what happened to this game?

I played back in 03 for a while and spent a good amount of money on it. then I was hacked and lost everything, they even requested to have my char deleted. I asked linden labs to restore it but they said that they couldn't. well now I'm back again, however...

I started off on avatar island, I paid them 2,700$L to have my character "made over". but all that happened was it said "payment failed" and they took my $L.

I paid xstreet $20 to be able to buy somethings in game, they denied my payment even though it's cleared from my paypal and bank. I sent a ticket asking for my money back then since they denied it, but it's been "new" for days now. (even though it took them less than an hour to reply to my spending limit increase).

and, I wanted to buy some land via auction. I had upgraded my account to premium so I thought I could bid on the land I wanted. yet when I tried to, it told me I had to upgrade to premium first? so now I'm waiting for SL to send back the money I added to my account so I could bid on the land.

just annoyed that there is over $50 "in limbo" right now. I know I'll get the money back I added to my account (I hope) but am I out the $2,700 avatar island stole from me, and the $20 xstreet stole from me?

thanks!
good to be back... I think

Spending money on SL in 03 must have been hard.

Who on earth do you pay that much money to there? Are there any shops there that offer a makeover service rather than just sell you the items? This sounds a bit sus to me.

I think you need to check your transaction history, Derium, as if payment fails, lindens will not leave your account. Perhaps you tried to "pay" an object the wrong amount?

Good luck anyway, and I hope you enjoy your second second life.

Sorry all this aggravation hit you just as you were trying to return.

Not that it's any consolation, but it's something of a breakthrough that your spending limit was increased quickly; that's been a long-standing source of aggravation for many. (I know: fairly desperate attempt to find a silver lining.)

One other thing that may be a positive is that inability to bid on an auction. I don't understand *why* that happened, but auctions are only very rarely the most cost-effective way to purchase Mainland, and only rarely the most appealing land available. Also, there's the option of "buying" (well, more like leasing) parcels from private Estates, which may be a development since you were in SL before. (Not sure of the history.) There are pros and cons of Mainland vs Estate ownership, and getting some of that background before buying would be prudent, but a lot of people use Estate land: there's now something like five times as much of it as there is Linden-managed Mainland.

Another change worth noting is the quality of legitimate freebies available. It's pretty easy to outfit a fresh AV for L$0, at least well enough to not feel too newbie to be seen in public.

Finally, just want to second Tiffy's suggestion: study your account transaction history to see what actually happened to those L$2700. It sounds very unusual.

And why the heck do you need to auction for land if you're just "playing a game", really?

*sigh*

my email says 1/15/05 sorry, it was a guess...

What game? (^_^)

Destination: Trieste Janus
Payment
Region: Avatar Island
Description: Cyber Extruder X500a
L$2,700 L$4,771


is what it says, the thing was this big "machine" you lay in and pay it that amount of money, it's suppose to allow you to change your character and what not. just as soon as I paid it, it said payment failed, and kicked me out of the machine. weird.

but thank you for the help! and thanks for the heads up about the auctions. I forget a lot about this game!

Ohhhhh, Avatar Island.

Never hear anything good about that place.

well, it sounded nice, making my char look like me ha. anyone know a place that will? and not just take my money and provide no service?

My understanding was that all you got from Avatar Island was a texture of your RL face and you had to make a skin from it -- and you were on your own for a shape.

I wish I even got that haha

Can't speak for Avatar island, but there's enough quality freebies at places like Free Dove that you can wash off the "newbie look" pretty quick. As for the spending limits, you might have run afoul of the risk API LL uses to try to cut down on money laundering and other fraud'ish activities. They tend to throttle newly minted characters (and speaking of the risk API DO NOT buy any Lindens from eBay or any other non-official source, they're often enough bought with stolen credit cards that you'll face major issues). There were enough issues with money laundering and other economic crimes in 2006-2007 that the FBI paid a "serious" visit, and unlike user complaints LL listens to men with guns and warrants.

No you can't anymore.

At least 60% of the new males on the grid all use the same skin, "Michael", the rest all use 3 different skins, nevertheless they all look like clones of one another and its horrible. Especially since a lot of these people have been in these freebie skins and shapes since 2007.

It is easier for a female to wash the newbie look by far, especially with Sezmra and Eloh skins. Males? Forget it, they can't do it.

yay! Rhaorth Antonelli contacted me ingame cause of this tread and they helped me out a lot with the avatar island issue.

I also noticed that there is a lack of male options, most stores I go to is female. eh, I won't complain about that, I did enough of that for one night

Yay! Rha to the rescue! She's such a sweetie.

I think the Make Him Over hunt is still running, if you want to pick up some freebies for guys.

http://makehimover.blogspot.com/

This "Redford" is the second most used skin i guess. See it all the time when coming close to an infohub. *shakes* But in addition to that Michael-Emerald skin, they almost all have the same hair too!

Don't hair places give away (or refund, or something) items for players under 30 days of age? There used to be a skin place that did that, too, as I recall, but the one I'm thinking of (Fleur) isn't showing in Search for me. Well, for skins, there's also the Eloh Eliot skin textures, which one can customize to one's heart's content. (Not so easy as to just paste the RL pic on top, though ) Oh, for RL-look-to-SL-skin, there are some services that will do that, custom; I think Second Skin Labs is one, but be aware that it is a painstaking and time-consuming effort by a RL artist, so it's more like an investment than a typical L$ purchase.