what ever happened to stage 4?

Congratulations to Katt and her Katrina Charity Ball & Auction. It was a good thing for a good cause and it was nice to see so many of the Lindens auction themselves along with players for the benefit. I don't wish to detract from the event, however it did make very clear a general issue that I've been wondering about for a while.

I tried to attend the event last night in order to support the initiative and own pandastrong (for a limited time). There was one major problem though, the number of people being "auctioned" was nearly enough to fill a sim leaving no room for bidders. Indeed, the sim had to be restarted and the capacity increased to 54 AVs and there still wasn't enough room.

There are many events of such a scale which are severly hampered by lack of sim capacity. At least since September 2003, this issue was known and understood and thus the Lindens built "Stage 4" at the corner of four sims so that you could have four times as many participants as one can in a single sim. The current Welcome Area is built around this exact concept. Recently I attended a live musical performance which "squatted" on four rather empty sims allowing 100 people to participate - that was pretty cool.

The Lindens can provide this sort of infrastructure in a way that players can do only with great difficulty or expense. Why haven't they? Why don't they? The recent concert shows the concept still works. And no, I shan't make a proposition for it.

You still have an exact copy of it at the Blue/Gray/Lime/Plum intersection.

Cool, why isn't it used?

Linden events arent supported thats why.

I have pictures of events at the old Stage 4 if you'd like some. There are a couple of us taking pictures of people screening pictures of us taking pictures of people screening pictures.

All your screenshots are belong to us!
http://history.secondserver.net/index.php/Special:Upload

Wasn't stage four actually only across 2 sims, but close to the corner of another 2. It always seemed odd to me. But it apeared to be that 2 corners were in dore, and 2 were in bonifacio. But they were right on the edge close to Morris and.. another sim lol. Just wondering..

Perhaps it moved during The Great Shift. I remember when several of the items in Fate Park shifted from Olive into Slate overnight. It seems to be Grid All Hail The Central Grid wide effect.

Stage 4 was actually spread over 4 sims, that's where the name comes from, but it may have changed to 2 later due to sim boundary overhead / instabilities / general bugginess. Or something.
http://history.secondserver.net/index.php/Stage4

It was shifted southward off the four corners to make space for the old New Welcome Area. Gah, we're beginning to sound life the Veterans of Foreign Wars talking about Normandy

We do provide an opportunity for Residents to have events on the corners of 4 sims.

http://secondlife.com/land/rental.php

The Charity Auction and Ball was a Resident organized event. Lindens were invited to be auctioned off, so we spread the word about the event since we thought this was a good cause. I think everyone was surprised by the huge turnout, and overall the organizers did a very good job.

Thanks for the information Pathfinder, but if I understand correctly, if one wanted to hold a 1 hour, 4 sim event, it would cost on the order of US$170 with two weeks advance notice. This is a reasonable charge given the amount of LL labor involved in providing the services noted in http://secondlife.com/land/rental.php.

Can I assume that means that there are no planned provisions for a Stage 4 equivalent for short duration events? Thanks for any information you can provide on the matter.

If I had known that such a thing as "Stage 4" existed, I would have set the event up in that area, no matter the cost. Blame it partially on the fact that I am somewhat of a newbie, and also on the fact that I honestly did not think that this event would get so big.

Also, I feel that part of the reason Pathfinder announced the event in the forums and made it a MOTD is because if he hadn't, there would have been the same stink on it that was on the MJW meeting, with cries of "It was a secret! and "We're being excluded!"

Well, I tried not to exclude anyone, but people were nonetheless, and I'm very sorry. I learned a lot and have compiled a list of dos and don'ts:

Don't try to plan a major event when you are in the middle of a rl move.
Instead of selling tickets, set a join fee to the auction group.
Research your DJ carefully.
Hire people to direct people to the right place so you don't get 30 thousand IMs from distressed residents while you are trying to auction ppl off.
Put a pillow in your chair before you start a 4-hour event.
Find the area that will accomodate the largest number of people and forget a beautiful building and decorations.
Don't bother dressing nicely. No one will notice you in the HUGE crowd anyway.
Check to see who is male and female before you start auctioning someone off and call a him a her.

See? I have it down now. Who is ready for another auction??

You did a great job Katt! I was there for five minutes, then moved with my boyfriend and two other friends to our club, where we had a quick face-to-face with Hamlet (Hamlet smoked pot!!), then we danced and got in on the IM auction. Really, that IM was more than worth the cost of tickets and we grouped our money and bought a scripter!! Four hours...meh! Four hours of bickering and joking and having fun...yay! And three quarters of a million Ls is nothing to sneeze at! Good Job!

I just wanted to make a few suggesions. I think that having a proxy bid where people can tell you the max bid and you bid for them would be a big help. I know of a few people that would have liked to bid, but could not be there at that time. Remember, you can't always please everyone. You did a great job and a lot of money was raised for a lot of needy people.

I'm not sure of the exact placement but I know a large and strong Gin & Tonic belongs somewhere in your list.

Exact copy? Hahaha... look at this...



"Sadly, Stage 4's bastard twin is falling apart. I WEEP!"

Oh noooooo... I have a low tolerance for alcohol. When I drink, the clothes come off. Horrors!!

In that case I suggest inserting it in the list before it is your turn to be auctioned off.

What?!?!? It's for a good cause!

You shall not prevail. I have eaten the lot. urp

Darn! That's what I should have done last night! If I was drinking and stripping, I mighta fetched more than $6k, huh?

Ahh... another lesson learned the hard way!

i wonder if anshe chung has some undeveloped land that could be used for events. just a thought. maybe the intersection of four undeveloped sims. it's a possiblity.

She told me last night that she had land that would have been great for such an event... I briefly considered telling everyone that we were moving mid-auction... but naw, next time.