Request for information on setting up a quiet hangout for people to enjoy.

Hullo all, Foolish Frost here.

I have a question that I want to get people's opinion on. Really, I want any thoughts you have on the subject that can be said in a semi-friendly way.

1. I want to get a 60x60 plot for a club of sorts. It would need to be in an out of the way sim that would disturb as few people as possible, and I don't mind if it's away from a telehub.

2. It would be be made with the idea of pay as you like. I would literally have a money jar with a red line denoting how much of the tier for the place has been paid for the month. Part of this design is curiosity if people would pay for a polite place to kick back and relax.

3. The place would be open to everyone who had basic manners. I want a place where a cross-section of SL could sit back and talk about whatever they like. Thinkers, Gorites, Furrys, Techies...

4. A question I have is, if I placed the Inn across 4 sim corners, would that help deal with the number of Avs in an area? WOuld the problems with sim borders just make it worse?

Any thoughts? I'm open to ideas. I'm not eve sure if a common lounge is a good idea currently, but I have tried building and want to try something new...

Are you looking for more of a event-driven atmosphere, or just a hangout spot?

I built South Grignano with something along those lines in mind, a quiet, relaxed atmosphere to hang out in... it doesn't get used much, but it has a clock tower, a coffee shop, a pub, an art gallery, a few shops, and my home.

Everyone's welcome to stop by... and across the street is another coffee shop, some more shops... it's a nice place to visit.

LF

You can always hang out at Terrabucks in Abbotts. The coffee is terrible, but the penguin is friendly.

You're welcome to hang out at City Lights Tea Room in Chase's Manhattan (Hawthorne).

Gee whiz, Officer, no matter what you think you smell, we only serve TEA.

pg sims tend to be quieter. the older sims tend to have less build churn than the new sims (closer to ahern tends to be older).

people donate but i'm don't have good information. when i have a donation jar out, my friends tend to put money in. strangers much less so. ymmv

might be better to not mention groups at all then. however, people tend to hang where their friends hang out. so you tend to get people with similar interests. if you want a broad cross-section you're going to have to interact with people from those many groups so they will want to hang out with you. generally.

this really only works well if people walk on the ground. if you have prim floors and people are suppose to walk across them to get from place to place... people tend to fall between prims at the sim borders. jopsy pendragon might be able to give you more info on this. he tried to solve this problem; last i knew he didn't succeed.

the more av you put in one place... the wose lag gets. no way around this, so just gather and have people deal.

Not a one of you get people coming by, huh?

I think hang out places evolve.... So many people like hanging out on their land, or their friend's land that I don't see this suceeding. Good luck though.

Foolish, I get a fair number of people stopping by and hanging out at my Botanical Gardens in Federal, which was always meant to be a public access installation.

What you desribe sounds a bit like what the Elbow Room does, so you might want to stop by there and see what they are doing right.

I think it is hard to build places where people will just hang without an event taking place. Most builds in SL feel "private". We may feel comfortable exploring someone's house, we are not likely to TP over a friend or two and camp out on their deck. The atmosphere has to be right....

Visit Teal

Yeah, some people do hang in the speakea-- er, Tea Room, but I don't have any idea how many. Never bothered with a visitor counter, so my only way to tell if there have been visitors is if someone spends a dollar on a souvenier or drops a buck in the craps table. I get the occasional rating or nice IM (someone recently wanted to buy a copy of the furnishings).

As far as the numbered points you listed . . . City Lights is out of the way -- in a hidden room in the Empire State Building, and for a long time you had to have a password to get in (still the most fun way to get in . . . password is swordfish). It's not on Find. There's no tip jar. There's no target market and everyone's welcome. Yet it does get visitors, a few who return repeatedly. Don't have any idea what sort of dwell it might bring in, but not enough to matter. I built it at the request of my friend Chase, who owns Manhattan, and she's happy with it, and I find it's a nice setting to chat with a couple of friends, so it's all good.

I understand there are problems building across a sim border, but I haven't tried it. To see how running an event across sim corners works, check out the Linden event stage in Dore. Does seem to help with load, but I've seen a lot of people stuck at or partially disconnected at the sim borders during events there.

Edit: Yeah, Cubey gets visitors at Terrabucks. From time to time when we're feeling lazy and looking for something to do, my friends and I go to browse around the Aerodrome and spend an hour or so at Terrabucks. We're addicted to that crappy overpriced coffee

Foolish - this is the principle that the Shelter operates on - although we focus our efforts on helping newbies, we have always tried to be welcoming to all the various subgroups of our community. Our regular visitors are a mix of folks that like to socialize, build and/or script - and we've tried to create an environment where these various activities can coexist peacefully.

Lately, we only have a couple posted events going on in the evening - although you can almost always find people hanging out here during the day - regardless of an event. We've become something of a constantly evolving family that nearly anyone can feel accepted by

A chunk of our funding does come from donations, however the majority of it comes from advertising and sponsorships of some sort. Whatever is left of the shortfall, I fund out of my pocket.

If you keep your Tier small, and don't do any events that require funding - you should be able to make it off donations alone. However, once you begin involving more exciting things to do than just hanging out, you're going to have to broaden your funding options.

Hope this helps!

Travis

Foolish,

I think what you'll find if you post on the forums that you get what you got -- established people telling you that they already have hangouts, thank you very much, and your job as a newb is to come to *their* hangouts and give *them* dwell and fill *their* tip jar lol.

Well, just ignore all that and try your thing. You can only learn by doing.

I would say having done what you're describing, in various ways, in various venues, for six months, I would caution that you can't get tier paid by dwell or tips. But then, you knew that. Still, your idea of having a little jar that actually shows what tier is -- it's physical, real, red-line level in the world -- and the way in which we could contribute to it --with a scripted object that would turn green or would somehow "fill up" -- would be tremendously educational and interesting.

People don't realize how much tier costs -- that is, that it costs a lot, at one level, for one person, but that it costs a little, for 10 people. If you could help spread this idea that people can share tier, you'd be doing a great thing. People often don't "get" tier -- it is complex -- and sometimes they just think it should all come to them for free!

I think with your idea of the visible tier-filling object, it will help sell itself because people will see it and want to fill it to make it fill lol -- you know how things like that are a self-fulfilling prophecy! In fact, make a thing like that and I'm happy to buy it from you too lol.

I think the 4 corners sim idea is a good idea -- I was kinda going for that with my idea of Pickerel-Grace-Moraine (well, 3 was a start) and if somebody had the money to buy in Midge in the mountains there, it might work. Finding land on a 4 corners like that won't be a cake-walk, but is maybe not impossible. Maybe get a few friends together to look at doing that....

I've often wondered if you can get the avs to stay on one sim and keep them from flooding and locking the other but I"ve found they don't do that LOL. People just coagulate and don't do what is planned.

What about trying to work Maryport-Ravenglass-Carlisle-Honister in some fashion, there's some land for sale in Honister...well, you get the idea...but it's hard to disperse people unless you have the 4 hosts to keep pumping up the volume and the charm in each of 4 sims.

I find you need something "sticky" to make people stick. Like a game or an object or a chapter in a story -- whatever. They come for that, then hang around. But running stuff like this basically takes one thing: the ability to stand on a sim, in IMs, with people asking the same clueless questions, over and over and over. You have to be nice, polite, and charming. It's work. But you knew that.

Dogged persistence -- a regular time slot on the events list -- presence of yourself and Botany -- new content each week -- a fun game or object to look at -- beautiful builds...well all these ingredients could make it work, and I think you have what it takes.

I think Morse Dillon has a gorgeous 4096 plot in Ravenglass he's looking to get rid of, but to someone who will keep the plot whole. Drop him an IM.

Regards,

-Flip

Build away and see what happens! Personally it sounds like the type of 'club' I'd like to go to!

One of the reasons I stayed in taber for so long was because friends would come by all the time and shoot the breeze.

As someone else posted, hangouts evolve, so I imagine it will take some time and patience to get it up to the level you hope - I'm sure that there are a number of people that would like to hang out without lights, bling, and b/t/slingo.

Perhaps try and get hold of some other passtime content to keep your initial crowd there:

Chess, checkers, reversi, mahjong, SL Settlers, prim attack are other 'parlor games' that have been done in SL - but you don't see a whole lot of them around..

I'd say go for it, and if it works - good on you for trying something different!

Siggy.

Thanks for the thoughts guys. Not I just need to figure out how I'm goign to get the land. Tier up and buy, or 'rent' a section of sim from a provate sim owner...

Decisions, decisions...

Tiering up and buying is fun and how you get maximum control!

You can rent not just from a private sim owner!

Rent from a landlord with land on the mainland grid so you get flybys to your hangout too. Also a private sim is an island and won't have that four corners effect.