So what do you all think to the Premium Plus package?

[Marianne Little]

1 hour ago, Codex Alpha said:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned or said they want an increase in Li .

That is my main beef with SL. Not enough Li in relation to the land size.

I don't need a bigger land size. I can do alot on a 1024 sqm plot, whether it be a club, or a starter store area.

Part of the attraction of coming to a land would be the immersion and detail, and right now one runs out of Li long before they can do that.

I was recently visiting a friend on their Belissaria plot and they effectively have a 271 land impact house AND 351 prims on a 1024 lot = 622 Li? Is this true or did I miss something.

In any case I could really use 512-650 Li on 1024 plot land and it would be more than enough for what I want to do. When things are used and built to real world scale (x 1.1 or 1.2 multiplier scaling) you have lots of room to do all sorts of things.

For me, it is the singlemost restricting thing to building things for the last 10 years, and buying/renting a bigger plot of land at 2k just has the same problems = low LI per sqm.

I would have thought Premium Plus, and for that price would give an Li boost, whatever they decided relating to land size, etc - which would cause me to build MORE and then require free texture uploads, etc.

But at the current levels I don't need it

I use SL to build, create, learn and explore: Social not so much anymore due to reasons, so it's even hard to value the Premium account at this point.

Where's the builder/creators package..?

I love land impact. I was 'stupid' enough to rent land in Horizons. Now I am addicted. I haven't had much time for SL in weeks. But I do not dare to quit renting there, it is so amazing. That addiction could be transferred to Premium Plus if we had double prims (Li).

 

[Prokofy Neva]

28 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

These. I'd prefer @Kris Spade's solution for simply being able to name my homestead what I want. Despite all the rights a rental homestead might give me, naming the actual homestead isn't one of them. 

And for the amazing @Rowan Amore ... I can't ever find these unicorn landlords that are offering homesteads only a few dollars above the equivalent of $109/month in Lindens. (Bonus points if I can play them with cash, not Lindens.)

I recall seeing only a single one in the past two years and can't find them again. If someone were to PM a name or two, I'd appreciate that.

That would be me, but my one homestead is taken and has been for years. There is too much competition in this space and in fact I see below tier rentals.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Liaa Nova said:

Here is one blog on the subject:

Everything About Premium, Linden Homes, and Lots More with Patch Linden - Dreamer's Virtual World (dreamersvirtualworld.blogspot.com)

It isn't the official one from Patch, but has some info I missed

It would be good to get clarification on two points:

o Whether Pickisseria relates to brand-new regions or only applies to older ones where the automated assignment system is *not* working;

o Whether if someone gets their manually selected home through the ticket system while on Premium Plus, they can keep that parcel if they dial down to regular premium. This is crucial cause this is how the hard-core Game of Homes types will acquire even more prime property which we can't be sure they "catch and release" for free.

[Marianne Little]

2 minutes ago, Reiki Mystic said:

Absolutely no! the price is crazy already 99 $ I find it too expensive for what they give (they should increase the weekly lindne for the same price) but 249 $ if you then calculate that many countries have to pay us VAT (for example in Europe an average from 20 / 22 up to even 25%) I would say absolutely no n it would mean that you will never renew my premium subscription again and I might even think over time to leave SL

You saw my posts? LL cover VAT when we pay annually. I think it is to keep us as long time customers. If they quit doing it, it will be bad. Really bad. A very big roadblock for Premium and Plus. I am paying 25% VAT.

I have pinged @Patch Lindento ask him if he will inform us about the Plus, will annually subscription be free of VAT? And will old common Premium continue to be free of VAT? I hope for information in the official blogpost they should send out in a couple of days.

It can kill Premium Plus. 25% on top of 250 US.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

10 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

That can't be right.

It's like LL didn't do the math on this at all. Two premium accounts with a group land bonus pretty much shuts this down.

9 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

I don't like supporting people that can't do basic math, and it's starting to look like LL can't do basic math.

My spreadsheet breaks down tier vs stacked premiums in 1024 & now 2048 increments.

There is a major problem with the "powers of 2" tier pricing model we have now and multiple premiums represents a huge saving over tier, in some cases over $600 a year.

Super premium closes this loophole across the board and reinstates the "powers of 2" tier pricing as a viable option. LL can absolutely do math and rather than revamp the tier package into something more consumer friendly, this is the far simpler option.

 

Calling it now.

Regular premium will go up to $130 a year.

This is the minimum price point at which the loop hole is closed and premium plus as presented makes a lick of sense.

[Nalates Urriah]

18 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

once it's posted officially in a place where everybody can see the full offering, then that might help.

The meeting was streamed to YouTube. So we can go listen to the announcement.

[Brilynn Roussel]

11 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Calling it now.

Regular premium will go up to $130 a year.

This is the minimum price point at which the loop hole is closed and premium plus as presented makes a lick of sense.

If it does, I'm out. $170CAD plus my extras is not enough for me to spend on my entertainment and I can always go back to renting a homestead

[Rufferta]

I feel as if something has been left out. Based on previous statements that Premium Plus would be a reduction in overall cost,  this new Premium Plus option only makes sense  if Coffee Pancake's prediction that the price for regular Premium will be going up is correct.

I would have been willing to pay double-regular-Premium for Premium Plus if only to avoid having to periodically send my subordinate alt's stipends to my primary alt.

While a Linden home on a 2048 M2 plot sounds wonderful, it is in Soonland now. In the meanwhile, how about giving Premium Plus members status symbols like having their name tags and text show up in shiny gold?

Edited June 21, 2022 by Rufferta

[Marianne Little]

If regular Premium is increased as much as 30 US... 😭

Good grief. It has to reach a tipping point, where people say screw this, I am renting instead.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

If regular Premium is increased as much as 30 US... 😭

Good grief. It has to reach a tipping point, where people say screw this, I am renting instead.

Sure, there's a tipping point.

I wonder if any other popular "games" charge similar rates?

[Paul Hexem]

19 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

LL can absolutely do math and rather than revamp the tier package into something more consumer friendly, this is the far simpler option.

Yeah. You're only right about this if you're right about this too;

19 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Regular premium will go up to $130 a year.

Knowing LL like we do, I suspect you probably are correct.

I just hope they're not going to start copying from the mobile game companies. It's looking that way.

[Love Zhaoying]

20 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

The meeting was streamed to YouTube. So we can go listen to the announcement.

I wonder if they often release "official transcripts" of those?  I've seen links to transcripts posted by users before, at least.

[Paul Hexem]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I wonder if any other popular "games" charge similar rates?

Look up Josh Strife Hayes on youtube, talking about premium currency pricing methods in free to play games.

I fear we're going to start seeing those tactics in SL.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Paul Hexem

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Paul Hexem said:

premium currencies pricing methods in free to play games

I'm so smart - let's call it an "app", then make everything "In-App Purchases"!

Brilliant!

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Sure, there's a tipping point.

I wonder if any other popular "games" charge similar rates?

A WoW subscription is $140 a year at the cheapest option (and you have to buy expansions every few years).

However.

You are getting a HUGE game with enough content that you could play it all day every day for literal years and always have something new to do or work towards. There is a huge social scene and the game caters to and is satisfying to all skill levels. beyond the price to play, you do not need to hand over more money unless you really want one of the handful glitzy store mounts.

SL on the other hand presents you with the potential to make your own fun and burn a whole lot of extra cash in the process.

 

[Qie Niangao]

12 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Last year, I counted 1700 uploads in the month before Fantasy Faire, because the beta grid was broken (but I rarely use it anyway, it's not convenient) and because I'm an amateur who might take 10 tries to get something right and not nail it the first time.

Kind of a tangent, but: The beta grid is inconvenient, and I only use it to explore new features while they're only available there, or very rarely to upload a mesh model Too Many Times to get a reasonable result because I suck at Blender. For texture uploads, though, it's pretty great using "Local" textures, available on the Linden viewer as well as the usual TPV suspects. Maybe everybody does, but I used to put it off, thinking it was penny-pinching and time is money, so I'd just upload until I got a lucky result, but it's actually time-saving to use Local textures, which can update themselves automagically when I save a new version to my PC's disk. I find this a real win especially when working on a fussy BoM alpha mask, for example, which can take me a half dozen tries to get "perfect".

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

SL on the other hand presents you with the potential to make your own fun and burn a whole lot of extra cash in the process.

And also SL has:

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

a HUGE game with enough content that you could play it all day every day for literal years and always have something new to do or work towards. There is a huge social scene and the game caters to and is satisfying to all skill levels.

Agree? #FightMe!

[diamond Marchant]

15 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Super premium closes this loophole across the board and reinstates the "powers of 2" tier pricing as a viable option.

I agree that it is likely that the price of premium will go up. We just do not know when.

Tiers are very confusing. Is this on purpose? In addition to tier included in a plan, you can add on 0.5K, 1K, 2K, 4K, 8k, and 16k. Beyond 1/4 region (16K), you can add additional 1/4 region increments. The MOST expensive tier on a per sqm basis is the level at or below 1/4 region. However, if you never add tier to a plan, you are paying almost land baron rates. This is why stacking premium is the lowest cost way to go.

On top of this complexity is the "tier packing" problem... this crops up when you are maxed out and want to add just a little more tier but you get promoted to the next larger tier level, meaning you are paying for headroom you don't need. This is another situation where premium stacking is a solution.

This is WHY it is hard to figure out the best plan. It CHANGES depending on how much tier you require.

When we thought Premium Plus was simply a doubling of price and included tier, I was ALL FOR it because the 2048 included tier gave you some relief on the "tier packing" problem with price parity. But the Premium Plus as delivered eliminated the price parity, rendering it DOA to me.

[Paul Hexem]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I'm so smart - let's call it an "app", then make everything "In-App Purchases"!

Brilliant!

No, it's their pricing methods that are the problem.

Like LL, these games all have their in game currencies. There's no direct purchasing allowed. And like LL does with land, they sell the currencies in brackets. Say 10 USD for 1200 tokens, 25 USD for 2300 tokens.

Here's where the predatory practices come in. If you want to buy something, it's going to cost you 1800 tokens. My numbers are guesses off the top of my head. These companies spend real time mathing it out so you always have to spend significantly more than you should need to in order to buy the thing you want. You'll always be forced to buy more than you need and be left with an amount you can't use without buying another pack of more tokens than you need.

If @Coffee Pancake is right, LL is about to adopt similar practices. The only way 250 USD a year makes sense is if they change something about the current premium pricing and/or land pricing model.

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Tiers are very confusing. Is this on purpose? In addition to tier included in a plan, you can add on 0.5K, 1K, 2K, 4K, 8k, and 16k. Beyond 1/4 region (16K), you can add additional 1/4 region increments. The MOST expensive tier on a per sqm basis is the level at or below 1/4 region. However, if you never add tier to a plan, you are paying almost land baron rates. This is why stacking premium is the lowest cost way to go.

There is probably an arcane set of formulas, like:

if ( (LandSQM div 2 >> 4 > MaxTier) || (LandSQM mod 2 == 0) ) ++TierLevel;

Edited June 21, 2022 by Love Zhaoying
Sorry to use "div" and "mod" but helpful for real programmers vs. / and %

[Blush Diavolo]

Frankly, even if free texture upload was the only perk coming to this, it'd still be worth it for me.

I have a store, and having just quickly worked out the math, the free upload savings will (even estimating conservatively) make up the subscription price difference easily.

Unless they announce more tempting perks when the option releases, I can understand why it's not appealing to everyone. But it's a no brainer for a large chunk of the creator community.

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

14 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

If regular Premium is increased as much as 30 US... 😭

Good grief. It has to reach a tipping point, where people say screw this, I am renting instead.

If Premium goes up, it seems almost inevitable that Estate fees will go up, too, and if so, rent everywhere will escalate at a corresponding rate.

And let's face it, they're eating inflationary pressures, too, especially payroll.

I certainly don't welcome such a thing, but that said, there's a strange phenomenon in this current round of inflation: aggregate consumer spending is not only continuing apace, but actually increasing specifically to "hobby" expenditures even now after pandemic restrictions are mostly lifted. I don't think any economist has a sensible explanation for what's happening, other than the amount of money folks did not spend under those restrictions. So as much as we all fuss about rising prices, higher SL costs may not tank usage as hard as we might expect.

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Paul Hexem said:

If @Coffee Pancake is right, LL is about to adopt similar practices. The only way 250 USD a year makes sense is if they change something about the current premium pricing and/or land pricing model.

The powers of 2 land pricing model is fundamentally flawed, always has been.

Say, you have 6000 sqm .. you have to pay for 8192 which leaves you looking for a little more land to fill tier. Getting 6 accounts with premium is ~$220 cheaper per year, the rub is you have to pay up front.

If you have 10k sqm .. 10 premiums .. ~$460 cheaper per year.

The exact amount varies depending on the amount of land you have, but this strategy is viable right up to a little over half a region.

This becomes exceptionally good value if in addition to land you regularly buy L$ to spend and depending on what you spend, can significantly cut back on that.

(My figures are calculated on the premium package as offered, if you have a grandfathered prem that gets more than 300L a week, do not under any circumstances change that account in any way as doing so will drop you to the current offering. LL will not let you change the account and keep the GF rate, even if all you want to do is switch payment frequency.)

 

The better and more consumer friendly solution would be to abandon the powers of 2 tier increments that permit this loophole to exist. Instead of doubling your tier at every increment, you were simply billed for what you actually had. Stacking premiums works because you are buying tier in single fixed increments.

[Love Zhaoying]

8 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

And let's face it, they're eating inflationary pressures, too, especially payroll.

They better be paying those mods, moles, and programmers well, to put up with us!

[Gabriele Graves]

If/when Premium price goes up to the extent that @Coffee Pancake suggests then I'll be pairing back my land holdings to compensate.  It is just an entertainment cost for me and I'm not interested in paying more for no extra value.  There is a line in the dirt and it isn't always about what someone can afford but what they are willing to pay for a particular thing.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Gabriele Graves