A brief note on pricing changes, which ran long.

[Skylar Littlepaws]

I just want to take the opportunity to thank Linden Lab staff for listening and hearing our concerns and issues about the recent updates.  For me being part of different virtual worlds, I have seen them come and go.  About 9 years ago, a virtual world that I love closed down due to financial issues.  It came back 2 years later, however; it's still not the same.  Here on Second Life, the world continues to grow even through the hard times.   I'm happy to see that Linden Labs staff are listening to the community and taking on our inputs.  It's important that both the company and community to continue to communicate with each other for it to succeed.  There are many great ideas on how to help and improve Second Life.  I've seen a lot of helpful ideas to improve on the Second Life Premium Membership Packages.  I love the tier level idea.  Having Basic, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum packages.  Each one can have it a set price, and different types of packages it will receive.   Thank you again for hearing us 

 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

13 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

This tends to be what happens when someone gets upset and their first language isn't English. Take the message seriously rather than just laughing at the delivery.

Nah, it certainly reads as "troll" to me. YMMV, as always.

[Fox Wijaya]

1 minute ago, Coolnet Ordinary said:

Having Basic, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum packages.  Each one can have it a set price, and different types of packages it will receive

 

this is more or less already told.. not going to happen.

[Erwin Solo]

I find concierge support helpful.  Online chat support typically just involves me explaining an issue to someone, and them ultimately telling me that I have to file a support ticket for that.  If its really simple sometimes chat help can actually help.

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Erwin Solo said:

Ah, with Linden Labs you never know.  It might be here tomorrow, and then we can read all about it.  It might never get here like the second name program that was coming in 2018, and then late in 2018, and has now fallen silent.  I don't pay any attention to it until its already here. 

Not "totally" silent.  The below if from Grumpity's opening post for this thread:

 

[Erwin Solo]

 

7 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Not "totally" silent.  The below if from Grumpity's opening post for this thread:

 

 

Thank you very much for pointing that out.  

[Coffee Pancake]

6 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Not "totally" silent.  The below if from Grumpity's opening post for this thread:

After the reaction to basics loosing a few group slots, maybe LL should just unplug the forums and take a week off when announcing the 'name change fee' on top of needing to be premium.

[LittleMe Jewell]

On 5/30/2019 at 8:10 PM, Yaruu said:

🎂Happy 16th Birthday Second Life, Guess you wont live past 20 at this rate.🎂

The doom of SL has been predicted every time they make any change or anything goes wrong since long before my arrival here in 2007 -- yet here we are in 2019.

To some, they sky is always falling.

[Skylar Littlepaws]

22 minutes ago, Fox Wijaya said:

this is more or less already told.. not going to happen.

That's a shame because it can help with there subscriptions and help to boost their revenue. 

[Coffee Pancake]

 

8 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

To some, they sky is always falling.

Wishful thinking half the time. Once upset or offended by the actions of another resident, or a failure to manage expectations, there is a tendency to blame LL.

 

[Lindal Kidd]

Here is what I am wondering...

Let's say we have Suzy Avatar, who is a Basic member.

Suzy decides to go Premium, and pays $72 for a year, sometime between now and June 3.

Sometime between June 4 and June 23, Suzy pre-pays for a second year of Premium, at the old rate of $72.

Is this possible?  Can someone who decides to go Premium right now actually get two years at the old rate?  That'd be a pretty cool deal.

[roseelvira]

😀
 

Edited June 2, 2019 by roseelvira

[Luna Bliss]

20 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Here is what I am wondering...

Let's say we have Suzy Avatar, who is a Basic member.

Suzy decides to go Premium, and pays $72 for a year, sometime between now and June 3.

Sometime between June 4 and June 23, Suzy pre-pays for a second year of Premium, at the old rate of $72.

Is this possible?  Can someone who decides to go Premium right now actually get two years at the old rate?  That'd be a pretty cool deal.

I will find out, because I just went for Premium yesterday...

[LeeeBlack]

Sick trend. Very sick.
Doing nothing by clicking on the settings of the base account to impose restrictions, twisting people's hands and kicking them in the ass, so that the risen VIP can be registered
Total arbitrariness and bullying.
Tomorrow, Lindens will impose additional sanctions for basic accounts - they will limit the number of clothes, number of accounts per person (email), the number of characters in the message, remove personal albums, remove avatars photo, set a limit on the number of teleportations, introduce a commission of 200 percent on depositing money ...,
Trust is completely undermined.
Lindens lost face.
We need guarantees and clear that never in the future Lindens will not make the players worse, but will only do better.

How can people put money into the game if they are hated, they are curtailed with rights and opportunities, are they bullied and worse?

Edited June 1, 2019 by LeeeBlack

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

24 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Here is what I am wondering...

Let's say we have Suzy Avatar, who is a Basic member.

Suzy decides to go Premium, and pays $72 for a year, sometime between now and June 3.

Sometime between June 4 and June 23, Suzy pre-pays for a second year of Premium, at the old rate of $72.

Is this possible?  Can someone who decides to go Premium right now actually get two years at the old rate?  That'd be a pretty cool deal.

I haven't seen anything to indicate otherwise, so I think that it is possible! It will be interesting to see if @Luna Bliss is able to do it. 

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, LeeeBlack said:

Sick trend. Very sick.
Doing nothing by clicking on the settings of the base account to impose restrictions, twisting people's hands and kicking them in the ass, so that the risen VIP can be registered
Total arbitrariness and bullying.
Tomorrow, Lindens will impose additional sanctions for basic accounts - they will limit the number of clothes, the number of characters in the message, remove personal albums, remove avatars, set a limit on the number of teleportations, introduce a commission of 200 percent on depositing money ...
Trust is completely undermined.
Lindens lost face.
We need guarantees and clear that never in the future Lindens will not make the players worse, but will only do better.

That would be all true, had they actually kept it at 35. They put it back to 42 groups for basic, so you can stop attacking LL and making them sound like a communist government. Lol 

[LittleMe Jewell]

25 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Here is what I am wondering...

Let's say we have Suzy Avatar, who is a Basic member.

Suzy decides to go Premium, and pays $72 for a year, sometime between now and June 3.

Sometime between June 4 and June 23, Suzy pre-pays for a second year of Premium, at the old rate of $72.

Is this possible?  Can someone who decides to go Premium right now actually get two years at the old rate?  That'd be a pretty cool deal.

Yes totally possible. My understanding, from looking at the gif that Grumpity posted, someone could actually go Premium during that June 3-24 time frame and select the pre-pay option, thus paying for 2 years at once for $72 per year - and their next renewal date would then be 2021.

I'm actually thinking about this.  I have an Premium alt that is due for renewal mid-July, thus the pre-pay does not save that alt as much over the course of time as if I upgraded a Basic alt instead.

[MoiraKathleen]

Just now, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

I haven't seen anything to indicate otherwise, so I think that it is possible! It will be interesting to see if @Luna Bliss is able to do it. 

Either way, it's a good deal (and I agree there isn't anything to indicate otherwise that I've seen).  Anyone who is thinking about going to premium, even if they aren't considering renewing it again in the 6/4 - 6/23 period, it's still a good idea to get it now.

[Fox Wijaya]

23 minutes ago, LeeeBlack said:

Tomorrow, Lindens will ...

not tomorrow, but monday LL will announce people with triple connected e's in their name have to pay 10% additional taxes.

[Fox Wijaya]

23 minutes ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

I haven't seen anything to indicate otherwise, so I think that it is possible! It will be interesting to see if @Luna Bliss is able to do it. 

my main is quarterly, upgraded to yearly this week, the quarterly will end before the deadline, so if it's really true i'd be able to get both done 

[Skylar Littlepaws]

26 minutes ago, LeeeBlack said:

Sick trend. Very sick.
Doing nothing by clicking on the settings of the base account to impose restrictions, twisting people's hands and kicking them in the ass, so that the risen VIP can be registered
Total arbitrariness and bullying.
Tomorrow, Lindens will impose additional sanctions for basic accounts - they will limit the number of clothes, number of accounts per person (email), the number of characters in the message, remove personal albums, remove avatars photo, set a limit on the number of teleportations, introduce a commission of 200 percent on depositing money ...,
Trust is completely undermined.
Lindens lost face.
We need guarantees and clear that never in the future Lindens will not make the players worse, but will only do better.

How can people put money into the game if they are hated, they are curtailed with rights and opportunities, are they bullied and worse?

i don't think they were trying to do it on purpose, i think they were trying to help to improve on revenue costs.  I do think that there needs to be more community input.  Holding monthly events with LL staff around talking to the people and hearing their voices.  I understand they can't do everything that the community wants, it will show they are interacting more with the community.  

[Polymath Snuggler]

28 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

That would be all true, had they actually kept it at 35. They put it back to 42 groups for basic, so you can stop attacking LL and making them sound like a communist government. Lol 

Judging by his google-translate language barrier, I'd say he's got some first hand experience with communist governments.

 

The internet troll stench is easily identifiable, even through a language barrier.

[LittleMe Jewell]

On 5/30/2019 at 8:49 PM, TinyDeathMachine said:

Maybe a different type of 'group' with less features that cant be tied to land. It would just be announcements/notices and a chat. Dont need to allow group members to even see a member list because if its a store group all its really for is Updates and Announcements from the brand. Removing the ability of the members to see eachother would even make it better to save people from spamming member lists on store groups.

 

I'm pretty sure that chat is the group function that causes the biggest performance hit out of all group abilities.  Since only online members get the chat messages, every single time a message is entered, they system has to check which members are online and send the message to just those avatars.  For really large groups, that is a lot of checks for account status just for a single message.  Now increase that for every single message sent in the group chat and then increase that by all the groups that are out there chatting constantly.

The chat portion of groups is what needs overhauling the most and moved to some other method.

[Selene Gregoire]

4 hours ago, Jo Yardley said:

The only things that I find attractive is the increased group membership limits and only because SL groups aren't using sub-groups or even have the option to add more roles!!
Please LL give us more roles, they're kind of important if you have a roleplaying region with 100 tenants!

That would go a long way towards cutting down on the number of groups needed as well, wouldn't it? RP sims could reduce the number of groups they are using if more roles were provided and so could a lot of other venues. That would certainly help lighten the server load.

The flip side though is it may mean larger groups. And if I'm understanding the issue correctly, the problems lie with the larger groups. I'm not clear on just how that problem is supposed to "work" but putting a limit on the number of people that can be in a group would defeat the purpose of reducing the number of groups needed. 

I wonder what the average number of groups needed is for RPs, music venues, and whatever else is out there that needs multiple groups to make up for the lack of roles available. Last RPs I was involved in required a rough average of 3-5 each usually consisting of (at least) the main group,  "faction/guild" group,  land group and for those who were mods, the mod group. The music venues we had and the ones I've worked at were about the same in number.

There has to be a way to break the circle.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

[Victorianna Writer]

13 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

I'm wondering what happens when "Super Premium" or whatever it's going to be called come out, are we about to pay to keep our membership rates static and then be faced with an upgrade option in a couple of months?

How will that all work out in the wash, are we just setting ourselves up for a dramatic step up in rates 18 months down the line.

Gawd, I hope not! I really really hope not. That would piss off a lot of dedicated users.