Has the SL population declined?

Hmm but there seems to be many bots on the grid nowdays. 12 months ago the nighttime population was 1/3 that of daytime and now it's 2/3, pointing towards 24/7 bots and campers. Just put a logging device on your land and see how many names TP in and straight out again without even rezzing. I'm up to 7 or 8 an hour and many are new names too. I'm not sure how long it takes a bot to lap SL.

Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse, Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,
Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse, Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,
Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse, Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,
Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse, Metaverse,Metaverse,Metaverse...

I know a small piece of me does.

Which piece?

It's a different bit every time. My left foot, for instance, went just then.

Maybe everyone went to play MTV: Laguna Beach. That has hot lifeguards in it.

Huh? The sites currently in the Popular Places tab of the viewer have traffic over 140K in many cases, meaning avatars spent a combined total of 97 days worth of time in the 24 hours that traffic was calculated; at any given time there was an average of 97 avatars in the sim. (Isn't the private island max 100? I've never changed any of mine from the default of 40.)

Now whether there were actually any people sitting at their keyboards the whole time is another story (and frankly, if there were, I'd find that quite sad considering the quality and performance of those very sims).

my two cents about those who complain of no/slow sales.....if you want to have a successful business you have to have a great product and somehow distinguish yourself from everyone else. I went shopping for hair the other day....there are TONS of hair shops now...remember when there were only a few?...and you know what..most of them suck. I couldnt believe the crap that was for sale, picture after picture of the same stuff i saw at the store before, and the store before that, i couldnt believe it. I went to spend money and didnt buy a thing. I was here when SL first launched, quit, returned, bought a sim, quit and now im back again. Yes things have changed alot. When i returned the second time i couldnt believe how the whole sex industry had invaded. I am no prude, but somehow this tarnished SL for me..it was like, why?....That totally changed the landscape,
Suddenly (the second time) people playing were really serious about "hooking" up with you. You were harassed and bothered if you were a girl. Players had girlfriends, husbands, wifes, children, slaves ect. All of the sudden it was serious....players werent "cartoons" any more having fun, they were in serious relationship with other "cartoons". You meet other players who couldnt hang with you because their "others" were jealous?...are you getting this?...know how odd that is? After i bought my sim and met other sim and business owners, i started to learn how to make most of what i wanted...the more i made myself, the less i shopped, the less is shopped, the less i went off my sim, except for vists to other sims. After some time i got bored, and i was like, why am i here?..im spending real money and losing my real life time. I sold my sim, said goodbye to my friends and left.....a year or so later here i am again...I have my original 512 piece of land, thought about another island, but was like..why? and now hang out with my friends. I have seen alot of changes here and for right now my third time around is kinda cool. Im homeless, but i look great.

Mainland rentals have been steady, tempting people to pay extra for estate land has been a lot harder. Established Estate owners are probably doing well, Desmond has a huge waiting list and fair play to him, he works hard for it and deserves it.

I have a core group of renters, they are my livelihood and they've been sticking with me and I very much appreciate their support but VAT has really started to kick in now, I was riding this storm well but now it's starting to squeeze me. However I am still fortunately in a position where on mainland anyway supply is being outstripped by demand and covering me.

I think the gambling ban is starting to show it's effect, but here I've learnt that patience is key, the issues of today are not immediately apparent, it takes a few months to shake into place. Keep your chin up, keep believing in your product and ride out this storm.

After all we have the farce of ID verification around the corner and the less than confident hints about tier fees from LL. Spring next year will be my next marker for how things are going here.

Being a newbie myself, I am discouraged at the lack of people who actually are there and not "away" or camping. I have not done any camping myself, to me its a big waste of time.. But I get excited when I search and find a place with what looks like lots of people and they are all afk, or camping...

Also, when I go into a club and there are a few people scattered around that are dancing no one even acknowledges me... or someone will make a snide comment about me or someone else... Laughing at their newbie clothes, or their hair, or newbie skin.... No greetings when I go into a lot of clubs, a few do, but most clubs everyone is afk... if there is anyone there...

Maybe its not LL that needs to look at whats wrong but the residents....and what they can do to make it a more welcome place..

Its like i'm in highschool again and not part of the "in" crowd..

I've made little friends on SL because no one is really there or no one will talk to me..


I don't crash a lot, and I have not had SL go down on me and not be available yet, but I have crashed a few times. That doesn't bother me as much as people being rude.

And frankly as far as the buying...... I see people put 1000L for an outfit, purchase it and its horrible! Just as bad as the garbage they give out for free. Come on? 1000L for an outfit?!?!?! A skin YES, an outfit no.....

I have a friend who makes clothes she puts them in her store and sells a few items a week... She is frustraited she is paying lots for a store and there is no traffic. But she enjoys it, she actually told me shes going to have to start stripping to pay her store rent. And her clothes are really nice, but shes not a well known and she doesn't make stripper clothes so her sales are not where she should be for the quality of her work.

Another thing I really dont get is how the people watching the strippers can get so excited about them, most I see have nasty looking hole sorta things in their thighs and .. eww what is that white stuff all over some of them?? wait nevermind..

I know if it were not for a few friends she made online she really likes interacting with she would leave..

I have not made up my mind if i will continue to use it or not.. I really would like to meet more people but I get a quick I'm busy or go away to anyone I try to talk to.. My friend I mentioned keeps me coming back on because she is so interesting and has introduced me to live music on SL.. this is the only thing, or place I can find people... at the live music shows.. and they really don't chit chat it up there..

And I sign on now and see an alert for a security issue with quick time and the SL viewer?!?!

so thats my 2cents.

No your right. Outside of the "Wait till winter gets here" and "Christmas is the best time" and "Its hot out right now wait till its cold" and.... Well you get the point. And lets not forget the old "It must be the quality of your product" one.

Fact is.... Sales are down and have been for some time. One issue is that SL last year did some major PR work and such and we had a big boom in SL. We no longer have that and the issue is everyone got used to it. Kinda like the big .com boom. Everybody had to have one.

Yes the login numbers are still high but you need to take into account that some of those numbers are bots and such. In fact I think some of us would be rather scared to see what numbers of those listed are people just really playing the game.

I mean I think of it this way... You look at the numbers for logins on the front of the web site. It never really goes beyond a point. Even from last year. So that tells me that one of the following things are taking place...

A. SL is not growing at all.
B. SL is losing its players as fast as its getting new ones.
C. Players are getting replaced by bots at a equal pace of players quitting SL.
D. The numbers don't matter because they are fudged anyway.

Up to you on which you think it falls under I guess. I would like to say the numbers don't lie but for all we know they do just that.

The other thing is if people are coming in as fast as people are quitting and replacing those people then sales should be up right? Wrong.
I have noticed that allot of these new people coming to SL are not as fast to spend money on this game. And I think its for allot of reasons really.

A. Too many bugs and crashes.
B. The "Second Life Hype" is over.
C. The big SL economy is over.
D. Don't want to spend money, just want to log in and see what the hell it is.

There are sales of course but they are not anywhere near what they were and this goes for most people in SL and I don't care what your selling and the quality of it. About the only business that still doing what it was to a point is the sex business and that's because that would be the very last thing to die here on SL in the end. Lets face it, sex sells in SL It's kinda like the Vegas of the Internet.

Don't get me wrong, I love SL and would love to see the big influx once again but I truly think SL has seen its hay day and unless they pull some sort of major PR stunt again or some really big improvement or they sell which in return brings new light to SL I think most people are just going to ride the wave out to the end. I know that's what I am doing for the most part.

Another thing to look at too is the fact that right now SL is getting spanked hard by other companies such as IMVU. I can not go anywhere on the net it seems right now without seeing a IMVU advertisement. They are doing some major PR work and its working.
I myself have never used it cause it looks way to kiddie for me but they must be doing something right.

This is not the first time I have seen a world like this start to go under and then be left wondering why it happen. The only difference with Second Life is that people are making money in here so its even worse. The same sort of thing happen to Traveler! by in the early 90's. They were on top of the world... Even had MTV using them for all their chat and social events online. But they did the same thing Second Life is trying to do. They turned their back on the users that made them what they are in order to try and get big business instead and now... Well lets see they sold the company once MTV dumped them and now its a ghost town except for the very few die hard fans myself one of them that still enjoy it for what it was.

To see more info on them: http://www.digitalspace.com/traveler/

Second Life should take a hard look at them at what happen.
All I see at this point is them heading down the same road just a longer one.


So myself... I log in daily check things out and move on at this point. I am still waiting for the Second Life second coming.

This is difficult for all of us but you will stumble across the right place and the right people. I've met plenty of nice folks here, you don't need to be in the "in crowd" to meet them, they are people just like you, hoping to meet new people.

Pop along to the forum cartel parcels, it's a nice place, you meet people, some of them are even nice, honest!

Yes, I have noticed that. It sometimes amuses me, but always amazes me. A seemingly intelligent and level headed friend suddenly IM's you to tell you that "I've found the most amazing man (or woman) who is everything I've search for in all my real life. We are getting married next weekend". What happened to the hell raising, fun loving, wild and crazy girl (guy) I use to go to clubs with? No more clubbing with me. No more dancing at the strip club where I manage..........what happened to the avatar I loved and cherished for all the fun we had nightly? Where did all this seriousness come from? Where did real life suddenly enter into SL?

I have a theory as to why. The hype that SL can be anything you want it to be is the root cause. Some people want real life to be as good as SL...........and let that desire override reality. It's sad.......but we cannot say too much due to the possibility of truly hurting the feelings of our SL friend. But, I'm so tempted to scream.........."Wake up!!! This is not real. Get serious help........real life help." But I can't.

However, I don't go to their "weddings".

A really good thread IMHO. For me and my partner, we've had a steady growth since we started on the sim rental/lease side - one sim in June has become 7 now (4 of those Openspace) and planning to open another full one in a month or so.

I've found it takes us about a month to fill a sim, although of late we've been pulling down rental houses to make way for shops on Fatimas Desire - as soon as they come available, they go, and we've done absolutely NO advertising. We put up 5 new ones today and 3 have gone already.

I think it's to do with the niche we're in .. a Victorian feel, which many seem drawn to. Possibly Des' waiting list is just that bit too long! lol That said, we're both really pleased with ourselves (insert smug grin here) that our renters, once they're past the month hump, do tend to stay long term (even had a Charter Member for a while... we genuflected every time we walked past the house LOL). Whether that happy position continues or not is of course another question... all down to the market and how we read and respond to it.

For us, a lot of the pleasure is in the personal service we provide and I think we are coming to the conclusion that another 2 to 3 sims is about all we want to handle. Neither of us has any great desire to make serious money out of SL, so as long as tier is covered we're content.

So.. no downturn as far as I'm concerned, but that's today. Tomorrow is another day.

Inc

VooDoo, great analysis. I find that most people just do not want to put any money into the game. Everyone wants something for nothing, but some people are dead set on getting just that. Now, there are people that really want to make the game work completely on its own and live/die based on the economy of the game, but that often means extreme poverty until you know what the hell you are doing with building/scripting/texturing/etc. And everything is expensive from that standpoint.

I'm going to send you an invite to our Forum Cartel Group. We have almost 200 members now, and all of them are great friendly people. You can come down to our hangout and just relax and chat with whoever may show up. I guarantee you'll make some friends in no time.

Personally I am here to create and I don't have lot to spend.
I spent a lot on land then had very little left afterwards so what I spend I am
extremely careful with.
When I have went out exploring it does often seem like a Ghost town, it does seem difficult to connect with many people and I personally have had negative experience buying products from others so I am less likely to shop.
I wonder how many others experience this too?

This is OT I guess but I've always wondered how you came up with the Victorian SteamPunk theme. Had you given up trying to a biz and decided to just have fun? Or were you determined to hang on to your land and try one more thing?

Indeed, tomorrow is another day, but Incanus I can assure you that you stand well on your own merits. We've got very little crossover.

I know *very* well which sims draw off me, and from which sims the residents come screaming to Caledon (often on alts) after bad experiences.

I've not heard of a *single* bad experience from your area, ever. Be proud of your accomplishments, it's not spillover from me.

* * * * *

Indeed, I too have a masterplan with a well defined 'finished' point for Caledon (it's on the wall in the Guvnah's Mansion, quite public, in Victoria City).

Just another seven regions. I hate to think of what will happen on the demand side, when we don't have any more new land. Were it not for my contacting people on the waiting list in rough order, a new Caledon sim would prebook solid, sight unseen, in maybe fifteen minutes. Conservative estimate.

But I'm not Anshe, nor do I ever intend to be. I intend to enjoy a 'real life' in large portions, which precludes betting the farm on SL.

I have only bought two things (an Ace Albion house and some Cory Edo candles) in the last two months. I don't trust the asset server...

Congrats to Incanus on your success and to Voodoo for finally posting something I agreed with.

I bought a 512 plot in September, that's the only thing (just about) I've bought since June. Not going to remain a premium member just for that!!!

I had left the grid entirely for about a year. Des is an 'alt' - not my original character.

The theme I had always been interested in, and I'd made things of that nature in the past (among other things) but I wasn't very good at building yet.

And it didn't hurt that within these very forums, Prokofy once lamented that all people wanted were their little Victorian houses. Mmmhmm. Right.

I came back in late August 05, designed a Victorian house in September, and by mid October there was a picture of it in Newsweek.

Remember this was 2005 - I'd only call myself an 'acceptable' designer nowadays, but by late 2005 standards I was pretty darn good relatively speaking.

And the antiques market was wide open. Within four months West Trade was making 700 USD/month consistently.

In February 06 I launched Caledon, figuring I'd float it mainly off West Trade profits.

Perhaps three or four eccentrics would come live there to help me offset costs, I thought. Within a week or so I had a waiting list of fifty people.

Originally I was a bit shy; I didn't dare say more than '19th century' because I was afraid of confining people too much. There wasn't a lot of relevant architecture, clothing or say, horsedrawn carriages at the time.

You get my friend and adviser discount if you want to rent in Liome after you go basic.

Me and my stupid palm trees.

Well it's winter now for ALL of us winter people....cold anyways ????

snowing, blowing and cold here now!!!!!!!!