Multiple alts - why and what do YOU do with them?

[Space Zehetbauer]

My apologies if this has been done to death but I didnt see any threads within the last few months on this topic.

When one reads these forums a lot of people mention they have alts. This might cause some newbies to scratch their heads wondering why.

So... if you have alts, do you have many, and most importantly what do you do with them? Are they everyday alts? Once a year alts? Hide from your partner alts? etc...

 

My confession - I have 4 alts. 3 are female, one is male (and unattractive and gawky)

Why do I have them?

Alt One - because I wanted to have a different look, different personality, and I use her primarily for business ventures. This exposed her to the "hero worship syndrome" at the clubs she owned so she would regularly get hit on by customers. And you realise there are some whack jobs out there!

Alt Two - introduced to try on new clothes, new shapes etc... And used to set up some groups.

Alt Three - can't really remember why I have her. She gets to stretch her legs once a year, if lucky.

Alt Four - male. A friend challenged me to create a male avatar. Seriously? I just had no "feel" for creating this creature. Didn't really like any of the options available on marketplace and couldnt find an AO that didnt make him look like a lumbering ape when walking. One of the first times I took him out some woman felt attracted to him, threw him on the ground and jumped on him and when she had finished with him, friends him and demands neverending loyalty, and wants to tell him how to look, what to wear, what to buy etc... There are some people in SL with some real problems lol

So thats my alt story.

Of the 4 alts and me, I am happy with two of them.

thanks for reading,

Space

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mollymews]

- setting sit positions for two avatars

- checking product permissions 

- parcel access controls testing

- scripted agent behaviour testing

- group roles/permissions testing (personal group second account)

 

Edited July 9, 2022 by Mollymews

[Coffee Pancake]

 

The first me from 06 that lasted a whole year because I didn't know my username would be my in world name and it was dumb. Now a bank alt.

The second me that lasted right up till mesh bodies became a thing and I retired for personal reasons, and yes, I updated everyone to ...

The current me (this account) .. that started with a mesh body and a nice fresh inventory.

A test account with no friends, no shared rights, and no stuff for development testing (stuff I sell, viewer stuff, etc)

.. and a couple of others I made for one shot RP or specific purposes and then never used again, a region security bot, that kind of thing.

 

I really don't see the value in keeping or running multiple separate identities, or keeping after dark stuff all secret .. it's just a pain in the butt.

[Sammy Huntsman]

3 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

 

The first me from 06 that lasted a whole year because I didn't know my username would be my in world name and it was dumb. Now a bank alt.

The second me that lasted right up till mesh bodies became a thing and I retired for personal reasons, and yes, I updated everyone to ...

The current me (this account) .. that started with a mesh body and a nice fresh inventory.

A test account with no friends, no shared rights, and no stuff for development testing (stuff I sell, viewer stuff, etc)

.. and a couple of others I made for one shot RP or specific purposes and then never used again, a region security bot, that kind of thing.

 

I really don't see the value in keeping or running multiple separate identities, or keeping after dark stuff all secret .. it's just a pain in the butt.

I mean I have tonnes of other accounts I don't use. One that is retired, and one that I use full time. Also one that I use as a Camera account. Long story, I forgot my password and kept on making new ones. Anyways, I use one main and one alt. That is all I use. The others I still don't remember the passwords for, the one I retired is still staying retired as well. 

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, Sammy Huntsman said:

one that I use as a Camera account

Having an alt acting as the camera is a solid win for photoshoots and one I wish I would remember to use more often

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Having an alt acting as the camera is a solid win for photoshoots and one I wish I would remember to use more often

Yeah I have been using this technique for 3 years now. It has made my pics much nicer. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

I'm an alt, but I am now the primary account.  I created this account 3-4 months after creating my original because I wanted to use this account for different types of role play.  Ultimately, Lil took over and the other account is just the bank account now.

I currently have 26 accounts that are still active -- as in 'not deleted' -- not all are actually used on any sort of regular basis.  Some were created to help test permissions or to help set up poses in furniture or to test some particular functionality.  Some were created and made Premium in order to donate tier to the land group -- that was actually more economical before LL raised the Premium fee a few years ago.  

Currently, out of the 26 accounts, 3 are Premium for land purposes and the rest mostly sit idle.  I have another 8 that were deleted years ago.

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Having an alt acting as the camera is a solid win for photoshoots and one I wish I would remember to use more often

It does simplify it so much ---- yet I almost always forget about using an alt.

[Eddy Vortex]

1 hour ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Yeah I have been using this technique for 3 years now. It has made my pics much nicer. 

And it makes multiplicity photography easier.

[diamond Marchant]

Initially I added alts for testing and checking perms on the things I sell.

Later, I used them as a solution to the tier packing problem, for example, I needed another 1024 of tier and it was cheaper to give an alt a premium membership rather than bump up to the next tier level. The least expensive way to own mainland is create to alts, give them premium membership, and have them donate the 1024 to a land group. I have posted the spreadsheets. This is called "Premium Stacking".

When Bellisseria appeared, I used alts to acquire multiple Linden Homes (one per account). It is cheaper to have 3 alts with Premium and get 3 1024 Linden Homes compared to 1 Premium Plus account and 1 2048 Linden Home.

Edited July 9, 2022 by diamond Marchant

[Eddy Vortex]

• to be able to work on building projects undisturbed.
• testing item permissions before releasing product for sale.
• catch a Linden Home so my main avatar could have more than one.

[Space Zehetbauer]

A few of you have said to acquire more than one Linden home.

I am curious as to why this would be desirable.

I have enough problems with one Linden home and all the furniture and cleaning and polishing all day...

phew

[Space Zehetbauer]

14 minutes ago, Eddy Vortex said:

• to be able to work on building projects undisturbed.
• testing item permissions before releasing product for sale.
• catch a Linden Home so my main avatar could have more than one.

Yes, working on something uninterrupted is a big win.

There are times I just want to be in SL to look at things or research and not have people asking me over or wanting to chat etc...

[diamond Marchant]

10 minutes ago, Space Zehetbauer said:

A few of you have said to acquire more than one Linden home.

I am curious as to why this would be desirable.

All my Linden Homes are open to the public because that is fun. They are also rez zones and destinations for cruises and flights I help plan.

[Paul Hexem]

Second Life is the only place where "alt" is a bad word. Most games encourage it. Some games even require it.

Even in SL, if you want to take full advantage of groups, permissions testing, or make owning land worth it, you want alts.

[Chaser Zaks]

1. My main account, this one.
2. Saltyalt resident, my secondary account, runs on bot client.
3. Chasertester resident, I use this account for testing issues on the jira. Works as a sandbox environment and also low lag avatar that I can take anywhere.
4. automatedtests resident, bot that runs on a cron job to test grid stuff.
5. Account I won't disclose, I suffer from anxiety and worry about breaking rules unknowingly or bringing an avatar that is unwelcome to a location. I use it to grab copies of rules and get the general feel/vibe of a location.
6. My first account, don't use it but keep it for sentimental value.
7. My second account, don't use it but has a lot of older stuff on it. 

Edited July 9, 2022 by Chaser Zaks

[Eddy Vortex]

2 hours ago, Space Zehetbauer said:

A few of you have said to acquire more than one Linden home.

I am curious as to why this would be desirable.

I have enough problems with one Linden home and all the furniture and cleaning and polishing all day...

phew

Because it's fun to decorate a house in different themes. If I've grown attached to a parcel, I am unlikely to give it up. And if I see a house in another theme I want to have but don't want to lose the other parcel, this is where the alt comes in. That's how I ended up with four Linden Homes.

[Liaa Nova]

I played Afterlife and decided I'd rather be a Thrall than a Lycan, only once changed you couldn't go back to being a Thrall so I created alt 1 and she was a Thrall. Later on she became a Demon in A&D as my main was an Angel and I decided I'd like one of each species. Right now she is used for testing things such as security systems, or if I have a problem and want to know if she sees it too, and she occasionally is the one to play A&D

Alt 2 was created as I needed 2 alts for work and only had 1. She is for business and also acts as the bank

[Jordyn McGregor]

Aside from helping me spend my lindens...my alts are used for extra bodies in pictures - blogging and for fun.

[Phil Deakins]

I have over 70 accounts, and they were all created for specific purposes.

This is my original account. It's the only one that I ever ventured out into SL with, although I have used a couple away from home for specific purposes, but never pretending to be anything other than alts of Phil Deakins.

The second one was created as a female to earn money pole-dancing, but I had absolutely no idea how to go about it, so she was never used for that, and she never went out.

Close to 40 were created as traffic bots to improve my store's search rankings. Some of those were used as store models and characters in and around a castle I had on the same large parcel. The rest were used with a traffic bot system I'd written. The system kept the sim almost full to avatar capacity, but always leaving a few spaces for people to arrive. VERY soon after that system was completed, LL banned the use of traffic bots. But it was good while it lasted lol.

The rest were created for their Picks. Links, in Picks or wherever, were the major method of improving search rankings after LL started to use the Google Search Appliance for the search results. Many places offered rewards to people who put their places in their Picks. I created my own accounts for it, and I achieved top rankings for all the searchterms I wanted.

For a lot of years now, I've only used any of the accounts for animations, testing, and group purposes. Previously, some were used for testing and positioning animations, and for the last couple of years, it's been for testing security devices. Lately I use quite a few as group members, so that the 30L/wk search inclusion cost is shared between many accounts. I won't go into the reason why I do that, but it does matter.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Phil Deakins

[PheebyKatz]

I made my current account so that I could get away and build without having to answer IMs every twenty seconds. Now my main is my alt, and only wakes up now and then when I need something from her inventory, or to test something (like a script) that I can't test on myself.

As for why others have alts, well, I have a friend who has about 4 of them, and they are used as RP characters.

They're also useful for finding out if you're actually alone on the sim or if the person running around naked and invading private homes just has you blocked.

Apparently a favorite use for alts by some people is to give themselves a way to spy on people in groups and sims their main, or another, account has been banned from. These are an especial joy to deal with, especially when ten seconds after getting the boot for harrassment, etc., they come back with the same avatar, same name, and a different number after it, same groups, same profile.

It's like playing whack-a-mole with a very cheeky and blatant mole. No offense to moles, of course.

I'm presuming actual intelligent people are smarter about ban evasion, and wouldn't give themselves away so easily. Or get banned in the first place.

I like Phil's approach above. Sure, have alts, but be honest about it. Using them as utilities to gain an advantage in business might be seen as horridly unethical, but it's understandable, and his being honest about that too, well, hard to think of things as being all that nefarious when the person doing said things owns it and says yup, I did that, had a reason, it got me ahead in business, tryin to live, yo.

It's when they're on your friends list, trying to manipulate you in secret, that I find it all disgusting. Invading a group with multiple alts and using them to break up friendships and relationships, and torment people for a laugh, that's worthy of a nail in the forehead, IMO.

Edited July 9, 2022 by PheebyKatz

[Nuuna Nitely]

I have two alts. Male one is for testing products and for AD pics. Female is mainly for complete anonymity. She has no friends and doesn't talk to people, also fun to play dress up with her because she looks completely different from my main. Both are also used for picture ideas that need extra bodies. 

[Phil Deakins]

33 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

I like Phil's approach above. Sure, have alts, but be honest about it. Using them as utilities to gain an advantage in business might be seen as horridly unethical, but it's understandable, and his being honest about that too, well, hard to think of things as being all that nefarious when the person doing said things owns it and says yup, I did that, had a reason, it got me ahead in business, tryin to live, yo.

Thank you   I admitted the traffic bots right from when I first entered the forum back in the days of Resident Answers (RA), and I got huge amounts of flack for it for years. But it was always legal - until it wasn't - so I could handle it.  It's why, even now, it's compulsory for me to be in any thread about bots lol.

The reason I got into traffic bots was because I was in the 'low 'prim furniture' business, and there was store at the top of the rankings for that phrase that sold high prim furniture. But it had a club on the same parcel and it was the club that was getting traffic, not the store, so its rankings were false. I got into traffic bots to outrank that place.

I enjoyed doing bots though. I wrote several bot systems, which I thoroughly enjoyed doing. It was a significant part of my SL in those years.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Phil Deakins

[PheebyKatz]

17 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

The reason I got into traffic bots was because I was in the 'low 'prim furniture' business, and there was store at the top of the rankings for that phrase that sold high prim furniture. But it had a club on the same parcel and it was the club that was getting traffic, not the store, so its rankings were false. I got into traffic bots to outrank that place.

See, it's not even a question of ethics when it's being done for reasons like that. If I had an awesome chicken joint, selling two drummies for a dollar, and someone had a big billboard up for a bar, and it mentioned chicken, but they sold it for 2 bucks a drummy, and they were getting all the chicken business just because people knew they had it for sale, I'd be out putting flyers on cars for my 1 dollar two-fer, and eventually money-conscious people would be sneaking out of the bar to get chicken at my place and smuggle it in. XD Not my doing~! I just put the flyers out!

It's just business, and if you wanna make a living, you have to be willing to solve problems like that in whatever way you can, at least legally.

Now if you had been sending the bots to make the other business' customers flee from griefing or something, THAT would be unethical. You basically played the SEO game and got a better ranking, so you could at least be seen. I see nothing wrong with people having bots on their own land, if it keeps them from fading into nothingness when they're trying to hustle just like anyone else.

Edited July 9, 2022 by PheebyKatz

[Phil Deakins]

6 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

Now if you had been sending the bots to make the other business' customers flee from griefing or something, THAT would be unethical. You basically played the SEO game and got a better ranking,

SEO was my RL business back then 🙂

I did do things that might be considered unethical though. By manipulating links, I could, and did, manipulate the top 10 search results for 'low prim furniture'. I promoted some places without their knowledge, specifically to keep one place down. That place had entered into the low prim furniture business and used my business name (Prim Savers) to do it, piggybacking on my success. It wasn't against the rules and I couldn't stop it. So I kept him lower down the rankings. His store didn't last long inworld.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Phil Deakins