5 minute read
NEW SECOND LIFE PREMIUM PLUS EDITION
ROB SANTANA
Is it worth upgrading? This past summer Linden Labs announced an enhanced Second Life Premium Plus and I’m going to share here what’s good about it and whether you think you might want to upgrade your account to this enhanced version of Second Life.
First off it gives you the ability to purchase outright your very own homestead. I explained all about homesteads in my August Article about Serena Estates. Until now, it wasn’t possible to purchase a homestead unless you owned a full private region in second life. However, now if you are a Premium Plus member and as long as you maintain that membership you can purchase a homestead from Linden Labs and name the region whatever you like. To be clear you are only getting the ability to purchase a homestead, you still have to pay monthly rental fees. Owning land directly from Linden Labs has the convenience of being able to pay tier without logging in. You still have to pay the monthly tier and keep up your Second Life Premium Plus membership to keep it. The cost of renting a homestead at Serena Estates is $120 a month and from Linden Labs is $109 a month. In contrast renting from a Second Life Estate manager gives you the convenience of 24/7 help, landscaping help, and no need to actually purchase the land. If for some reason you some time away from Second Life you simply return the land to Serena Estates and you don’t have to worry about unloading your homestead and attempting to get your purchase price back. Most likely you won’t get the full price you paid considering you will be paying tier while you try to sell it and it just adds to your losses the longer it takes to sell. On this I recommend renting from an Estate because you’ll need to own it a year to get your purchase price back and there’s no need to buy it if you rent it instead.
The next thing to clear up is, what if you already have a paid annual Premium membership and you want to buy the Second Life Premium Plus Annual Membership? If you do this Linden Labs will deduct the current value of the remaining days of your annual membership from your new Premium Plus membership. So if you pay less than the annual membership cost it’s because you still had some months left on your current premium account and it was deducted from the total price of your new Second Life Premium Plus account. So upgrade anytime, Linden Labs will charge you only the difference needed to upgrade.
THE COST:
NEW Second Life Premium Plus
Annual Membership $249/year (around $21.00/month)
NEW Second Life Premium Plus
Monthly Membership $29.99/month
Second Life Premium old version
$99/year
Second Life Premium old version
$11.99/month
As far as the 2048 square meters of land go, to get this credit you should search Linden Land and use the map to discover land for sale. As long as what you buy is less than 2048 sq meters it will not be charged extra on your Linden Lab account. You can still get a linden home, however it’s limited to 1024 square meters, at this time. I personally own 4 parcels of 1024 square meters on Linden land so I can get half of that paid for with a Premium Plus account.
If you rent from a Second Life Estate you can’t apply your free land credits. They only work on Second Life Mainland. I will write about how to buy mainland in my next article so you’ll have some tips on how to hunt down a 2048 square meter parcel.
BENEFITS OF SECOND LIFE PREMIUM PLUS MEMBERSHIP
#1 Sign up Bonus of 3,000 Lindens paid to your account after 45 days: VALUE $12.00 DOLLARS
• use this link to get the sign up bonus: https://community.secondlife. com/blogs/entry/11080-introducingpremium-plus-for-your-second-life/
#2 $15 to change your Second Life Name
#3 Free uploads for sounds, textures and animations
#4 Reduced Group Fees
#5 Free recurring Events (listings in the Event Calendar)
#6 A L$650 Lindens weekly stipend into your account. VALUE $4.00/week $12.00/Month
#7 Join a total of 140 groups (vs. 70 for premium members)
#8 Up to 2048 sq meters of Land/month VALUE $13 MONTH (vs. 1024 for premium members)
#9 Up to 160 stored instant messages (vs. 80 for premium members)
#10 Concierge Service for name changes, Linden Home and phone support.
Money saved being a Premium Plus Annual member? $25.00/Month and the yearly prorated membership cost works out to $21/month so it’s a good deal.
One last thing to check out:. In October there was an announcement that Second Life Premium Plus members would have unlimited access to a MOBILE phone viewer for Second Life called SpeedLight. It’s available on Iphone and Android phones. It enables you to simultaneously log multiple accounts into Second Life. As a Second Life Premium Plus member it states you can enter the 3D world and interact with others. The drawback is your avatar is just a “PIN” showing your position as you walk around. I have not tried this so I can’t give any opinion about how it works, but I do know that the ability to at least log in, chat, send money, or check messages can be very useful when you are on the go. Go to the APP Store and download the SpeedLight App so you can see for yourself what you can do.
If you don’t have a premium plus account, I don’t think the SpeedLight app is worth it because it’s not free without it. So, if you get the annual membership you are saving money if you own 2048 square meters of land and you spend 2500 lindens monthly because the monthly cost is $21 dollars and the actual cost of the Premium Plus monthly benefits is $25 dollars a month. Also let’s not forget that Second Life is a great way to socialize from the comfort of your home and the savings on that can be ALOT. It cost alot to go out and meet people, attend a concert, get your shopping fix in, build your own model home...you get alot for your buck if you really use Second Life and participate.
