Complaints About Dwell/Money Chairs

haha! It's a deal. If I ever buy a sim I may just have to name it Galt's Gulch.

That's how I took it I'd have commented but I didn't want to look like I was on a fishing expedition. Thanks, Argent. Incidentally, I think you make some good points. Issues are always more gray than either side of the argument paints them.

Dibs on Dagny. Um except the part of who she sleeps with. No offense

I'm surprised it hasn't been done. Perhaps it has, and is only visible to those in a Striker's group.

None taken. I could never quite figure Dagny out anyway

Duh, she's a woman

OK, that's so bad coming from a woman hehe.

BTW - I thought of the Galt's Gulch thing when I first joined. I think I even named my land that. I didn't have enough land to make the whole scene but what a cool sim that would be!

Why doesn't LL do something? They have these game contests and then don't promote the games in world. Why aren't the game contest winners at the top of Find all of the time? Why aren't they on the daily announcements when you log in at least once a week?

Why can't LL license games from Residents, take 4 sims, and make a gaming/amusement park? That will be perm in SL and a constant. Maybe there will be a need to be restrictions on games that give money to people after a certain avatar date. A LL sponsored amusement park would create a desperately need social gathering place in World that is Linden owned/operated.

Is this page on secondlife.com really supposed to be compelling enough to have people interested in these games? There could be more descriptions about the games; the rules could be listed etc. There could also be another page for Resident created no contest entry games. Then again, there should be some way to advertise all of this in world. If they can add a classifieds section, they can add a games section in world.


Yes, Lynn, it is all LL fault. They have devalued accounts with free accounts. They have removed all ways for social players to earn extra lindens from within the LL system. Last year you could log in, spend time in world, earn money for being around and earn money for ratings. What do you get now? LL has social engineered the game requiring people to either earn money through Resident created jobs, content creation, or purchasing with real world dollars. That is all LL, not the content creators you are bitching at.

I could argue that they still can spend their tiny stipends and dwell points, but those aren't significant. However, if someone who never spent a cent on SL is a good company - that might convince me to continue paying my $100+/mo to LL. How is that not contributing to SL's financial well being?

Actually, in Enabran's defense, and I'm too lazy to find the post, but he did offer me a job of referring people to his product and paying me for every 3 purchases or something along those lines.

A sense of entitlement annoys the heck out of me irl as well. My experience has been that amongst the people possessing the trappings of success, those those who have made their own way tend to also have a grounded sense of value for what's truly important. The 2nd generation possessors of the wealth can go either way and that is the camp that breeds a sense of entitlement. Stating that people with high end computers and broadband should pay their way is fine if your talking to someone like me. I am accustomed to paying my way, expect to pay for entertainment. To expect this to be the prevalent attitude amongst people who have not been provided with a set of values along with the Xbox is going to provide you a continued source of frustration.

The focus needs to be on attracting and keeping the people the who are willing to pay for entertainment. This is what I'm talking about and in no way do I mean to show a lack of appreciation for the work and effort of the content creators. I have always considered buying things here to be supporting the arts and the products of creative & talented minds. I like learning things more than passive activities so I pay tier to have my own space to play with.

(Moopf, if I have to state one more time how cool your skates are to counteract Lynn's acerbic pov I risk looking looking like a groupie or something. A Moopfette? Please, ignore that negativity and keep on keeping on.)


Here's the thing, Chip. I'm going to focus on the people who create content because I believe they are likely to actually care about the state of things as exhibited by the angst over camping chairs. If I want things to get done, I go to people with a proven track record of doing things. We need more quality ways to uilize the creations; opportunities for interesting people to connect with SL.

It is not fair to ask the 10% for more. So I'll just hope instead of ask.

Eboni, I supported your ideas when you first presented them in your original thread and continue to do so. While it is understandable that LL focused on the gaming community to get off the ground, it needs to identify and understand the needs of a wider market in order to move forward. Your suggestions all need to be validated sooner rather than later.

I'll agree with Moopf. I don't have his ice skates, but I did buy his roller skates months ago. I spent the next two weeks skating everywhere. I didn't need a roller rink, I didn't need anything to go with them. They were fun. I used them to have fun. I got others to get them to skate with me. Isn't that content? To me it is.

Its funny because when I played NWN, people created whole worlds to play in. they organized entire servers and paid for them just to be social. Some designed dresses, other weapons, and still other armour. Some hung out and had cybersex. Some people developeed oriental mods, othere science fiction mods. And all of it was done for free. Imagine that, content created because people want enertainment. Hours and hours spent because people wanted to explore and press the enviroment. And it was only a gmae. Money was free, and worthless, and yet content, entertainment, stories and everything else were all created, with out worrying about recompense.

So all this grimjibbery about paying content creators being essential to having content just rings false. It sounds lot more like content creators wanting to preserve thier nice little profit margins. I make content, put it up for sale, and don't really care if it sells. I enjoy making stuff. If the Linden were worthless in dollars, I would still be making houses and leanring to make clothes, or doing an art gallery. It amuses me to do so.

Sl is a great big game of dolls. And I think its wonderful that people are able to make money doing it (even if some of them do so by taking and reselling the work of some very talented poser artitsts who seel suff on third party sites). More power too them if they can get a reward.

But really this entitlement blad cuts two ways, I mean really what makes a content creator entitled to recompese for his efforts? If people want to pay you for it they will. If they dodn't they won't. But if they can find or make content for free, then thats also the market. To me much of what I heare from the content creators sounds like "My need to maximize profit though hard work is a right, whereas your need to get a large free stipend is lazy whining about entitlements." This is BS.

People can do and will make stuff for free if the enviroment or the platform is compelling. Thus SL needs to find a way to make the plaftform compelling. If they can do that without utterly destrying the ability of content creators to make money that is fine. But if Sl loses member s as fast as it gets them, we all still lose.

To me, in looking around SL and seeig what people do with it, it is really a vast game of barbie. We want to have a life in SL we can't or don't in RL. To me money chairs are just vehicles for people to make money so they can go and amuse themselves by shopping or looking cool in thier house or thier favorite club, or maybe they just want to buy poseballs ot have mad monkey cybersex with thier new neighbor. A lot more casual players want money to spend money, than who want to hoard $5.00 US a month in cash out of LL. People particpate in LL cause the line beign consumers and not producers. this escape from RL is STRENGTH of SL and not a weakness. People don't sit in money chairs because they think its the coolest thing since virtual dirt-they do it to be able to buy a skin, or a cubey skybike or something.

Thus I have always looked at a reasonably increase in the stipend as a senible compromise between the content creators and the casual players. It would not make anyone rich, but it would facilitate a broader particpation in the economy, and might give new players or casual players an ability to to things like buy more stuff, or invest in new types of entertainment business. Its sort of a trickle up theory.

Yes I think the amount the stipend is jacked up needs to be carefully thought about. I know it will devalue the linden and cause inflation. But then inflation can be an indicator of healthy growth too. And really a small devaluing of the linden could be thought of as an investment in grwoth and retention of players.

Enabran has offered support to quality event hosts in many threads on the event funding issue. According to his account in this thread, no one else has taken him up on it. I remembered reading those offers and contacted him in regards to providing support for the Hurricane Disaster Relief Fundraiser effort. He immediatley responded with a generous and professionally laid out offer.

The more people in SL, the merrier, whether they're spending money or not. My issue is with people being unwilling to spend any money (which by itself is fine) while at the same time feeling they're entitled to more than they're getting. SL is already an incredibly generous world for people with no interest in parting with their money.

That's great. Did you go there and complain that they weren't doing enough for you?

I have to agree with this to a large extent.

Yes, it would be great if we "lived" in a utopia where everyone was a philanthropist, and cared to give to the community with no reward other than personal satisfaction, "good job!", or "thank you", but we don't. We have to be realistic. We "live" in a mirror of RL to an extent, and expecting everyone to suddenly change because they stepped through the mirror is a nice thought, but not much more. Nothing will be accomplished by attempting to shame people into doing things, except for more hard feelings, especially with the level of anonimity/privacy afforded us here.

What we have seen happen, is the phasing out of the system which LL had in place to reward people who provided social content (and indirectly those who attended them) because some folks took advantage of it. Instead of fixing the carrot, they withdrew it altogether.

Now, because some people abused the event pay system, by running events 24 hours a day, that for the most part didn't even meet the criteria for subsidization, LL phased it out. They needed to restructure it to prevent misuse, not take it away. We used to have a much wider variety of events - Tank Battle, paintball, show and tell, avatar contests, multiple game shows and trivia every night, build offs, primtionary, and on and on. LL took the impetus away when they killed event funding altogether. Sure, we still see some of these events from time to time, but we have seen the shift to -ingo because that is what gets people there for dwell and maybe a L$ kicker. Note: I do not hate -ingo - I am simply responding to the complaint I hear that we see "too much" of it in the events list.

I am honestly worried, that now we will see dwell phased out too, because LL may decide providing bandwidth for scores of people sitting in chairs while asleep or at work in RL, is not good business economics, and that it is bad for SL's marketability. I realize some do chat, but I highly doubt this is the norm - I went through a period where myself and some friends sat at Moonshine's doing nothing but getting free money while doing RL things. Note: I am not philosophically opposed to money chairs, trees, balls, or the like, although I do think they are symptomatic of the issue at hand.

It is also not very realistic for people on free accounts to enter the community and expect to be entertained for free, especially those poking content makers with a stick, and telling them they're not doing enough. Is not a free account enough? Is it so terrible to go spend 10 bucks on LindeX so that you can buy some clothes, or a plane, or a house, if you have no monthly payment to make, especially when, as Eboni stated, that free account devalues SL? My understanding is that the free accounts are supposed to be a starting point, that LL wants to entice people to upgrade and stay. If LL wants that, then they need to ensure that the people already here have a reason to help them grow LL/SL by providing some reasons for them to do so. Again, it is unrealistic to expect any significant number of people to selflessly give, and not get anything for it, other than a pat on the pack.

Comparisons to other "games". Please don't. LL is not in the business of providing goals. They expect us to provide goals and things to do for each other. This is why I think that they need to give more direct incentive. Some may note, that in past debates, I have said, "Well it was abused, they took it away, now deal with it - find ways to make non-physical content work." I see now that I was being a bit narrow-minded about that. Some of that attitude came to be because I get a bit defensive when I see one segment of the populace demonized, and blamed for social issues - in this case physical content creators. It is not their fault we are faced with these issues. In my mind, trying to force a physical content creator into doing non-physical content is inhumane. Want to kill their spirit? That's a good place to start, and killing their spirit will hurt us all in the end.

Finally, the biggest and most important thing about this whole BIG BALL OF WAX is this - we shouldn't disrespect others because they view or utilize SL differently than ourselves. No one is 100% content baron, land baron, consumer, or any specific thing - we are all some meld of one or more things to varying degrees, and none of us signed any agreement that binds us to do or to be anything in particular. Pigeon-holing people into "this group" or "that group" invariably creates friction and strife, usually leading to even more dire social consequences than we had to begin with. If some Zen guy or gal wants to go sit on a mountaintop and meditate all day, that is ok, as it is if someone is here solely to make money. That is the beauty of this open-ended world we enjoy - and enjoy is the key word, no matter what your particular passions are.

Ok I have managed to slog through reading this entire post. There are several things I do not understand, what are you looking for Lynn? You attribute the problem to "content creators" not giving back. I really dont think you have looked in world to see what is available and going unused.

When I first entered SL the very first thing I did was go to GOM and buy money, (as soon as i figured out how) then I explored. I did run events under SL's event program when that terminated I ran events for others as well as for my own enjoyment. Additionaly one of the developers I worked for provided extremely generous event support for quite some time. I also create content that I sell for a profit should I ever cash out, to this date I never have.

What I have found is that when I tried to hire hosts, when the developer was providing money, was that it was extremely hard to find anyone reliable and consistent. They would not show up at all or disappear.

The argument about work environment doesnt hold as they were pretty much free to set it up themselves, all they had to do was create a fun atmosphere and provide a visitor count, the pay was more then generous.

Since then Dom & I created ImagineNation which is created as fun entertainement area were you can participate in things regardless of an event being run, There are rides there are games an Ice Rink and Skate park both of Moopf's skates are at the rinks I might add for what use would the skate parks be without his content.

We hired 1 event host and attempted to hire a couple more none ever came back after saying they wanted to work. I have run events, many different kinds Trivia , SL-ingo, Scrambler, Spades, Hearts, Dances, Sci Fi events, Skate parties.

Most of the time we have offered both cash and prizes. We do not offer outrageous amounts of money, why should we even have to offer any at all? We have in these examples created the "content" that was used to create the event, additionly bought content and built things to go with such as moophs skates, as well as many other items.

What I have found is that a large percentage of the time if people if people can find a money ball spitting out money every 10 seconds or sit in a camping chair they will go do that instead. As a host it takes me considerable time to prepare and run the event, Dom also pays for a stream to be able to dj and take peoples requests.

All of this adds up to several thousands of dollars spent to pay tier, to pay for streams, pay out prizes, pay for content/ products we have bought from others.

There seems to be this impression that because we create a product we are financially responsible to provide entertainement and income to those who dont.

When I didnt create I bought money if there was something I really had to have, that being said you do not have to, there are so many generous creators who give free items from clothing, toys to houses you do not need spend a penny if you dont wish to.

Bottom line as an event host, it is very discouraging to spend time and money to put together an event and have little or no turn out, to then go look at the map and find that most are sitting in money chairs. Then hear people complain there is nothing fun in SL to do. There are fun things but people dont support them and many people expect hand outs.

When I go to the movies or an amusement park I dont expect free admission, I know full well there is a price to get in, a price for snacks, games or souvenirs. All those items that came together to provide entertainement and provide jobs, make that company a profit or it would quickly close. How is SL supposed to differ from that and survive if people are not willing to put up a token amount themselves for entertainment?

You do not have to create to enjoy SL but I really feel that this attitude of I shouldn't have to pay to enjoy SL is very flawed,

Excellent post, Nolan. I agree with pretty much everything you said. When it comes to having a more engaging world with more truly immersive content and with more opportunities for people, I doubt there's anyone who doesn't want that. I don't think the platform is really capable of supporting it just yet, and probably won't be for a while. I think we're still in a difficult stage in SL's evolution where everyone's idealism is ahead of the technical realities. But we don't just need the platform to continue to evolve, we need the culture to evolve to where the kinds of things people want can be supported without those who put the effort into developing them going bankrupt in the process.

No. I always felt they were doing more than enough for me. But then they were a "a game" and there was always something to do, and retention of players was not a problem. And there were no money trees.

Speaking from my experiences when I was a newbie, the appearance seems to be:

- With all the various spams and scams around, anyone who gets anything for free on the Internet is going to have their scam detector turned up to "flutter of a wasp's wing" sensitivity when they get into it. The moment they see "buy L$ for real money", off it goes. If they've been "tricked" once (thought it was free, actually found they had to pay) then they'll instantly think they might be tricked again (eg, "no matter how many L$ I buy it'll never be enough". They are actually wrong about that second one, but as newbies, they don't know that.

- "3D talkers" that charge real money are considered a scam by quite a few people. (Comment I've heard: "Basically what they do is create entirely new scales of fashionability, social worth, etc. out of nowhere, then charge you real money to get ahead on them even though if the service didn't exist you wouldn't need to worry."

- Buying L$ for real money is a bad deal compared to doing the same US$ value of work making stuff. Furthermore, it's difficult to have the "full experience" of SL if you don't make stuff. As a result, people may feel that they ought to make stuff, and if they can't or don't have time to, there's no point buying L$ because since they can't make stuff they can't have the full experience anyway.

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1. I will always compare SL to other games, because SL is competing with them for my entertainment dollar and my leisure time.

2. My point was not that SL should provide goals, many of the NWN servers are social with no real goals. My point is that the holy grail of "people won't create if they don't get paid" is not the ultimate truth. People will in fact create, even if they can't use the proceeds to pay for a porsche. I think people create because they are passionate about creating, and that is SL's strength, but not everyone who is passionate about sl wants to reat and sell.

3. SL is a bad platform so far, with serious flaws. To me, the very fact that SLEX exists is an indication that people would rather simply use the 2d web to shop than wander around a 3-d metaverse in custom built stores. And I have yet to see anything close to a professionally competitive videogame be developed on the SL platform. Critics of SL cite, with some accuracy that the graphics are too poor, the physics are too poor and the lag is too great for SL to develop the sort of games that can be played on the x-box 360. Finally the volitily and dependecy on fictional names and a tinkertoy economy retard the business potential. Real names and real money would make the platform much more attractive to businesses. Finally IP protection for the content that is created is a joke. Who wants to invest in soemthing that can be stolen or taken away?

With the right growth and expansion I can see SL maturing out of this proto-platoform stage, but in order to grow you have to retain players. I think an intersiting statistic would be to examine the number of people online on a day to day basis, rather than the number of accounts. Player retention is a serious consideration for us all, and the current virtual laissez-faire capitalist idea is not working. Not everyone is able to go to turbosquid and download some clothes and skins and repackage them to Sl in SL, not everyone wants to.

Thus I see LL not has having an obligation to make everyone wealthy, or to make content creation easier, I see LL as having an obligation to making account retention a priority. There are a number of things that can be done. I think a small increase in stipend to put more income in the hands of casual players would be a good thing. Stop thinking of the time people spend as a disposable item and think of it as a commodity that LL must compete for.

As for most of your points above, I agree with them, and had you not zeroed in on the "comparison to other games" portion specifically, you may have seen that. I was speaking about goal orientated vs. not goal orientated. Not competeing for time.

Jake, I honestly lost my most of my desire to respond to you at length when you admonished us that SL is "playing with dolls". It's that type of intolerant of other's viewpoints, subjective interpretation that leads to social division in the first place.

I have been a newbie countless time in the past 12 years. I have not seen what you are talking about. I am not a sucker though (not that you are).

And once again, you seem to be speaking for a whole lot of other people. That's called hyperbole and assumption, and I won't address it until I see the people you are speaking for actually come and tell us. I interact with new players nearly every single day, and strangely enough, I don't hear these things.

I think one of the main contributors to the divisiveness of this issue, which does tend to polarize people, comes down to Linden Lab's obsession with marketing SL as a way to make money. The story of Anshe Chung is Philip's mantra, and it is told EVERYWHERE. Start with nothing, make 6 figures. How often are the economic stats of SL touted? How often are people told it's all about money, about making money, money money money. No other online environment is marketed this way. Yet there is no solid structure in place in SL for any time of economy beyond a purely retail one.

There is no capacity for a service based enconomy because we have no contracts, no tools to support easily paying wages, and pathetic group support that have no viable permission structures in place to allow someone to really function in any kind of employee capacity. On top of that, honestly, for the same amount of effort, you can certainly make a hell of a lot more money in the real world than you can in SL because of the perception that everything needs to be in substandard hobbyist wages.

It's such a weird mixed message, and it is no wonder that people are constantly fighting over money. The greed floodgates were opened long ago, and Linden Lab has mishandled the message ever since. There is so much more to SL than making money, but you certainly would not know it by a damn thing coming out of Linden Lab. One of the strongest actual driving components of SL - the social and god-forbid SEXUAL nature of SL is completely hidden in favor of COME TO SL AND BE RICH! While there is certainly ample opportunity to make money in SL for certain people, it can't be the entire message - because it is only a portion of the experience.