SL screen/worldsaver for inactive users

Hello.

I'd like to suggest the implementation of something akin to a screensaver for SL. Currently, if I sit down in a camping chair to make some money and go do a bunch of stuff in RL for a few hours, SL is still continuously streaming world to me, even though my avatar hasn't moved for hours. This is taking up a lot of bandwidth, as well as a lot of server power.

I suggest a checkbox in Settings with a user-selectable amount of time for inactivity (and perhaps a default of 1 or 2 hours), after which the screen blanks or simply displays status info, and SL stops streaming world to that client. I would want it to keep streaming whatever basic housekeeping control codes are needed to keep my avatar online and in-world, but if I'm just sitting in a camping chair, I'd rather release as much bandwidth back to everyone else as possible. Of course, as soon as I came back and initiated movement, world would start streaming again from where I left off.

I don't know what percentage of in-world avatars are basically inactive at any time, but potentially this could take quite a bit of load off the servers and reduce lag for everyone. I think it would also be relatively easy to do from the programming side of things, too.

Rowan

That would be nice, but I don't know if it'd happen. That was supposed to be what the automated logout after 30 minutes was for.
My method of staying logged in would still require that I be streamed data though, evne under your suggestion.

a good idea, and one which would be good if they took out the silly automatic logout and replaced it with this (as it just means people are forced to automate their mouse / keys to stay loged in anyhow)

Bad idea. Sorry.

Anything that encourages camping should be squashed. Campers should also be squashed, but that's another thread.

The 30 minute timeout is there for a purpose, if people are overriding it even though they are not at the computer then they are cheating, and deserve to be dealt with appropriately.

Lewis

Actually, I hadn't run into the 30 minute logout until today, and now it's hitting me for some reason (possibly because I haven't been maximizing the window). The past couple days I've been sitting in a camping chair, then going to RL work, coming home and finding myself bounced from the chair with earnings for the max time. My computer's screensaver and monitor power-down weren't even kicking in.

As to camping or not, I'll say that as a poor beginner in SL, camping chairs are a nice discovery, as the "game" is money oriented in a lot of ways.

Regardless, though, whether the 30 minute logout is still there or not, SL should have some options to reduce the amount of data being streamed to avatars that aren't doing anything. Maybe something like a "close my eyes" feature.

Similar to CPUs that alter voltage and speed many times per second according to load in order to conserve power and reduce heat, it would be good for SL to have some sophisticated automatic bandwidth management built-in.

The cost of running an internet-capable pc (pc, modem, router, etc) runs at about 4 US cents an hour.

That's aproximately 11 Lindens an hour COST.

So you take that and compare it against the money you make camping and work out the REAL profit you're getting whilst you're being a pathetic maggoty leech on the system, supporting the camping chair casino eyesores that make SL an ugly cesspit for us all.

Musuko.

Ah, nice to know that a L$1 per 5 minute chair makes money (that's L$12 and hour folks).
And while I am against camping in general, I do camp a lot (I've got a L$5/10m pad at this very moment). If anyone can suggest a way for those who are new to the game and on a free acount to aquire easy money without having any skills (maybe something that increases their skills), I will happily never use a camping chair or pad again--unless I'm at class or doing homework, etc. and only have a second every few minutes to monitor SL.

Why would folks expect to get something for nothing? Is that what they teach in school these days... don't work to earn money, just do nothing and expect to be rewarded.Surprise again, there's no magic skills-giver in SL, nor the real world. Again, skills need to be learned through time and effort.

Try one of those other places where you have to mine ore, kill monsters, or whatever to get credits. SL has become a 3D representation of the real world, with perks - such as flying - and more. And money paid to ((free)) basic accounts in camping chairs, is welfare paid by other folks with paid accounts.

This is one reason Developer Incentives have been eliminated, and Traffic payouts will be phased out as well. Leaving the bigger question to be: How will new basic residents gain enough financial momentum to be of benefit to SL?

Paypal.

That's ok, my computer is on 7/24 anyway (doing distributed computing tasks, downloading movies, streaming music, being a print server for my laptop, etc), although of course power-saving features are turned on.

That aside, though, don't you think that sophisticated automatic bandwidth conservation features would be a good thing, both to reduce overall lag by lightening the load on SL servers, and probably lightening the load on our graphics cards too?

Besides that, running Second Life is likely going to have my ISP complaining that I'm going over the monthly ?? GB transfer limit. SL takes a lot of bandwidth on a continuous basis.

Rowan
(who just upgraded to a Sempron 3400+ with 1 GB RAM... yes, a SL inspired upgrade!)

"If anyone can suggest a way for those who are new to the game and on a free acount to aquire easy money without having any skills (maybe something that increases their skills), I will happily never use a camping chair or pad again"

Buy lindens with a credit card, debit card or paypal. With the rate currently lingering at about 280 lindens per dollar, you'd be a fool to camp. You must have no pride whatsoever to whore yourself out for what (often) amounts to one US cent per hour.

And as mentioned before; why should you get something for nothing?

You want to know where that money is coming from? Follow the chain; land owners give money to you via camping chairs. Lindenlabs gives the landowners money via dwell and DI (both going the way of the dodo, btw). Other players give Lindenlabs money via premium accounts, currency purchases and land tier.

So in the end, we're all paying for your lazy, leeching maggoty self.

I tick by at a modest average of L$2000 a day income. It's been enough to save for things like an MP3 player and RAM after enough time. I get it because I created content that other people enjoy. I've made Second Life better for many other players, and this is my reward for it.

All YOU do is waste our money. Money that Lindenlabs could be using to better effect elsewhere in the game.

"Besides that, running Second Life is likely going to have my ISP complaining that I'm going over the monthly ?"

You're hogging a big chunk of bandwidth across many, many miles of network links for a few cents an hour...and you're complaining that your ISP makes you pay for it? Of course they're going to bloody make you pay for it! You download movies, you stream music (and I can safely assume not legally), you leech second-life...

...do you even have a job?

"How will new basic residents gain enough financial momentum to be of benefit to SL?"

L$50 a week is already given free. The rest they can work for, either within game, or outside of the game (converting it into Lindens via Lindex purchases). Why should they get a free ride? There'd be nothing to buy in SL if everyone could just sit on their arses doing nothing and get paid, instead of creating content for it.

Musuko.

Not quite, seeing as the land owner is paying for it.
Also, if it is a major problem, then your gripe is with the landowner offering the camping chairs, not with the people sitting in them.

If someone offers something for free, you can't very well turn round and slag them off others for accepting it.

And no, I've never used a camping chair nor do i intend to.
I buy my money if and when I need to. I create my own content and once I have enough, i will be talking with a few friends to see if I can set up a small stall and sell them.
It's just that I see pot shots taken at the 'freemongers' and basic accounts all too often, and usually they're fired for improper reasons.

What about using all this wasted processing power for something?

Let's add a function to "donate processing power to fellow SLers", which when turned on would stop the 30-min logout timer and use the computer's CPU and bandwidth for something useful like:

1. baking shadowmaps and distributing it to active SLers -- basically pre-compute shadows for non-moving objects and share it with other users. So we can have lighting effects like they are done in all the other games.
   
2. similarly, share the local cache with other users in SL -- thus lowering the asset server and sims' load (with regard to Image Time, at least).
   

How bout this, if you are not actively using SL for a long period of time, why don't you just log the hell off so the servers aren't wasting their time on people who are just camping and not doing a damn thing. That way people who are actually doing things on SL may have a better experience without the strain of people who are continuously afk..

JUST SAYIN'

How 'bout go to art school, or take some computer science courses? That's what I did to increase my skills.
Sadly there's no "make cool" button in SL yet, and I don't think there's gonna be in the near future.

Camping chairs are avatar abuse!

DoteDote, Musuko, and to a lesser extent, Argent: you're all (greedy) idiots.

He said he wanted to be able to earn while he learned something that would help him actually CONTRIBUTE to SL, and all you can do is blast him for using camping chairs/pads.


What part of he wants to wean himself off them do you not understand?

I know I have... but wait. I'm just a common ordinary leech because I sat in a camping chair more than a month ago... OH NOES!!1!111!one!eleven!1!

Grow up.



Anyway, Draco, if you want to learn how to do things for yourself here, try looking in the event listing for the Teazers U classes. They offer all sorts of classes to help you learn how to build/script...

At the moment that's very difficult. There's very little market for services in SL because most of the things you need service-people for in RL are handled by scripts in SL, and the market for actors is flooded. I've suggested that people running games hire NPCs rather than using scripted prim enemies, and that vendors hire models for clothes (and it seems that at least one vendor is doing that), but there hasn't been much response.

So at the moment the only options for honestly making a buck if you're not skilled enough in scripting, building, or texturing to compete are Paypal and "escort services". If you don't like those options, I would recommend doing what I did when I started ... deferring purchases and siting down in a sandbox and getting downright grindstone about learning the tools.

That won't cut it for me. I don't have any money in my 1st life. I have $173 I am going to be using this summer to take a 3 day trip to Pittsburgh (from Philadelphia). I am going to need all $173 to go.



I have made content as well, although only a limited audience wants it.
I recently got a "job" monitoring someone's camping pads. L$200 a day to
take complaints and help the owner fix the problem. She doesn't know anything about coding, and had trouble even setting up her dance pads. Much less not realizing that the coder had forgoten a line of code so that when the owner said /70 reset to reset the pads, any pad that wasn't burned out (hit max payout and turned off) and had someoen dancing on it was then not paid and no longer accumulating money (and thus causing people to leave).

As for leaching--I figure it is well within my right as a citizen to take dance pad money because the owner has dance pads. If they want to throw money at me to get dwell, then I will certainly catch some of it.

You know, guys, if everyone is developers and making stuffs themself. No one will buy anything and that won't do much good to the sellers

I didn't cheer nor against camping chair though. Nor that I own them nor using them.

Or everything a newbie can make has already been done by someone at double the quality, twice the content/usability, and relatively cheap ("bits" are L$300 these days and look at how complex they are).

We've pretty much hit the limit for this to be applicable:
"There is nothing new under the [SL] sun."

Hmmm. There's a list a mile long of as-yet-unwritten scripts I don't have a Round Tuit for yet.

I don't agree with that .. at all..

The reason for this is that there are too many things to do in SL, and if you really think that -everything- has been done then you really are of shallow mind. I just created something that -had not been done- and I will continue to improve on it adding things to it to make it completely unique.. And even taking a general idea and improving on it to make it your own, I think, would help those with less of a creative twist.

As for the SL-saver.. again the 30 min logout is for a reason. After the log out there really is no reason to keep the SL client running, save for things you missed. I think after an automatic logout SL take all back IMs and chat, and whatever else the community labels as important material, and save them in whatever fasion is less "cost efficiant" or temporary file storage that -should- be regularly cleaned out anyway, then shut down. I run on a laptop, and there have been some nights where I've fallen asleep playing SL and woke up to a machine that has nearly overheated due to the continued use of resources.

possibly something like the crash logger window that has:

{"You've been logged out for being inactive, here's a log of of what you missed"

__________

IMs:

betty Crocker: Hello!
betty Crocker: you there?
betty Crocker: Just letting you know that I left you a notecard and ..

(yada yada the list goes on)

___

Someone else: ...

(you get the point)

______

Chat:

blah blah blah

---------- }

Put this something that cannot be hilighted and or copied, I've seen it happen I know they can do it

possibly after this information is looked at it should be deleted

or!

even save it somehow for your next log in, but again there is the extra load on SL that may not be needed

Just an idea

It's a good thing for Ante Flan he didn't think that.

Everywhere I go around the coast now there's people using Ante Flan's "surf".