Thinking of returning

Hi everyone

Donnu where to put this one, so if it's misplaced. lemme know and I'll remove it.
Anyway, here goes:

I've been away from SL for a long time now (about half a year). As my mission with ISAF is drawing to an end, I'm playing with the thought of returning to SL, maybe I'll even rebuild my old club, who knows. Anyway, lately I've started to briefly browse the forums to see how things have developed in our little virtual world (except it's not so little anymore) while I've been gone, but my freetime down here is often limited, and I haven't had the chance to get a good update on what's going on in SL. From what I've seen in the forums so far, a lot is still the same, while there obviously have been some new and major changes as well. The last update I got for LL before I left was the then brand new 1.6, meaning that I'm still trying to figure out how to stream movies From the pictures I've seen, the graphics have improved a lot, and I keep reading about features that I've never heard about (money chairs??? what the heck are those??) So, to make it short, I was wondering if anyone could find the time to give me a quick rundown on what's going on in-world, so I won't be bothering people with stupid questions all the time

Thanks in advance

Lots and lots of new sims, mainland and private island
PTP Teleportation, no hubs
Expanded build tools and scripting
Lots more users
Dwellnor and Trafficvs worship

Lol can't get it any quicker than that
Thanks Hank

LOL @ Dwellnor and Trafficvs worship.

Cal, the money chairs, and other things like it, are just people using a tool (the money chair) to pay other people for something they have. They use their own money to pay them to sit and give them traffic.
Some sit and chat with others and some use programs to move the mouse and keep from loging out. Then they go sleep, work, play something else, in real life.

Some are even starting to advertise products on avatars apparently. And are being payed to run around anywhere and do the things they do anyway. But wear these advertisments on a shirt. Some have an annoying box on their head even. (I've seen the box thing once and that probably wont' take off very well. But who knows.)

Anyway a lot of people are having fits over it because they fail to see the reason behind a capitalistic society and what its about.
Whatever the reason for their arguments, it's no different in the real world where people rent out something they own. (Appartment renting or avatar renting) Its all the same in the end.
But some are in this type of thinking that it's a sin against the capitalistic economy of SL. For some reason or another.

A few newer things that are improved:

1. Opening boxes is easier (right-click on one and select Open, drag the schtuff out)
   
2. Map screen is more colorful and pleasant to read
   
3. SL, as a 3D world, finally has a 3rd coordinate recognized
   
4. If you have a supported graphics card, new ripple water is gorgeous. And even if you don't, the skyline and shiny have been improved.
   
5. A button now exists to Clear Cache
   

Or they see the reason behind it just fine and don't care.

Capitalism is a tolerable system when moderated but it's not the end all and be all of society, and it can be just as bad as anything else when taken to ridiculous extremes.

True.
If people did that in real life that would be kinda odd.
I mean who would sit on their ass all day and get payed for it. Heh. Crazy.

Addition:
Maybe our av's need an office cubical and look like they are doing real work to give the company a traffic rating.
Hmm that reminds me of real life jobs in a way.

So with the exception of a few minor changes to the grid and LL kicking a group of people in the stomach with some new rules (PTP?) like they use to once in a while ( I still remeber what they did to clubowners with 1.6, my own eventualy went down), all remains more or less the same. Good to know, then I won't feel like a complete noob all over again when I return
Thanks for the feedback guys

What, giving kickbacks to people to rip Linden Labs off by diverting their development incentives away from people who are actually developing content for paying customers?

Sad isn't it?

I've asked the lindens about it. They have no problem with the idea of people paying their own money to campers.
Go ask them yourself.

If it was really doing any damage dont' you think they would change the tools around?

Edit: Wait I think I see. You mean the find button being used to display the high traffic which was supposed to be for judging who has the best product by traffic rating?
I never seen any rules attached to it saying its only for that reason.
Even if it was made for that reason. It doesn't mean its a bad thing to pay someone for listing their store higher up in a seach engine.
Again. All it did was turn it into a goodle search.
If you want people to like your products then make something good. (Not that you don't)

I agree there could be something that rates or lists stores based on sales. That would be nice.