Anyone have any idea what "Premium Plus" is?

[Fay Starlight]

Is there a dividing line where you go from acceptable to an absolutely GOH disgrace because of the quantity of alts you have?

Is it just one? Is it five? Is it ten? I am just curious. Is it surplus alts or having alts on a few homes? I have seen unfavorable comments about alts on various threads over the past year, but seems most are made by persons with several homes and or alts themselves. LOL

 

 

 

[Teresa Firelight]

btw, not all premium accounts play GOH. I have 11 accounts atm (which will drop to 6 or 7 as some annuals expire). The last time I used the LP to get a parcel was Nov 8. The time before that was Sep 30.  Each of my alts owns a linden home that I love and would not want to give up ... but I am not a GOHer -- I hardly ever change homes.

Linden homes is not the only reason to own a Premium account.. in fact I owned mine before I got my first Belli home. There are other benefits, such as the 1024 sqM land allowance that can be pooled together to keep tier down on a larger mainland parcel or the higher number of groups and of messages allowed before msgs get capped, etc.

My understanding is that Premium Plus will offer lower upload fees (textures, mesh, audio, etc). SInce I am a creator in SL, that in and of itself might be enough for me to upgrade to Premium Plus.. I will have to see what the terms are before I can say for sure, but the idea of lower texture upload costs is very appealing to me.

[Marianne Little]

11 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Realistic super premium predictions

• Reduced name change fees.
• More included tier, but still limited to one Linden home. You could have some mainland on the side.
• More group slots.
• Reduced image (etc) upload fees compared to everyone else (expect everyone else's fees to go up rather than SP's going down).
• Slightly higher stipend compared to regular premium (as above, expect new regular prem to get a reduction & SP getting a slight raise).
• A fancy STAR on the forums .. for about a week.
• Some ability to add more info (eg, more picks) into your SL profile as part of the long delayed profile overhaul.
• Super premium gift objects, probably a pony.
• Access to the upcoming CAM->Avatar face motion mapping.
• Better rates for buying and paying for private estates.
• Ability to buy a homestead without owning a full region (big maybe, more likely if we get this, it will be open to everyone prem or not).
• Create and operate grid wide experiences.

 

 

 

What I like most and what would make SP worth it, is the ability to buy a homestead without owning a full region.

But I think I have read somewhere that @Patch Lindensaid it would not happen. The SP discussion has already lasted 2 years or more, and homesteads have been mentioned before.

I am not sure if getting 2048 mainland tier free would be enough for me, to justify paying for SP. I am thinking bigger numbers in land impact. Paying 50% more for 4096 m tier free maybe. 

But then, SP would include so much land that land barons would feel it. I doubt LL dare to go that way. It is more likely to be 2048 m without tier and a smaller increase in SP fee from today's Premium. That way, the land barons would get their customer when 700 Li is not enough anymore.

Sweeten the deal with things like special gifts, but I already don't care about Premium gifts.

No one know what price SP would be or will be. 20% more than today's Premium? 50% more? Twice the price? And LL will absolutely not tell us until they are ready to make it happen.

[Teresa Firelight]

13 minutes ago, Fay Starlight said:

Is there a dividing line where you go from acceptable to an absolutely GOH disgrace because of the quantity of alts you have?

Is it just one? Is it five? Is it ten? I am just curious. Is it surplus alts or having alts on a few homes? I have seen unfavorable comments about alts on various threads over the past year, but seems most are made by persons with several homes and or alts themselves. LOL

 

 

 

if someone owns over 1000 premium alts, then they are filthy rich and I am totally jealous. It doesnt make them a disgrace though... just makes them someone who is seriously supporting LL.

IMO there is no disgrace in someone investing lots of money into SL .. it helps finance a platform that many of us love, and maybe helps keep other SL expenses from going up for the rest of us (mainland fees, upload fees, currency conversion fees, etc).

 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Teresa Firelight
fixed a typo

[Fay Starlight]

20 minutes ago, Teresa Firelight said:

btw, not all premium accounts play GOH. I have 11 accounts atm (which will drop to 6 or 7 as some annuals expire). The last time I used the LP to get a parcel was Nov 8. The time before that was Sep 30.  Each of my alts owns a linden home that I love and would not want to give up ... but I am not a GOHer -- I hardly ever change homes.

Linden homes is not the only reason to own a Premium account.. in fact I owned mine before I got my first Belli home. There are other benefits, such as the 1024 sqM land allowance that can be pooled together to keep tier down on a larger mainland parcel or the higher number of groups and of messages allowed before msgs get capped, etc.

My understanding is that Premium Plus will offer lower upload fees (textures, mesh, audio, etc). SInce I am a creator in SL, that in and of itself might be enough for me to upgrade to Premium Plus.. I will have to see what the terms are before I can say for sure, but the idea of lower texture upload costs is very appealing to me.

Oh that is cool... I have  flexible alts---sometimes I have a couple, sometimes a few (LOL) and sometimes even none believe it or not. LOL

That makes sense that the premium accounts might be more to do with creation rather than "GOH" stuff. Was hoping it was to do with land holdings in some way, or prims, but probably not.

 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Fay Starlight

[Fay Starlight]

16 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

What I like most and what would make SP worth it, is the ability to buy a homestead without owning a full region.

But I think I have read somewhere that @Patch Lindensaid it would not happen. The SP discussion has already lasted 2 years or more, and homesteads have been mentioned before.

I am not sure if getting 2048 mainland tier free would be enough for me, to justify paying for SP. I am thinking bigger numbers in land impact. Paying 50% more for 4096 m tier free maybe. 

But then, SP would include so much land that land barons would feel it. I doubt LL dare to go that way. It is more likely to be 2048 m without tier and a smaller increase in SP fee from today's Premium. That way, the land barons would get their customer when 700 Li is not enough anymore.

Sweeten the deal with things like special gifts, but I already don't care about Premium gifts.

No one know what price SP would be or will be. 20% more than today's Premium? 50% more? Twice the price? And LL will absolutely not tell us until they are ready to make it happen.

I wish I could buy a homestead too!  I currently have one, but technically it is under the umbrella of someone else's full region. They allowed me to choose the name and placement of the homestead, and gave me full rights to be the "owner" so to speak, but it's still tied into theirs. 

[Teresa Firelight]

13 minutes ago, Fay Starlight said:

 

That makes sense that the premium accounts might be more to do with creation rather than "GOH" stuff. Was hoping it was to do with land holdings in some way, or prims, but probably not.

 

Just guessing here, but I suspect premium accounts will have features for Land holdings AND features for creators.. both!

[Elena Blossom]

My ideal feature would be double prims, or homes in 2048 parcels. However, and I cannot recall where nor when this was mentioned, but it seems the Lab was heading in a different direction and none of this was included.

Edited December 26, 2021 by Elena Core

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

8 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

Oh chill out. I was being sarcastic. LOL

It sounded very on brand.  

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Teresa Firelight said:

Coffee, I am not sure I am following you here. The way I understand it, each premium account gets 5 chances per day and any person can buy as many accounts as they want (or can afford). Each account costs roughly 12 USD per month or 99 USD annually.

As far as I can tell, these terms are the same for everyone. So how is this not a level playing field??

If you're able to leverage a dozen accounts in cooperation with others in order to lock up and hammer the system to achieve a desired outcome, in this case, a single personally acceptable linden home, that's not a level or equitable playing field. 

It's a distortion that leads to turnover of single premium account holders inhibiting overall growth. Whales are bad for the platform as a whole when they throw their weight around competing for a limited resource.

Think about it this way .. if a few whales got together and capped an event region to limit access to a desirable outfit, that's not good for the event or the individual vendors.

 

2 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

What I like most and what would make SP worth it, is the ability to buy a homestead without owning a full region.

But I think I have read somewhere that @Patch Lindensaid it would not happen. The SP discussion has already lasted 2 years or more, and homesteads have been mentioned before.

Yeah .. my "realistic list" gets less realistic the further down you go .. but we can dream, right.

2 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I am not sure if getting 2048 mainland tier free would be enough for me, to justify paying for SP. I am thinking bigger numbers in land impact. Paying 50% more for 4096 m tier free maybe. 

I could certainly use more tier, however with premium land holding already being widely used as a way to sidestep regular tier fees, I wouldn't expect the amount of additional land to go up significantly.

The most cost efficient way to own larger amounts of mainland is to stack annual premiums, pool their included tier and offset the costs with the stiped. This alone probably accounts for the distortion we're seeing in mainland pricing and ownership.

(groans .. I hate spreadsheets .. I really don't want to have to work out just how bad it is .. )

2 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Sweeten the deal with things like special gifts, but I already don't care about Premium gifts.

No one know what price SP would be or will be. 20% more than today's Premium? 50% more? Twice the price? And LL will absolutely not tell us until they are ready to make it happen.

Personally, I'm betting avatar facial animations is going to be the corner stone of any bigger premium offering rather than just more of the things we already get.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Elena Core said:

My ideal feature would be double prims, or homes in 2048 parcels. However, and I cannot recall where nor when this was mentioned, but it seems the Lab was heading in a different direction and none of this was included.

I'm not expecting a double prim offering from LL anytime ever again.

Regions have a set Li/Prim count, so while you can set parcels to have a prim bonus (it can be anything), those extra prims still come out of the same fixed overall region limit. Eg, I could divide a region in half, make one side double prim and rent it out, the other side must remain entirely empty.

From a homes perspective this means the plots remain the same size, yet the number of plots held by residents needs to half. If super premium bigger homes is on the cards, then it's just simpler to make the parcels double the size.

[Coffee Pancake]

3 hours ago, Teresa Firelight said:

IMO there is no disgrace in someone investing lots of money into SL .. it helps finance a platform that many of us love, and maybe helps keep other SL expenses from going up for the rest of us (mainland fees, upload fees, currency conversion fees, etc).

It depends .. the number of single premium account holders is far larger than the combined holdings of whales. Single account holders create a strong and stable finical base that's not at the mercy of a single users patronage. Keeping the premium offering equitable for single account holders is critical to the lab's health and that of the overall platform.

10 regular users are vastly more valuable than one user with 10 accounts. If the action of that one user with 10 accounts is able to eat into and dissuade the 10 individuals by frustrating their attempts to participate, we all suffer.

[Alwin Alcott]

2 hours ago, Elena Core said:

My ideal feature would be double prims, or homes in 2048 parcels.

a camper on a  2048 ... dream dream

[animats]

How about a "business account"?

• Can be opened in the name of a corporation.
• Subaccounts with limited privileges for employees.
• Ability to create accounting subaccounts, which are tied to the main account and are for owning land and  accounting purposes but can't log into world.
• Full two-factor authentication with a Yubikey or similar, to protect large assets.
• Excel spreadsheet export for transaction and land data.

[Marianne Little]

4 hours ago, Teresa Firelight said:

if someone owns over 1000 premium alts, then they are filthy rich and I am totally jealous. It doesnt make them a disgrace though... just makes them someone who is seriously supporting LL.

IMO there is no disgrace in someone investing lots of money into SL .. it helps finance a platform that many of us love, and maybe helps keep other SL expenses from going up for the rest of us (mainland fees, upload fees, currency conversion fees, etc).

 

If I could afford 1000 premium alts, I would take 999 off premium and use the money for an island and a few homesteads. Heck, I could even take myself off premium. If I really needed a Linden home, I could hire a builder to make me a copy of the homes I want, and place them on 1024's on my own island. And all would have sea view! 😈

[Fay Starlight]

That sounds fun  Marianne!

[Mollymews]

i think the one thing we can expect is variable pricing for asset uploads (is built into the viewer and is most likely currently enabled on the server as well)

it may tho result in only relative cheaper pricing, with an increase in upload fees overall.  Premium Plus pay X. Premium pay X+. Freemium pay X++

[Eirynne Sieyes]

I would love more group slots too. That would probably be easy to implement.

[Coffee Pancake]

8 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

(groans .. I hate spreadsheets .. I really don't want to have to work out just how bad it is .. )

So I did the spreadsheet ... mainly to get a view of stacked premiums vs LL tier .. and it's not good at all

Add the following to my list of predictions

• LL will raise price of regular annual premium to $120

[Lucia Nightfire]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

LL will raise price of regular annual premium to $120

You know LL goes for broke with new pricing out the gate.

I expect it to be just shy of 2x regular premium.

If they don't get many takers in the first half-year, THEN then have leverage to reduce pricing a tiny bit, heh.

Also, if the lack of attractive perks is the initial problem, they will also have leverage to add more perks without reducing pricing.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Lucia Nightfire

[Myntz Mysterious]

On 12/25/2021 at 5:49 PM, Coffee Pancake said:

Realistic super premium predictions

• Access to the upcoming CAM->Avatar face motion mapping.

 

Is this an actual thing on the horizon for Second Life?? 🤯 Sounds very cool, down side another head to purchase in the future... 😔

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, Matilda Melune said:

Is this an actual thing on the horizon for Second Life?? 🤯 Sounds very cool, down side another head to purchase in the future... 😔

Yes, it's listed in the roadmap.

Take webcam data and translate that into avatar facial expressions. I anticipate this to be done with an AI model running in the cloud rather than locally in the viewer, I'm expecting the viewer will get told to play one of a set of stock facial expressions rather than being given detailed instructions about which face bone to move and by how much. Let's hope the stock facial expressions get a little love or it's going to be . .. harsh.

Maybe if @Linden Labhaven't already set the project in stone, we can have some script commands to set our own animations for SMILE and WINK etc etc, then head creators can at least make some that work with their heads as shipped. Because these internal animations are gonna make everyone's eyes bleed.

Or maybe I'm wrong and its going to be a stream of bone manipulations and that will just awesome .. depending on your head of course

 

[Myntz Mysterious]

15 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Yes, it's listed in the roadmap.

Take webcam data and translate that into avatar facial expressions. I anticipate this to be done with an AI model running in the cloud rather than locally in the viewer, I'm expecting the viewer will get told to play one of a set of stock facial expressions rather than being given detailed instructions about which face bone to move and by how much. Let's hope the stock facial expressions get a little love or it's going to be . .. harsh.

Maybe if @Linden Labhaven't already set the project in stone, we can have some script commands to set our own animations for SMILE and WINK etc etc, then head creators can at least make some that work with their heads as shipped. Because these internal animations are gonna make everyone's eyes bleed.

Or maybe I'm wrong and its going to be a stream of bone manipulations and that will just awesome .. depending on your head of course

 

I can only recall two other games wanting to do this. I think one was one of the Everquest games, maybe 2 that was canceled? And the other I think was Starcitizen which well... Who knows on that one. 😆

[Lucia Nightfire]

It's an utter waste of time messing with facial expression scanning when we don't already have body tracking capability to override system/furniture/AO animations.

Watch ANY Linden interview video on YouTube or Vimeo. Watch Lab Gab.

Everyone is a SLAVE to their furniture's animations or if standing, their AO's animations.

Couple this with the conversation/topic at hand at any time and it looks ridiculous.

The generic mouth movement we have now is bad but nowhere near as bad enough to invest in facial expression scanning while your entire body language is still mismatched.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

It's an utter waste of time messing with facial expression scanning when we don't already have body tracking capability to override system/furniture/AO animations.

I agree, however depending on what this new feature turns out to be, it might open the door for more dynamic movement of other body parts. 

Here's to hoping they don't do the easy kludgy option of "the cam AI says your grinning - PLAY HARSH GRIN ANIMATION"