Event Changes in SL

I was just wondering what everyone thinks of the changes that have taken place in the events since the removal of event support.

The things I've noticed are:

1) Fewer put on your thong and come win $$ events (not a bad thing)

2) Virtually no educational events (bad thing)

3) Very few fun events such as trivia contests, kickboxing, etc. (bad thing)

4) An explosion of gambling events

Do you think the event support changes have been a good thing?

Do you think there should be support events other than educational events?

I think that the event support should be expanded to include some fun events. I don't want to see a return to the events list filled with "topless with black thong 500L for sexiest," but I think we should have a little more than 90% gambling events too.

Ahh but this is the 'new' economy and 'it's' working.

Perhaps, but I would still like to see a greater variety of events.

I'll sum up my feelings with a very brief quote from your post.

Also, I really don't see a lot of reduction in the pointless beauty contents. All events are "WEAR <random article of clothing> AND NOTHING ELSE, WIN 500L", or Bingo, Tringo, Slingo, *ingo. I'm trying to hold back the tide by holding a few non-club Primtionary events, but I can't do it too frequently because prizes have to come from my pocket.

So yeah, pickings are slim. I'm not sure if event sponsoring is the answer, but it would be nice if landowners still had some good reason to spend their time and money on event hosting. Dwell doesn't begin to cover it.

Tonight:


There/TSO party
Open Rod Fishing Tournet
Archery Championship
Water Polo

What do you want to see?

I'm gonna go fishing!

There have been a few threads similar to this in nature, enough so that I've been thinking about the subject for a while. The main question in my mind is...why do the club/gambling events seem to work (as in draw attendance), and other events don't? Obviously, as far as club events go, sex plays a big part, as it does everywhere. I think the highly structured nature of Tringo is attractive to many people (not that it can't be fun as well). And I've run into enough skint noobs to know that the siren song of the moneyball cannot be underestimated.

Now, as for activities outside of the club/gambling/game realm, there isn't much to choose from. I think it's because the event holders lack determination. I think it's because event holders have been unwilling to experiment. And I think it's because we haven't yet invented the events that will kick SL's ass.

I will now attempt to explain myself...

I think it's because the event holders lack determination.
1. I've been to a couple of interesting events in the past couple of months, and expressed an interest in participating in more events by the hosts. Have they contacted me since then? No. For god sake's, if you get attendees at an event of yours, bug 'em to come back. Bug 'em to bring a friend. Do it nicely, but do it.

2. Throw several instances of the same event within a few days time. Most of us have a short window to participate in SL. Give us a choice of times to participate in your event. I'm seeing interesting events appear once in a blue moon, and then not happen again for (sometimes) weeks. No wonder you can't build a following.

3. If an event you host falls on its face, don't give up. Try again at a different time. Try some kind of marketing, even if it's just prodding your friends to come. Change up the format (which leads us to)...

I think it's because event holders have been unwilling to experiment.
If your poetry reading event (for instance) isn't working, do something about it. Figure out ways to take advantage of the peculiarities of SL to make your event different, better suited to SL, more interesting to people who are (after all) sitting at their computers. Innovate...

I think it's is because we haven't invented the events that will kick SL's ass yet.
There will be a day, perhaps not far in the future, when someone will come up with an idea for an event that is so perfect for SL that people will be buying custom gestures just so their avatars can smack their own foreheads and say "why didn't I think of that?" It will draw impressive, enthusiastic crowds who will gladly pay admission, though it will have nothing to do with clubs/games/gambling. It will inspire some imitators, although it will require talent to host, so imitation will never reach Tringo levels. More importantly it will make people reconsider the nature of events in SL.

I have no idea what this event will be, but I'm sure it will happen. Hell, I guarantee it will happen. But it all goes back to the first two points I touched on above...it will require determination and a willingness to experiment. Two attributes our current events hosts, however well-intentioned, seem to be lacking.

What, exactly, is the incentive to hold an event?


Dwell, but dwell along doesn't pay the land fees that it takes to hold events. So what is the incentive? Why should a host pay the land fees, offer prize money, and do all the work of hosting, building, and scripting?

Some people do it for love of the game, of course, but it can grow old pretty quickly when there is not much of a reward.

It's a good question. And I would turn it around to ask "What do event hosts want to get out of hosting an event?"

I know, it's a bit of a cheat to answer a question with a question, but I think it's an important discussion. Those who hold events to make money have a clear-cut, well-trodden path to follow. But for those who have other rewards in mind, how do they set and reach those goals?

Funny enough.. but we have been getting a pretty good turn out at the Poetry Guild's poetry reading events as of late. And there isn't even any cash prize incentive! I guess just the incentive of a captive audience to present your writing to who offer positive, constructive criticism is enough. Although, we have toyed with the idea of sponsorship for this event.

But, to your point, we have been trying to add extra meetings of the poetry reading events during the week and that has seemed to work. Even added a Euro-friendly slot on the weekends. I think that exapanded availability has added the flexibility to allow some people to attend who might not otherwise have.

just my recent observations...

-Rhiannon

That's great news.

I try to always offer a class on each saturday and sunday, usually basic building on saturday and some advanced classes on sundays

Okay, for me it isn't an issue of having a lack of ideas or whatnot. I know many people who have given me wonderful ideas on events to host, and do sometimes see googobs of people at the truth or dare and other events (okay, maybe not the poetry events, but the others). My main issue with your post, Pol, is that you seem to be saying that the events schedule is lackluster because events host aren't imaginative or daring. I think that this isn't true. I see plenty of interesting and daring events. Come to my sceners competition next saturday when we roleplay alien abductions and you might see what i mean! hehe. I think, as others have brought up, the REAL issue is a total lack of any incentive to do it. Unless someone is wanting to come up with a very complex, timeconsuming *game within a game* (which requires tons of development and some kind of staff to continue to run it, therefore run on a total business model) what silly fool would be crazy enough to host an event to begin with? (insert guilty smile and tentatively raised hand here.)

Why host an event when a) I am paying out of pocket or buying lindens to pay out of pocket to subsidize a contest? b) people are unwilling to pay for events so they put no monetary value on them? c) dwell is so small for most gathering spaces that it doesn't cover the a fraction of the cost of hiring staff to run events? d) *traffic* can be down for days at a time so that it also doesn't help the organization's placement in advertising?

These days, I host an event, or hold a class just when I want to because I want to give something back. It doesn't pay for itself, and in fact, costs me money to host events, or get staff to host them. Why host events when it costs the events hoster money? I do anyway, but as I intimated earlier, I am a silly fool. hehe. Why do we expect events hosts to work for free when everyone else works for Lindens? Imagine that someone makes a pretty chair to sell, and I don't buy it because I had been, until recently, getting chairs for free. In fact, people had been paying me to take chairs off their hands. Is it because the chair the person made to sell is faulty? that that person is uncreative or unimaginative? No. It is because my expectations had to make a very dramatic shift for me to see value in the work they made. It is a problem of the system and a problem of perception. Not in the crafter of the chair. I would not say to the crafter of the chair: look, your chair needs something awesome added to it that will have people buying D'oh! animations that they didn't think of it themselves before I pay for it. Call me back when you have come up with a whole new chair paradigm ok?

People also seem to think that there is so much tringo because there is huge demand for it. I think there is so much tringo because it is one of the very few self-sustaining events. If a game (like tringo, or acrophobia, for example) does the job of taking the money from people, and if they are paying per hand or round, then the event actually does sometimes (if one has several people there) pay for the staffing cost of the event. The host breaks even, or mayyyyybe even makes a little money (if one doesn't count tier costs that most folks pay to have the land on which the event takes place).

So, my thought is people aren't hosting events not because we are too uncreative to manage interesting ideas, but because there isn't any real compelling reason to do so other than to be nice. Unless one is the owner of a ginormous club (owning a whole sim or island for instance) or one is a real estate magnate and is able to compete for that 2% traffic award in USD, one will pay out of pocket to have events. Still people host them, but they do so at their own expense (in time, or tier costs, if not also in prizes).

I would really like it if people quit blaming the events hosts for something that is, in fact, a systemic problem. I am reeeeeeeely getting tired of being called uncreative, lackluster, unoriginal, unexperimental, a sex pervert, and every other thing that events hosts have been called in the forums lately. oh yeah. did I forget welfare recipient? cheater? gamer of the system? hehe. other examples abound. makes me kinda tired of the whole events notion sometimes. Maybe another thing to add to the list of reasons why people don't offer events is that they feel unappreciated for doing it, especially when they are called all kinds of mean things in the forums.

BTW, hehe, I will take you up on your offer to bug you about other events. I guess I try to keep people's spam to a minimum, only offering event cards for upcoming mature events for people who have attended other mature events. I haven't offered much that was PG since you came to that poetry event that weekend (other than a quite well-attended marketing class) Pol, so that is why I haven't been letting you know of our other events. As you said, sex sells. Truth or Dare draws people and requires no prizes, and is fun to host (it requires very very little setup other than letting people know it is happening). I think that pulling events host incentives also stifled creativity among events hosts as there isn't a kind of a safety net there anymore. I know I was more willing to experiment when I knew the event could break even than now when I know that I will pay out of pocket for it in time and actual money. Thanks for consistently contributing to the discussion, Pol. I'd like to see the blame shift from the hosts, though, to where it belongs: a system that doesn't sufficiently encourage the hosting of quality events.

I totally agree with you, Persephone!

Let's analyze, why would an event host host good events?
- Maybe for fame? The player's fluctuation is very big, and you need to hold many events to be 'well known'. That's a lot of time and energy. So fame is hard to get for a hobby event host, who likes to host maybe 2-3 events/week. Dwell also doesn't help these casual hosts.
- For fortune? I don't think that's possible in the current SL. Not enough people attending, and even if 20 people do attend, and pay L$25 that's L$ 500. It's some money, but not enough to be called a 'fortune' for 1-2 hours of work.

So, what incentive can there be?
Maybe hosts like to 'make SL better for people by sacrificing their own time'?
This IS a probable explanation. But then, they should get at least a bit of 'thank you' from Linden Labs, or something. (In form of L$'s which can be exchanged for money.)

I was hoping someone would rip me for my nasty post. I should have known I could depend on you, Perse. Youse a fighta. (And I would never call you unexperimental and a sex pervert. It would have to be one or the other, as they strike me as being mutually exclusive.)

Event hosts have been given a pretty crappy hand in SL. You either hold the kinds of events that have a proven track record of being popular/lucrative, or you try something new/different and subsequently have a tough time scraping up even a meager audience.

Who do we blame for the situation? Our benevolent overlords? Perhaps, but the Lindens have made their decision about event sponsorship, and their stance is unlikely to change anytime soon, if ever.

Do we blame the general SL population for their lethargy and mob mentality? Speaking as one of them, I only have a few precious hours to spend in SL each week, and unless you make me an offer I can't refuse I'm going to spend those hours pursuing my own interests. Those interests may coincide with an event; usually they don't.

That leaves us with event hosts. Is it their fault that the SL event paradigm is ganked? Probably not, but if anyone is going to rectify the sorry situation, it's going to have to be them. Simply because there is no one else to do it. And it's too bad, because it's going to require a helluva lot of work, maybe more work than is justifiable for "just a game."

What I find unfortunate is the number of threads in the forums started by a person asking "where are all the good events?" and responded to by frustrated event holders saying "well, I held event X and nobody showed up." And that's the end of the thread. Nothing happens beyond some short-lived forum discontent.

A few posts previous to this I said some pretty harsh and unforgiving things about event hosts, basically blaming them for everything. It was totally unfair, and nobody called me on it until Persephone gave me the smackdown. This to me is an indication that event hosts in general lack the ambition or energy to make their events work in SL. And that nobody else cares. I mean, you can say some pretty innocuous stuff in the forums here and get twenty pages of virulent flames. But say something nasty about event hosts and you can't even get Prokofy to post. How sad is that?

That's a great comment, Pol (your whole comment). My Coda compadres and I have been hosting a lot of build contest events lately, and we've been quite successful at it. But you're right that it is hard work to hold an event, make sure it goes well, and have it be worth it for people to participate. Dwell/traffic doesn't even come close to covering costs let alone compensate us for entertaining LL's customers for them. And until we can figure out a way to make it worthwhile financially, we're just in it for the fun of it. So if it's not fun, we don't do it.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If LL wants residents to entertain its paying customers they need to provide more motivation, or at least help us with a bit of prize money so it doesn't have to come out of our pockets.

I agree completely.

Hosted another event tonight and my group's down about 600 lindens total, plus an hour for the event and about 2 hours of preparation time, which we could've spent working on another project. And what we got in return is an hour of entertainment for about 20 people. We won't even see a traffic number till who knows when. Still, not a bad trade as far as I'm concerned, or I wouldn't do it, but it means there's no reason at all to host an event like this except to be nice. That doesn't cut it for a lot of people.

I'm not trying to achieve anything amazing with my events. I have the land, the scripting ability, and the verbal skills, and all I want to do is use that to provide some entertainment every so often. In that respect my events succeed. But as nice as that is, in the current economy, all that is is cost to me.

Basically, I think a person has to build a stage, do whatever necessary scripting for an event, and put up their own earnings for prize money before they try to understand where an event host's motivation is supposed to come from. It's easy to be a backseat driver. When hosting an event amounts to nothing more than a favor done mostly for strangers, and an expensive one at that, I can see where motivation dries up.

My question is this. Would it be possible to do something like have an Auto race. Theee are enough people in SL that have cars. Is there enough open land on somebody's property to do it and is there any way to make sure that If you don't pay you don't watch. Also Is it something that People would come out to see?

Think about it. SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, Come on over to "Insert track name here)" to witness an all out speed fest of the fastest cars in the "world".

Also has anything like it been attempted? Crist I'm an avid Car racing nut in the "Real" but I've seen nothing here with cars but simply driving them. C'mon People there has to be some more race fans out there.

I know I just gave out a Pretty good one But If enough space and energy I think it could be done.

Just a thought. Call me crazy. My Ex-wife used to. hehe.

An auto race would be great, but the car physics just suck in SL (sorry), so there's not much point.

I think the only usable vehicle is the ship, and maybe some type of flying vehicles.

I think I finally came up with my signature quote: "Well Waves what do you want to do tonight? Jump on a sex ball or conquer SL?"

Host events and give away money? Do an event just for fun? Teach a classe to help Noobs? Or teach a class cuz we need some cash? Dress up and go to a club?

Its all about attention span and what your in the mood for.
The mixture of the events you see at any point in time is the mix of the current mood and trend of players in SL. Tringo has swept SL because it it fits two moods. Like in golf or bowling - you can play to beat yourself or try to beat the next guy. You can be quiet and think about your game, or you can chat your tail off.
All the other events boil down to
1) Do I want to talk and meet people
2) Do I want to learn
3) Do I want to make money
4) Do I want to be by myself and twist prims
5) Do I want to log off an go play in RL

There is nothing wrong with the events in SL, its what are you in the mood for at any point in time?

Yes Zonax you nailed that on the head, We would have loved to have added a car race from the Hwy 66 group with there very cool track and cars for the 8 week survivor game Tang and I held. We really tryed but the cars kept driving to china, now mind ya china might have some nice roads but thats not where we were playing. One of the things we really missed from THERE.com was the hoverboards and Buggys. To see Tang this mild and meek sweet woman turn into the number " #3 " intimadator on and track in a Buggy race is something to see,

I got what seemed the best cars in SL for her and to watch it crash, nose dive to china, or throw her out into a hillside soooooo sucks. What won us over from THERE was the freedom to build and the animations and we could get more intimit together here. It seems the animations are about the only thing that involves movment in SL that works most of the time. If I was asked what the best feture of SL was I would have to say the animations. It baffles me why other online games have worked out vehicle movment and real time weapons usage and SL cant ?. And if asked what was the worst feture of SL I would have to say what I call under or over run buffering (lag)
and with that i think nothing is being done about the issues already in the game with movment of objects (ie. cars, boats, planes ect..) but SL injects more bandwith presser and much time in Streaming Video ??? But they do build nice roads, to bad we cant use them to go anywhere but China !!!

From my window I see SL the animation King of online games

Why dont we have built in Animation tool box ? but need to use an uploader tool box to make a 3rd party animation work ?

I wonder if SL car drivers in china have it any better

*

I think the idea of cutting event support has lowered everyone's motivation to hold what we used to back in the day, but all is not lost, i know we can still come up with events even if they dont pay 2 to 3k in payouts, but it all depends like barbara said on the "incentive". "What do you want to see out of your event" is the main question. Since the changeover i've still done events and payouts without expecting anything in return but people having a good time, i think when this new update is finished up there will be more possibilities to get the events back in good shape again. One thing i'm going to be doing is opening up a club for live dj's so they can let everyone hear their talents on the turntables and cd turntables, allong with that i'll be using the movie options for recording my live dj sets, which i think will very neat for people to see, streaming sound and video at the same time. Allong with that i think visuals like seen in winamp and windows media player could really get a club going, throw a few screens on the walls with some crazy club visuals allong with a live dj that u can hear and see working his magic will really bring people into a club, as far as payouts, i dont plan on making money off the club itself, i just want to make people happy and keep people interested in what i like to do, so think about that everyone, we could benefit from this greatly and new doors are opening up all around us with these new improvements, it's all about creativity and good times in sl

Clubs already seem to have no problems hosting events. Streaming video doesn't help me host Primtionary.

I think it would be a help even if the Lindens just provided money for contests with the condition that it all be given away to the participants by the end of the event. Although how they'd enforce that, I have no idea. But if they thought people were hosting events just to make money, that seems like a better alternative than removing sponsoring entirely.

I'm gonna start running events from the new north-land as soon as theres a telehub but i have no idea how to pay for it. I've got tringo and slingo straight from RL money and im making some custom game scripts which leaves me many hours and L$31K down then people expect guaranteed pots? o.0

Too true kali, i've seen the changes as far as events posted and it just makes me laugh, yet cry at the same time, i'm allways on the lookout for something other then BINGO and TRINGO but there's so few events like the old days, lindens should really think about it and maybe someone can start up a petition to get some of what we had back to us, i think it'd help us all out a lil and get some of the excitement of winning things back in play, i'm still in shock about them doing that and i dont know if the wounds will ever heal, but i'm stuck here lol so i'm just trying to make the best of it

With things like this u need to have tons of cash on you at all times, i ran a casino and it's hard to keep up with unless u are loaded to the brim with money, people do expect guaranteed pots unfortunatly, they look for the ones that pay the most and also the most popular spots to play, but i would suggest something to back you up on money while u're doing this, u'll need something that generates a steady flow of income for you while u're doing the whole bingo/slingo thing, running out of money with machines that spit out money is never a pleasant sight lol it's happened to me once and i never let it happen again after that lol