SLOG: Sitting On A Goldmine

That would cover most people in SL unless they've got the best av in the universe. Doesn't seem to stop anybody.

Not everyone has the time or attitude to get enjoyment out of WoW, either. I find most MMORPGs frustrating and dull (though I've not played WoW, I admit).

Exactly what I have been trying to say for weeks now. Thanks Ordinal, for stating it so succinctly.

It is more about those factors than it is about "ability", or "luck", or "land gifting", or any number of other justifications for discontent, despite some folk's unwavering attempts to prove otherwise.

It's either something that is for you, or it isn't, regardless of what "it" is.

Yeah but I think SL could be more.

"More" is a bit vague for me.

Not to mention, LL has left it up to us to provide that "more".

"More" is a bit vague for me too Nolan. I don't have solutions or even suggestions. If LL has left us to our own devices to create whatever "more" is to engage new players, I think we're failing.

I'm not understanding something here and maybe you all can help me out. How does it affect your gameplay if someone sets up a bunch of money chairs and a bunch of newbies sit in them?

Not to be harsh or anything but I think a lot of you have lost sight of what its like to be a newb. Its been a while and things were different when you started. When I came to SL, a few short months ago, I didn't want to start selling stuff. I didn't want to work. I already have a job thank you very much and that job pays me well enough that I went off and bought a bunch of linden. I'm really glad I did. I had a ton of fun spending it. Now I'm starting to create some stuff and thats cool too.

Not everyone can buy lindens though. Not everyone wants to. To each his own. But to castegate the people who put out chairs or those who sit in them is, I think, a little snobby of you. Its one thing for you, who probably have several hundred thousand linden tucked away, to talk about how there aren't enough jobs or how we should all start creating. You are, of course, assuming that the mere fact of our creations would be enough to get us an income. It isn't. That takes time -- even if we did want to hop from our daytime jobs right into a job we could do in our free time for no money. Oh boy oh boy.

You say we should get jobs. Most jobs pay shit. Unless you are willing to be an escort or a dancer -- you shouldn't work in SL unless you are doing it for fun and even then -- geesh escorts don't make a whole lot. I was surprised. I teach a newbie class and I encourage the folks to buy some L and work for fun -- because at 150 for a one hour long event, that's about 20 cents an hour. How is that worth it?

So newbies sit in chairs and chair owners collect dwell and LL makes money selling lindens which funds the game and everyone is happy. Cepting you guys who are upset about it. And I'm not seeing why.

And don't go tellin me to read the SLOGy thing or the Habitat thing. I read them. I still don't understand why.

That's my point. There should be something else for you to do besides sitting in a chair and going afk. I'm not criticizing people who use the chairs, I'm being critical of SL.

Who knows though, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people actually enjoy it. Would you rather be doing something a little more interesting to earn a few L though?

It doesn't bother me any at all. It's amusing and a little sad, but I'm not losing sleep.

The people who should be bothered are those who depend on dwell/traffic to fund their legitimate events. The money chairs undermine the intent of traffic payments, which is to reward residents who make SL an interesting place to be. Sitting on your tush for two hours isn't very interesting.

Ultimately, if the money chair thing continues this way, traffic will be removed altogether and the money chairs will go away, too. It's simply not sustainable to give away money that has real value to someone who is providing no value themselves (this goes for both the chair owner and the chair sitters).

I'm not really big on the "it's so hard to be a newbie" excuse, either. In my first weeks in SL I'd already bought premium and a few thousand L$ using my own real money. I was a broke college student. How did I afford it? Quite simple -- I just decided to bring lunch from home instead of eating out sometimes. I did that once or twice a month. I skipped the odd junk food snack. The resulting spare cash bought me a fortune of goodies in my Second Life, including all the texture uploads I could want to make myself some clothes, all the cash I needed to buy Cubey Terra's awesome vehicles, plus a little tier to make a sky apartment. I'm fresh out of sympathy for folks who are unwilling to spend so little for so many hours of good, clean fun. If I could afford it, most anyone can.

It's my understanding that they want us to provide that "more". LL provides the basic infrastructure, we provide the rest. They've made that pretty clear.

Whether that fails or not remains to be seen. I am not prepared to say that it will.

I will say that I do have some major concerns. They are mostly based upon an inadequate permission system, bugs (especially the ones that have been around for 2 years or more), LL's seemingly cavalier attitude towards griefers and exploiters, and the technical limitions of the client. They are not however, concerns about lack of things to do.

I myself have always found and endless stream of things to entertain me, and I am by no means a successful content creator, scripter, land baron, or successful anything really.

I guess I view the "LL must provide entertainment" stance as counter to what SL is - and alternative to the countless treadmill games out there. The very nature of it - being able to log in and decide what *I* consider fun and want to do today, not what some developer has decided is fun, is what has kept me here.

Agreed... and that's why I like it too. I think you and I could be considered hardcore though Nolan. Finding a way to retain people who aren't like us is what's challenging.

I guess I see the "like us" or "like them" thing as dangerous territory.

I'm the wrong person to ask. Sitting in a chair doesn't appeal to me at all and I found other things to do and am happy doing them and one of those things I do is produce events for people who don't like sitting in chairs to go to.

But my point is that the chairs are legitimate. If that's what people want to do, that's what they want to do. Personally I think both the chairs and the money trees are drop dead boring and advise newbs to spend their time otherwise. But if they choose to do this then its their call. I'm also not adverse to dropping a couple of hundred on a newb every once in a while.

I dunno -- I just see a lot complaining about the chairs and I'm not seeing where it makes any difference in your lives. If its about a better experience for new people well then I just have to ask, what have you done for new players recently? Because I just don't see LL ever having the resources to make the newbie experience everything it could be. This is true of any online gaming company and possibly moreso of a company who considers their product to be a platform rather than a game. The people in game who care will have to take up the slack and they do in every online game I can think of and have since the days of games on Delphi and Genie.

Yes! That's right, that's what it's about. I'm a live helper, that's how I help out. But as far as coming up with an entertaining way for people to make money, I am truly stumped. And that's why I wrote what I did in SLOG.

Yeh, what happened to the pony?

I have contests, give out prizes. I don't always give money. I try to always give something cool or useful. But again, I gotta say, spend 10 bucks and get some lindens. Just 10 bucks. Geesh its just not that much. If you can afford a computer that can run SL you should probably be able to afford 10 bucks.

LOL

That's the bottom line.

Linden should try and figure out how much of those payments are currently going to money chairs and take it out of that part of the system... then put it back in another way. I really think reputation payments were a good way of keeping money circulating, and they woudl at the very least go to people who are doing more to make SL interesting and fun than the people in money chairs are.

And if there's still money chairs a few months after that... do it again, start handing the extra money out to people who make the best freebies or something. Or don't do anything with it, take it out of circulation and push the value of the linden in RL terms up a bit.

According to Robin, they're on the case already.

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We'll see what happens.

There are plenty of entertaining ways to make money in SL. For those that don't find them entertaining, there's absolutely no need for there to be other ways provided when a couple of bucks and 60 seconds on Lindex will take care of their money issues. It's an exchange of time for time whether you're a content creator putting hours into making entertaining things, or someone spending a few dollars they earned during a few hours at their real job.

Why is it so important that people be able to get so much out of SL without putting anything in themselves? It seems counter-productive to me, honestly. If we make it too easy to have a good time, indefinitely, without ever spending any money on tier or through the exchange, how will SL stay afloat in the long run? How can it? I honestly don't believe the problem is that there's not enough to do in SL. I think the problem is that free accounts and all the money giveaways and not doing enough to educate new users that this isn't an artificial treadmill game like they may be used to from TSO or other MMORPG's all create an expectation that no one should have to pay for anything in order to have the full experience. In the long run, doesn't that spell doom for the entire system?

There shouldn't be an expectation of jobs or an allowance. One thing has to follow from the other, and if entertainers are paying people to be entertained, how are we ever going to have a sustainable economy that can support job creation? If every club, event host, and other investor of time and energy are doing it all out of their own pocket and a sense of charity, that's great. Good for them if they're okay with that. But they won't be indefinately. If projects are going to become truly compelling they need to be more than just a flash in the pan. They need the time to evolve and grow and last years instead of months. They need serious commitments of time from people approaching that of RL full time jobs.

I don't know what the answers are, but I think that catering too much to expectations that can't really be supported by the system in the long run isn't one of them.

I always thought there wasn't enough to do in SL. Still do.

coco

Oooo, do I get big emphasised letters too?

The money chairs indicate that SL experience currently fails to provide anything that is both a) more interesting that earning money, and b) doesn't require money to have already been earned to participate in it.

I've had to abandon doing things I enjoyed in SL because it became obvious that a) to participate would require earning money, and b) doing the work to earn the money would leave me with no time left to participate.



And then building anything that's not a mall will be guaranteed tier loss. There will be nothing to do without spending. Every new member will realise this, believe they have been baited-and-switched by the "free" accounts, and uninstall. Yay!



It's not a question of not being able to afford it. it's a question of not having any reason to do it. Why spend money on SL when all it does is to give you access to more situations where you need to spend money? Why spend money on SL when, due to the "virtual worlds are social" rule, all you're really spending it on are devices to convince others to accept certain things about you which you could also manage by just talking to them?

You're really strange.

That, or you're using Second Life in a different universe than the rest of us.

Sorry, neither is something I am equipped to help with. Good luck!

Great post Chip!!!

And random thoughts here. I like SLOG! Kudos for starting it and thankies to those that did!! And I've never understood why people think they *have* to have money to have fun in SL. Usually just experiencing things, learning, and time is all that is needed to one day have more money (that you may or may not need).

It also boggles me when people refer to MMORPGs in reference to SL. Saying you don't have to "work in those games" to get money and items. I call bull on that. Grinding day in and day out killing mobs. Training up crafting skills, etc. No MMORPG out there today just *gives* you their best items for free. You have to work for them. And SL is far and above what those "games" are. So it puzzles me people expect less??

And this was my "only have 5 mins to post" thought of the day. *HUGS*

I recommend AIM, Yahoo Chat, or MS Messenger. They're much less expensive and would seem to meet your needs.