Camping chairs, $L, and fun

I really think what is missing from SL is the ability for knobs and Low or no talent players to grind out some L$ to spend in game.

There used to be a system of rating people that paid a weekly stipend for rates received and given. I know it was unpopular and abused but it was something. Now if someone needs a little linden cash they either buy it or grind it out of a camp chair. Developer incentives are now going to be changed or possibly phased out because of these things.

I really think if there was any alternative to camp chairs they would cease to exist.
Most casual players during the rate for pay system spent their money in game either buying clothes, toys, or land. I don't see something like this being a sink hole of cash for the Lindens.

I've been in game well over a year. Even with my time in and the connections I have, I see no realistic way to make monies in this game without a significant RL $ investment.
Make clothes and compete with professional graphic artist and freebies? Script cool weapons and toys? Same as clothes but add professional computer programmers to compete against. Cyber sex? Maybe.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't need money in game or out but when I was noosing it I thought it was fun to see how much spending money I could get for the week.

Anyway cool

It depends, really. Some markets seem like they'll never fill up. Clothing is an example, you don't have to 'compete.' From what I've seen, most people can't get enough clothes. It's all about price. You may not be able to command the same price as a professional graphics designer, but if your prices are reasonable for the object a lot of casual shoppers will grab it just because. Shopping for the sake of shopping is pretty alive and well still. The same goes for stuff like hair.

If you can corner a niche market, all the better, but granted there's precious few of those left. Stuff like weapons, vehicles, eh, yeah, it's pretty much all been done.

Edit: There's still potential, though. Cars were done to death before the Dominus Shadow came out, for example, and it put them all to shame.

You know, I'd pay a noob to be a walking advertisement.

It could have a timer on an attachment that once a minute scanned how many people were around, kept track of how many unique avatars saw it, could see if the noob was saying certain key advertising phrases, etc... then credit them.

This sounds like a fantastic idea. Make them wear a little light-up sign on their heads, like you see on top of pizza delivery cars.

I did something like this once, as part of an experiment... it was good for laughs, but not too sound financially.

I think I still have my 'avatar furniture' stuff somewhere - basically a ball that pays you and YOU become the chair for others to sit on , put the feet up on, eat dinner off of.

Wonder if I should make a camping version - you get paid to be the chair - but get paid more if someone sits on you - and they also get paid

shit would be worth the outlay just for the shits n giggles.

Unfortunatly not everyone can make things. Bring back the bonus I say.

People came to SL not to work, but to have fun. I see nothing wrong with giving everyone 1000 lindens a week

Because the economy would go through severe inflation and 1000 lindens would soon be worth what 500 lindens are now and then people would suggest upping the allownce to 2000 lindens a week.

I bet you don't, champ.

Oh, Keiki, don't be silly. When that happens, Magnum would give the 2,000. And the 8,000. And the 16,000. The 32k, the 64k, the 128k, etc. It's easy, see? Just give everyone as much money as they want and then they'll be happy no matter what, because it's fun to have money!

I stepped in Troll doo doo, didn't I?

See, initially, it looks that way... But he actually believes what he says. Crazy stuff.

o.O

I doubt very much that this would happen. Certainly there might be some inflation, but the causses of inflation are myriad, and well some inflation is part of a healthy economy, so the question is how much, and nobody has done any research to establish the effects of doubling the stipend on the inflation rate.

I would pay huge amounts of $Ls for people to act as my furniture for specific events.

I hereby warn you that if you continue to believe this, you'll find someone who joined later isn't a professional anything who's done really well anyhow, and might get upset and angry and start venting in the forums or even in IM to them. (Yes, I've done it, and I'm not proud... )

I agree with Magnum and Jake. Sometimes I don't think some people just don't understand how other people have fun. Working your butt off to run a business in a game as if you were in real life isn't all that much fun to most people.

There's more to life than, "We make stuff" and "they buy our stuff," plus, "Oh yeah, and the only way they can get money to buy our stuff is to buy the money from us first."

I say phooey to that. Next up, the stipends will be cut altogether. There will be less and less fun for the average user who doesn't want to make things.

I had a whole three months of fun seeing how far I could go on a basic account, and I'm weird to begin with. I was told at the time that this was harder than it had been previously, but I note that now it would be far harder still. It's a good thing I like to make things, or I would have been long since outta here.

I had fun the other night playing Slingo and Blood 21 and dancing on a money pad. The way things are going though, with the Lindens cutting all support to everybody at every turn - and the forum business types cheering them on - there will be ever less fun of that type available.

"Don't give 'em any money! Make them earn it! Like I did!" Hmph. Most people don't come to a game for a second job, and we wouldn't want everybody here to be content creators, would we? "Well, then, let them buy money from ME first before they give it back to me for my goods." To heck with that. That's okay as an option, but not, I think, as the only option.

All dressed up with no place to go - I think that says it best. Then it may become - nobody dressed up here but us content chickens, and only us still here to buy our products from each other.

Oh well, we'll see.

coco

Hmm. Shouldn't we have seen the dire failure of Second Life you've been predicting since you came? Or was it offset by the arrival of "more people like you?"

I'm just curious what all the growth means, is all.

Bringing up this talk of ratings... I missed that. And yes, it did motivate me to be social. I remember the first rates ever given to me in SL, and I was like "HOLY SHEEZ! NICE PEOPLE!" and so, I went off, looking for more niceness, and rating back in return. The ratings in my profile today are more for historical than anything currently relevant. However, they do constitute an important aspect of my entire history here, and how I've been shaped. Ratings gradually went the way of the dodo, and like Woodstock, I guess you could try to recreate it but it just feels out of place.

As times change, so do my feelings about things. I found myself doing a camping chair tour not too long ago. I'm odd in that I have a lot of friends who love and hate the whole "sit for money" aspect. I'm both.

This reminds me of my elder family members, telling me stories of things they went through and I'll never have to because of them. If you tell a new Resi something like, "We used to get paid for doing tasks on the Orientation Island!" or "Ratings used to be L$1 a piece and would add to your weekly stipend bonus!", they may be hard-pressed to believe unless they dig it all up in the history.

Likewise, there will come a time when you mention the camping chair, and it may be a curious artifact, or simply not as frequently-mentioned as it was before. There'll be some laughs, some smiles... and maybe the grace of knowing you were there, as you creak away with your walking stick.

I'm curious what makes you tick, Enabran.

Is it just to try to marginalize everyone you disagree with, not just me, but everyone, everywhere, in this thread and in all others? Is that all you can do? Is that really your only approach? If so, I would say you need to think more.

I have not been predicting dire failure ever since I came, though it may seem so to those who can't think well enough to figure out my commentary, and who have no compunction about ignoring all my posts praising something. In this case, I'm predicting that if you take away all the carrots in SL and leave only the sticks then you will wind up with only those who enjoy sticks remaining, such as me, Enabran, and you, and I don't enjoy them quite as much as you do.

So you might like that. I wouldn't. Therefore I speak out against game changes that are going in that direction, and have been speaking out against those changes and that direction they have been going in since I arrived here 10 months ago.

Or are you trying to say they AREN'T going in that direction? If you are, then say so - and support what you say. Don't just belittle and marginalize all the time and hope that will be enough. If you think they ARE going in that direction and that is good, then say that, and say why.

As far as what all the growth means is concerned, you and I both know what that means. And we both - I believe, anyway - are thrilled about it. We also both know it is free accounts. And we both want those people to stay, and have fun, and to become premium members.

Or at least I do. How to accomplish that is a ripe area for discussion. Have at it. If you can.

coco

Success at SL is the same as any other online game - the more you put into it, the more you get. In Everquest and kin you go and fight hoards of beasties for non-stop hours to make your money, to buy your stuff, and well, I guess fight more beaties. In secondlife, typically people built, entertain, or otherwise work to make money. Should Sony just start handing out money to everyone so they don't have to fight these beasties to buy their super-OMG-sword-o-doom? I don't think so, and the same applies here. Heck, it would be all the worse here - if you gave everyone a hoard of money, people would have a decrease incentive to develope anything, and well, blank sims get boring pretty quick. Developers would become fed up with the fact they couldn't support their tier and decrease their land holdings. The non-developer's probably on average have a significantly less quantity of land (if any at all) and thus LL's income would decrease.

Also, as mentioned below, if the amount of L$ given out increased, so would the prices for all the items. LL does not set what player's pay for items, the players do. If they handed out $L1,000,000 a week, your average t-shirt would then cost 50 million $L.

Nah. Just people with silly, transparent agendas. I love marginalizing those.

No. That can't be right. Because Jake said it wouldn't be that way. Jake said there would be no effect. Jake is a Lawyer. So you must be wrong.

Well, perhaps there is truth then - if everyone had more money, that would be more money that could end up with it's brothern in the pockets of the lawyers.

But more realistically, people charge what they do to support at least their tier, which is based on a more stable US$. In fact, if I was every to have a in-world vendor, I think I would have it update daily on the US$/L$ conversion prices and have it adjust everything accordingly.