Has the SL population declined?

Easier to get someone to do it for you.I'd usually just look at one of the tough guys, bat my eyelashes and smile. They'd do anything I wanted. Of course, if you tried it, you'd probably just get beaten up.

maybe why Octobers Key Metrics have not been released yet.....

I suggest everybody run the following script as a matter of urgency.


default
{
state_entry()
{
integer x = 0;

while (x == 0)
{
llSay(0, "Metaverse";
}
}
}

My lunch is actually cheaper than L$1000, if I make sandwiches. If I really had to starve in order to buy stuff on SL, I probably should sell my $1500 computer and not pay $50/month for cable internet.

What you need to do is to do all the stuff that they did to you, but do it to someone else. Then you should be on the right track.

You can have my sandwiches though, I don't want them... here take them
/me licks sandwiches all over and then holds them out to Chas

Sadly,I have to agree with this. I know many people who are trying to create their own niche in the market already knowing there is something better out there.

This is how thread get off topic.

i've been a member of SL for a month now, and it's been frustrating... there's such amazing creations, and so much potential -- (tho i too have visited fabulously decorated nightclubs with great music, lots of visuals and animations, and no one else there, which is ok if you want a night out alone with a friend, but otherwise is a bit boring)

at first i was regularly spending small amounts, mainly just to learn how buying worked... well ok, it might have been something to do with all those nearly free clothes on offer -- anyway a couple of weeks ago i decided it was time to do some major spending and buy the skin of my dreams, some lovely flowing hair, a couple of beautiful outfits that i really liked, a bit of land, a house to go on it and a few other things -- i bought the land, but didn't buy anything else cos -

1) SL's performance for me during the last couple of weeks has been abysmal (login problems, crashes, teleport problems, lag etc) -- if i hadn't paid a year's membership and bought a bit of land (which at least gives me somewhere to call home) i'd have given up by now -- i'll keep on for another month, in case it improves, but if not, it's goodbye

2) as a result of all the enforced downtime, i started reading the SL blog and forum regularly, and also lots of other SL related articles and forums -- i was surprised not only by the lack of confidence in LL by those of its remaining long term members, but also by the general reputation it's getting -- it's becoming a byword for unreliability -- typical are the stories told by ex-SL residents who invested heavily in time and money only to have their inventories disappear without them getting compensation -- now every time i see something for sale, i think of an invisible notecard saying "be warned - once you've bought this it could disappear at any time, never to be seen again"

for me it's not the money, it's the time... even buying stuff is time-consuming -- if SL worked it would probably be my main online activity -- as it is, it looks like going the way of a couple of other great net facilities i've reluctantly given up over the years, which like SL were going flat out to add on extras and upgrade everything, and somewhere along the line lost their basic stability, and became increasingly difficult to access

i put up some links to SL from my own web site (which has been around since 1996) but i've now taken them down -- when friends ask me about SL i used to encourage them to try it out -- now i tell them they're better off waiting a few months to see if the Chinese come up with something more reliable

phew! sorry this has been so long, but i've just been in the embarrassing situation of offering help to someone who joined SL today and not only was it difficult to chat with them cos of the lag (i'm on an island which is usually lag free), but i couldn't give them a landmark, wasn't able to offer them friendship, and failed to teleport myself to some of the best known freebie shops i wanted to show them... SNAFU

Not quite. They go off-topic by themselves. This is how they stay off-topic.

I'm back at school! Cool, I'll just add a few grains of ground up laxatives and hand them over to the next bully. Then watch and wait.

What sort of thing do you mean by "entertainment consumption goods"? If you mean something like cinema tickets, the difference is - they guarantee an entertainment experience in their single purchase. If you buy a cinema ticket, you will get to see the film. On the other hand, there is pretty much no item in SL that _on its own_ delivers an entertainment experience. For example, with avatar items - having a given piece of clothing doesn't deliver any experience on its own. SL is missing a lot of the tactile and non-verbal aspects which make dressing up and showing off fun for its own sake in the real world. And the truth is that, as long as you don't look obviously bad, most social places on the grid will treat you identically, regardless of what you wear. So a single item doesn't really provide anything alone.

It's the same with other items too, in case avatar makers feel I'm unfairly targeting them - I'm not, I just mention them because avatars are the items with the most global appeal on SL, and the most relevant if we're comparing to systems like IMVU and There, where the market is _all_ avatars and prefabs. The global experience of "being able to customize your avatar however you like" _does_ have a lot of entertainment value, _but_ no finite number of clothing etc. purchases can deliver that experience, which is why people don't like the idea of having to fund it with their finite US$.



You've made a huge assumption there: ".. who have to buy the goods they can't create ..". But they don't have to. They can just ignore them, and purely social users have all kinds of options for doing that. For example, for people who use SL for socialisation between the real life users, they can just bypass the virtual world completely -they only want to know the real person, and from their point of view spending real money on an imaginary avatar might seem silly, so they just mutually agree to ignore avatars. (Of course it doesn't go quite to that extreme - in most cases - but it illustrates the point.) Another extreme example - if a group decide to get together and do fantasy role-playing, they could just all mutually agree that they'll role-play in text - thousands of people do that, after all. Why would they refuse to use SL's graphical features? Well, if all it does is mean they have to pay money, and then not get to look exactly how they want but just like someone else's interpretation of it, which is probably duplicated a hundred times across the grid - then does it look like such a great deal any more?

Facebook, as mentioned here, is a perfect example. You probably know that Facebook has those little "gifts" that you pay for in real money. Most users just ignore that app, they don't expect to ever give or recieve such a gift, and some have made their own apps to give gifts to others for free. It's exactly the same as I described - they've *worked around* the market, to make things free.

It's odd how my experience is the exact opposite yours. I could never get anywhere with my mainland rentals - but have done very well with little effort with my Estate properties, even though they are just tropically themed and not very unique. I have a really good group of people living on my islands, and we all keep things very classy and well maintained, and therefore it is very desirable to live there - but I could never get there with my mainland. Go figure...

As for the idea that friends that are of the 'same age' tend gravitate towards each other. this idea is so very true. Of my core group of friends that are made up of about ten people, EVERY ONE OF US are within 2-3 months of each others 'born on date'.

Hey!!! Give me those sandwiches! Or I will pound you!

The tutorial is optional, so would the offline version be. You must understand that a lot of people log into Second Life once and then never again because of how alien everything seems to them. The last thing a technophobic newcomer needs is to feel as though they're being herded through some kind of farm. This is not encouraging for older sectors trying their best to reach into SL (education comes to mind).




A lot of peope want a "dang society by committee", that's not to say that's all there should be. I rent land and I co-own a SIM. You might not think so but the general consensus is that the mainland is a mess. It's one of SL's main critcisms.



Nonsense, you can have private instances and you can have exposed regions. Understand that in a 3D world, people can have as much space as they need. The only limit is memory and that's dirt cheap. If anything, LL would save on bandwidth by having instanced parcels wherein outside content need not be streamed in. The "no entry" walls are hideous and crude at best.

Yes, I have noticed the decline. Started out with my sales dwindling, and now theres nobody to talk to anywhere really.
It's kind of depressing.

I sold my mainland off after less than one month because of what a mess it is. The person who had land next to mine kept putting up particle shooters - I'm guessing to try and harrass neighbors who actually lived on their land into buying hers. Then, on the other side I had an ad farm. Plus, I can rent for a lot cheaper than I can own. I rent 1024 sqm for 550L per week, and I can put any house I want on it.

I would not have done a tutorial when I was brand spankin' new into the game, but I probably would have been open to one after a week or so. As it is, I would love to learn how to build/make my own clothes, but anytime there's a class on this subject I'm not in world. Heck, I'd just like to be able to modify the floors in my house, the all white interior is making me nuts, but I can't seem to do it without changing the entire house.

I have to say I think the decline of the social side of SL is what is leading to the overall decline. There's nobody to talk to half the time. Nobody to go shopping with. When I first came into the game, I lived in the Celtic Kingdom. Late at night there were always a few people hanging out in the pub just chillin' out and talking. It was nice. Now, that's gone. Although, I know where other pubs exist, it seems like there's nobody there most of the time.

Rentals are down because you don't have to have a home, and rent is either crazy expensive or very low prim. Plus, a lot of landlords are flaky. I had one who kept moving our houses around. Then, he moved the entire village to another sim, and now it's closed all together. I hear these sorts of complaints about landlords A LOT! So, between the mainland looking like a junkyard and flaky landlords who really needs it or wants it? Not to mention, it wouldn't be that hard to live in somebody else's house without that person even knowing you were there. When I'm bored I like going around and looking at prefab houses because it's like getting to see in someone else's house without invading their privacy. Just for fun, I wanted to see if I could get away with living in my favorite one for a week. Guess what? I did it.

Hahaha
There were 59,000 people logged in at one point yesterday!

They must had known I was going to be at my sisters.

This forum isn't for general discussion; there are many Resident Sites where this discussion is appropriate — Resident Answers is for Resident-to-Resident help. I'll close this thread...