Dear LL, what I'd like to see in premium accounts

[Kit Helix]

I've been playing SL for a long time, tho not on this avvie... since, 2005?  So have seen a lot of changes. 

A lot of the new things offer things people say "Wouldn't it be cool if..." but really don't allow for flexiablity in a world built on the concept of "you can do anything".

Example:  The Linden houses are a no go for a lot of people.  I'd considered one to hold small classes and newbie get togethers, but then discovered I wasn't allowed to rent it out, or hold any type of event there.  And,  while I realize people put thought and time and effort into them.... I thought they were awkward and ugly.

Example:  New furn pack is non mod.

Some things I'd like to see that might lure me back into a Premium:

Bring back the 512.  I didn't live on it, but I had my shop set up on it, and then I gave the land to someone else and guess what?  They still have their shop on it.  

No upload fees.  Or a set limit of so many free ones a month. 

The new sandboxes are nice, but yes, some Mature and Adult ones would be good.

Increased stipand.

Lastly, this is a big one as I lost two avvies this way, due to RL issues, that had hundreds of USD invested in inventory,  AVATAR PROTECTION!

I had (twice) premium accounts that had buildings and textures and gobs what else in their inventory that because of RL issues (one a car accident that had me strapped to a bed for nine months) couldn't make payments on and didn't have access to change.  Both of them were wiped from the system after X amount of months.  My freebie accounts tho?  Still active.

If someone invested in an account it is more than likely they invested a lot more in what was on the account, and deleting them so they can't ever, ever be retreived has me SCARED to have a premium ever again.  And it is more than likely they will pay their past due when they can to get it all back, and strikes me as unfair that a free account is safer than someone who paid LL for (in my case) for over a year, teir and account.

 

Sincerely,

Kit

 



[Lyra Blackthorne]

Nooblets can still get a 512.  They can choose to have the Linden Home or they can buy a small 512 and pay no tier.

New Premium sandboxs were just released

[Pamela Galli]

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Kit Helix wrote:

 

If someone invested in an account it is more than likely they invested a lot more in what was on the account, and deleting them so they can't ever, ever be retreived has me SCARED to have a premium ever again.  And it is more than likely they will pay their past due when they can to get it all back, and strikes me as unfair that a free account is safer than someone who paid LL for (in my case) for over a year, teir and account.

 

Sincerely,

Kit

 



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Very good point.  I don't know why they can't just demote you to basic if you don't pay on time.  The only advantage to premium that means anything to me is better support, but balanced against the risk of losing your account, it is hard to justify even that. (I cancelled my premium, but I do have access to concierge support.)

[Venus Petrov]

While it is true that the gift of furniture is nomod, there are scripts embedded that allow you to pick a texture to change for several of the items. 

[Nikki Bechir]

Lindens have no concept of loyalty rewards. The blog on the subject, boasting of sandboxes and furniture made me cringe. Sandboxes are for builders and nekos only.  And what is it with furniture as a bonus? Lindens have managed to promote two useless things that cater only to a small minority.

 

Why can't Lindens think of the bulk of users who come in to play, explore and enjoy SL? A simple loyalty program would be to increase the stipend for each year as a preminum member -  300L- year 1, 400L- year 2, 500L- year 3  and so on.

Couple the stipend increase with larger free houses  each year ie 1024 prims after 2 years, up to  maximum of 4024 prims after 5 years.

 

As it stands premium members get very little that is meaningful and as long as techno geeks decide what they think the general user public wants, the premium members will continue to get nothing.

[Parhelion Palou]

 

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Nikki Bechir wrote:

... The blog on the subject,

boasting

of sandboxes and furniture made me cringe. Sandboxes are for builders and nekos only.  

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If people didn't build, you'd be very bored in SL. Creators may be a minority, but they're the ones who make SL possible.

 

[Nikki Bechir]

It's a chicken and egg argument and just as pointless. SL is a business who needs to attract the majority to pay wages etc etc. The minority cannot do that. Yes the builders create and are critical to SL, thats not ever in doubt. But equally if SL doesn't start rewarding the majority who pay the bulk of the money, then it will wither and die.

 The issue is Lindens can only ever seem to grasp the technical side of things like these uselss preminum gestures , sorry sandboxes already exist and builders do their magic there. Who needs more furnitire as a gift?  Martket place covers pretty well everything these days.

Lindens want to reward premium payers? Then they should be targetting the biggest range as possible. They didn't. The sad part is they think themselves as clever.  

[Echo Charisma]

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Parhelion Palou wrote:

 

If people didn't build, you'd be very bored in SL. Creators may be a minority, but they're the ones who make SL possible.

 

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For builders...probably the biggest perk LL could offer is an "invisibility mode" where builders could check a box on their dashboard that allows them to log on to SL without alerting everyone on their friends' list or announcing it in your profile.  I'd be a lot more excited about the sandboxes if 6 people weren't IMing me from the moment I begin rezzing.  Keeping this layer of invisibility separate from the "friend can see me online" invisibility would be a big plus, even if it's premium only.

Sometimes I have 30-45 minutes in RL free where I'd like to just go into SL and build.  Rather than announce to everyone who IMs me my status is busy, I'd rather just not announce I'm online at all.  This would continue to make premium worth it to me.

[Kit Helix]

I wasn't knocking the items, just the concept that flexibility wasn't there. 

 

The invisibility button mentioned is a fab idea, since the big benefit of being premium is ownership of land for businesses, and being able to build/do maintenance/deal with issues without a thousand peeps tapping your IM box is a very welcome idea to several of my friends.

[Penny Patton]

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Venus Petrov wrote:

While it is true that the gift of furniture is nomod, there are scripts embedded that allow you to pick a texture to change for several of the items. 

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If the scripts do not have a delete option, then that's even worse. People always complain about lag but never seem to realize they're the ones causing it. and there's very little Linden Lab can actually do about it so long as people insist on filling sims and avatars with unused scripts.

 Some things I'd like to see would be allowing Premium users to apply their tier to estates, not just mainland. There's a lot of unused tier out there that could be used to support content in SL, like role-play sims and art installations. I imagine it would help keep content in SL that would otherwise fold or move to Open Sim.

 

 Add to that an increase in tier (up to 1024sq.m. maybe) and Premium would start to look pretty nice.

 

 Of course, the biggest issue, as people point out time and again, Premium accounts are too easily locked down due to mistakes on Linden Lab's end. Currently, who in their right mind would want to go Premium knowing just how easily they could be locked out of their account for a mistake Linden Lab made.

 A friend of mine was locked out of her account around this time last year due to such a mistake. Took her months to get it back and she didn't get so much as an apology from the Lab. That's just unforgivable. As long as Premium account means paying for the chance that this will happen to you, many people will be too terrified to "upgrade".

 

 Also, somewhat related, but for the love of all that is good, please address the scale issue. A big part of Premium is the whole land ownership thing, and Linden Lab has been shooting themselves in the foot for years over land by making 512sq.m., which is actually a huge amount of space, feels so small and worthless to SL residents. A basic design blunder that should never have been allowed to become such an issue.