BlackJack Rip offs

Rhiannon.. you should quit gambling, since it sounds like you have a problem with it.

I think this is the exactly right response. If the bug can't be proven to have happened, refund the player's money and tell them that from here on out, they are playing at thier own risk. Then if they choose to dump more money into a machine that they believe might crash, they live with thier choice. There are lots of ways to gamble in SL. Find a safer one.

P.S. - I love playing Blackjack as well, and have played on both Jack's and Tony's machines with no problems. I used to crash with Tony's occasionally long ago, but haven't in months. Of course I tend to bet in the L$100-200 range and not L$4000 at a pop.

Ok no problem Thanks Jack

Oh I know. I'm actually kind of glad I posted this though because now everyone is debating good ideas for new improvements...maybe a long needed discussion?

I don't know Jack, either..and only know Tony a little bit...but the Texas Hold 'Em tables have the same problem. Our regular players can tell you many a tale of crashing as they cash out (sometimes with..sometimes without..balances being paid). The difference is the games were all played with a live dealer keeping the balances (a very important part of the table 'procedure', just for this reason), so when the player logged back on, the 'fix' was simple and clear, and refunds given on the spot.

It's a Linden Bug for sure..and, as Tony says, unique to LSL - not something that was created by Jack's tables to cheat the player.

I agree with David, your response is very mature and fair.

As for your question, regulation should be done by your casinos. Form a group "SL Authorized Casinos" or whatnot, make a neat little seal, write a constitution and rules, and then post the seal at your casinos. Then advertise like hell, "If you gamble at an un-authorized casino, you can't be sure you're not being cheated." You'll wind up getting more business out of it, and you'll also have a natural medium to communicate, share ideas and innovate.

@People saying "It's a Linden Bug" - honestly, this is like saying you should hold the developers of Java responsible for people with broken Javascripting on webpages. SL is a tool, the Lindens try and keep it working, but the bottom line is that a content developer needs to be aware of what the tool can do. And players can't claim the tool creator is at fault because the content developer using the tool in a way it can't be used.

I'm going to say this one more time because I so violently disagree with this point I can't stand still. Your comparison is outrageous. Linden Labs claims that their client is supposed to support the things we're doing. Don't forget that they're also changing the client underneath our scripts and that something that works today may very well be broken by LL tomorrow. It's ridiculous of you, in the light of all the other bugs the SL client has had, to compare it to something as mature as Java. It's outright absurd for you to attempt to take away our (script developers) right to point the finger where it needs to be pointed, which is where the bug really exists.

BREATHE.

Pardon me while I crack out loud laughing. Java sucks. Java is a toy for web developers. I spefically used Java as an example because Java has major platform issues. It is a language that promises to be platform independant but has a variety of issues and routinely crashes in Windows environment. I think it's a fitting comparison.


Okay, I understand where you're coming from.

Look, Tony. Second Life is in its infancy. Your "pointing the finger" is not constructive. "Pointing the finger" at Linden Lab for Second Life's bugs, considering how far and fast they've come and the talent they have on their staff, is like yelling at a 5 year old for failing a calculus test.

We, as content developers and scriptors in SL have the priveleged responsibility to work with Linden Lab in improving the system. Yes, of course this means reporting bugs, but it also means working with what we have and not playing the blame game when something's wrong.

Consider the broad scope of things that LL has to tackle - streaming data, 3-D building, a brand new scripting language comparable to Perl, mass-multiplayer networking, physics, music-streaming, multi-platform use, dispute resolution, content promotion, land distribution, along with the normal marketing, advertising, staffing, and financing that any company enjoys.

They do this with 25 people and in under 2 years they have accomplished, with some bugs, all of these things with about 9 frames per second.

NOT FREAKING BAD! (understatement)

I bug report a lot, I suggest features, I attend town hall meetings when I can, I communicate with Linden Lab bug staff, and I also take the time to support my products that I build, even when random bugs mess them up.

And please don't play the I-Don't-Emphasize card. I spent 3 months leading one of the 8 game development teams back in Spring only to find out that object-object collision was bugged, completely marring my game's hit detection. Did I whine to LL? No, I worked around it, used my findings to help provide symptoms of a bug, and guess what? It was fixed in 1.5.

Yes, I understand that a lot of developers have high hopes of Linden Lab and LSL. I realize it can seem disappointing when things are buggy and it breaks your products. It's not bad that you have such high expectations; quite the contrary, such high goals will ensure that SecondLife will go far. But, and consider how inexpensive SecondLife is to develop in, (instant 3-D content to thousands of potential customers - worth a helluva lot more than $10 one-time fee or even $200/month for a private sim!) please have some realistic expectations of Linden Lab's progress and take some responsibility for your own scripts.

--- case in point ---

I can, probably in 15 minutes, write a number of scripts that could crash sims. I could probably write a script that would crash many many sims. Just because I know what the bugs are doesn't mean I don't have to be aware of them and responsible with them.

The problem with that is that blackjack that demands a player action to hit, stand, double, etc. after the first 2 cards. If the first 2 cards suck, the player could just wait for the timeout, get refunded and then try again ... until they get 2 cards they like.

it's a tricky issue at best really.

-AP

I propse that pointing the finger *is* actually constructive, as it helps the Lindens understand that there are client issues that still need to be dealt with and it educates those that don't know the difference between a scripting error, a client crash or a sim crash.



Yes, there *is* a difference between crashing the client and crashing a sim. It's actually relatively easy to bring a sim to its knees, if not crashing it outright. Can you make the same claim about crashing the client? I bet not.

That's my whole point, Hiro. I agree with pretty much everything you've said on every other front -- I'll even agree with you on your point about Java being a buggy disappointment. I will never, however, agree that LL does not have the responsibility to respond to our client bug reports and that the scripters should assume full responsibility for client crashes. I'm sorry, but I've been a software developer for too long to take such an unrealistic position.

I really take issue with this, Hiro. As a scripter, you know that sometimes the client crashes randomly, and there's absolutely nothing you can do in LSL to work around some bugs.

I sometimes have people asking me to change my vehicle script so that it stops unseating the avatars at sim borders. Obviously, this isn't a bug in my script, but a long-standing bug in SL that Linden Lab hasn't been able to fix. There's absolutely nothing I can do to prevent avatars from being unseated.

So what do you suggest that that vehicle-makers do? Stop making and selling vehicles? Give them away for free because of a bug that strikes randomly? All we can do is report the bug, ask our customers to keep reporting the bug, and try to explain that only LL can fix the problem.

On another note, I love your name Hiro. It reminds me of snow crash.

*bows, kisses Hiro's feet.

honestly jack sounds like yer bein scammed. pay the machine its max bet, get a bad hand or a strong dealer, 'crash to desktop' and demand a refund, repeat as necessary

a potential 'fix' might be to lock a game to a player for 5 minutes (or until complete) that way someone could pay the machine, crash, log back in, and finish the game, no problem.

because honestly theres no reason they couldn't do that *NOW* , heck they very likely could be colluding to... player A pays machine, crashes, player b finishes the game, takes winnings, player a then calls demanding a refund... they go home together and laugh at your expense

Not a bad suggestion, eltee!

@Jack,
Protagonist had been retired & the name taken. (Given LL's penchance for Snow Crash, perhaps a toy alt of Phillip? lol)