...A Rose By Any Other Name...

It's heEeeEere ---> yup, you can finally change your account name in SL!!!

...And on 14APR20, I changed my name from ℳαʝɨҟᐺɨӽڠɳ (BlueVioletVixen.Lorefield) to ℳαʝɨҟᐺɨӽڠɳ (MajikVixen.Lorefield)...

This venture now coincides very similarly to the RL experience of changing your name...  In the US, before 9/11, you could change your name by association (which would be to just start writing your name the way you wanted it to be, when creating a responsible/adult paper trail), despite whatever was written on your birth certificate.  Since then, you now have to go before a judge to change your name (if you are not someone who chooses to have it changed by your marriage).  The judge will do this for you as long as you're not doing something shitty like evading the law, you announce it to the world for records (via a newspaper in your county), and pay the court fees.  Court fees can be waived if you are considered low income (admirably nice for a system to put the mental health needs of the ppl before money).  You will get notarized documentation of your legal name change ... and then you will finally be free of all the ties that bind you and the baggage that weighs you down!  ♥

Alright... so when I first made my SL account about 12 years ago, I did not know how "un/real" the experience would be.  My normal internet handle has always been "MajikVixen" since the earlier part of this century.  I feared repercussions of not being a bit more anonymous, all across the board.  I don't want to state the obvious here to give you any ideas, but yes, ppl are fucking shitty sometimes and they warrant you protecting yourself.

After I came back to SL from a 5-year hiatus, in about 2013, I became comfortable enough to want to be recognized as "MajikVixen."  However, when I decided to change my name, I was very disappointed to discover that the "name change" was actually only for something called a "display name" ...And the fact that a lot of ppl still kept referring to me as "Blue" (in important group chats or other business relationships) since they didn't acknowledge display names --because, I mean, why would you expect your display name to be taken seriously when one has the option to change it every week?  + prolly for that reason, they purposefully opted to only be able to see "legacy names" from their viewer-- it all made me kinda strain my eyes from rolling them so damned much!  :p

Forget creating an alternate account with the name you actually wanted, because everybody and their mother had defaulted into getting the very predictable last name of "Resident."  And at that point, the lessor of all evils was for me to stick with the same ol' icky name; at least that way I could show a legacy (guess that's why they, therefore, call it a legacy name)... As genuinely, someone with a legacy name is more likely to have been around the block a few times, therefore less likely to be disrespected (as others think twice as hard before taking advantage of them), plus they get to show/honor their dedication/loyalty to the platform by having a name as proof.

/me shrugs and says, "Okay, Unconverted Darigan Aisha."

That's about the time I decided to say, "fuck it," and use unicode lettering in my display name ...Because, yup, if a lot of ppl aren't going to take it seriously, then there's really no fucking point in caring about it being legible for those who aren't 1337 (more and more things started revealing themselves to me as to why SL can be so very narcissistic too - although, A LOT has changed and we have come very far).  ...But this shows me who all the idiots are, too, who don't take the time to read profiles!  :p

Now, when I bought/created Zamargad, I created a private group for our home called "Ardours of Zamargad" to which I gave myself the role/title of "Lilith," and ppl started calling me that for either 2 reasons... They respected what I had done and who I am in SL, or they very simply couldn't figure out what I wanted to be called and just wanted to be polite.  ...I like to think it's the first reason and ignore any contradiction.

I have so many names, you might as well jump on the bandwagon of everybody saying to me, "Just don't call me late for dinner, right?"  ...LOL, fuck.

"Majik," "Maj," "Vixen," "MajikVixen," or, "Lilith," are all acceptable at this point.  I'm done with "Blue."  I need to be unique/creative, but still comfortably and respectfully recognized.  Blue-violet is my favorite color (a purple that's confused for blue, and is sometimes referred to as indigo), but nobody ever seemed to care enough to be that specific/detailed in understanding.  ...There's really no wrong way to screw up a painting if you put a little Majik in it, but there is definitely a difference between using Blue or BlueViolet paint (especially if your intention is to reference chakras & auras).  "How do you feel today, Blue?" becomes more like, "Feeling Blue?" when I've done everything to not feel sad.  Therefore, the name/reminder became an unintentional curse of making me feel uncomfortable and incomplete.

Thus, I'm very happy that I've been able to change my SL name wholly and completely, to honor who I actually am.  ...So that not only can I start taking myself more seriously (since that is the way others will respectfully address/treat me), but that deductively, ppl of SL will start taking SL more seriously, as well!  :)  So thank you, LL, for making SL that much more realistic and an extension of [my] RL.  ♥

...Oh yeah, and then I had a bit of a minor social crisis...  I wondered if I needed to reach out to all my friends and explain to them that I had changed my name ...so that they didn't think I was hiding from them, and that they wouldn't feel "butt-hurt" that their online friend list might be a little jumbled when they possibly couldn't find me, all without seeming full of myself or braggy.  But, it's all been working out alright.  We've all kinda reached out to the other at this point, said hi, kibitzed, and it was a very casual & light-hearted thing.  Seems pretty seamless, TBH.  Only "issue" was that one friend wanted to reference what we had talked about before, and that text file is going to be saved under my old name.  No big deal.  Ppl change their names all the time in SL now, don't you know?  ;)

---> I can't fucking read this!

...I Jumped Off The Cliff Too!

Hi, everyone!

Yup!  I decided to join SL's Premium Membership yesterday!

I actually almost did a few years ago when they offered the 50% off promo, but hesitated, because I wasn't too happy with the stipulation of it needing to be paid monthly ...and ultimately didn't because I was (and still am) very happy with ZI helping me acquire Zamargad, the most important thing to me in SL!

Now, I know what you're thinking... "Majik!  Why are you being so careless with money, when you last left us off with Zamargad's remodeling interim?"

Well, let me tell you...

First of all, the last change LL made, affected us in a good way.  ZI was able to reduce our tier and alot us more prims.

This new change, didn't affect Zamargad, because she is a homestead sim/region.  But it affected me personally...

...See how New Basic drops the number of groups you are allowed to have from 42 to 35?

That made me kinda upset.  Because I need an extra group slot for "revolving groups."  ...You know, those places you try to go play games at, and you need to join their group in order to use scripts.  ...Or maybe I need an emergency slot for something very important ...Like maybe a group gift?  Or rezzing rights?

And when I called LL at about 3PM SLT on 31MAY19, Jeff said that Basic Members would still be able to keep their groups if they were above 35 ...they just wouldn't be able to add any more.

^ Anyhow, my point is moot, as it now says this!
...Apparently, a lot of ppl were as upset as I was, and LL changed the criteria!  :o

But that was way after I talked to LL, ZI, bought annual Premium, and everyone closed up shop and went home for the weekend, LOL!


Anyhow...
What did also make me kinda upgrade was in doing some math of the old prices (still in effect until 24JUN19) versus the benefits of Premium...

...I wanted to lock in the old/best rate of $72, instead of having to start off at $99.

And looked at the Premium benefits, especially considering the Linden dollar rewards...

...And did a little math with that...
(BTW, for more interesting $ tips, please see Lindal Kidd's ---> blog posts!)

This is for the sign-up bonus after 45 days & I average it out like this:
$3.99 + $3.84 = $7.83 / 2 = $3.915 ~ $3.92

This is for the L$300 weekly stipend, and I average it out like this:
$1.20 + $1.15 = $2.35 / 2 = $1.175 ~ $1.18 x 4.5 = $5.31 x 12 = $63.72

Then I took the weekly stipend for a year, and added it to the sign-up bonus:
$63.72 + $3.92 = $67.64

Then I took the cost of membership and subtracted the benefit amount:
$72 - 67.64 = $4.36

...So really, it only costs a little over $4 to become an annual Premium member right meow.  It's just a game of deferred gratification and patience.

Plus!
Jeff confirmed you can always sell the L$.
There are of course some fees to do this... But you can always make it up by playing Alienum or something.

---> This is where you sell your L$.

And here are a few links for how you make sure you have a Paypal or Skrill account signed up to process your credit (which does take about 3-5 business days).


Now, the first benefit I was interested in (that I was able to take immediate advantage of), was the Linden Homes...

Mainland lags me horribly, I'm not sure why everyone covets it so (traffic, I guess).  However, I do hear that ppl do sign up alts on Premium to Group Own a nice big hunk of it.

After reading the prerequisites, I also decided that it would be nice to have a 512m(squared) Linden Home, and then if I wanted to start playing around with Mainland, I could use up the rest of the 1024m(squared) allotment.  ...Zamargad does not count against me on this, which is beautiful!

I believe this is the page where you can play around with themes a bit, and get a closer look at what kind of Linden Home you would like.

...Now I'm proud to say I also live in Hippogriff, which is part of the Premium 1 (or Premium East) continent @ Lilith's Grotto.  Got lucky too - waterfront!!!  :D  ...And it feels just, *SO* extremely nice to be living in a fantasy community again (you know, from other ppl who made it first)!  :)

It took about 6 hours to set it up, and you know what?  ...It gave me a sense of fulfillment, because it was nice to put some meaningful things back into existence, from when I took everything down on Zamargad.  There are also majikal teleport doors that will take you back and forth from Zamargad to Hippogriff (and vice-versa).  ...I am upholding Zamargad's DG Experiences description, too!  ;D


Now, I will have to take advantage of the quick access to SL Live Chat Support Team when they open, because...

A little before about 9:30 PM SLT, I was rezzing things in my Premium home, and they actually rezzed for a bit.

One of them was no copy by default, and two had no copy scripts.

Then I started to rez more things, and it made the rez sound, but nothing was rezzing.

I did not get any notices from SL saying these things weren't actually rezzing.

So then I tried Area Seach to try and find out what happened to them, and heard the disconnect noise.

I closed the viewer.

I relogged to the previous location, but when I came back inworld, I was no longer at my Premium home, but some previous place.

I came back to my Premium home and discovered the things I had rezzed in the center of the house were indeed gone.  Including the no copy items!

...It was like I had traveled back in time!  The last time this happened, LL was doing some updates, and I blamed it on that.  But I'm not sure what exactly happened this time (or how to prevent it in the future)!  O.o

The no copy items were not in my Lost and Found.  In fact, they were nowhere to be found in my inventory!

So I went to Preferences & cleared both my inventory cache and viewer cache.

Relogged.

Still, the no copy items were nowhere to be found.

Firestorm Support said to check coordinates 0, 0, 0.  Nothing.

Pathfinding... nothing.

I even had someone else check to see if the items I had rezzed were still in the center of the house (and maybe I just couldn't see them for some reason)... nothing.

...Fortunately, I followed the steps on this page, and this one too...

And after going thru a bunch of BS with my ISP, I managed to rebuy the freebie no copy item (thank goodness the creator left it on the MP from 2014!), and eventually found the other two no copy script items in the original boxes I bought them from (in my inventory).  ...But yeah, I would like to know what happened to the originals I rezzed and lost... Maybe a server reset will make them show?  *shrug*  :p

I didn't realize Live Chat was open every day (including weekends), and starts at 9AM EST (I'm *SO* used to everything being in PST/SLT)!  I'm happy to report that Evie, from Live Chat, was very nice!  But unfortunately, there are limits to Live Chat powers.  They're only able to put out immediate fires.  For a missing inventory issue like this one, I needed to make a ticket.  Hopefully, we'll get to the bottom of this, and I won't lose any future no copy items that would really devastate me, LOL.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of ppl on the forums asking about how/when to lock in that lower price for Premium.  I know it may be a bit too soon to tell if I like Premium or not, but you know, I like to get in on a good deal when I can.  I read somewhere that you can buy it again at the old/current rate (before 24JUN19), after the 4th (which, I assume is 04JUN19).  I'd like to find out more about that.

I'm going to give this until about Friday.  It was explained to me that the ability to pre-pay for another year is open (as of now, 03JUN19)... However, it hasn't updated for some ppl yet.  When you go to your account and select Premium, then go down to the bottom of the page for Premium again, there should be a pop-down with another option to check "pay today."

And another thing I'd like to find out about, is how often Premium Gifts update.  It looks like we still have a Winter Cabin... and *looks at watch* it's uhm, June!  ...I know we've been having some weird "end of the world" type weather, in fact, it hailed here last week, where I live in RL... But still... LOL!

It would also be nice to know how to find out about Premium only events and experiences too!

It seems we are due for another Premium giftie very soon!  They are usually tied with events or holiday celebrations.  As SL will be celebrating a sweet 16, there will also be birthday gifts!  The official blog is a good way to keep up with new information for Premium members to be aware of.  I didn't realize you could subscribe to it (and be sent an e-mail whenever it updates) too (several options - every time it updates, a daily digest, a weekly digest, and some other options as well, including a no e-mail option).


...As for the other benefits...

I have yet to check out the Premium sandboxes, as I belong to the ZI sandbox community.  So I'll have to let you know.

I'm also looking forward to having priority to crowded destinations.

And as well, the increased amount of missed IMs will be nice too.

...I have a while to experience these things.  I'm just glad I got to share my first impressions with you.  And if it doesn't work out, I can always downgrade.  But I'm hoping that this turns out to be a great experience with no regrets (like a lot of my friends who have apparently, already been long-time Premium members)!  :)




...Oh, and here's an update!
-I'm going to answer everything with red edits!  ;)

---> I can't fucking read this!