Artificial Boy

((
As I discussed in my article LL Changes Join Now Page Again, on 2008-03-14, LL made an unannounced change to their Join Now page. No longer are all available last names listed in a drop-down. Instead, only 60 of the 1000-2000 currently available last names are given as choices. Why Linden Lab has made this change is unclear, and I won’t dare speculate. In any case, this new policy can make it difficult to join the game with a certain last name. You might want to do this if, for instance, you and a friend or partner want to create new characters (brothers, perhaps?) that share a last name. Or you might see a newly-born character with a cool last name in the game, and want to make a character with that name too. So, how can one create an character with a certain last name, given this new, frustrating barrier? Read the rest…