Thoughts on the Town Hall meeting?

[Fionalein]

Oh my Skellster, please don't asume all CSRs are premium...

[Skell Dagger]

1 minute ago, Fionalein said:

Oh my Skellster, please don't asume all CSRs are premium...

I'm not saying that they are, but the ability to have that premium perk might be the decider for them to choose to go premium.

ETA: The point of this, I thought, is to think of things that will make having a premium ( or 'super premium') account more attractive to people.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Skell Dagger

[Fionalein]

I use IMs but why use a simple workaround, right?

[Skell Dagger]

16 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

I use IMs but why use a simple workaround, right?

As do I, but there can be hundreds of lurkers who may have the same questions and be seeing the wrong answers if the CSRs aren't able to give them publicly in chat. A lot of people forget that - when in a large group chat - they are addressing not only the eight or so people currently talking in chat, but also hundreds and hundreds of people who are just reading chat and not actively taking part. The wrong advice can cause all sorts of problems, while the CSRs seeming not to bother replying in chat at all gives a bad impression of the store.

ETA:

If you are a non-premium CSR and you don't want to go premium to get one of the perks that I have put forward as a suggestion then... don't go premium? Carry on using IMs, since that's what works for you.

I merely put forward two suggestions - since Chic's post asked for suggestions, to keep the thread on track - that I feel would make premium membership more attractive to some people. (It's not only CSRs who get frustrated when group chat borks up, after all; that was simply one scenario offered as an example.)

What I'm not here for is to take the thread off-topic by debating one of my suggestions to the enth degree with regard to what is best practice for CSRs. That's a different topic entirely, since we all work in different ways.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Skell Dagger

[LittleMe Jewell]

I want more groups - that's all, just more groups.  If group chat is an issue, maybe there is a way to limit the number of groups that you have enabled chat on -- I currently have chat turned off for most of the groups that I belong to anyway.  If permissions are an issue, maybe there is a way to create a type of group that has no ability to hold land and has limited roles/permissions available to it.  Yes, I am just randomly brainstorming about ways to make it possible to give me more groups.  I just want more groups.

[Phoebe Avro]

If LL stops basic members from withdrawing and or rezzing content i will quit SL I have had a popular Gothic club is SL for 10 years entertaining residents and employing staff, we all know clubs are money pits and ours is funded by my SL stores I only take some money out around Christmas time due to the extra sales I make, also I have been renting a full region for over 7 years.

[Phil Deakins]

LL isn't going to stop anyone from rezzing stuff.

[Qie Niangao]

32 minutes ago, Phoebe Avro said:

If LL stops basic members from withdrawing and or rezzing content i will quit SL I have had a popular Gothic club is SL for 10 years entertaining residents and employing staff, we all know clubs are money pits and ours is funded by my SL stores I only take some money out around Christmas time due to the extra sales I make, also I have been renting a full region for over 7 years.

As Phil pointed out, the Lab has said specifically that Basic accounts will still be able to rez.

As for cashing-out, I guess it's possible they could restrict that -- and it may even be smart, considering the cost of all the reporting they must need to file with FinCen, complicated by every pay-out. But my hunch is that instead they'll further increase transaction fees and commissions for Basics, with reductions or waivers for some Premium account level (or feature bundle or something like that).

I mean, the point of the whole exercise is to provide incentive for some more folks to pay more for other services, in exchange for lower land costs.

And those lower land costs should be of particular interest to somebody who rents a full region. We might expect another cost reduction for Estates, besides the grandfathered tier buy-down that was offered a couple years ago. Presumably competition will motivate Estate owners to pass those savings on to renters.

So if I'm guessing all this correctly, as a large-scale renter you might expect to come out ahead overall, and without needing Premium, if lower rent more than offsets a higher charge for that very infrequent cash-out.

[Phoebe Avro]

LL have my photo id on file because of the amounts I have taken out in the past and my bank account as well as paypal, so I cant see that it could cost LL any more than if I was Premium.

Edited April 27, 2018 by Phoebe Avro

[Whirly Fizzle]

https://modemworld.me/2018/04/26/premium-subscription-changes-a-little-more-news-from-grumpity/

Some more hints here.

[Phoebe Avro]

Its always the bean counters  modus operandi create a problem then deliver a solution (same as many rl governments) too squeeze a bit more cash or create a new law^^

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

https://modemworld.me/2018/04/26/premium-subscription-changes-a-little-more-news-from-grumpity/

Some more hints here.

So I suggest everyone actually READ this (what a concept) as it will answer a few questions.

We knew and now it is official that someone from The Lab (or "someones" most likely) are reading this thread. 

LET'S try and make some influential remarks shall we instead of going around like Chicken Little with his head chopped off? 

**********************************************

Personally I have very few desires. Things are running good for me.  I have noted over 300fps rates on two sims that I work and live on and very high ones on other sims. Now someone that is more techie than I mentioned that once those numbers get so high it doesn't matter (I know not) but it is nice to see. This is with alts on too so not just me. 

 

The only REAL improvement that I would like to see (besides the new Windlight cause immawaitin for that to open a new area at LEA6) would be a more stable inventory.  I am guessing from official comments in the past that isn't going to happen. There might be some improvements, but those of us that actually KNOW what they have in inventory will have to just sigh now and then when things disappear. Rez what you love will need to be a motto probably forever. Oh well.

 

I would like to see more emphasis put on teaching and schools but that doesn't seem like anything that would entice folks. . .

 

UNLESS ---   

long long ago, Linden Lab supported the private schools. They paid the teachers (some very good ones and a few quite bad ones) $500 to teach each class. All levels of building classes were taught. This may have filter over to non-building classes too, but I didn't attend many of those. I would love to see a few "official" schools pop up so there could be more classes and more emphasis on learning -- especially for new folks WHO WERE PREMIUM (well, I had to get a segue in here somehow). 

So teachers would get paid (currently most are not) and the new folks could learn.  I am not saying that the schools that are out there now a doing a bad job --- not at ALL, just that something more PUBLIC and OBVIOUS like at the intro centers would be great to see. There could be mini-classes there for free --- and then other locations that were further classes for PREMIUM folks. 

This is pretty much what my college did for computer classes -- gave a two hour intro class free to entice folks to sign up for regular classes. 

Honestly, I hadn't thought about this until now --- so it is VERY good to have this thread. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

4 hours ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

https://modemworld.me/2018/04/26/premium-subscription-changes-a-little-more-news-from-grumpity/

Some more hints here.

Based on this, I could see Basic accounts maybe being given smaller limit of how much they could cash out each month and/or how much L$ they can buy/sell , maybe some limits on the number of MP items they could have, things like that.  Let them keep being able to do all the things in SL that you can do, but limit how much of it they can do.

For Premiums, early access to events could be interesting - that's definitely better than just being guaranteed to get into an already over-crowded one.

I'd love to have some more themed areas inworld for owning land and living in, where the type of building around you is more controlled, but I don't want to pay the outrageous re-seller fees for said land.  I'm not sure how LL could facilitate something like that though without it benefiting the land re-sellers more than anyone else.

 

[Fionalein]

2 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

For Premiums, early access to events could be interesting - that's definitely better than just being guaranteed to get into an already over-crowded one

well for the Linden events... the rest of event organizers might like to decide upon that themselves 

Edited April 27, 2018 by Fionalein

[Grumpity Linden]

Ok, yeah, sometimes we're lurking! While we do try to keep an eye on the forums now and again, none of us can keep up with all the things, so remember that the best way to reach us is still to say it with Jira!  https://jira.secondlife.com/secure/CreateIssue!default.jspa

 

[Charlotte Bartlett]

So is a concierge user treated the same as premium user, I know you don't get the premium perks per se, but I did wonder about that?

I still hope this can be treated as different account types versus blanket "premium" tiers.  As a creator I don't want free products, or a Linden home, but I certainly want two storefronts on Marketplace etc, as a consumer I may want more stipend and perhaps reward points that accrue across my shopping that I can redeem for Lindens (think like credit card rewards etc)...

 

[MegaRose]

Very small idea, maybe this is silly: a miniature 'marketplace' tab on the profile for premium members.  Yes you can put your marketplace link or your store landmark in your profile, but I'm thinking of an easy, eye-catching sort of advertisement that could snag you an impulse buy.  You'd have to pick which items show up in that tab, maybe even only one listing, but you'd have your featured product's photo and a buy button for easy use.

Well this might be easier to illustrate in action:

Having a quick buy thing in your profile has potential to be abused but that likelihood goes way down if that tab is a premium perk.

Good idea or no?

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

For Premiums, early access to events could be interesting - that's definitely better than just being guaranteed to get into an already over-crowded one.

I'd love to have some more themed areas inworld for owning land and living in, where the type of building around you is more controlled, but I don't want to pay the outrageous re-seller fees for said land.  I'm not sure how LL could facilitate something like that though without it benefiting the land re-sellers more than anyone else.

I caught that early access possibility in Inara's post, but I was a silent gal.

Here's the thing on "early access" and since I am at a lot of events and have also been given plenty of early access passes to events in blogger mode --  I think I can speak for a LOT of events.

Creators are given between one (not the norm) and several days to set up. They almost inevitably (so funny I don't get it) set up at the VERY LAST MINUTE. This frustrates me SO much on a personal level because of course I am there when the gates open setting up (well not at Cosmo as that is my midnight, but the others). 

So in actuality getting early access doesn't really let you see the event; it let's you see a section of the event (and in some events a VERY small section). These days many event are charging "late fees" to folks who don't set up on time. I am not sure if it is helping or not LOL.  I am thinking not so much.

So while that SOUNDS good, I don't see how it would be as good as it actually sounds.  But maybe if it became "a thing" more designers would set up in time OR more event owners would boot them out rather than threatening :D.  

 

While I currently wouldn't use that themed land you talk about I think it is a great idea. Something between Linden Homes and mainland. More like themed private lands and I have lived in many of those. What I see being problematic is that it puts The Lab back in "police mode" which takes them away from other things that we really want them to do (EEP please *wink*). But if something could be worked out, I think it is a very useful idea. 

We don't know what the new Linden Homes will be like but they may have more themed regions than there are now. Currently most folks seem to opt for the Meadowbrook styles if they can get them.  Would be great to see more variety in the choices like Southwest US, European,  South Pacific == whatever.  Even dark Victorian for the Vampire and RP folks. 

[Penny Patton]

7 hours ago, MegaRose said:

Good idea or no?

Not a bad idea, but doesn't SL already work this way? People put links to their marketplace shops in their profiles and I know I've found cool stuff that way, exactly how you depict it in that awesome comic. I've also seen people use one of their "Picks" to showcase one of their creations, again with a link directly to the marketplace.

Removing that extra step of loading the marketplace page isn't a bad idea but LL is all about web profiles these days. Most of us use Firestorm or some other TPV with the classic profiles (because they load faster and more reliably) but I feel if LL added this feature it would be as a web profile tab which would end up being slower than loading the actual marketplace page in an external web browser.

On that note, why do web pages load so excruciatingly slowly in the SL viewer?

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Penny Patton said:

On that note, why do web pages load so excruciatingly slowly in the SL viewer?

In another recent thread I opined that web Search pages loaded extraordinarily slowly in Firestorm compared to other TPVs and the Linden viewer. Prompted by Whirly to check specific versions, I got a bit more systematic about it and discovered that the load times were all over the map -- much more variance within a viewer than between them, and I could discern no particular pattern. I came away convinced that whatever I'd thought I was experiencing was either coincidental or some yet-to-be identified pattern: maybe I use one viewer more than another during certain times of day,  phases of the moon, sunspots/chemtrails/Linden birthday parties.

[Callum Meriman]

9 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

While I currently wouldn't use that themed land you talk about I think it is a great idea. Something between Linden Homes and mainland. More like themed private lands and I have lived in many of those.

The main trouble with that is that it will eat into the business of private estate owners. We can differentiate ourselves from mainland for our tenants - I do it with theming, but if too much themed land happened, then my business fades. I am sure there would be other estate owners feeling the same.

Edited April 28, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Chic Aeon]

39 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

The main trouble with that is that it will eat into the business of private estate owners. We can differentiate ourselves from mainland for our tenants - I do it with theming, but if too much themed land happened, then my business fades. I am sure there would be other estate owners feeling the same.

Not disagreeing but one thing that flowed through Ebbe's talk at the Town Meeting was that there was no perfect equality with the disbursement of fees and the changes coming -- some folks would get hit harder -- those that don't sell on the Marketplace and/or cash out will obviously not have to pay THOSE new fees for example.

Perhaps additional cost cutting on tier would balance things out. There are plenty of folks that wouldn't WANT "themed land". Realistically anyone now with mainland areas can (and some do) make lovely themed areas just like some of the private island lands. The private lands will always (unless there are some MAJOR changes) be able to offer more CONTROL and ABILITIES over mainland. Those things are certainly important to some folks. 

[animats]

I just listened to the entire audio from the "Town Hall". That could be edited down to 10 minutes without much loss. Summary:

• Extract more revenue from users, less from land
• Grow SL
• Adult content policy not changing
• Move to cloud servers

Did I miss anything?

[Whirly Fizzle]

[Bree Giffen]

Premium accounts should be allowed to make their avatars 25% larger than basic avatars. Maybe even make the boobs slider 25% more as well. This would cause an instant spike in premium sign ups.