100 People in a Single Sim

This is just disgusting

Hi everyone. I'll be happy to answer your questions for all interested. At IceDragons we actually dont have 100 camping chairs. We only have 16 of them. We have them in a movie area for ppl to enjoy and if you go into the movie area ppl are talkin and enjoying themselves and giving me plenty of feedback not just zombied out. I also created a wonderful Dance Jam Pad similar to Camp chairs but its programmed with 8 awesome dances and I set up a nice blockparty area and the ppl are partying and having a blast! Next we do Tringo 24/7 and Playpen Slingo 24/7 as well so those 2 areas are brewing with excitement and great gaming hardly a ghost town. If you doubt it check it out. Now all these different activities with our super mall placed smack in the middle of it all, there are people spread pretty much throughout the Sim and not all grouped up in one specific area and that helps to reduce the Lag. But we get lag!! Everyone does when they have a full sim of people.

This camping chair business came in and swept SL and all we gamers and clubs were quickly faced with jewelry shops etc.. now taking control of the popular places list and i'm sorry but all the hard work our hosts put in we would not let that fly so in the turn we stepped up our game and added a camping area as well. I came up with the dance jam pads to also give club owners the opportunity to compete in this new craze as well but the dance pads fit into their line of business. What club wants to now have ppl sitting around instead of dancing. When I created these dance pads my intentions was to let everyone be able to compete. Why not!! The clubs on the Popular places lists work very hard at filling up their clubs with people only to now see their places fall to this new craze. We gamers also got hit the same way. The reality of the camp chairs is someone stumbled on this actual old idea that was developed I heard long ago in SL but it wasn't received well. I guess they were put on the back burner until now. Just like before, our tringo and slingo is our bread and butter, just like I know some of the top places on the charts continue their regular business at hand. We've all had to adjust our game to include the camping to attract the newbies who will go to the places that offer them a chance to make money in this game. The Lindens are not coughing up the dough willfully and we all know this. Yes, this new craze costs us land owners a nice piece of change but if you have other business ventures going on and a good plan you can offset these costs. If we had 100 camp chairs on the island then yes, there would be a problem and we would be broke as a joke but thats not the case.

Were not in it for the money. Some are, were not. I enjoy having our island buzzing with people enjoying their gaming experience, shopping, hooking up with their friends, seeing the new relationships that have been developed here at IDP and i am quite proud of it. This camping business is a craze but if you let it consume you it will. Our figuring is keep to the business at hand and still provide a little of the new thing and just tread water til it all blows over Lighten up everyone. Have fun and go with the flow. I thought it was hilarious when a newbie came up to me and said woohoo Krys, you made it possible for me to afford my first outfit and Hair!! Do you like it?

This kind of thing makes Second Life seem less like the cool concept that attracted me in the first place. Camping chairs and suburban homes for newbies... I've never had a bad attitude toward greed in Second Life, but I'm developing a bad attitude toward boring.

Exactly. Camping chairs are just one of the phenomena that make me worry about how SL is developing.

* If SL is so much freer and more enjoyable than killing rats and collecting their tails, why will so many people pay a monthly subscription for rat tails while they ignore or won't pay for SL?

* If SL is such a world of potential, why would so many people choose to sit in camping chairs as opposed to doing.. uh, something?

* If SL is to become a platform, what will be its killer app? What will be its first actual app, in the sense of something that can have a quality level distinct from that of SL?

* How fast an internet connection do you need to be able to actually move on IceDragon's island?

Moving just fine. Time dilation is 0.95 and sim fps is at 42. When it starts to get laggy, we make announcements for ppl to remove their laggy attachments to help performance of sim. Usually its someone who has on everything imaginable to lag down a sim. You cant ask the ladies to walk around with no hair or high prim shoes on thats just suicide but you can nicely ask for everyone to cooperate to help reduce lag when those waves of lag occur. SL is also unpredictable, you can sometimes have a small amount of people and get complaints of lag. We work on it and never just settle. The other day the lindens saw a problem on their end and brought down our sim and it was down for 10 hours. We have to accept this everytime and pick ourselves up and keep on going. If you spent $400 plus on land tier fee's your gonna make that property work for you anyway you can.

I'm not saying it's your fault - only that I went to check it out the other day, and it was sufficiently lagged I couldn't type, and SL crashed after being frozen for about 3 minutes. I know there's not much you can do about that, just wondered if other folks had bigger connections (I know the UK is kinda lagging behind when it comes to broadband speeds)

Preach it brother

The average cost of electricity was 8.3¢/kWh in the U.S. in 1998.

A computer running SL probably takes up 100 watts (it's CPU intensive).

So that's about 8.3 cents every 10 hours.

If you're paying out 1 L$ per minute, that's 600 L$ every ten hours.

At 250 L$ / dollar that's roughly 2 USD per ten hours.

Your profit is about 1.90 USD / ten hours.

Extrapolated over a month: that's about 136$

Get two computers doing this and you could pay for a whole SIM.

Get a rack of 40 computers doing this, and you could make about 5440 per month.

You could probably throw a rack of 40 computers together for about 5K. Paid for them in the first month. VNC into them and away you go.

Less profit when on the cheaper chairs, areas where electricity costs more, of course. But I'm sure you would work your way around that by using various exploits.

Honest question here! Because I'm always curious about business models in SL.

I know you stated you were not "doing this for the money", but I am curious how much profit you make (none of my business the exact numbers of course). Basically, do you make enough profit that you see long term stability for IceDragons? Will you all be able to maintain it for years to come? Or are you just doing this for now and rolling with the punches and losses, but having fun till it is over?

all of that doing stuff is for the builders, (i'm one) to do, i just cant stand to just sit around and do nothing in secondlife, it IS really a world of potential, people just dont feel like using it...

Er, not quite.

You also have to factor in broadband access (around $US 50.00 a month, or 6 cents an hour if my math is right).

And I think you might be underestimating the power consumption of SL... SL runs at 100% cpu usage all of the time. I reckon it's doing the same to my video card. I have a 450w power supply in order to power my video card, processor, ram, HDD, etc. So, maybe double/triple your estimate?

At any rate, that's really a lot of work for so little gain. You can make more money faster, and feel more accomplished, by just making something and selling an infinite amount of copies.

LF

If you have 5 hours a night leisure time to play SL, which is it better to do?

- Spend 4 of those 5 hours working to earn money then do what you actually wanted for the other 1 hour
or
- Spend 5 hours doing what you wanted then go find a camping chair and leave the PC on until the next day

It's not just the money that's the appeal of camping chairs, it's the fact that they can be managed to have no time cost.

Its possible that they aren't just sitting. They may be doing housework or taking care of children. And if they are sitting they could be disabled and grateful to have Second Life. I don't know, I just think it might be a mistake to unfairly judge what others may be doing.

I've gone to IceDragons Playpen a variety of times to play games like Tringo. And sit in the camping chairs.

I like to give the courtesy of asking someone about their motives instead of assuming them. That way, I'll learn something more in the process.

Hi Pendari. Good question. We don't really profit at all from this game it's just a hobby. But, our goal is to break even and currently Jvizzle Jacques and I use our own personal funds to make up the difference after hosts pay, pot money and now Camping.

You do receive a daily dwell bonus based on the number of people that frequent your place. Not going into figures, this helps in support of what you choose to run eventwise on a daily basis. We have a wonderful mall that draws in pretty good revenue as well. We have been doing the gaming business for over a year now 24/7 so the longevity of us being here will surely continue.

Some people have drug habits, some live beyond their means, we happen to do gaming in our spare time away from the ugly RL workforce, and this is just our choice to run a fun place for people to chill and enjoy. Landing high up on the Developer's incentive is helpful with land tier fee's but thats about all you can use that reward for so just knowing what is affordable for you the individual landowner seems the only logical route to take. Also, if you create product yourself, then also your sales you receive help with running your operation. We have many supporters and support many in their ventures and this is for surely successful business practice.

Much shout outs and praise btw to the many fine folks who frequent our place. It's just each person who chooses to hold events decision to spend what they like to keep their properties afloat. Running our property here in SL is actually a great tool in running our RL business and very interesting. This is a tough crowd (hahaha) our RL employee's actually benefit from the management skills we have aquired from dealing with the different personalities and situations in this game rofl!! But to us, it's a joy the different people weve come across, and quite fasinating! Hope this somewhat answers your question. Look out!! I tend to ramble on lol, but hopefully you get my point.

personally, the first option, its FUN for me to make things, i LIKE to do it, its ENTERTAINING for me, so again its your point of view on the whole thing... if you can sit in a cubicle adding two numbers to every date on a computer for the rest of your life, its fine with me, but i cant, it drives me absolutely crazy.

Cristiano. This statement you made is totally false. We dont have 68 camp chairs and anyone who comes to IDP knows we have one corner of Slingo gaming that is always buzzing, Tringo on the other end buzzing as well and we just added the 16 seat movie area and i'm telling you those campers are quite active and buzz me constantly with questions or feedback regarding the movie that they are watching actually. Please don't assume. We have patrons frequent who indeed are disabled, or ingured or a new mom or students. They camp out when they need to, go gaming when the little ones go off to sleep I know of many situations people have but also know they are going where they want to be.

Alright now my question? Or ask for advice I suppose... How the hell do you get hosts 24/7? I have tried hiring hosts numerous of times. paying $250 per event and I couldnt find anyone dependable if anyone at all.. so whats the trick?

There is no trick. You have to constantly look for hosts and trust me, we have our work cut out for us. But, it's part of the game, just one of the many challenges.

There's nothing more annoying then trying for ages to get into a sim, then upon finally being allowed in, to find out there aren't enough chairs!

I should try to sit on someone's head attachment.

16 camping chairs - All in use. 37 Dance pads - 17 being used. Total 33. Total people on sim - 52 (including me). So it is fair to say that MORE people are there for the camp stuff than were there to play the games or shop at the mall.

Was there for 15 minutes while I counted everything and made the cute little pic and such. Only talking I overhead the entire time was, "When are one of you bitches getting up?"

Hi ReallyRick,
Just curious. Exactly what time of day or night was this? But more importantly, I am happy you feel the need to analyze the sim. Let me add to your findings. Yes, 16 camp chairs all filled. Did you forget to mention there is a movie playing and a good movie at that. You don't get the IM's asking you any questions regarding the sim etc.. do you think the campers are gonna be sitting there screaming at the top of their virtual lungs?? I spend all of my time on my Sim, I confidently know there is a plenty going on along with camping. The dance pads, lol!! I am Biased on that subject cause I am the creator. I get loads of questions all day long regarding them and that I am very proud of. People want to know if they can program their own dances change the shape color on their own or to tell me they are very cool!! I set up the area at IceDragons like a big blockparty area. When I was a kid, we used to have these blockparty's in my hood and they were off the hook and I wanted to create that same kinda vibe... dancin in the streets!! Is there something wrong with that?? My intentions as the creator, I wanna see some partying going on. Sounds to me like your not getting my drift here just trying to downplay what I am trying to do.

If you created this really awesome nightclub etc... would you not like to see it packed up with ppl enjoying that club you worked hard on? Thats how I feel about my dance pads. Now back to the subject at hand Current data - ppl on the Sim - 70, Camping Chair area/Movie - 15 in chairs 3 dancing- 18 total, BlockParty area - 13 ppl (woohoo), Slingo -14 ppl playing 2 dance pads (while playing) - 16 total, Tringo - 17 ppl playing 3 dance pads - 20 total so grand total - 64 ppl (Shoppers and JV and myself must be the 6 remaining people) now. What's wrong with that?? Go over to Tringo and listen to everyone talk about how all of SL is lagging cause the Lindens increased the grid to add more islands and are messing up everyone's gameplay. There are more important things to worry about here then hating on one another.

Just went to ID at 8:05pm SLT. Just to see if anything was different. Found the following:

1. 16 avies in camp chairs - 2 waiting to sit
   
2. 11 avies on dance pads
   
3. 2 on dance pads at Slingo (neither with a board in front of them)
   
4. 4 on dance pads at Tringo (1 with board playing)
   

So that equals 34 people on the sim solely for "camp stuff." Total of 58 on the sim (including myself). That leaves 23 avies actively doing something. No one in the stores and dont see where this "block party area is."

I am not bashing you in any way, you have 23 people on the sim active and participating and that is great. All I am pointing out is that more people are their zombied out than are ones who are alive and well. If you go back and read my first post I was actually saying it was a feat to see 100 avies in the sim without much lag. You cannot however say you would have reached this accomplishment without the help of your camp chairs and dance pads.

The BlockParty area is the area you have circled as the dance pads area on your previous post if you actually took a sec to look not just count numbers, you would see the colored blocks with the colored pads that all the regulars know as the blockparty area. Sorry your not here when we at Icedragon's are holding Battle of the sexes Trivia or xmas here the tune and collect the lindens contests and many other contests we hold daily with RockinX radio. The movie playing is Batman Begins. People are saying the movie is great!! People are asking us who don't have quicktime, how to get it and we are instructing them how to do so. Some are off doing laundry or whatever. See those camp chairs we have, they are custom made camp chairs, the best and very comfy. Rick, take a look down the popular places list and read down the list how many of the top 20 are doing camp chairs. If we were to bow down and not do it then yes, we would fall down the list more than likely but, before the camp chairs came on the scene, we did pretty dam good and were in the #1 position before the camp chairs came on. Now, if I decide to drop my camp stuff do you think the rest will?? No!! Plus, right now, with time dilation issues and FPS problems, the only ones surviving this problem that is going on throughout SL is the campers cause they are pretty much just chillin. People like to come to Ice Dragon's and i'm proud of this. When we reached the 100 mark on that one particular day in question it was a good day. We announced all throughout the property that 100 ppl were on the sim and started doing island trivia and contests. I am not in control of where people want to go to hang out in their second Life but i'm glad their picking our place as one of the go to spots. OK, this has got to be the last reply I make regarding this but let me give much shout outs to all that frequent IceDragon's We loves ya, and appreciate every guest that stops in.

105 120 000 L$/year! (420 000 USD)

this is a good enough reason to farm camping seats. the only problem is that within days the camping chair owner is going to run out of L$ and the whole scheme is dead. don't invest in your farming computers all at once folks.