Entitlement

I was just curious if you were talking out of your ass or actually knew something about the subject matter. You've answered the question. Thanks for pulling answers out of your ass.

Because it's a fairly fundamental principle in most online worlds.

Hubris, or raising yourself above the gods, is a bit much. But from the months I've spent in SL I've learned that nothing is the norm. Saying that one is the norm in SL is pushing it.

So it's the former and you're just an asshole, then?

If you're looking for free legal advice go somewhere else. Do you also get your medical advice from random people on the net? That might explain why you're unable to get that stick unlodged from your ass.

"OK, you don't believe me. Maybe you'll believe the FTC."

Hmm. Does this matter? I mean, you may think that small print is unfair, but the FTC (whoever they are) can't think the same; otherwise all those billboards out there with small print at the bottom simply wouldn't be there.

Perhaps having small print IS considered fair practice. Perhaps because consumers are expected to know that small print exists (we here know what it is, after all) and know that they should read it before handing over money?

And at the top of that page it says that those are guidelines, not rules. It seems the only rule is that the advertisement must not be misleading, and it's not: you pay and you get the right to own land and a L$500 stipend. It does not say that this will never change, and if it does change, I imagine they will be required to honour any outstanding payment you have with them before offering you the changed agreement, and will change the advertisements to reflect the changed offer.

Maybe "this service may change" is something so fundamental to most businesses in the world that mentioning it is simply redundant, and people should assume this is the case unless it is stated otherwise, such as "X% APR for life!"

"If you're looking for free legal advice go somewhere else"

But you said you're here to teach us. Now you're not? Oh dear. Professor Groucho didn't last long, did it?

Musuko.

Ironically hubris is a term that comes to mind for me a bit lately. I've had some late experience with pagan folks whose sense of relationship to their gods would have gotten them turned into spiders or the like, if they were Hellenic.

I think a healthy sense of self-worth is essential. I just wonder if as a society we have swung so far towards the individual that we have a larger number of folks who just don't really give a rat's ass about anyone else. Yuppies, the Savings & Loan looting spring to mind.

My experience has been quite different. In every game I've been part of a guild that empasized team work and fair play. I've noticed the attitude you're talking about though. I pretty much assumed it was a product of immaturity or anonymity.

That's partly true. But even the guild - I presume - would expect to have fun in the game right away, and be able to get objects within the game that they wanted. In SL, it seems, even wanting that is considered a sense of entitlement.

Well in the game you have 3 recourse: play/farm until you get them; pay another player an addition amount either to help you get it, or sell it to you; or cooperate with your guild in their joint efforts to get stuff. All this is work/payment of one kind or another and benefits all members of the effort.

When we talk about entitlement, we're specifically talking about the expectation of neither having to pay or work for stuff that you want - and specifically NOT benefitting other people involved.

Very different things.

I suspect that most people wouldn't consider "play/farm"ing to be "work" - it's.. um.. play. On most online games, if you don't enjoy the activity you have to do in order to earn stuff, you aren't going to enjoy the game at all, because everything will be basically designed to send you back to that somehow.

If there was a way to "play/farm" in SL, with or without a "guild", then almost certainly all the entitlement complaints you're talking about would disappear. Most of them have come up on threads which are basically discussing removal of SL's nearest equivalents (camping chairs, dwell, stipend, etc.)

I wasn't looking for free legal advice. You were offering it. And pretending you actually knew what you were talking about. Which isn't the case.

You are a total fucking idiot if you take my advice as solid legal counsel and nothing, absolutely nothing I stated could give anyone with half a brain that impression.

But yes, I do know what I am talking about, at least more than 99.9% of the people on this forum. As always, if you're going to be such a tight-ass, put the prerequisites for posting up front.

I probably should have stopped after the first six words of my reply.

You're sliding past my point. No matter how you feel about an activity you still have to expend effort to get what you want. We're talking about people who want to be parasites on other people's work/play and feel that they have a right to be.

I happen to enjoy my RL job. Doesn't mean that if I hate it and quit my apartment manager should waive next month's rent.

Can you guys take your dispute somewhere else please. Thanks.

Grinding and killing monsters on an MMORPG might involve effort, but most people who play those games see doing that as "entertainment" rather than "work", because they enjoy it. People who don't enjoy those things, usually just don't play those games at all because there's no point, the games revolve around those activities.

So when they come into SL, they see people having and doing things they want, but then they hit the first big difference in SL - the activities you do to earn these things are radically different from the way you actually do them. In an MMO if you want to be a wizard, you cast elementary spells and work your way up; in SL if you want to be a wizard you have to earn or buy L$ to buy the outfit and a scripted spell caster. Now, it seems to me from what a lot of people say that they do actually want to go through an "earning" process, since that's part of their satisfaction - at least some will balk at just buying L$ for that reason. But they then run up against a rude shock - until they buy those items, they can't do any "magic" at all, and even if they could, they wouldn't earn L$ that way. To earn L$, they either have to do something completely different which may not be something they enjoy, or buy it for US$ and not have the satisfaction of "earning" what they have.

That's what, it seems, they're mostly talking about "entitlement" to - they want to be entitled to that first thing to start with and earn from. If they can't have that, they want some way they can earn their way there mechanistically, such as camping chairs, stipend, or pot games.

Please keep the discussion civil in here. You don't damn well have to agree, or even think well of someone else's opinion--but personal attacks aren't allowed.

Further info can be found in the forum Guidelines.

Did you read the FTC page at all (except for the top)? According to the guidelines, web page ads have to follow the same laws as print page ads. The presence of disclaimers at the bottom of the ad page shows that LL knows about the law and is complying with it.

Even the little ad page in the back of paperback novels has "prices may change without notice" written on it.

I'm not worried about LL raising rates or stopping the stipend. The current trend seems to be to cut rates. And I'm sure LL would rather print L$ than to pay their lawyers USD to defend themselves against a charge of false advertising with the FTC. I know that I would.

But I do resent that I'm seen as someone who feels unreasonably "entitled" because I expect LL to comply with contracts that they've entered into.

Sorry, Surreal.

I don't think a larger number of people are feeling "entitled". They are just more vocal about it now.

I still can't seem to get my point across. SL is not WoW, it's more like a Renn Faire. You wouldn't expect to go to the Renn Faire and pick out whatever you wanted for free? You understand that the craftspeople invest their time and money to make the stuff. The Renn Fair owner provides the buildings and land. People pay a fee to spend the day enjoying the entertainment and atmosphere. SL is a much better value. But someone still has to pay the bills.

That's true, but your question was "why do people feel entitled" (not "are people right to feel entitled" to which the answer would have been obvious). SL is indeed not WoW but that does not mean that everyone who visits SL immediately knows that or immediately accepts it.

People newly arriving in SL probably do not realise yet that it uses this "renfaire" model. People who do not create, or are not successful with their creations, probably have difficulty accepting it because there is no benefit for them in doing so.



WoW, etc, also have content that people invested their time and money in producing, and have bills and hosting costs. From the point of view of a non-creator who in new to SL, the "ren faire" model is just a decidedly inefficient, and limiting, way for the game developers to be paid.

That's true, and that's what I like about SL is that you only buy what you want to buy.

I expect to pay more for good stuff. I know that freebies or cheapies are often discontinued lines, first efforts, and other stuff that creators can't sell anymore.

I'm not against anyone making a RL living (or pocket money) from SL either. If their talent, work, and skills earn them enough to make USD, that's great. Even if that's all they come into SL for, that's great too. SL is many things to many people and I'm not going to judge them for what they want out of SL.

My only problem is when people expect SL to break contracts because they are not making the USD that they think they should. I would call that "entitlement mentality".

You spelled your first name wrong. Grouch doesn't have an O in it. And Your last name too. Assclown doesn't have an M.