Last names nearly here - and more. Yay!

[Syo Emerald]

13 hours ago, missyrideout said:

Indeed. My feelings on last names were formed (festered? lol) over the last almost 10 years, not in the last couple. The fact that we notice those 1-2 people in a crowd is a perfect example of the imagined cachet of a last name. Not that I want one to bring myself to some exalted status, far from it. I wish they never got rid of them, and I wish the return was for everyone free of charge.

A cachet? I just notice them, because of the visual difference. Like I would notice a single red flower among a field of yellow ones. That doesn't award the red one a cachet, at least not in my book. And I mentioned the timeframe of soon-to-be a decade, because now its not even an indication of how old/well-versed someone is in SL. We have oldies with no lastname now. That aside, I like that they bring them back, because I always found it to be a nice and distinct feature to have first and lastname in SL, instead of just coming up with a single name that hopefully isn't taken.

[ItHadToComeToThis]

16 minutes ago, Carina Asbrink said:

I'm in SL for 12 years and the whole thing leaves me speechless. We got promised a shift from land tier to MP provisions, now we get a raise in MP provisions (after a raise in payout provisions earlier this year) and no word about a decrease in land tier. And that with a comparison to large app shops or other worlds that have higher fees, just that one gets a complete sim there for free. I would be happy to pay 30% MP fee if I would get a sim for free in my premium membership. Land prices and lag are the huge problems in SL in my eyes. If more people owned land, more would need to buy things on MP and thus would probably overcompensate a higher fee.

And why limit the name change to premium members? You could have taken x dollar for a name change from anyone who wants it and could have offered a free change as goodie for someone who subs for a year. Instead we get a premium plus membership. Will that include 4k sqm premium land at least?

Please scrap the pointless Sansar (I have tested it a lot and besides it having nice graphics its not usable so far) and invest the money into SL. With all the money burnt, you could have rewritten whole SL.

Ya know. I ageee with you. But, ultimately it’s all about money at the end of the day. If you can convince someone to pay $xxx for premium and then a further $xxx for a name change it’s a higher rate of income than just allowing for paid name changes. There’s more of a chance of someone keeping premium once they have it as opposed to never having to need it, thus higher revenue.

As for Sansar, it has to go. No one uses it and you only have to look at products like Sinespace to see what LL could have created instead. 

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

16 hours ago, cheesecurd said:

The kind of people who want to create a virtual persona vs people like me who named themselves cheesecurd because it’s a funny username. A username can be a lot more expressive than an artificial real-ish (oxymoron?) name.

As long as it’s optional and people can still choose to be “buttbrigade resident” I see no issues. But if the selectable last names become mandatory and the only option then I am strongly against it.

The game used to be making puns and clever combinations. So if new accounts had to have last names again (which I gather won't be the case), you might run into names like Buttbrigade Voom and Cheesecurd Sorbet instead. It was great fun to run into them out and about and appreciate their creativity.

Some say that misunderstanding the delight people took in making new alts with clever pun names was the reason why the Lindens did away with last names in the first place. The Lindens saw that a lot of accounts were abandoned at the naming stage and didn't realise how much of it was people trying to get a particular last name for an alt.

Last names for new accounts won't kill creativity in naming, but if the new last names are only available for a fee fewer will do it just for a laugh.

[Vanity Fair]

5 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Periodically the lists would change and you would get completely new names but I'm not sure how often LL changed them. And of course if you used one of the 3rd party sites you would get different names. It got to be a big mess and I think LL kind of lost control and that's why the 3rd party sites were dropped.

Linden Lab would switch out the names for a new list at random times. Sometimes the list would be up for months and months and you would have trouble finding the first name-last name combination you wanted. I distinctly remember that "Fair" was up for only a two-week period in early 2008, along with a bunch of other common-word last names like Church and House. 

And sometimes you could get a different list of last names from 3rd party sites, as Selene has said. When SL had that official tie-in with CSI:New York, there was a separate list of last names available (like Delight and my personal fave, Cliffhanger). I named a number of alts using that particular portal: Happy Delight, Hearts Delight, Joy Delight...the Delight sisters 😉

I suspect that Linden Lab will make lots of money from reintroducing last names (which, of course, is the impetus for this announcement). There is a LOT of pent-up demand. 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Vanity Fair

[Garnet Psaltery]

1 hour ago, DrawingRoom said:

It isn't a mistake.  When you own a certain amount of land directly (the way I remember it, it is a full private sim or more than half a mainland sim) you have concierge status.  I'll update if it turns out I am mistaken on the amount of mainland owned.

Edit:  Well, I wasn't completely wrong but my terminology was a bit fuzzy.  Here's a link to the actual information:  

 

I just want to say that I like your name.  

[Vanity Fair]

8 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

Since Premium "Plus" won out against "Elite", maybe we can still use "Elite" as a surname? 🙂

If Elite has not already been used previously as a last name by Linden Lab. You can check using the SL Name Watch website, instructions are provided here:
https://ryanschultz.com/2019/11/21/second-life-news-last-names-to-become-available-by-february-2020-plus-sl-marketplace-and-events-fees-and-changes/

By the way, you guys: sharing your ideas for new last names on this thread is great, BUT it means that somebody with less scruples could take your idea and submit it to the contest themselves. I spent a very enjoyable hour coming up with new last names (checking them all against the SL Name Watch website), and I am keeping that list a SECRET until I can submit the names to the upcoming contest. Winning a free name change (which is a contest prize you are eligible for whether or not you are Premium) is a powerful incentive. 

This is going to be a fun contest!

Edited November 22, 2019 by Vanity Fair

[Chronometria]

I wonder if one of the "premium plus" advantages will be the ability to create a custom last name, that nobody else has. They used to do that I hear and it was quite expensive.

[Vanity Fair]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

It's certainly true that Sansar is nowhere near cash flow positive, and still shows no viable prospect of getting there, but the Lab recently dramatically reduced the burn rate of Sansar development. At the same time, Second Life remains fantastically profitable, so unless somebody at the Lab gets a big idea for new product development or acquisition, I expect to see a lot more advances in SL soon. (I'm a little baffled how the Lab has so many viewer projects going on at the same time, but that's been true all along, especially compared to the relative paucity of server-side fixes and features.)

Also, and more significant to the current changes: for years there's been widespread advice that SL's business model should diversify from the very high dependence on the Land product. Even before Ebbe's rein they tried to get more income from Premium membership (but couldn't figure out how to get more Premium members, except with Land -- none of the other benefits they've tried proved very enticing). At some point it seems they realized they simply had to reduce Land costs and/or offer more Bonus tier, both of which they've started doing, and shift the revenue burden to customer-generated content (Marketplace fees, Lindex charges, etc) where they still have a lot of running room left, despite all the "who moved my cheese?" whining.

THIS. This is an excellent 2-paragraph summary of the situation Linden Lab currently finds itself in. Thank you @Qie Niangao!

To be fair, social VR overall is in a Catch-22 situation right now: those worlds that have built in-world economy features have had trouble attracting users (High Fidelity, Sansar), while those worlds that have been more popular don't have in-world economies and therefore, no way to generate steady long-term income (VRChat, Rec Room). VRChat may be popular now, but they face a daunting challenge: a transition to an in-world economy, marketplace and currency in a world where everybody expects ripped intellectual property like anime avatars for "free" (similar to the situation in Hypergrid/Opensim where content creators are ripping off SL content creators and making their work available for free).

It's an interesting time for virtual worlds. Can't wait to see what happens next. 

 

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

[re: viewer projects] Like what? Can we expect having a mobile client for Android and iOS anytime soon? Maybe in 2023, when this weird internet things are not "Neuland" anymore?

Well, the iOS development is held close to the vest, and they do seem to be targeting iOS exclusively first (which is pretty typical of commercial products, at least in the US, where the iPhone app revenue still absolutely swamps Android). That particular effort probably is not much helped by importing staff formerly assigned to Sansar -- a product even less mobile-ready than SL.

What I was actually describing is the array of parallel release, candidate, and project viewers that the Lab has juggled for a long time. Here's a list from a recent post in Inara Pey's irreplaceable blog:

Quote

• Current Release version 6.3.4.532299, formerly the Ordered Shutdown RC viewer, dated November 4, – NEW.

Release channel cohorts:

• Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.3.5.532739, November 15.
• EEP RC viewer, version 6.4.0.532314, November 1.
• Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.3.4.532273, October 31.

Project viewers:

• Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.532780, November 15.
• Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.531949, October 28.
• Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
• 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.

 

(sorry for the formatting; I don't have patience to go full HTML at the moment)

There's certainly room to dispute the priorities here, but my point was that it takes a bunch of staff to keep all those balls in the air.

[Erwin Solo]

I think its great that LL is monetizing things other than just land.  Its pretty easy for someone interested in roleplay to chew up a lot of resources in the game while technically "homeless," but richly well-dressed.  There needs to be, and of late there is, a way to get them to contribute to the cost of running the world. 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Erwin Solo

[s2Pandora]

I'm happy people will get to change their names. I'm personally fine with Resident, but would have a very hard time doing so if it's more than $10 USD.. and it likely will be. My guess would be something between $20-$50 USD. Iirc it was said that they will want it high enough to prevent people from abusing it.. so i'm expecting it to be on the high end. Granted this was said some months ago so things could have changed since then.

Also, what happens if you go for a name change and then the name that you want with the last name you can get is taken? I think i'd be pretty mad having spent that money. Now if they let us lock in that name for say.. 5-10 mins to buy the upgrade, then awesome.

 

MP changes don't affect me much beyond gacha resells(yet), so i've nothing against that so far.

Edited November 22, 2019 by s2Pandora

[Chic Aeon]

5 hours ago, Mollymews said:

There were still other previous names available which had not yet been retired.

Yes, I believe that was so.  Some were taken up quickly and others not. And then there was GossipGirl which was available for a VERY long time, but they may have had their own portal as that was more common then.    So a mixture of our remembrances was probably what really happened :D.  

[Drayke Newall]

Whilst I am all for tiered premium accounts, it is only if each time a new tier is introduced it reduces land price accordingly. Will be interesting to see what happens when the new premium is released.

I've always said though that the way LL have set up their subscription model is wrong. At the moment, all it offers are options for general users and now looks to be just a better shinier option for those same users.  Would it not be far better if LL target specific residents or genres within a premium tier system? For example:

• Level 1 Resident Package - offers current level of premium and linden home
• Level 2 Content creator Package - Offers Resident package along with bonus' such as reduction in upload fees, more land or better sandbox privilege and creator specific bonus'
• Level 3 Merchant Package - Offers merchant bonus' such as reduced marketplace listing price etc., as well as if you link/show your inworld store with your marketplace store you get a reduction in tier price or larger land bonus if you have your shop at that location and free demo listings if inworld store linked (cant remember if they charge for them now or not).
• Level 4 Pro package - Combined Level 2 and 3 at a higher but discounted package price
• Level 5 Premium package - Offers all previous as well as possibly a free homestead or larger chunk of mainland.

That system of premium seems far more beneficial as it targets specific resident needs and allows those people to pay for exactly what they need (in relation to what they do in SL) and get the bonus that would help them directly (greater flexibility) whilst providing greater subscription retention and more income to LL. Not just things they never use like a free object gift.

As far as last names go, (even though I don't see the necessity of them) having them tied to a premium package is silly in a business sense as, just like the Lindens have posted, if you want it you pay for one premium duration, cancel and then have it forever. This would then require a high price for many people especially if they want to change it more often than the average person and also wont be enough for retention of long term paying premium users. All that will happen would be people paying at the initial release for the name change then cancel the subscription after. Consequently LL will see a sharp increase initially in premium uptake and profit only for it to fall back to current levels or only slightly higher than current depending on what other bonus' are offered.

They would be far better off having a store like feature whereby you can buy a name change separate from premium and offered at a lower price which, could potentially offer greater profit due to more people having access to it instead of forcing people to go premium at a higher price with the hope people will stay premium after they have received what they wanted. The store could then also offer other individual items that can be purchased separate from any premium subscription package such as 3 months access to Linden sandboxes for 'x' price etc. for those that don't want say, a linden home but do want access to the Linden sandbox's.

As for the Marketplace announcement, the thing is such a mess it needs a complete redesign not a patch here or there. I'm still waiting for the simple option of having the website remember how many items I want to show on a page without having to reselect it in the drop down on each login. That was one of my feature requests and feedback sent in a survey for MP feedback LL sent out 50 years ago.

 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Drayke Newall
bullets

[Love Zhaoying]

Idea: Premium Plus will allow you to connect your Alts, and share no-transfer items between them.

[Alyona Su]

36 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Pipedream: Premium Plus will allow you to connect your Alts, and share no-transfer items between them.

I fixed that for you. You're welcome. ~chortles~

[Erwin Solo]

5 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

43 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Pipedream: Premium Plus will allow you to connect your Alts, and share no-transfer items between them.

I fixed that for you. You're welcome. ~chortles~

Yeah, it would create a permissions-system that would be too easy to game.

[Caerolle Llewellyn]

3 hours ago, Vanity Fair said:

Linden Lab would switch out the names for a new list at random times. Sometimes the list would be up for months and months and you would have trouble finding the first name-last name combination you wanted. I distinctly remember that "Fair" was up for only a two-week period in early 2008, along with a bunch of other common-word last names like Church and House. 

And sometimes you could get a different list of last names from 3rd party sites, as Selene has said. When SL had that official tie-in with CSI:New York, there was a separate list of last names available (like Delight and my personal fave, Cliffhanger). I named a number of alts using that particular portal: Happy Delight, Hearts Delight, Joy Delight...the Delight sisters 😉

I suspect that Linden Lab will make lots of money from reintroducing last names (which, of course, is the impetus for this announcement). There is a LOT of pent-up demand. 

I will be very interested to see how it is managed. Past experience does not inspire confidence.

[Erwin Solo]

 

Quote

What’s a last name you would choose for yourself? We’ll soon hold a contest seeking your contributions to the pool of last name options. From all of the suggestions, we’ll pick five, and those five lucky Residents will be able to change their names completely free of charge! 

So, there will be at least five last names to chose from.  The sentence doesn't say that it will be only five, but does commit to at least five. 

[YoriAi]

I will not buy from the MP then. I rather go to the inworld store. Premium Plus? I mean, come on. We are ALREADY premium paying customers...no need to add another tier. Lastly, the only thing that made me happy was the clearing the MP of old things, but, it wont mean anything to me now because I refuse to be part of the price increase. I get it, you haven't in XX years but that is not an excuse. You already increased the premiums not long ago because you guys wanted to cover xx costs and you haven't increased it in certain amount of years. But you can't keep using that as an excuse. Residents will find a way of getting away from MP and then you wont even have a way of taking any percent of any sales.

(Was directed to them. I used "you a lot" Lol)

Edited November 22, 2019 by YoriAi

[Clover Jinx]

13 hours ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

One of the Lindens at the Moncierge meeting yesterday did actually  suggest 'McAltFace'.  I'd tell you which one except that Firestorm hasn't saved my chat logs for 3 frazzen days.  Grrr.

I bet @Grumpity Linden said it, "Grumpity McAltFace" has a nice ring to it. =~.^=

[bigmoe Whitfield]

3 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

• Level 5 Premium package - Offers all previous as well as possibly a free homestead or larger chunk of mainland.

 

 

Let's nix that one in the butt right now.  LL does not have the resources to spin up millions of free homesteads,  those cost LL money to host on a physical machine, even after they do end up moving the simulator code to aws, it still will cost them money and trying to eat the $$$ this will cause LL to have to throw out will not be a good financial standpoint to whom their investors and board people maybe.   But wishful thinking never hurts

[Selene Gregoire]

40 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Let's nix that one in the butt right now.  LL does not have the resources to spin up millions of free homesteads,  those cost LL money to host on a physical machine, even after they do end up moving the simulator code to aws, it still will cost them money and trying to eat the $$$ this will cause LL to have to throw out will not be a good financial standpoint to whom their investors and board people maybe.   But wishful thinking never hurts

It would be like it is now though. You'd still be paying for it through Premium, just at a reduced tier price since each level will cost you more than the previous. Not everyone wants to own land or even a homestead either.

Oh, to have a homestead once again to do as I wish with, would be a dream come true. 🤩

[Alyona Su]

2 hours ago, Erwin Solo said:

 

So, there will be at least five last names to chose from.  The sentence doesn't say that it will be only five, but does commit to at least five. 

In the old days, you first chose a letter from the alphabet; A through Z. Then once you choose a letter, all last names that begin with that letter are listed and there often was between 30 and 50 last names in that alphabet category. One thing I appreciated was the variety of international names. And it was funny when people who didn't know this picked last names trying to be funny. My favorite was the last name YUE - which is Chinese (and possibly other nationalities) and is pronounced "WHEY" (simplified pronunciation) and people would create account like "Loving Yue', etc., thinking it was pronounced as "You" - which always gave me a hearty chuckle.

No one but LL knows if they will do it that old way (A-Z selection first, then large list) again, though I'm sure their will be considerably more than five.

[ThorinII]

7 hours ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

Like what? Can we expect having a mobile client for Android and iOS anytime soon? Maybe in 2023, when this weird internet things are not "Neuland" anymore?

To be honest I absolutely couldn't care less about a mobile client for SL. I mean, what use is a mobile client anyway? You can't see a thing, because those 5" screens of average smartphones are way too small for anything more than some text - which makes that whole concept moot. And using such a client on a tablet? From my point of view, even the 15" screen of my laptop is rather small for such a rich virtual world like SL. In my opinion, LL shouldn't even waste one working hour on developing a mobile client, at all. 👿

Actually, I'm even currently saving up for a really big (like, 32"!) monitor for my desktop computer (the monitor I'm using right now only has 24").

😈

[Adam Spark]

6 hours ago, Vanity Fair said:

I suspect that Linden Lab will make lots of money from reintroducing last names (which, of course, is the impetus for this announcement). There is a LOT of pent-up demand. 

There is pent up demand for going back to simply letting us have last names. Time will tell how much pent up demand there is for making us pay for it.