Camping

Well, like you said, the amount they are earning doesn't really amount to... well.. much. I would say 99% of the people using chairs are using it as SL fun mon, and not paying for their top ramen.

Eh if they wanna sit around - whats the harm in that - if someone wants to pay them to sit around - no harm in that either.

For me - I'll run around and be a clown - have fun - see friends - and when the old Linden Cashflow needs a boost, take the creative juice from all that farting around and make something....

Earning money while sitting around doing nothing is ok.
But earning money while you run around having fun seems a better deal for me.

To each their own.. I don't think the majority of the campers are trying to 'earn a living' off it.. Maybe they just need a few L$ to enjoy themselves.. Money that goes from the chair owner - the the player - eventually off to someone, say like me, who makes stuff...

It's win win win... Of course if its gamed to death and isn't working for the chair owner - I dare say they'll quickly take them down.. no harm to anyone really.

Siggy.

I find it funny how so many dislike it because they can't understand the concept of a commercilized society. That IS what SL is all about right now isn't it?

com·mer·cial·ize (kə-mûr'shə-līz') pronunciation
tr.v., -ized, -iz·ing, -iz·es.

1. To apply methods of business to for profit.
2.
a. To do, exploit, or make chiefly for financial gain.
b. To sacrifice the quality of for profit.

I make stuff on top of it.
Double win

I have one av that I run around with while the others sit.
Not like im missing out on anything.

Additon:
Everyone knows what the money seats are about right? I guess most do. Paying people for traffic. There was an entire post on this some weeks ago with people crying about how it doesn't help an economy. I don't feel like going into all that again. But look at real life.
People have jobs and get payed for it. Why? Because we have something they need. Power in numbers to create a product that people will pay for.
The av's in SL are just being payed for their ability to give traffic. As long as avatars are worth anything to anyone for any reason. This kind of thing will happen.

I don't understand why so many can't see that.
If it's not money chairs traffic then it will be another situation. If it came down to it people could even pay others to turn around and tell other people about the products. A type of Tellamarketing? Oh the horror!
How can that be good for an econemy. Wait isn't that what we do in real life?
Having an av work for us by sitting on a chair is just alot easier than going around telling others or sending spam IM's. On another note it allows people to choose when they want to see it. (In the search and find area) Instead of paying people to send random IM's bugging everyone. Or walking around with advertisments on our heads. (which I have seen)

The point is business will always find a way to market. That's all it is. A job to help someone raise their traffic and maybe sell a few more things as people see it higher up on the list.

Ok I'm done.
Looks like I went into it a bit anyway.

Not the total bill but that of power used to operate the computer(s) To me its a waste in a way. Leaving systems on for 3 days or more for linden $ seems alittle wasteful. FOr that same money you can buy money.

ISP bill is fixed, so zero marginal cost.
Machine is on all the time anyway, so zero marginal cost on machine.

When you say "socially destructive" do you mean real life society or SL society?

The damage to the world at large from all the alts in SL is not big enough to matter.

Is there an SL society to damage?

The human running the alts isn't sitting in the camp chair doing nothing getting bored. They can be doing anything, in RL or in SL using a remaining account doing what anyone else in SL does, building, teaching, dancing, hosting events, etc.

The payers believe the payers make money doing it, the campers believe they are making money. Where's the social damage?

So glad to see people using SL to its full potential

Dear camping chair creators... please be more creative. If you're going to pay avs to do nothing, let the rest of us get some benefit from it. With a little extra scripting, 9 campers would make excellent moles for a whack-a-mole game.

WAIT CHIP-SAN! I see sex balls as the next trend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! think about it have sex on sex balls and get paid for it Mono or in pairs

Linden Labs calls them "development" via the Developer Incentive Awards!

Camping chairs are pathetic. Nothing else.

All it is doing is artificially buying success and popularity.

I have been to some of these so called 'top clubs' in game, where there are 20 people all camping, in utter silence, giving the owner dwell and making them look popular when all people are doing is money grabbing.

How do you think a new player will respond, seeing a popular club full of people, wandering round saying hello, and being totally ignored?

I've had this same issue in Sims Online, ever since the idea began there of buying visitors time. It's killed that game, and it will kill SL if things aren't stopped. How come people are talking about sitting for 20 hours, when I'm seeing things about an inactivity timeout? If people are overriding the timeout then that surely is a ToS violation and action should be taken against those breaking the rules.

I am drawing people to my club by offering a unique, themed experience, and quality hosting of events when I am there. I will NEVER sink to the level of offering bribes and/or sex as an attraction to get people to my club. If I never pass 1000 in traffic, I don't care, I'm having fun, and giving a good service to those who come by.

The game is designed to be social and a creative tool. What possible benefit is there to anyone by camping chairs? The only reason people do this is for money, which they'll cash out. Greedy little turds, why don't you use your imagination and do something productive? Play pizza, *.ingo, or any of the many other ways that you can have fun in game.

As soon as I see a whole heap of camping chairs, I leave and go somewhere else. If a place is crap enough to admit they need to buy their visitors by having camping chairs, then I won't waste my time in going there.

Lewis

- Disco Inferno, 70's themed club
- The Nerd Emporium, low prim furniture

Which is why your club will probably survive - clubs come and go - and dwell has been gamed since it was introduced.

Case in point : the cannibas cathedral - home of the cartel de juarez - run by Darko / Paris / and a host of others.

No frills - no flash - no gimmicks - just a good time with good people. And while others were vaccuming up with sexballs and gimmicks - on a cartel night you couldn't get into the sim, you had to arrive early (I kid you not - SL would REFUSE to let you cross the sim border - people would wait on the sim edge hoping someone would fly in).

The chairs are being gamed just like dwell is being games - and at some point it will break - at which point people will go to clubs that are interesting.

Siggy

How in the world can this be a sweatshop, when most people just park their avatars, use some sort of stay alive program, then leave the house or go to bed (If at night) or surf the net etc.

I am for making the Linden Dollar a totally in game item, no using US Dollars to purchase Lindens etc.

I'm not sure that's degrading enough. How about something more like this...

"This chair would like to animate your avatar. Is this okay?"
Yes
"Let the cock fighting begin!"

I'd love to know where people get the money from to support these camping chairs.

Let me tell you about Sims Online.

In TSO, you skill your sim and then when you make money, the higher the skill, the higher the payout.

One lone player with no skills doing a gnome or set of jams can make about §40 in each session, which takes about 3 minutes. Fully skilled, in a busy house, that can raise to §630 or so.

Payouts - as 'bonuses' to draw people to your business, range from anywhere up to §3000 per item.

Now, it doesn't take a genius to work out that to give out 5x the amount you can earn on the equivalent item by working yourself, you have to work for 5x the time you are open to break even.

Now in a busy house of 17 people all working and collecting payouts, even on just a §1000 per item, that's paying out §17,000 in the time that you can make §600 or so.

Have a busy house full running 23 hours a day and it's very easy to ask where all this money is coming from. Most of it is from third party 'bot' programs who churn out thousands a day in 'dirty money' - and is against the terms of service.

Presumably 'timeout overriders' and similar are also against the LL ToS? Would love to know.

Lewis

Although I can understand the point of that, I don't think that is going to solve the problem here. I certainly wouldn't have been able to buy my land if it hadn't been for buying L$ through the website, and if I'd had to wait 3 months to make the money I'd probably have given up.

The problem is the other way round - people cashing out L$ into real money. That's why they're greedy for dwell payments, and camping chair money. That's what I'd support the removal of.

Never know, might also have the addition benefit of getting rid of some of the few who make a living off our our work, such as the greedy land barons.

Lewis

My little store - The Nerd Emporium - sells a toilet, that has a 'flush' facility.

Can't you just see rows of little camping avatars sitting on the toilet. Wouldn't that be more entertaining?

Lewis

That's more like it. Add some really disgusting sound effects, and whenever it pays out you can make the pantless avatar stand up and proclaim "I made a poopy!" So much untapped entertainment value here.

The thing is, I've now talked to several new folks who I met sitting in camping chairs.

A lot of them want to make stuff, but are still learning how, and/or can't think of anything they can contribute. At least a few have considered upgrading to Premium. Many say they are "hooked on SL".

But many of them also said that, if it wasn't for camping chairs, they wouldn't be in that position. Those who didn't acknowledged that the chairs had helped them "get into" SL, and that otherwise they would have depended on freebies and donations from other residents.

Now, I suppose you can tell all these folks that they "ought to just buy L$", but if you do I'd fully expect many of them to race for the door, because people don't like being asked to buy stuff, don't like being told what the oughta, and don't like being baited and switched by the promise of a free account.

I have suggested previously that a good low skills job would be serving as a target.

This is good idea, Chip, it would make checking the camper's to see if they are connected and getting paid somewhat as claimed more amusing.

If you can buy L$, you can sell them. If Linden removed sales from Lindex, then before you knew it, everyone holding L$ would offer them on sale through PayPal and in-game transfers at just below the Linden rate.

Look at what's happened on IMVU: there, you buy "credits" from the game owners, and if you make stuff you get paid in them, but technically you can't sell them. The result of that is that all the content creators have gluts of "credits" and nothing to spend them on, so they are selling off through unofficial channels at sometimes as low as 20-30% of the rate charged for them by the hosting company. Since that company depends on selling credits to make money this is becoming a threat.

Also, as long as tier gets charged in real money there'll be a strong disincentive to create things such as stores. Who'd want to spend $40 a month? Might as well just hang around in popular areas and sell by word-of-mouth to whoever asks. You'll get less money, but in your scenario it's play money anyway so who cares?

I have a store in a 1024 sq m plot. Is there any reason why shops have to be huge sprawling monstrosities?

Lewis

Sure. Some basic rates of interest when working with Second Life as a Florida Resident:

Progress Energy Florida (not even FPL) -


Adelphia Cable Connection (to be fair, you would need a dedicated line for 5 accounts concurrently, but let's assume residential) -


We will, of course, leave out the costs for computer hardware, including maintenance fees, upgrades, and the rising cost of hardware...


Total for just power and bandwidth: $4.06 per day (30 day month)
Versus camping chair benefits of: $6.48 per day


Now. The problem is we take a LOT of assumptions here. $97.78 is a median rate for power; I'd be willing to bet the cost would excede 1,000 kilowatt hours. Further, let's recalculate with the premier service level for Adelphia, since you'd probably need it:



Total cost per day: $5.26 per day (30 day month)



Now we go a step further, accounting for liquidity of the Linden Dollar versus USD using Ricky's handy chart:
/130/67/66786/1.html

And you begin to see this is a very shaky investment, STILL without the costs of hardware and fact the grid, sellers, and money chair owners can all be undependable.



Would this outlay really be worth it for what amounts to a dollar a day (or less!) with ZERO reinvestment and protection? I personally think not.

PS.

If you want me to go further by price costing this for the risk of investment, let me know. I can pull some of the same statistics used to value stocks. But let me warn you, when I add in real world value, including the unknowns I left out, this is way, way below the money invested.

Unless, of course, you can find a SL-ready computer for $365 with everything, ya?

Anyone who is trying to make money is based around greed are they? I do it because it pays for my internet and I make extra money on the side with it.
For using something I have setup anyway for my real life job.
Free internet for leaving my computers on, which I do anyway. Oh thats such a horrible thing isn't it.
If you want to know the power a computer takes up. Look on the powersupply. It's about as much as a lightbulb. Even a high end computer with a power supply of 450+ watts is not using that much at all times. Unless I'm burning cd's, listening to mp3's, playing a more intesive graphic game (unlike SL), and then checkng my email all at the same time.
Oh and the monitors can be shut off while I render artwork and/or run SL.
And there is the fact that, some of us, already have KVM switch kits. If you don't know what that is Lewis I'm not going to explain it. Be creative and look it up. Or get one for yourself.



Whats this? Trying to make money are you?

OH that is what you call a creative way to make money? I see.
Here is something you probably didn't know. Your idea of what is creative has nothing to do with anything here. We could care less what you wish to see.
I sit one av on a chair and sell stuff with another. (If your worried about people being non-creative)
Some of us like to call it multitasking. That is what computers are apparently good at. And people, if they use their brains, can become a little more creative and do some multitasking.

This world does not have a direct guidline of rules that says "We MUST make money by selling things."
The world is open and free for people to do what they want. You know this place called Second Life started out as an empty world, giving people the option to do what they want , with a few guidlines to keep from hurting others and grieving.

I've asked the lindens myself and they see nothing wrong with making a little extra money from those who are willing to pay for it.
If your confused about it then fine. Forget it. You don't understand the reasons behide the matter. Don't get all fussy and cr@p your pants over it.

The rights of people in this world isn't going to change to fit your wishes or what you, or even a large majority, think is "right" especially if it violates our basic right to sit on our a$$ if we want to.

There is no right and wrong way to make money unless it direcly harms you in a way that violates your rights and does not conflict with ours. Seeing as these area's with money chairs are not in your control. The owners can do what they want, pay who they want, for whatever reason they see fit. There is also a necklace that people can wear which pays them.
Are you going to get all fussy about someone wearing a necklace now?
What if it was hidden or invisible? You couldn't claim it as an "eye sore" then.
Even if we are sitting around. Sitting around is our right. If I feel like leaving my av on then I can do so. If I feel like taping my ctrl key down to keep from loging out then I can do so. It's my keyboard. If I feel like making a program to move the mouse around. Guess what? I can do so.
The program that runs the mouse is not part of linden labs.

Making my mouse curser move around my screen on its own is my business on my own computer. It has nothing to do with SL or Linden Labs.
They know this. Just ask them.

Someone could even train their cat to attack the mouse if I wanted. In order to make it move every 10 minutes. As pothetic as that is, would that violate TOS?
I'd really like to see that happen.

If they want to stop it they can easily setup another system for log outs.
BUT they see no reason to do so. Otherwise they would have done so.
The fact is this can give them a higher "active player" rating to throw into the face of other games.

Does anyone know of a post where the lindens have commented on this subject? So we can just point to it when someone brings this old topic up again?

[/size]
I use standard RoadRunner, it runs my kids two computers and my two computers all at the same time with no trouble. All the computers are on 24/7 anyway. We don't like to wait when we turn them on, one daughter has stuff running constantly when she is not there.

So the cost of concern is the marginal cost, the additional cost of power that occurs as a result of running Second Life, not the total cost of power.

I think the marginal cost of the power is near zero. I don't think the computer's power consumption goes up much.

The marginal cost of the bandwidth used to run SecondLife for my quite common type of internet service is zero. I don't pay anything over what I would if I weren't running SecondLife.

Same thing with repair, only the marginal cost of the repairs should count, the part of the repair bill attributable to the use of several simultaneous Second Life accounts, Assuming that the computer and video card are properly cooled that should be very low.

There is some labor involved, it takes some time at first to get the alts to the camp chair sites, but once you get them there you set the login location option to start from where you left.

You turn the minimap on to provide a quick visual indicator of connection status, then do a window cascade horizontal to display them all. Then run your AutIt script that cycles through each one, getting the handle needed to feed each window keystrokes without even bringing it the forefront. Once that gets going you start your browser, surf the net on , or do your homework or whatever, and you don't even know that 5 avatars in the background are earning you money.

Assusing that they really are.

As for the low priced SL computer I bet you can make that price limit on eBay. Remember the system wouldn't need a good monitor if you were buying it just for camping, and it wouldn't even need a CD burner.