Linden Lab Changes Name Change Fees

 

When Linden Lab made it possible to change the last name of one's account a couple years ago (or bringing back last names as it was often called), it could be done only by someone with a Premium account. So someone with a basic account would have to sign up for it, at least temporarily, and then pay the fee.

A few days ago, Linden Lab announced that there would be changes to how one would pay for a name change. The good news, those with basic accounts won't need to sign up for Premium, and those with Premium Plus will pay a much smaller fee. The bad news, those with basic accounts won't be paying much less.

 Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve updated our Name Change service in a major way. We’ve told you that we were going to keep working on adding new features to the Premium and Premium Plus offerings, and we’re delivering on that once again today. From here on, Premium and Premium Plus subscribers will benefit from a reduced price for the Name Change service.

But that’s not all! Not only are we discounting the service across the board, but we’ve decided to democratize the service to everyone.

For those with Premium accounts, the fee has been cut from $39.99 US Dollars to $34.99, a reduction of about one eighth the price. Those with Premium Plus will benefit the most, as they will now only have to pay a $14.99 USD fee, less than half. For those with basic accounts, their fee is $49.99. While more convenient than the old way, it's not much less than the $51.98 combined for a one-month subscription for Premium and name change.

For the blog post in full, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Linden Lab Raising Price of Premium Accounts, Reducing Group Capacity in Basic Accounts

Yesterday on Wednesday May 29, Linden Lab announced "Land Price Reductions, New Premium Perks, and Pricing Changes." But it's the "Pricing Changes" that are getting most of the attention plus The "Premium and Basic Account Changes."

The Lab announced "the difficult decision to make our first Premium price increase in over a decade." Their monthly rate was going up by over 25% from $9.50 USD a month to $11.99. Their quarterly rate was going up by almost 50% from $22.50 every three months to $32.97. And their yearly rate was going up by almost 40% from $72 a year to $99.

The Lab did say on June 3 they would be offering a "limited time offer" until June 24 for Premium account residents to renew at the old rate for one more cycle, including for those being billed monthly to switch to quarterly or annually and for those billed monthly to go quarterly. For basic accounts going Premium, being billed quarterly would no longer be an option. That option would remain only for existing Premium accounts.

Linden Lab was also increasing the credit processing fee for selling Linden dollars to Paypal and Skrill accounts from 2.5% per transaction to 5% (with a minimum fee of $3). In Nov 2017, it was raised from 1.5% to 2.5%. The Lab gave "increased regulatory and compliance costs" as the reason.

The good news for Premium account residents, Linden Lab announced that effective June 24, their group limit would rise from 60 to 70. The number of stored offline IMs would rise from 50 to 80. Unfortunately, Basic account residents would be taking a hit. Their group limit would be cut from 42 to 35, and their stored offline IMs would go down from 25 to 15.

This is the first time that group capacity for residents has been trimmed back. In October 2010, the limit for all accounts was raised from 25 to 40. In January 2011 it was raised to 42. In June 2015, it was raised to 60 for Premium residents, with regular ones still having a limit at 42.

The best news was for landowners. Linden Lab announced that the tier for full sims was going down again, effective June 3. For most, it would be from $249 USD to $229. The rate for grandfathered, or "bought-down", sims was also being cut, from $195 USD to $179. The $30 fee to add to the prim limit was unchanged.

The residents were quick to react, numerous comments in two threads in the Discussion Forums, "$99 Problems," and "What Are Your Opinions ..." There's also one in VR Universe. Needless to say, there were many expressing disappointment and anger, with accusations the Lab was acting out of greed.

For the blog post in full, Click Here.

New SL Viewer with Optional Basic Mode Launches After Eleven Days as Beta, Now Default Viewer For New Users

This week after a short tryout peroid, the new beta Version 2 viewer with an optional simpler basic mode was not only made official, it was made the default download for new users.

Since the initial launch last week, we’ve also deployed an additional beta version with fewer bugs and more stability and performance improvements. ... we are releasing the SL Viewer into general availability and it is now the default download for new users. A few new features that are included are the destinations guide which allows rapid access to selected areas around SL for new users by interest, the ability to change avatars quickly and “click to walk.” Just click on a point ahead of you and your avatar will automatically start walking there. Additionally, we encourage you to fill in your “Interests” in the Edit Profile tab of your Profile page. Eventually, you’ll see that we are going to do some fun things with Interests once more people fill them in. Keep in mind, that we’re just at the beginning of developing the Basic experience for new customers and that we will continue to improve it, and add features, as time goes on.


To me, the new viewer seems to have a rather rapid approval process. And I wasn’t alone. Tateru Nino on her blog stated it went from beta to official in eleven days, “Mind you, only seven of those eleven days were working days.” From alpha to beta was even faster, one day. She questioned if the Lindens actually took the time to listen to residents, pointing out that the new viewer “does not actually work – at least not from where I’m sitting. It’s the only viewer that Linden Lab has put out in my memory that fell at the starting gate.” She later stated she was messaged by Rod Humble himself, saying they were working on the problem, and it would be fixed soon.

Hamlet Au’s article reminded readers of the basic viewer’s “point and click” movement and “instant avatar selection” from a number of newbie avs. His attention was also drawn to the “Profile Completeness” progress bar, “To reach 100% completion in your Second Life profile, you have to add some interesting details: Specially, your Real Life Biography.” Hamlet Au called this a “necessary nudge” to make Second Life more appealing to the mass market, feeling “avatar-only identities have made Second Life niche.” Personally I disagree for a number of reasons, but this is for another column.

Much to my surprise, Hamlet Au personally showed me he’d been having troubles too with the new viewer. During the fundraiser for the Japanese Red Cross at Madpea, I teleported in to see how it was going. I soon noticed an Asian schoolgirl av appear next to me with an anime “meatball” hairdo. Then I saw the name: “she” was Hamlet! After both of us recovered from our mutual surprise at seeing each other like this, Hamlet told me while checking out the basic viewer, he had gotten stuck in the girl avie, and couldn’t change out of this embarrassing gender-bender that got chuckles from both the Madpea audience and competing online newspaper editor alike. It was an "only in Second Life" moment that I'll be thinking of for a while.

Checking the feedback on the forum, comments were mixed, probably mostly negative. One wondered if this was an attempt to keep griefers from making alt accounts too quickly. One of the minority who approved thought a newcomer could learn the basics of Second Life in ten minutes.

And for myself, like other versions of Viewer 2 in recent months, this won’t work for me at all. This made looking to see what others found my only source of information besides the official Linden statements.

Sources: Linden Blog, Dwell on It, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Latest SL Beta Viewer has Basic and Advanced Modes

In the Linden blog entry on March 18, Rodvik Linden talked about Linden Lab making efforts in customer service, lag, and usability. The latter was the main point of the post:

Many of you have noted that Second Life is difficult to use, both for yourself and when inviting friends inworld. This usability issue is more complex than the user interface as it not only includes finding people and places, but it is also is dependent on some of the items above. We want to make an experience that helps you overcome some of the big usability hurdles that you’ve shared with me.

Today, we’re launching a new version of Second Life Viewer Beta which introduces two modes that are available to everyone who downloads it--Basic and Advanced.

Basic mode is an easier, simplified experience designed to introduce users to Second Life. It includes simple communication and navigation tools such as click to move and hold to move the camera, a choice of 24 pre-configured avatars, and an integrated Destination Guide to help you connect to friends and interesting places quickly and easily. Certain functionality, such as voice capability, building tools, and the ability to purchase virtual goods, is not available in Basic mode.

Advanced mode is for those already familiar with Second Life who use the full feature set of the SL Viewer.

There were numerous comments in the feedback forum. Among them was Shockwave Yareach, “Click to move comes right out of Blue Mars. I hated it then and I hate it now.” Opinion was mixed, some feeling it was useful for newcomers, others feeling it was flawed one way or another, or overall too stripped down.

Yours truly downloaded the beta viewer, but was unable to run it. Looking for reviews elsewhere, Daniel Voyager’s Blog had a Youtube of the Beta Viewer’s Basic Mode.



In “Dwell on It,” Tateru Nino wrote she liked it overall, though thought it was difficult to move around, “the click-to-move feature gets tangled up with the rest of the UI, causing a lot of unexpected frog-hopping, plus that feature’s tendency to jam the avatar through walls and other intervening obstacles.” Still, in her opinion it was good for someone coming to Second Life for the first time. But wrote that the idea that all that was needed to attract and retain newcomers was a better viewer was "dead wrong."

Hamlet Au in New World Notes commented on the feature in which one could change the avatar’s appearance in a single click, “This will likely change a new Second Life user's understanding of an SL avatar, making it seem less like a concrete persona that represents important aspects of your real life self or personality. (Which is how most long-term Second Life users see their avatar.)” He saw a resemblance to “The Sims,” which Rod Humble worked on before coming to Linden Lab, “So it's a very significant change. And, in my opinion, a good one: The Sims franchise is many times larger than Second Life ... But as The Sims begins to show its age, it's a safe bet than some Sims fans will look to a revived SL to take their imagination to another level.”

At the end, Hamlet joked one might expect to find new residents from “The Sims” to ask where the bathroom was.

Sources: Linden Blog, Daniel Voyager's Blog, Dwell on It, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan