Postal Service

Ok, this may or may not be something that's been discussed before but I'm tossing in my two cents. I figured that a mail system would open up a slew of new possibilities in the game. Of course there's a dark side as well, but I'll get to that in a minute.

A mail system would allow for easy communication with an offline user. Instead of sending an IM and waiting for it to jump on them when they log in you could put together a letter and mail it to them. Not only would this allow for more information then an IM can provide but you could also presumably ship the letter with a package if you wanted. It's nothing revolutionary but this is only the begining.

With mail could come mail-order catalogs. Send customers a catalog to order from and increase buisiness as well as awareness. People would need to sign up for your catalog, but if you're just starting out how will people find you? Place an ad in a popular catalog.

Another benifit could be newsletters, fliers, and magazine/publication subscriptions. This could be another lucritive business. Periodicals like my Orwood Hour could be delivered to subscribers as it's finished, making it easier for people to get it and serving those who can't or won't come to your shop (assuming you have a shop).

Lastly, perhaps mail could come to your email box as well. Rather then being told you've got an IM so log in, you could get your mail in full in your email box.

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Ok, good stuff out of the way. Now the bad stuff.
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People would surely find a way to abuse the mailing system resulting in you getting unwanted mail. As anyone with an email account knows, this can be very annoying. Also, there's the possibility of people using the mail system for ill reasons, such as spreading rumors, verbally abusing people, or finding a way to intercept mail. These are all things to consider with the mailbox concept. Does this sound too far-fetched, or is it just boring? Or perhaps, a postal service would help SL. It's all up for debate.

You posted this a while ago ... but after having the same idea, and searching on the forums, yours was about the only one that came up ...

I think there is a cool potential in having a Postal System ... what would be very cool is if you could have actual postal-bots going about the daily run, actually moving through the world handing out mail. People who wanted to join the Postal Service would rent a Box, which would be then situated on their land, if they had a piece, or on themselves. The postal-bots would then find them. There are all sorts of problems with this. But it's still a cool idea.

You could also have larger Postal boxes, where people actually put their letters in, and the postal-bots come and retrieve them.

The big thing that kept bogging me down was the issue of piracy/abuse/etc... People could no doubt hi-jack the bot, or break into the postboxes. What keeps this from happening too much in rl? laws i guess, plus a police system. Jail. All things which at this stage are very nebulous in SL.

So anyways, i reckon the postal system could be a hit ... but it would need a lot of thought put into it. As with most things i guess.

This would be good for roleplaying and that's pretty much it. No offense.

For starters, nothing is stopping you from giving a notecard or any object to a person through their Profile. As for groups, llGiveInventory works cross sim, so it's feasible to do that on an "opt-in" basis or go running for a published key list.

If you're interested in making a postal bot for the main grid, you can always use my free pathfinder. You should be able to find the beta version posted here:

/54/ea/44148/1.html

Yeah, but see that's my point. There isn't really any point to putting mail in the box ... but it happens in the real world ... AND there are plenty of things that go on in the real world that don't have to.

I think it would add to the realism of SL, i might be totally wrong ... anyways, we'll see what happens

The real world also doesn't have instant, free point-to-point teleportation technology, either.

LF