This page is to help explain the pros and cons of membership, and what might be free alternatives. Many people aren't very keen on spending $50 for a video game, but that's what most games cost anyway. Other online multiplayer games cost much more, like The Sims Online, Lineage II, Star Wars Galaxies, are at least TWICE as much as There, plus you have to go to a store and buy the game in a box, and that's another $30+! There are cheaper games like Second Life which is a very similar game to There you might want to check out. But it requires a credit card, age limit of 18, and it's not as user friendly as There.
Charter
Membership!
There is offering a charter membership, and time is running
out. There has not announced when this deal will end,
most believe it will be at the end of this summer, which was
when the public beta ended last year. Prices for
membership will go up after this promotion is over.
However if you get charter membership now, you will continue
to pay the current monthly/annual fees even after the prices
go up later this year.
There is also WAVING the monthly charge for voice chat due to the current bugs that keep breaking your ability to chat after getting an IM or teleporting. So for a short time you'll only pay the $10 start up fee for voice chat, and there won't be any monthly charges for at least three months from now, or whenever they get the problem fixed.
Currenty if you supply a credit card # with your trail account you can also sign up for the voice chat for you 14 day trail for free.
Read below for a users perspective of
the current charter membership deals.
Then click on the "Sign up today!" image at your right, if
you're ready to sign up.
Membership
Deals
Monthly Plan
The monthly plan will get you
10,000t and an allowance of 3,000t every month. You first
pay $20 for set up, and then $5 a month, and you'll pay this
$5 monthly fee for life. This is good if you want to
commit short term, and want to continue trying out There,
before you invest any large amounts of money.
Extras!!
Voice Chat ($10,
$3.95 monthly
fee)
Lets you voice communicate
with other avatars who are also enabled. You could use
other 3rd party voice chat like TeamSpeak, or Yahoo, but the
people you want to talk to would also have to be using this
same software. There's voice chat is much more
convenient to use than some 3rd party application. However
the system requirements are more than that Yahoo or
TeamSpeak needs.
The system requirements for this are as follows:
- Pentium 3 class computer or
better, with SSE instruction support in your CPU.
If you're using an Athlon type possessor, you must make
sure it supports SSE instructions, as well as your
motherboard. Older sub 1ghz Athlon or Duron CPUs
may not support SSE. All Athlon XP CPUs do support
SSE instructions, but make sure your mother board
supports it also. Any PC built in the past year+
should support SSE with out any problems.
- Broadband internet connection.
Rather self explanatory, but it is possible to use this
over dialup, but not with more than one other person. Or
in large outdoor areas with many people.
- Direct X 9 compatible sound card. Any soundcard that has can record sound, and play back sound at the same time (full duplex) is perfectly fine. Most onboard sound systems (AC'97) work perfectly fine. Sound Blaster "Live!" cards or newer seem to work best, just double check on current drivers for your sound device.
There's very little drawback to this feature other than the monthly fee (that fee has been waved until they fix the bugs), and the current bugs we have now. Broadband users who's ISP "cap" how much data you can download in a month might want to reconsider getting voice chat, however voice chat doesn't use much bandwidth. It's not as bad as music systems that stream shoutcast.
Some users like to play music over their voice chat, which can get REALLY annoying. Plus you might hear people in the distance using vulgar language, or other annoying sounds ('burp). If you're shy you might not like the idea, but if you do get voice chat support, you'll be able to hear other people even if you don't want to talk back, or don't have a microphone.
Music Systems ($5 one time fee)
This feature lets you purchase
and drop sound systems so you can listen to shout cast
servers. These are objects that look like a loud
speaker on a pole, antique radios, Juke Boxes from the 50's,
small boom boxes, and small home stereo systems. These
systems simply play shoutcast servers over the
internet. Which is no different than just running
Winamp in the background anyway. Broadband users who's
ISP "cap" how much data you can download in a month might
want to reconsider this feature since you may be downloading
an audio stream with out knowing it if your volumes is too
low. So please be warned.
During beta testing last
year when we started using these, some ISPs cut users
service because the streaming music used up their
bandwidth quota.
One cool thing about this is you'll hear the sound system from the perspective of your avatar. So if the sound system is at your avatars left (not your camera perspective), you'll hear it coming out of your left PC speaker, or headphones. However with winamp you'll hear the music in full stereo, and you can still play local music files on your hard drive. You can't play your own music from your collection with these sound systems, unless you have your own shoutcast server.
Matter of fact there's hundreds of "There DJs" and dozens of There Shoutcast stations that play requests, and have There advertisements about a developers new line of clothing or vehicles, or other in-world service you might hear about. Just like the real world! And, yes you can even get a job as a DJ.
The drawback is a lot of people like to litter an area with these sounds systems every 20 feet, which can cause "noise pollution." You are able to mute these systems individually, but there's always another one near by blaring the same shoutcast station. You can turn down the music volume all the way if you get annoyed by it.
Explorer Pack ($10 one time
charge)
This add on gives you the
ability to save places in your favorite list so you can
visit them again later. It also lets you summon
people, use the compass, and it gives you more points on the
map to teleport too. This feature is already activated when
you're on your trial membership, so make sure you get this
feature, or you'll realize you won't be able to do certain
things after you get membership.
Payment
Methods
There will take Credit Cards (also debit checking cards if
it has a credit card number on it), for VERY fast
registration and you'll get your therebucks quickly, and
access to the Auctions in mere seconds. You can also
pay by PayPal which may take a few days depending on how
soon you can send the money via paypal. You can also
pay by Check or money order, which takes longer since they
won't do anything until they get in it the mail.