]

I’ve been following the discussion on extra 512 tier, and I think maybe it is worth getting a Premium Alt finally:

- The Alt’s 1024 could be combined with Love’s “extra” 512 (or 1024, if I abandon my Linden home). I can use that to increase my land holdings without paying additional tier. (I would still have to buy the land, of course.)

- The Alt will get a stipend that will offset the cost of Premium, although less than my grandfathered stipend as Love.

Did I miss anything? Any additional benefits, or drawbacks?

[Cindy Evanier]

9 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I’ve been following the discussion on extra 512 tier, and I think maybe it is worth getting a Premium Alt finally:

- The Alt’s 1024 could be combined with Love’s “extra” 512 (or 1024, if I abandon my Linden home). I can use that to increase my land holdings without paying additional tier. (I would still have to buy the land, of course.)

- The Alt will get a stipend that will offset the cost of Premium, although less than my grandfathered stipend as Love.

Did I miss anything? Any additional benefits, or drawbacks?

I actually have just written a comparison notecard for Ki showing him the savings if we made  our alts premium, combined the allowance and ditched our homestead.  It's a huge saving over a year when you add the stipend 

drawbacks for me... I like my homestead freedom to landscape, do my own restarts, lots of space away from the store for my public hangout areas, no neighbours to have to consider. There is probably more but right now the cost is winning over the drawbacks.  I will have to see what he thinks though

[Phil Deakins]

The calculations have been posted in the thread you referred to. In fact, I spelt them out line by line. If you make sure that you sell the alt's stipend instead of spending it, and you get an annual premium instead of monthly, then the cost of your alt will be less than $1 a month at today's exchnages rate. And that inlcudes the 3.5% fee for selling L$.

In short, you can go from your 512 up to 2048 for the cost of less than 1$ a month. It sounds good to me Of couirse you do have to pay the annual premium fee ($72) up front, but most of it comes back over the year.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Cindy Evanier]

2 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

The calculations have been posted in the thread you referred to. In fact, I spelt them out line by line. If you make sure that you sell the alt's stipend instead of spending it, and you get an annula premium instead of monthly, then the cost of your alt will be less than $1 at today's exchnages rate. And that inlcudes the 3.5% fee for selling L$.

It was your post that prompted me to write it all down to show my other half what the costs would be.  So thank you

[Phil Deakins]

I am suitably pleased, Cindy And, of course, yvw

[Phil Deakins]

When I created my alts (over 60 of them) the reasons for them were huge. Almost 40 of them were for traffic bots, and the rest were created for their Profiles, in which powerful links to store land could be placed - not for people to follow, but the search engine at the time scored inbound like extremely highly, so they pushed parcels to the top of the rankings, and kept them there.

So you see, Love, if you'd had an inworld store way back, you wouldn't have needed to wait for a valid reason to create an alt

[Phil Deakins]

Incidentally, today I took the first step towards doing what you (Love) are doing. I'll pormote an alt to Premium, but I want to end up with not just 2048, but 2048 + the 10% group bonus, which is an extra 192 sqm (has to be in multiples of 16 sqm, so I can't get it all). To that end, I've cut a 192 sqm parcel out of my 512 + bonus, and I'll abandon the rest, and get a 2048 somewhere else. That's the plan today, anyway. I might change it tomorrow, but whatever I do, I'll make sure I hang onto the 10% group bonus. Like my old pappy used to say - "Never look a gift group bonus in the mouth"

Edited March 17, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Love Zhaoying]

39 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

you get an annual premium instead of monthly

I know you meant “pay” not “get”, that was my plan.

[Love Zhaoying]

41 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

If you make sure that you sell the alt's stipend instead of spending it, and you get an annual premium instead of monthly, then the cost of your alt will be less than $1 a month at today's exchnages rate. And that inlcudes the 3.5% fee for selling L$.

In short, you can go from your 512 up to 2048 for the cost of less than 1$ a month.

*snip*

I plan to spend my alt’s stipend. And I’ll be keeping my full adult mainland region. Keeping in mind that the mainland region tier is going down from US $195 to $175, my total outlay not counting additional land and L$ purchase will be:

$175 x 12 for full region 

$72 x 2 for premium accounts 

$0 for 2048 additional land

Love’s account gets L$400 stipend/week x 52 = L$20800

Alt’s account will get L$???/week (not grandfathered).

(Lost the thread with Phil’s calculations and new stipends.)

[Love Zhaoying]

(Going AFK to watch a movie.)

[Phil Deakins]

Ok then. Do make sure that your alt buys the 2048, or you'll be charged the tier for a quarter sim. That's assuming that you're the owner of the mainland sim. I know you know that, but don't make a mistake.

The stipend your alt will get is L$300 a week.

[LittleMe Jewell]

I have a total of 4 Premium accounts - have had for a long time actually.  It used to be that they gave me access to a 2048 while only costing me a bit over time (due to saving and selling their stipends).  Now those same 4 accounts give me access to a 4096 for no additional cost other than the initial land buying (and that is partially offset by selling the smaller plot).  I'm actually considering a few more to better offset the cost of a 8192 parcel.

The trick - which I was really bad at initially - is to truly save all of the stipends, rather than spending them on the alt or transferring to the main to be spent.  If you spend the stipend, then the cost will be the full $72 yearly per alt.

Edited March 17, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Pussycat Catnap]

Put yourself and your alt into a group that ONLY has you and your alt. Deed all your land tier to that group, and you will get 10% more tier for free.

- That's the biggest reason to have an alt.

[Phil Deakins]

But the problem is finding land that suits the 10% bonus. E.g. to make use of the 10% bonus on a 2048, would need a 2240 parcel, and they must be very few and very far between.

The 10% bonus didn't used to be the biggest reason to have an alt, and I don't see it as the biggest reason now. Now, an alt gets you 1024 plus 10% for less than $1 a month. To many people that would be the biggest reason, even without the 10% bonus.

[Cindy Evanier]

So, if I (we - partner included)  had 5 yearly premiums, we could have a  5120 parcel (5 x 1024) for the store. Use the 10% bonus have 512 left to get a small plot for ourselves as an escape and over a year (if 4 of them *coughs*)  saved the stipend  we would still be 100's of $ better off than renting our homestead for a year.

Then again I love my homestead freedom

Edited March 17, 2018 by Cindy Evanier
grammar helps

[Pussycat Catnap]

The 10% bonus works with a non-premium alt...

That bonus adds up as you tier up - I've bought entire plots of land with it before.

Pretty sure I'm not the only one who has used non-premium alts for that purpose. I do presently have 2 premium accounts, but haven't always done so.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

Ok then. Do make sure that your alt buys the 2048, or you'll be charged the tier for a quarter sim. That's assuming that you're the owner of the mainland sim. I know you know that, but don't make a mistake.

The stipend your alt will get is L$300 a week.

Hmm..there should be ways to buy the land: Love buys 1024, Alt buys 1024, both deed to same group, nobody’s tier goes up. If Alt buys 2048, wouldn’t Alt halve to pay tier over 1024?

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

Put yourself and your alt into a group that ONLY has you and your alt. Deed all your land tier to that group, and you will get 10% more tier for free.

- That's the biggest reason to have an alt.

Yes! Forgot about bonus. But see my response above about group idea also.

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hmm..there should be ways to buy the land: Love buys 1024, Alt buys 1024, both deed to same group, nobody’s tier goes up. If Alt buys 2048, wouldn’t Alt halve to pay tier over 1024?

Easier if both Love and the Alt donate their tier to the group first.  Then either of you can wear your group tag and "buy for group".  This also lets you buy an actual 2048 plot, rather than two 1024 plots.

Edited March 17, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[MoiraKathleen]

3 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

Ok then. Do make sure that your alt buys the 2048, or you'll be charged the tier for a quarter sim. That's assuming that you're the owner of the mainland sim. I know you know that, but don't make a mistake.

The stipend your alt will get is L$300 a week.

 

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hmm..there should be ways to buy the land: Love buys 1024, Alt buys 1024, both deed to same group, nobody’s tier goes up. If Alt buys 2048, wouldn’t Alt halve to pay tier over 1024?

I think what Phil is referring to, is that your account already owns a full sim, so it's possible adding the 1024 to the account with the full mainland sim may put you into a different pricing level structure (which I think was mentioned in the original blog post about the changes). 

If I was you, before purchasing any land, I would go into the Land Manager -> Land Use Fees on the dashboard for your primary account, and use the estimating tool to try out various scenarios.  It might be that you DO get the 1024 free on top of owning a full sim, but if it was me, I'd want to check that out before proceeding.   This situation wouldn't apply to your premium alt.  

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I plan to spend my alt’s stipend. And I’ll be keeping my full adult mainland region. Keeping in mind that the mainland region tier is going down from US $195 to $175, my total outlay not counting additional land and L$ purchase will be:

$175 x 12 for full region 

$72 x 2 for premium accounts 

$0 for 2048 additional land

Love’s account gets L$400 stipend/week x 52 = L$20800

Alt’s account will get L$???/week (not grandfathered).

 

I totally missed before that Love owned a full region (even though I did know that).  You previously had 512 sqm free tier w/ your Premium, but since you own a full region, you didn't actually get any benefit from it -- because there is not a billing level that is only 512 under a full region.   i.e. You only see a benefit if the free tier is enough to knock you down to the next billing level.

If that sim is owned by a group, then you are already donating either 65536 (full sim size) or 66048 (full size plus free 512) to the group.  If that land is not in a group and you are just paying tier directly, then you are missing out on the 10% bonus that a group gets. 

Full group explanation -- If the group has donations of 65536 (for current full sim) plus 1024 (your premium tier) plus 1024 (an alt's premium tier), then the group would have total tier donations of 67584.  The 10% bonus would then add another 6758 sqm for a total of 74,342.  That then means that your group could buy a plot of 8806 sqm or less, outside of the full sim you already own -- also assuming you have no Linden home. 

Edited to correct numbers

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hmm..there should be ways to buy the land: Love buys 1024, Alt buys 1024, both deed to same group, nobody’s tier goes up. If Alt buys 2048, wouldn’t Alt halve to pay tier over 1024?

Love does NOT buy a 1024. If you do, it'll cost you the tier for ¼ sim on top of what you pay for the full sim.

Forget everything that's been said before (ETA: except Lil's post above this one. She posted it as I was writing mine ). Since Love owns a full mainland sim already, she does NOT have an additional 512 to play with. Thinking of the new allowance as an extra 512 is a BIG mistake for you. The only thing that's really changed is the tier. I.e. instead of charging tier for the second 512 and above, LL now charges tier for the third 512 and above. You are already above that. You don't get an additional tier-free 512. If you own one square meter above your sim size, you'll be charged for ¼ sim extra, even if you only own it for a fraction of a second.

The only way that Love can buy more land is if the sim is deeded to a group. Then you can have the 10% group bonus. There's no change for Love except the $20 tier reduction for a whole sim. The new allowance is irrelevant to you. I'm assuming that it's your sim, and your tier for it.

Be careful. Don't make a blunder.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[MoiraKathleen]

6 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I totally missed before that Love owned a full region (even though I did know that).  You previously had 512 sqm free tier w/ your Premium, but since you own a full region, you didn't actually get any benefit from it -- because there is not a billing level that is only 512 under a full region.   i.e. You only see a benefit if the free tier is enough to knock you down to the next billing level.

If that sim is owned by a group, then you are already donating either 16,384 (full sim size) or 16,896 (full size plus free 512) to the group.  If that land is not in a group and you are just paying tier directly, then you are missing out on the 10% bonus that a group gets. 

Full group explanation -- If the group has donations of 16,384 (for current full sim) plus 1024 (your premium tier) plus 1024 (an alt's premium tier), then the group would have total tier donations of 18,432.  The 10% bonus would then add another 1843 sqm.  That then means that your group could buy a plot of 3891 sqm or less, outside of the full sim you already own -- also assuming you have no Linden home. 

 

16,384 is 1/4 sim - not a full sim (which is 65,536).     

However, when talking about the group bonus for tier, in general, this (1/4 sim) is where it really starts to pay off, I think. 

Which makes me wonder, if Love's full sim was group owned, would Love get 10% of the 65,536 donated tier as group bonus? 

[Phil Deakins]

3 minutes ago, moirakathleen said:

Which makes me wonder, if Love's full sim was group owned, would Love get 10% of the 65,536 donated tier as group bonus? 

Yes - to the nearest 16 sqm below 10%.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 minutes ago, moirakathleen said:

16,384 is 1/4 sim - not a full sim (which is 65,536).     

However, when talking about the group bonus for tier, in general, this (1/4 sim) is where it really starts to pay off, I think. 

Which makes me wonder, if Love's full sim was group owned, would Love get 10% of the 65,536 donated tier as group bonus? 

Ugh - I was calculating 1/4 sim for something else

Fixed it.