Camping: why?

I am still quite new (only about a week old) and have seen many chairs for camping and earning a couple of $L for x number of minutes. I have sat in a couple of them while idle and earned a bit of cash.

What I am curious about is WHY these things exist? Of what benefit are they to the owner?

WHen you do a search for a location using Find, the locations are sorted by traffic (that's the number to the right of the location's name). The traffic is judged by how many people frequent the location and how long they stay (referred to as Dwell, though 'Dwell" wasin the past used to indicate the pay-out that used to come from this, but that was stopped 6/13/06).

So, to summarize, the camping chairs help the location's owner get a higher rating in the find results.

Ah, that makes perfect sense. Thanks for the explanation!

It's basically a way to have the souls sucked out of new users.

Camping Destroys Lives!

It's basically a way to let new users "earn" a little money while they learn the skills needed to earn it properly...

Camping creates opportunity.

How are "upgrading to premium" and "buy it off of the Lindex" skills?

They aren't... but making poses, textures, animations, proper sound files all are... and to find out if you've A: got the skills and B: got the damn things right, you need money to upload them, often several times before you've got it right.

Camping gives the the chance to earn a small amount of L$ so they can start to discover what skills they have and enable them to start developing them. Going premium before you even know if you want to/if it's worth it is a risk that people are sometimes unwilling to make. Ditto buying off Lindex... I don't think there are many who will deposit $25 just to buy a small amount of L$ to do some experimenting and the fees for getting your unused money back is a wonderful loss too. Again, it's a risk for a game you're not sure is worth paying for at that time.
Think about it... brand new player wants to see what they can do in SL. They get the basic account, then find the only way to find out if they even like it is to spend money. Bad move... instant turnaway for a lot of players, to the detriment of all of SL. Remember, basic accounts are being touted as a way to experience what SL is for free...

Despite all the bad "press" people give camping, it is giving people the chance to learn about creating without having to risk money... that is one heck of an good thing and will lead not only to people staying in the game but also to more people becoming premiums/purchasers on Lindex... and that most certainly is not a bad thing.

And then when newbie business owners start looking for mall locations, they mistakenly rent space in a mall thinking it's a popular shopping destination based on the traffic, only to discover that no one shops there, they just camp there. :(

Or maybe that's just me...

How about money trees? How about new users buy 1USD worth of L$s.
Instead camping chairs (usually in casinos) are coaxing a new user in to make that land more profitable. Anyone that doesn't know better is going to sit in something that says "Make L$s every 10 mins" .... and then you stick those damn slot machines everywhere, so most of em blow anything earned on the slots.

You don't have to deposit $25 to buy a small amount of Lindens. That only applies to the new limit buys, and is merely the minimum amount of US$ you can add to your account directly.

You can buy a dollar's worth of L$, via the usual market buy method if you choose, you don't need an existing US$ balance.

Money trees really aren't that viable... there are quite a few out there yes, but they are almost always picked clean and it's hard to try to get money that way while also working on a new texture/pose/anim/sound sample...
Spending a little money..? sure... spend money on something that you might not be playing in a couple of days, something that was touted as being able to play for FREE. (it's going to give people the idea that LL lied... not really conducive to keeping players ingame, is it?)

Oh, and most people who camp (that I've seen) don't blow their money on the slots... they spend it on other stuff...

Hmm... seems I've misunderstood the "buy" page... thanks for the clarification.

It certainly reduces the resistance to spending money, but doesn't change the fact that a lot of new players are coming here because it's something they don't have to spend money on to play... or so it's advertised.



No matter what side you're on in this, camping is here to stay... yes, it has it's bad points, (being unable to get into a sim being one of them... that can be annoying, to say the least) but it has it's good points too...

I think camping chairs are a pretty easy transition for people that were use to " skilling " in tso lol

I've only been in SL for a month. After leaving the newbie island being intrigued by all the amazing things I had learned to do, I TP'd around the map trying to find other people - I thought it would be cool to see the stuff experienced users made. With the emphasis on creation on the newbie island, I had this image of SL as this place where everyone was hanging out constantly creating stuff. I was kind of surprised that every cluster of more than 2 or 3 green dots on the map turned out to be people sitting unmoving in front of slot machines or dancing on little circles. Even more surprising was that none of them spoke!

I gotta tell you, after 4-5 hours of popping around the grid trying to meet people, I was pretty disillusioned. Once I found the "Find" tab, of course, I was able to locate the sandboxes and really have gotten to see some incredible stuff being created, and have met some great people.

I have no point.


Just thought I'd share

you know, I've often wondered the same myself! Why would anyone CHOOSE to go live in the same clothes for a week under a friggin canvas on cold hard ground covered in bugs and stuff, eat dried crap out of sachets and copious amounts of beans and call it a vacation?!

Gah...... tenderfoot!

Guess you were never in the Scouts, proper camping is nothing like that.

Spending a week in the same clothes, living under canvas, sleeping on cold hard ground covered in bugs and stuff, eating undercooked or overcooked burnt real food prepared by your fellow campers, that's the way to do it.

Oh, and poking the fire aimlessly with a stick, and throwing on handfuls of wet leaves to make smoke. Can't forget those.

Lewis

A HOLIDAY

YOU'RE NOT A YANK

Ooh, you're SO gonna be in trouble for that.

Cue a bunch of our 'merican residents to explain to you what a yank is and how offended they are...

Y'all need to calm it down lil lady!

Moved to Notices and Well Wishes.

Campsites should be forbidden by TOS !

I today wanted to have sum fun in SL and party with some people.
As I'm in Europe, this isn't exactly the prime time for SL partying, but, there was a few spots on the map with green dot collections.
Imagine my disappointment when I teleported there and found that it was a collection of zombies either "Away" or "Busy" all dancing (or just sitting) on special pads, earning the fortune of 2L$ per hour or so. WOW, are they going to be rich quick.

Well, I tried another place, then another and after visiting 14 ! (FOURTEEN) places, all filled with campers, I realized I'd have more fun calling in my alts and have a party with them.

agreed, I don't see any benefit to it other than boosting someones traffic who can't get legitimate traffic.

I don't really see how it can teach anyone skills

If I got to a shop in SL and I see a ton of campers there, I usually leave right away. I consider artifically boosted traffic on the places list just like spam mail with deceiving subject lines to try and get them read.

If I go to a store and see a ton of campers there, I usually contemplate the futility and ridiculousness of the whole concept out loud in range of the campers while browsing the merchandise, then move on to the next store. Of course, most likely none of them will ever notice, but it amuses me, and in SL we make our own fun.

Now that you can't report pvp... I wonder why we haven't seen more people with push guns and whatnot orbiting campers from their vegetations.

Not that I'm advocating anything like that or suggesting anyone should..... nooooooo course not guv.

Lewis

Because push guns can't orbit people who are sitting down? Short of crashing the sim, I suppose. PushObject has no effect if you're sitting.