While I was digging for information on this piece over the weekend, I received several anecdotal reports of alt accounts being closed down - sometimes while in actual use (logged in at the time). Today, Linden Lab reports that they are indeed clamping down on alternate accounts, apparently those with inadequate 'contact' information - we're not entirely clear on what that means, as the third party registration interface requires only a date-of-birth and a valid email address that has never been used for Second Life currently or previously.Having brought up the matter with my ad-hoc 'unfocus group', it's been speculated that perhaps the suspension of population reporting may be concealing wholesale account deactivation. It doesn't seem likely to me, but with population reporting down for 133 hours now, you've got to wonder why it's taken so long to fix what is unlikely to be more than a minor bug - after all, you can reasonably bet that Linden Lab's internal feed of those population figures are probably working. Philip would be casting disappointed gazes at people otherwise, right?
1. I hope that if the shutdown accounts without a warning that they shut down people's less used accounts... I would hate to be one of the people they deleted an account and the one deleted was the main one instead of a test alt or somthing....
ps: I didn't said I had an illegal alt account, I just said I wouldn't like to be one of those people if what I described happened...
Posted at 12:07AM on May 16th 2007 by TigroSpottystripes Katsu