So about this new form of Taxation without representation...

I'm thinking that RL's tax system is really bloated & stupid, and SL's Tax system just followed suit,,, U R taxing us more for big things & tall things & less for little short things & still have an extra tax for lights (which never made sense to me except from a rendering resource point of view,, but shouldn't the eventual subscription fee cover all this stuff anyways??),, yet U werent there to help build this stuff (just like the IRS with their big ol' grubby-ass palm out for their "cut" and we don't have any accounting of where our taxs dollars are going... but it's only a game right,,, then it hit me!!

Why don't you hire some of the off-seasonal IRS toadies to put together a really, Really, REALLY big fat bloated UGLY hairy taxation system where we not only pay an arse load of SL bucks for stuff & property ownership,,, but we also have the chance to claim deductions & find loopholes & really just sponge & soak ya'll for stupid ammounts of cash??

Cause man,, if someone can figgure it out & get me money back from what I dole out in taxes.. that would be a service in HARD demand,, and probably the first actually GOOD step towards creating a SL economy. All in all that is the big thing preventing and economy from getting established right now,, there IS no supply & demand.

Course this could just be the Quad mocha Breve Lungo talkin' , but it's not without it's merits.

BTW when is tax day,, I thught it was Saturdays,, but I got hit Friday before I could unload all my objects & took a $-9000 shot in the kiester (which I've managed to reduce to around $-2772) and yet I'm still wandering around SL Nstead of in the SL federal pen,,, where I would B right now if I managed to incur that debt in RL.

BTW,, I could be contracted to build a fed pen in SL as long as I got $13000 up front, $12000 on completion, and I got to be the first SL avatar convicted of tax evasion and was first to do hard time... sorta like the French fella that made the gillotine.

The thing about this economy is they don't want everyone to have Huge floating castles....You aren't supposed to start at the end....You are supposed to work up to it....start small....make some money if you can....If you can't then you wont' be able to afford that castle. Once you get a decent business going with money coming in then you can start working on the big stuff...(I don't know if you have a business on the side or not....it just seems like you are saying your entire income is from taxes.)....taxes for me just allow me to break even..any objects I have in world are cancelled about by my stipend and rep...my entire profit comes from sales.

(Just something to think about)

ps - This is just how I see it...i could be totally wrong

have a look in Projects on jails before you volentere to biuld one I made a Huge mistake by mearly sugesting such a thing ...
the funny thing is I got chewed up and spit out for my analogy of a person that shouold have been jailed (in my opinion) and was told bah its only a few cuss words and in a mature sim where we must be 18 to play this game anyways whats the big deal(basically)

to later being chewed out by some of the same people for me saying damn shit hell , that type of words not even the BIG BAD ones I had refered to....

so my advice is this if your going to suggest it be sure your ready for the flack that comes with that sugestion....

But maybe you will be ok on this , looks as though Im the only one here that gets flamed for Ideas or suggestions.....unless of corse I flame back

but when I do that Im no good either , damn this is confusing..
stick around you will see

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

The webmaster might consider moving this to a different forum, if it sprouts as many pages as the Jail thread.

Actually, there was a piece of SL marketing text somewhere that specifically said you could build a floating castle... though a cursory glance on my part failed to find it again.

Now I undestand what you are saying, but it isn't a "they intended" thing,, your coming from the "Seems to me" angle on this.. & that's cool, I take no exception to that, I got angles of my own. But there really is no preordained right or wrong way to go about this stuff (though your chosen path seems a helluva lot sounder than mine), if there was then they would have included it in the getting started docs. So as most of the content does, it comes down to us to build the world, which is really cool with me, but the taxation changes were a bad idea IMO. You seem to have come at this with an industrious mindset, which is going to be one of the ways the economy gets built, but it's still gonna be VERY slow coming without some artificial supply & demand mechanisims. This is a world where everyone can build, the clients you get are most likely from 3 catagories, 1 cant's figure out how to themselves, 2 to lazy to build it themselves, or 3 realy like your style,, and maybe those are a little to cut & dry, but there will always be extenuating circumstances

I've actually been thinking about the business on the side deal for a couple of weeks now, but I tend to be a socalist about these sorts of things (I e, I tend to build what folks want & give it to them, or front off with the textures instead of selling them) AND the contracting tends to bite into the time I get for building,, that's actually one of the reasons I'm not on the forums often,, it cuts into my time in SL.

I think I just lost the direction of my thread... Oh yeah,, but the mention you made of stipend allowing you to break even is the tell to me that Stipened & taxation need to be completely done away with, as they are just an annoying piece of irrellivant NFO that pops up once a week.

Crap,, I really gotta get to work,, I'll get back to this tonight ( I hate working 7 day weeks )

Sorry Riven, I just gazed over the Jail thread,, Fats almost made coffee shoot out my nose like a can of silly string, but I didn't really get to put my full attention to it... I will though,, it looks juicy. The fed pen Idea was really more of a joke than a serious suggestion from my caffiene ladden short on sleep brain.
Peep ya'll l8rz

Please keep on posting, Zoli. Your opinions are well thought out, intelligent, and nicely articulated. You're also absolutely hilarious. I'm choking on my java too here.


Kerstin

yeah, I can't say what Linden Labs intends cuz i dont' know ....I think if the ability to create floating castles is something they want people to do in the beginning then I agree...the taxation is a bit off..

You mention doing away with taxation entirely...although in theory it makes sense since I just break even....what happens when people start littering the land (more) and just making a mess of things....when they know they are getting taxed for it they tend to try to keep their crap together .....without tax I can see just a mess of stuff thrown all over the place....maybe it woulnd't happen that way.....

I think what the taxing is supposed to do is get money back into the pool...they don't want too much random money being thrown into the mix...then you get 200 dollar textures for sale and 1000 dollar swords....if everyones got a bunch of cash then the cost of things would go up...(it would seem anyway).

The tax situation may not be right at the moment but that's why we're testing...so keep talking and they'll keep listening to what we have to say.

Here's a question for you if you want....what do you think would happen if there were no taxes and no stipends? (rating bonus still there and voting stations still there.)

Thx Kerstin,, I'll do my best

Yeah Val,, & ya know,, that occoured to me as I was driving off 2day, & I was hard pressed to not turn around & come rethink that whole paragraph but I wanted to pay rent by the end of this month, so I decided to go ahead & goto work... hehe

I was thinkin' if we did do away with stipend & taxes, then we'd suddenly be looking for ways to MAKE money insted of waithing for payday to rol around. but for that to work, there has to be the artificial supply & demand thing I mentioned earlier..

I tend to recall AC during these sorts of thoughts not that they had so many different kinds of supply & demand, but that they had so many flavors of the same supply & demand.

Right now we can hang out & build & script & chat but other than building & scripting for others, we have no immediate way to make cash other than throwing & attending open houses & playing the lotto.

We have no monsters to beat up & take milk money from, we have no NPC vendors to buy the stuff we make, or find... there isn't even stuff to find.

It would help to strat building the economy if, for example, there was a box located on one of the sims that would pay you $15 for every primitive you dropped on it. To make it more interactive, you could have it only buy certain types of primitives, or give $20 for a specific primitive, you could make it less abstract by changin it from a box to a small shop with an dummy avatar inside. you could make it so that it only buys an object made from a certain combination of primitives... U get the idea here, there needs to be a way to make money immediately, without relying on another player wanting something from you. and it doesn't have to be a lot of money,,, I'm sure that folkz who want a lot of money will be more than happy to sit around & make an object , save it to inventory, & go sell sell sell, over & over for nights on end, and be happy about it.

We need to figure out something that not only allows folkz to readily make money, but also occupies their time in doing what they need to do to make the money.

There are tons of these things in stuff like AC & EQ, and that's why they have not only a game economy, but a sub economy maintained by the players themselves.

Anyways,, gotta take a look at the jail thread,, chew on this & tell me what ya think.

its definatly food for thought!

Right now it is difficult to make money...unless you script or build you are pretty much out of the loop...there are a couple things in place to help with that though...the voting stations....they are inconsistant but can work...(just depends on whether people see it and feel that your property warrants a vote.....if you don't even have property, you have the lotto like you said...(risky but fun ...there are also little treasures hidden throughout the world...(not sure if this still happens but i know they have been doing it in the past....looks like a couple of rings with a SL symbol in it...)...when you click on those you get anywhere from 100 i think to about 500 (highest i've seen if i recall correctly)....on top of that there are different player run events that offer cash prizes for things other than scripting and building ...

Right now you are correct though...the ways to make money are spread rather thin right now.....but SL is growing.....there was a huge influx of players this past weekend and more probably on the way....as the world grows and becomes 24/7 you will start to see more and more player run events with better organization....hell, there might even be Linden Ball leagues....the possibilites are nearly endless...the struggles we go through now will make the Game better in the long run....all the scripts-buildings-objects we create are going to open up areas for new entrepeneurs....(is that even close to the correct spelling?)...

as far as how you can make money to support your castle? well, player run events and the Wild West place are probably your two best options at the moment....or get lucky with the lotto

(Have you thought about renting out rooms? you have the space

In that tiny place ?????

Yah, renting is a good way to make money when you got a lot of land and aren't really using it. Of course, the way the tax system is set up now, its kinda a rip-off to the renter (shh, don't tell shebang)

BBC

Shoulda had me locked outta the forums, BBC <G>

I LOVE renting from you. I LOVE living on the fringe of that massive complex and being surrounded by so many awesome people. I plan on keeping my tower, thankyewverymuch =)

That being said, I have been getting the "wanna be a homeowner" itch. So I'm going to buy some land and build myself a summer home. Why shouldn't I have the best of both worlds in my 2nd life, hmmm?

Only this time I'm not going to let my house fly away from me! <G>

#!

Wel the towers are scheduled to be tennant housing, but the new taxes REALLY shot the crap outta that one.

The whole plan was Tenant housing in the 4 towers, Disco, meeting/public function rooms, 2 large studios, a gallery, some shops, a "Death Test" style dungeon on the bottom 2 floors (I haven't aded them yet) and a neat environment for games like hide & seek, Killer, Clue, etcetera

There are things I need for the Death Test to be cool,, like Sub object tools, so I can make truely organic looking opposition bots (monsters to kill) and extended hierarchy (sp?) chains to allow them to move & attack, and for the construction of the traps. and a good scripter that can create AI & character animation. but these will have to wait til they are doable, I guess.

and affordable for that matter, so I still think there needs to be some sort of artificial supply & demand system implimented, we really need a set of hoops to jump through to make money. even if it's somthing where we get $25 for every red lollypop we make & drop on a box, that's still a 5$ profitfor a sphere & a cylinder.

Actually, Zoli, I think we have the ability to create market demand the same as we create objects.

Because the economy is still emerging and the population at low, almost frontier levels, stimulating product demand takes extra effort.

In order to sell a product, we need to think of ways to convince consumers they need it.

Weapons sales will be stimulated by:
-tournaments
-duels
-shooting ranges
-fencing classes
-quests

Boats, planes, vehicle sales will be stimulated by:
-races
-driving school
-obstacle courses
-tours/cruises

Clothing & Accessories sales will be stimulated by:
-costume parties
-costume contests
-role-playing events
-event-related clothing (like Name That Tune t-shirts)

And the organzing and running of these events and services create a service industry that do not require building/script skills. The demand for marketing, organzing, operating services will become highly sought after as the marketplace becomes more competitive.

When you are not the only boatmaker or planemaker in town, how will you get your product to stand out? well if you are offering a free driving school for newbies, the chances they will buy your vehicle after the test-drive and instruction goes way up! But if you spend all your time at driving school, you will never design and build better models....so you hire someone to run the school.

In this example, you have created a job for someone, stimulated demand for your product, educated newbies and created an interactive experience in the game.

My own personal example of stimulating product demand, I leave out of this forum for discretions sake. But it seems to be successful as every day I see more and better "attachments"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OMG There's Dew all over my monitor!


#!

Didn't Rivn and I have a "bitch fest about this?" What the system may be off... (if you want my opinion and Rivns just find the bitch fest post )It's beta they will tweak, but the reason for the taxes, as mentioned above, is to prevent ppl from spawning a whole bunch of crap.

P.S. there is no supply because there is not really any demand. Everybody can build anything they want... but the only demand I can think of are guns...

Well Bel,, that's a optimistic outlook,, and your reasoning supports it nicely. I'm glad U posted this.

It also makes me realize that I'm formulating my opinions & convictions within an "established gameworld" paradigm when , to paraphrase, it really is a frontier environment.

I suddenly feel compelled to consider the possibility I've gotten a bit spoiled by the technology of the gamedev industry and it's ability to throw programmers & artists at the project armed with softs like Max & Maya (and whatever programs those demon codewarriors use) and game engines that are ready to accept the digital assets generated therewith.

I gotta chew on your post a bit more before digesting it.

Nexus.. Yeah I think we established that earlier..but thx for reiterating it in no uncertain terms