November is half-over and once again it’s time for the end-of-year Premium membership promo from LL – and Premium gifts make something of a seasonal return.
As usual, the offer is 50% off of membership for those upgrading, but only if they opt for the Quarterly billing plan, and the discount is applied only to the first quarter billing period.
There is also an e-mail circulating to users about both the promotion and the gifts. I’m still not clear why, whenever the upgrade promos are run my main account (which is Premium) gets the invitation to “upgrade”, while my Crash Test Alt account never does (and it has a separate e-mail address, so it’s not like I’m confusing the two), but hey-ho.
The image accompanying the Premium promotion e-mail
The Premium gift is designed to be of a festive spirit featuring a range of items, notably twelve empty cubes textured as gifts, together with teddy bears last seen in the SL10B premium gift vendors, now attired for Christmas; a thanksgiving candle; a Christmas candle; a poinsettia; “high” (26 LI) and “low” detail (15 LI) versions of an Xmas tree; and a Christmas wreath.
I’ll leave it to others to comment on the gift set. Instead I’ll just mention that the Premium promotion started at 00:01 on Thursday November 21st and runs until 00:01 on Wednesday 1st January 2014 (although at the time of writing, the small print of the upgrade page itself quotes the offer period as ” starts Friday July 26, 2013 at 12:01AM (PST) and expires Sunday August 11, 2013 at 11:59pm (PST)”. Oops.).
If you’re interested, I offered some thoughts on the matter a couple of years ago, and which probably still holds true today and might be worth reading before making the jump.
On July 28th, I received an e-mail from the Lab announcing that they are once again running their “limited-time” Premium membership offer. As with the previous promotions (run in 2011 and 2012), this offer comes with strings attached:
The discount only applies to Quarterly membership billing plans
Only the first quarter will be discounted; the rest of the year will be charged at the full Quarterly membership rate.
The offer will be running until 20:00 SLT (PST) on Sunday 11th August, 2013, and those wishing to take advantage of it can do so via the sign-up page.
The latest premium membership offer from Linden Lab
It’s likely the offer will draw upset from some quarters, with people pointing to the Lab “failing” to address issues of high tier. Whether such complaints are valid is actually debatable; when it comes to tier, the Lab is very much between a rock and a hard place insofar as tier cuts are concerned, as any significant reduction in tier could actually hurt their revenue stream far more rapidly than attempting to weather the storm of declining in private region numbers (and perhaps trying to deal with matters through other means).
That said, there is a finger to be pointed at the Lab where Premium membership and land use is concerned, and that’s in regard to Linden Homes. These were originally intended as providing a means to “get people started” on the road of having a house and land in Second Life. However, this has never been the case. There are no time-limits on Linden Home occupation, no incentives to encourage people to move on elsewhere, etc. So people tend to stay, and the Linden Home regions grow, quite possible to the detriment of the land market as a whole – and I actually speak as a guilty party; I have a Linden Home and reduced all other land holdings to zero last year.
The problem here is what to do. The fact is that Linden Homes are one of the “better” perks of Premium membership, their age and (in some estate cases) their so-called “slum” looks notwithstanding. If they are taken away, or if people’s use of them is limited, it could lessen the value in having people go Premium. Plus, even if the time people can have a Linden Home is limited, it doesn’t automatically mean that once that time is up, they will simply move elsewhere and rent land; they might simply opt to go without.
Incentives are needed, and this again introduces problems: what should the incentives be, how should they be directed, and who should be involved? Some kind of co-operative venture between the Lab and rental estates might be possible; but again, which estates? And how would it be managed without the Lab being accused of “playing favourites” or damaging the market for the smaller rental operations or without the whole thing becoming too complicated to be easily managed by estates and / or the Lab?
Linden Homes: hurting more than helping the land market?
My own thoughts remain that the entire Premium membership package needs a complete re-think; although I admit identifying how this could easily be achieved to the satisfaction of all isn’t as easy as it sounds. Back in 2011, Will Burns suggested one possible direction this might take:
Might I suggest that if the Premium Accounts were instead treated as Professional Accounts, changing the focus from casual consumer to producer, then the Gaming Toolbox options for experience creation would be an excellent (and genuinely new) Added Value to the Professional Account holder.
Since Premium/Professional Accounts require some sort of identification, this makes the Professional Account holder directly accountable for their actions using the professional toolbox systems.
The problem here is that not all current Premium members are content creators. So what happens to them if the focus is to “rebrand” Premium accounts as “Professional” rather than to introduce a new “Professional” membership category? That said, the introduction of such a “Professional” membership package, with access to a unique set of tools and capabilities, in addition to a re-vamp of the Premium membership package would appear to have merit on a number of fronts (even if it would be liable to generate its own controversy).
There are doubtless dozens of ideas which could be put forward on the subject of Premium accounts (and the future of Linden Homes). Whether the Lab would consider any of them, no matter how workable, is another matter. For now, however, the promotional offer is open. If you’re interested, I offered some thoughts on the matter a year ago, and which probably still holds true today and might be worth reading before making the jump.
So today I gave up the last 4096 sq m of private land I paid tier on. It was actually odd, turning-in the keys (so to speak), without having land “of my own” to go to.
The reason I’ve done so is explained elsewhere, but in short, I opted to re-up at Premium for another year and to make proper use of my Linden Home, which I’ve been using as my “primary” residence for the last couple of months & slowly getting used to it.
All moved in
Even so, cancelling rental on the last parcel of land was a little hard; for most of the nigh-on six years I’ve been back in SL, I’ve shared my land with a good friend – Kelly. We’ve alternated having our respective homes on the ground and in the air – with me being the airborne resident for most of the last year or so, and sometimes, when my holdings were larger, having our houses side-by-side on the ground, amidst shared gardens or beach. Seeing her go off to a new home in SL was a little like seeing a member of the family up stakes and move away to a new town. IM will doubtless become our version of the weekly long-distance ‘phone chats, and we’ll be picking out places in SL we can meet-up directly when a face-to-face chin-wag is needed…
Adjusting to living in the limited space of a Linden Home hasn’t actually been that bad; as I’ve commented in the past, the 117 prim allowance / land capacity provided with each house can allow rather a lot to be done with them – particularly if you shop right. What’s more some of the houses lend themselves to low-prim conversions and do actually exist in reasonable neighbourhoods. Or at least, I think the Tahoe range does…
The Aspen interior, as supplied
I opted for the Aspen in the Tahoe range. It’s one of the “long” versions of these A-framed houses, and the only one with the front door in one of the long walls, something I particularly wanted. After moving in, I did do a small amount of conversion – I installed a second vertical wall in the place so I had room to hang pictures and added a basic loft area at one end of the house to make space for a (never used) bedroom (do avatars dream of electric sheep?) – but other than that, didn’t really do that much with the place beyond slapping in some furniture.
After deciding to make the place my primary abode, I re-worked things a little, dividing the single room into two, and re-modelling the stairs and loft. This all came to a cost of nine prims (the magic of sculpts!), although it could have been less; I wanted a different floor in the “back” room, and a door separating it from the lounge.
At home – the Aspen remodelled
I’m particularly proud of the picture frames on the long wall and over the fireplace amount to just 2 prims and as well as allowing me to display 4 prints, they contain scripts which activate a warm level of lighting at dusk before turning it off again at dawn.
For the rest of the place, as mentioned, I went with Ample Clarity’s PrimPossible! items. which give me a plant, a lounge suite, tables (even books!), rug, piano, bed and upstairs sofa for the princely sum of five prims. Throw in an ornament or two, and that’s the place remodelled and furnished for just 20 prims – leaving me 97 still to play with, should I get extravagant.
The Patio
Another reason I like the Aspen is that it has a decent patio area, so there’s room for me to entertain outdoors and enjoy the late afternoon Sun. The railings on the patio are mine – but again only amount to 1 prim.The patio also comes in handy for rezzing purposes as well.
Linden Homes get heavily critiqued for being cookie-cutter packed into the available space; I know this because I’ve been one of those doing a lot of the critiquing. The truth is, I still do find much of the Linden Home regions to be something of an eyesore; hence why I say to anyone thinking of getting one to shop arround. Look at the different classes of build, their surroundings and the various styles of house offered in each class. But, the additional truth is that, pick wisely (and be prepared to bounce around a few houses), you can land a perfect comfortable place with surrounding that aren’t really that bad – although admittedly, Linden Lab could really do with updating the textures they use for – well, just about everything, actually.
Paddling upriver from ny “new” home
In my own case, I have a navigable river close to hand (OK, so I have to rez my boat at home and then “drive” it overland to the water – but it is all downhill) which allows for a little paddling around (or puttering, in the case of something larger), and a couple of regions away – reachable on foot or via water – there is an area of parkland to be enjoyed.
The parkland also lets me take my Neuspa for the occasional spin without annoying the neighbours. Again, being amphibious, it means I can use it to travel to the park by water well out of people’s way, and drive ashore for a little putter around without upsetting others with noise and the risk of being run over.
So, that’s me settled all Linden-y like in the Aspen. It’s only taken me a year to get there, and I’ve enjoyed myself doing a little more exploring in the local neighbourhood; after living on private islands for so long, being able to walk out my front door and simply go a-wanderin’ without having to resort to landmarks and teleports is a novel experience; I’m rather enjoying it.
Four wheels on my wagon – taking a break from wandering around my local Tahoe regions.
The end of October marks a year since I returned to Premium membership. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been mulling over whether to renew again or not.
My reasons for re-upping to premium came about as a result of a renewed optimism about SL, particularly following last year’s SLCC-2011. A lot has happened since then.
It is fair to say that, particularly of late, there are elements of my premium package I’ve come to appreciate. I’m spending far more time in my Linden Home now than I am at my “main” home. Even with just 117 prims, the Tahoe offers comfortable and flexible living space. Shop right, and it can easily be furnished for a very modest prim count.
Linden Home, modified and furnished for 19 prims, including loft conversion and scripted lighting
Yes, the build quality is very 2007, it may even be cookie cutter (although im my opinion a lot less cookie cutter than other Linden Home offerings) but the fact is that it works. The real art in getting a good Linden Home is picking the model you want carefully (including going and seeing them in-world) and being prepared to hop around with multiple applications (bearing in mind the 5-in-24-hours rule) until you find a location you like. In this I was lucky. I hit the bullseye first time.
I’ve also only recently discovered the full freedom of sailing due to one of the premium gifts.
Enjoying my time sailing aboard “Exotix”
I have a new appreciation for places like Blake Sea and the ability to sail around coastlines and across water from continent to continent. All this is to the good; but there is still a problem. When all is said and done, premium membership really only has strength of appeal to incoming users to SL and / or those who have yet to establish themselves. For anyone who has been here a while, particularly if they’ve invested in a decently sized parcel of land on a private island, the benefits of upping to premium are perhaps harder to quantify.
One can actually understand why LL bias the premium offerings towards newer users. Getting people to pay for something they can otherwise a enjoy “for free” and be as much a contributing member of the economy as anyone else, is a tough nut to crack. So to make the package more attractive, LL aim for enticements which will encourage those signing-up to opt for premium directly. My only real objection to them doing this, as I’ve covered elsewhere, is the elastic nature of some of the descriptions of the premium benefits. More privacy? More land? A personal and private home? These are all things anyone can enjoy regardless of account. Sure, the last one costs – but it will even with premium if you want something bigger, prim-wise than a Linden Home.
Premium membership benefits, as defined by Linden Lab
I was playing with Lumiya 2.3.2 this afternoon (review coming soon!), when the veritable Lord of Dee, Ciaran Laval tapped me via IM about what appears to be an upcoming premium promotion, which looks set to be going live on the 14th November.
Ciaran spotted the news while taking a look through the JIRA, when he came across WEB-4950:
WEB-4590: click to enlarge
This is probably listed as a public issue in error, so I fully expect it to vanish behind the curtain next week. However, it raises interesting questions. Why a JIRA for a promotional offer, and why a link to a Linden Department of Public Works JIRA (LDPW-77, closed to public access)?
Between them, these suggest that the promotion will be more than just the “typical” 50% discount on first payments when signing-up to quarterly membership, and that something in-world will play a part in the offer.
Now, the promo could simply be related to another premium gift, but given the last one was issued in late August, the time-frame seems a little short, premium gifts usually come out a little over once a quarter; we also have Christmas on the horizon, so I suspect that, as with last year’s sailing boat, we’re more likely to see the next gift in December.
There’s also the small matter of LL asking about what can be done to improve the Premium Wilderness Experience a few months back. While it remains open right now, could the offer be tied to a belated overhaul of this (which at the time of writing remains open). If so, it seems an awfully long time to get from the e-mail survey (May) to updating the experience, even allowing for protracted time frames at the Lab. There’s also the fact that while visited, the Wilderness Experience didn’t exactly set the SL world ablaze with positive reviews, and I rather suspect most of the feedback provided on the survey was at best lukewarm towards the whole idea. So I’m far from convinced LL are going to try to breathe life back into that specimen.
Premium Wilderness: too long in the tooth to inspire more interest?
I’m therefore leaning towards us seeing something new, and I’m tempted to lean even further (and risk toppling into error) towards it possibly being something akin to Linden Realms – that is, using the advanced creator tools. The “first set” of these was launched back in July 2012, and we’re still waiting for the updated permissions system associated with them to arrive. That the term “first set” was used in the blog post announcing their arrival, I’ve always wondered if LL LL have something else in the pipeline for the tools (beyond getting the permissions system sorted). So perhaps this promotion will see further tools added to the range and rolled out for Premium members to try in a new playground, a-la Linden Realms.
Aside of the odd occasion, I’ve never really tried my hand at Second Life sailing. Sure, I’ve played around on the water, zapping about on my Neuspa, or riding a jet ski, or out on a motorboat, and I’ve taken my Premium sailing boat out a couple of times; but on the whole, I’ve left sailing alone.
That changed when, on a whim, I called Spikey and asked if she’d like to accompany me out on the waters of Blake Sea. We started out at Blake Sea – Half Hitch, which is rezzing-enabled, climbed aboard my boat and set off.
Ready to go – Blake Sea – Half Hitch
We headed due West to start with, letting the wind carry us across the first of many sim boundaries without a hitch, then turned north. I immediately appreciated the open waters of Blake Sea because, o long as you keep your eye on the horizon around you, there is little need to focus on “driving” a sailboat, leaving you with time enough to chat with any friends who are with you and enjoy their company.
Blake Sea -Crows Nest
Which is not to say that Blake Sea is simply lots of empty water sims – there are islands to sail around, ports to visit, and quite a lot of things to see as you go. The open regions of the Sea are popular among pilots as well, and we saw several taking advantage of the freedom offered by these (comparatively) low-lag sims, with light aircraft, helicopters, transport planes routinely passing overhead (and rather un-routinely, in one case, ditching into the sea about 30 metres away from us).
Our progress was a little cumbersome, with me swapping between sail and motor as I initially couldn’t get the hang of tacking back and forth in order to make progress when the prevailing wind wasn’t favourable, and I frequently managed to turn the boat entirely out of the wind, and then having to switch over to the motor.
Blake Sea
There can be a lot going on in and around Blake Sea; there are sailing races, and some areas are given over to sea combat, and so on. Not every parcel is necessarily open to public access, either. Therefore, you do need to be aware as to what is going on and where you are going; however, the Map is generally enough to keep you informed of any activity near you (although it won’t stop you bumping into the occasional “cannot enter” pop-up warnings when you reach a parcel which has object entry blocked – I was a little surprised to encounter one of these outside the entrance to a harbour. Oh, and be wary of sand bars if your boat has a deep keel!
The Premium sailing boat offers a variety of sitting / sunbathing pose points in the cockpit and on deck which means you can share your time out on the water with friends, and Spikey took advantage of the deck-top poses to catch some sun as well sailed.
Blake Sea
All-in-all, sailing on Blake Sea can be a very pleasant experience – although admittedly, we happened to pick a time when there were no races scheduled, so things might get a trifle more frenetic when races are being held. It was certainly a great way to get out with a friend and simply chat, rather than sitting around indoors or IMing one another.
I’m not ready to take to the ocean blue full-time, but as a pleasant afternoon spent with a friend or two, sailing the waters of Blake Sea could become a very relaxing way to spend an hour or three.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 