Editorial: An Outrageous Price for Second Life Avatar Name Changes, Particularly for Non-Americans and Those Suffering from the Economic Shock of the Coronavirus Pandemic

The strength of the U.S. dollar vis-à-vis other currencies is making
the new avatar name change feature outrageously expensive
(photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash)

I have had a chance to do some serious thinking, now that I have gone through the process of changing the legacy avatar name on one of my alts in Second Life. It was an easy, painless process, for which I thank Linden Lab. They seem to have done a good job of implementing this much-requested feature.

However…

I knew that it would cost me, but I am shocked at just how much it did actually cost me. This is an avatar whom I upgraded from Basic to Premium, both to take advantage of the new name change feature, and to snag one of those lovely Victorian Linden Homes.

But if I had just wanted to change my avatar name, how much would I have to spend at minimum? I would have had to upgrade from Basic to Premium for one month on the Monthly plan (US$11.99 per month). Then, I would have to pay a one-time name change fee of US$39.99 to be able to change my avatar’s first and/or last names. Then, I would have to cancel my Premium membership once I had changed my avatar name (at least, that’s how I understand it would work).

That works out to a grand total of US$51.98. Now, factor in the exchange rate between the Canadian dollar and the American dollar, and that works out to an eye-watering CA$78.99 (I used today’s exchange rate for the US$11.99, and added the CA$62.33 Linden Lab actually charged me for the name change fee.)

Yes, you read that right—ALMOST EIGHTY DOLLARS FOR A NAME CHANGE. That is approximately double what I was expecting to pay for such a feature. This is outrageous.

I spent TWICE as much as this to change the name on my avatar.
(photo by Michelle Spollen on Unsplash)

Because of the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, many non-American currencies are losing value against the American dollar, which has traditionally been seen as a “safe haven” for investors (along with gold) during times of economic distress. The Canadian dollar has gotten hammered, and it makes everything I do in Second Life much more expensive than it would normally be: the cost of a Premium membership (I now have three), buying Linden dollars, etc.

In a recent interview on Lab Gab, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg was asked about those people who are experiencing difficulties in paying for sims due to pandemic-related financial difficulties (with Second Norway being a recent example, where the owner cited the failing Norwegian krone exchange as part of his problems making ends meet). Ebbe encouraged those users to call the Support team to discuss their particular situations, which would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Well, that might be well and good for major landlords in Second Life who are struggling to make ends meet. But I rather doubt that the Second Life Support team is going to help me out by offering to lower the cost of an avatar name change because it’s so goddamn expensive in Canadian dollars

Obviously, Linden Lab is going to make some serious coin off this new feature. They have a decade of pent-up demand, after all. But non-Americans, whose currencies are suffering in comparison to the mighty U.S. dollar, are getting walloped. I really don’t see how many people around the world can afford this service.

I mean, for eighty Canadian dollars, I could outfit my avatar from head to toe in a new mesh head and body, and still have money left over to go shopping for new hair, clothing, and shoes. What’s the better use of my money in SL, my appearance or a name change? You’re going to have to have some seriously compelling reasons to spend that much cash, just to change what other people see when they look at you in their SL viewer.

And, at a time when many are facing mounting economic hardship, when people are losing hours of work, gigs, or even entire livelihoods during this pandemic, these fees seem particularly harsh, tone-deaf and out-of-touch.

And it’s not just non-Americans I am thinking about here; many Americans now face unprecedented economic hardship, too. A virtual world like Second Life is probably not going to rank too terribly high when people are more worried about how to pay their mortgage or feed themselves and their families.

Frankly, this just makes Linden Lab look greedy. Not a particularly good look at a time like this.

What do you think? Do you think these fees are outrageous? Should Linden Lab take into account that many foreign currencies are getting hammered, and make services like this less expensive for non-Americans? Should Linden Lab consider the economic shock of the pandemic in setting their fees going forward?

Please feel free to leave a comment below and tell me what you think, thanks.

UPDATED! How to Change Your Avatar Name in Second Life: A Step by Step Guide

IMPORTANT NOTE: On August 3rd, 2022, Linden Lab announced that avatar name changes would now be available to Basic (i.e. free) Second Life account holders! Here’s the full announcement. They have also adjusted the price for this service, depending on what level of SL account you have:

– Basic: US$49.99
– Premium: US$34.99
– Premium Plus: US$`14.99

The instructions on how to do this are unchanged, read on to find out how to do this!

Today, Linden Lab finally released a much asked-for and eagerly-awaited feature: the ability to change your avatar name!

Given the ongoing interest in “last names” among our community, we’ve reinstated “last names” effective today as a new option for Second Life Premium Members. If you have a Premium account, you will be able to visit https://secondlife.com/my/account to change your first, last or both names. In the true spirit of the original “last names” option last seen in 2010, participating Residents will once again be able to choose from a rotating list of available last names. Some names may only be available for a limited time, so if you see one you like then you might want to claim it quickly! 

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you …Bumbly Rumpler:

Yes, that is her actual, honest-to-God, legacy name. (I honestly do not know what I was thinking at the time.) Such an unfortunate name to be saddled with, for such an elegant lady. I have been itching to change it for years, and now I finally have my opportunity!

Now that Linden Lab has—finally—made it possible to change your avatar’s legacy name, I thought I would draw up some step-by-step instructions on how to change your name.

Before we begin, you do need to understand the difference between your avatar’s legacy name (the name you chose for your avatar when you created your Second Life account) and your avatar’s display name (which you can change to pretty much anything you want, one change per week). What I am talking about here is changing your avatar’s legacy name, the one you picked out when creating her.

Step 1: Upgrade Your Account to Premium

First: you will need to upgrade the Second Life account associated with your avatar to Premium. (You will not be able to change your avatar’s legacy name if you are using a free, Basic account.)

So open up a web browser, log in to the Second Life website, click on Login in the upper right-hand menu on your screen, and enter your avatar name and password. You will be taken to your account dashboard.

At the dashboard, click on Account in the left-hand menu, then click on Premium Membership:

Note that you have several options when upgrading your account from Basic to Premium: annual, quarterly, or monthly payment. You will have to pay for at least one month’s worth of Premium membership in order to change your avatar’s name, in addition to a separate fee.

Step 2: Click on Change Name

Look in the left-hand column of your dashboard at https://secondlife.com/my/account (you should still be signed in from the previous step). You will see a new option called Change Name. Click on it.

You will see the following information, including the charge for the name change: US$39.99.

Click on the Next Step button to continue.

Step 3: Choose a New First and/or Last Name

To change your first name, check the checkbox next to the words Change First Name in the TOP BOX, and type your new first name into the text box underneath. (If you wish to keep your legacy first name, uncheck the checkbox.)

To change your last name, check the checkbox next to the words Change Last Name in the BOTTOM BOX, then click one of the radio buttons next to the list of last names presented to you. (If you wish to keep your legacy last name, uncheck the checkbox and leave your original last name, which appears at the bottom of the list, as the selected name.

If you are changing both your first and last names, then when you are done, your screen should look something like this:

Remember, you must be logged out of your account on your viewer before submitting your name change!

When you’re ready, click on the Review Changes button.

Step 4: Confirm Your Name Change

You will be presented with your old and new names:

If you are satisfied with this, click on the Continue to Checkout button. Otherwise, click on the Go Back link and start over again.

Step 5: Pay for Your New Name

Review your charges and click the blue Buy Now button. (Note: the current exchange rates between the Canadian and American dollars are killing me. CA$62.33 is a lot more than I expected to have to spend to change my name! I’m quite sure other people using non-American currencies are feeling the pinch, too.)

Step 6: Success!

If you are successful, you will see the following familiar message on your screen:

And finally: a message of congratulations on your name change:

The message reads:

Your account name has been changed to Moesha Heartsong

It may require a few hours for this change to take place in all of the Second Life systems, viewer and web site. In the meantime you may see a mix of your old name and new name. If you continue to see your old name anywhere in Second Life after 24 hours, you may file a support ticket.

Congratulations on your new identity!

Now, ladies and gentlemen, may I present my rechristened avatar…Moesha Heartsong:

And there you have it! Six easy steps to change your Second Life avatar name. If you still have questions, Linden Lab has published a Changing Your Username FAQ, with answers to the most commonly-asked questions Second Life users may have.

Ask Me Anything!

I’m feeling bored in my pandemic self-isolation, so let’s do something a little different today…

One of my favourite things to do over on Reddit is read through Ask Me Anything posts (AMAs for short), where a person or group of people (usually a celebrity, but sometimes just somebody who has been through an eventful experience, like a reporter or group of reporters who broke a major news story) make themselves available to answer questions posted by Redditors. They don’t try to answer all the questions, and they can ignore questions that they don’t like or are too personal or nosey, but overall, they are great fun, and often you come away knowing that person a little better. (Barack Obama’s AMA was one of the most popular Reddit posts of all time!)

So, I have decided to take a page from Reddit, and do an Ask Me Anything (not on Reddit, here on my blog). Feel free to post a question in a comment to this blogpost, and I will post a selection of asked questions and my answers in a later blogpost!

Second Life blogger/vlogger Strawberry Singh (now Strawberry Linden) did this a couple of years ago, where she answered reader questions in this video:

So, what would you like to know? You can ask about me, or any of the topics that I write about on this blog (or any of the platforms that I have written about over the past two-and-three-quarters years).

Ask away! I do reserve the right to reject any question for any reason, however. Any comments to this blog are NOT posted automatically; I read them first and then approve them. (If I find your question overly personal, objectionable, or of questionable taste, I will simply delete it.)

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: How to Make Your Own Bento Animation Override for Only L$2, Step by Step!

An animation override (AO for short) is an essential part of any avatar setup in Second Life; without it you are relying on the default system animations which are built into the SL avatar, which are nothing short of hideous. (Nothing marks you as a newbie so much as the dreaded default “duck walk”. You can spot it a mile away.)

Those of you who have been following the SL avatar makeovers on my blog already know that my favourite freebie AO is one that was put out by a store called [ImpEle], called Chubby Girl AO. That store closed down years and years ago, but the AO was still available to purchase for free from the SL Marketplace. All you had to do was add a separate hands-only AO for Bento hands (which were thoughtfully included for free with the various freebie versions of the Altamura mesh bodies) and you were all set to go!

Unfortunately, a reader has alerted me that the Chubby Girl AO is no longer available from the SL Marketplace (which makes sense, since Linden Lab is cleaning out the little-used, oldest items from the Marketplace over time).

So I am going to fall back on my second choice. On the Second Life Marketplace is a product called the SEmotion Newbie Girl AO HUD version 3.8, which costs only one Linden dollar, contains some lovely, natural stands, and already includes Bento hand animations, so you don’t need a secondary, hands-only AO like you did with the Chubby Girl AO:

Now, I quite like this AO, but it has one very serious problem: the default walk animation included with it is one of the most horrendous walk animations I have ever seen! (If you don’t believe me, buy it and try it out for yourself on your own avatar. Truly horrific.)

So today, I am going to take you, step by step, through the process of replacing the walk on this dollarbie HUD to another one I like much better! This is not difficult, but there are a number of steps involved.

Tucked away at the very back of the women’s AO section of the sprawling Vista Animations store is a product called Your First AO: Basic Female Mocap AO (here’s the exact SLURL), which is set for sale for only L$1 (please note that for some reason, when you buy this dollarbie AO, it sends you two identical copies):

Now, the particular problem with this dollarbie AO is that the stands are horrible, but the walk animation is absolutely perfect, and a personal favourite of mine! (You can check it out in the video below. The walking animation itself is called DANGERWALKMIX1.)

So, what I am now going to show you today, is how to modify the SEmotion animation override, replacing its hideous default walk with the one from the Vista Your First AO. It’s not hard, but there are quite a few steps involved, and you will need a location with build rights, such as a quiet sandbox, where you can work undisturbed.

PLEASE NOTE: These instructions assume you are using the Firestorm viewer, which you can get for free from the downloads page on the Firestorm website.

Step 1: Turn on the lights

You’re going to need really good, sharp lighting to find and edit tiny objects in Second Life. If you are in Firestorm, Click on World in the top menu bar, then select Environment Editor, then Sky Presets, then Edit Preset, as shown here:

From the list of sky presets, scroll down and select one called CalWL:

Et voilà! Sharp, bright, clear light by which to properly edit tiny AOs. In addition to CalWL, you could try out the presets named Nam’s Optimal Skin 1 and Nam’s Optimal Skin 2, which are also very bright and suitable for this task.

Step 2: Find a good sandbox with a light-coloured floor or ground

You are going to need to find land where you have rights to rez objects to the ground. These are usually referred to as sandboxes, and you can use the in-client Search to find them by searching for the word “sandbox”. There are dozens of them!

For these first few pictures, I used a place called the Timelord Sandbox, where SL users can rez Doctor Who-related objects for roleplay. The Timelord Sandbox has a ten-hour auto-return (i.e. the length of time before your rezzed item is automatically returned to your inventory), which is great, but it also has a black floor, which means you simply cannot find any tiny items you rez to it!

So, as you can see from the pictures I took to illustrate the later steps in this process, I eventually switched from the Timelord Sandbox to a small desert island with object rez rights, , where you can actually see things on the light-coloured sand!

Don’t make the same mistake I did. Pick a place with a light-coloured floor or ground.

Step 3: Rez the Vista Animations HUD to the ground, open it, and copy the animation DANGERWALKMIX1 from it to your inventory

Open your SL inventory, open the folder with the Vista Your Fist AO, and drag the AO down to the ground. Make sure you are selecting the correct item; the icon next to it in your inventory will be a small cube to indicate an object.

Then, right click on the AO on the ground, select Open from the menu, and drag the animation DANGERWALKMIX1 from the AO back into your SL inventory. (I put it back in the original folder that the Vista Your First AO came in, but you can put it anywhere, as long as you remember where you put, because you’ll need it later!)

Step 4: Unpack the SEmotion Animation Override

Purchase the SEmotion Newbie Girl AO from the SL Marketplace (using the link near the top of this blogpost). It will come in a box, which you must rez and click on to unpack:

Step 5: Turn on Highlight Transparent Objects feature in your Firestorm viewer

(This is the part where I had to move from the Timelord Sandbox to my desert island to continue.)

Press Ctrl-Alt-T to highlight transparent objects in your Firestorm viewer (you can press Ctrl-Alt-T to turn it off again; it’s a toggle swtich). When you do this, items with transparency (like parts of the hair on top of my avatar!) will have a red glow to them. I do this so that it is much easier to see the very tiny SEmotion AO when I rez it onto the ground.

Step 6: Rez the SEmotion AO to the ground.

Step 7: Right click on the SEmotion AO and open it.

Step 8: Open your SL inventory, find the DANGERWALK1 animation, and drag it into the open Object Contents window of the SEmotion AO.

Step 9: Now, scroll down to the very bottom of the Object Contents window for your SEmotion AO, and find a notecard called WomanNewbie.

Step 10: Click to open the WomanNewbie notecard. An edit window will appear on your screen.

Step 11: Scroll down in the WomanNewbie notecard until you find a line that says:

[ Walking ]SEmotion-f-walk14|nowalks

Step 12: VERY CAREFULLY EDIT that line to replace “SEmotion-f-walk14” with “DANGERWALKMIX1”:

[ Walking ]DANGERWALKMIX1|nowalks

IMPORTANT: DO NOT EDIT OR CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE IN THE NOTECARD! DO NOT HIT RETURN AFTER EDITING THIS LINE! DO NOT ADD ANY SPACES BEFORE OR AFTER THE WORD “DANGERWALKMIX1”! DO NOT DELETE THE ] CHARACTER BEFORE IT, OR THE | CHARACTER AFTER IT!!!

Step 13: Save the edits to the WomanNewbie notecard using the Save button at the bottom of the edit window. Then click the X in the upper right hand corner of the notecard to close it.

Step 14: Edit the SEmotion AO to give it a new name, then take it back into your Second Life inventory.

BEFORE YOU TAKE THE EDITED SEmotion AO BACK INTO YOUR INVENTORY, right click on it and select Edit. Go to the General tab and give it a new name (e.g. add the word “New” to the front part of the Name field). This will help you figure out which is the old SEmotion AO and which is the new one in your Second Life inventory.

(I chose to put the edited AO back in the original folder that the Semotion Newbie Girl AO came in, but you can put it anywhere, as long as you remember where you put it, because you’ll need to find it later!)

Step 15: Now find the newly-edited SEmotion Newbie Girl AO in your inventory, right click on it, and select Add.

Once you have added the SEmotion AO, it will attach to the bottom right-hand corner of your Firestorm viewer. Click once on the Options menu, and a blue menu will appear in the upper right-hand corner of your Firestorm viewer. Click the Reset button on the blue menu. (IMPORTANT: NOT the Load Button, the Reset one!)

A number of chat messages will appear in your chat window:

Loading notecard 'WomanNewbie'…
Finished reading notecard 'WomanNewbie'.

Congratulations! You now have a wonderful new Bento animation override for your female avatar, for a grand total of only two Linden dollars! (Beat that!)

(Reminder: Don’t forget to press Ctrl-Alt-T again, to turn off the highlighting of transparent objects in your Firestorm viewer!)

Here is a one-minute video of my new Bento animation override in action, showing you the walk and a few of the stands:

Please note that you can use this step-by-step method with any animation override that uses a notecard to control the various walking, standing, flying, etc. animations (and most of them do). Your new animations might be ones that you bought from a store instead of ones inside an AO you already own. The process is the same.

I hope you find this tutorial useful! Please share it with your friends, thanks!