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I'd like to discuss a little idea I had to address a few of the social/economical problems facing new players in SL.

As most of us seem to agree, Camping Chairs are at the same time:

* a problem, because they are a passive way to "experience" SL, so they don't contribute much to the community
* a boon, because they offer a 0-skill "job" for new players, ideally giving them the chance to start learning in-world skills and hopefully allowing them a chance to become a "productive" member of SL.

My proposal is to create a socially acceptable alternative to camping chairs, mantaining the elements of Money Trees (i.e. limited to "young" avatars, requiring active partecipation) and adding a specific, ideally "useful" activity: exploring SL.

What I have in mind is a very simple vehicle (I personally like the magic carpet given away fo r free by Cubey Terra, especially because it's slow and very easy to maneouver around) with a script which constantly checks if the vehicle is moving around. As long as the vehicle is moving, the driver money total goes up.

Some specific events (like crossing the sim border, or leaving the vehicle) would pay the amount and reinitialize the sum.

Abandoned vehicles will derez on their own after a specified time or accept a new driver... money will be doled out only to avatars less than X days old though...

Who will pay for this (i.e. provide the money for the vehicles)?

1) Goodwill Sponsors
Just like money trees. Apart from abandoned vehicles you may find left around (before they derezzing timeout), the place to get one will be at some specific location, which will include a sort of tipjar for anyone to donate to.

2) Commercial Sponsors
As seen above, the vehicles would be available ar specified "hubs". These may include advertising spaces so that anyone getting a vehicle would get a notecard, or be exposed to some other kind of advertising.
Depending on the specific design, some advertising could be added to the body of the vehicle itself.

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If the community finds the idea worthwile, I could try to make some constructive effort towards putting it in place. Not being a scripter myself, I can contribute mostly a bit of coordination, time to test the result and some RL money to finance it.

Anyone who wants to contribute work, money or ideas is welcome. For a start, see how many holes you can find in the idea itself, i.e. discuss the project away (hopefully in this form, or wherever the resmods think it would be more appopriate).

Pamar,

I think promoting exploring to new players has merit but am not sure if "paid to fly about" is the right way to do it.

Maybe if you better define the behaviours and skills you are trying to promote and then if the reward was more closely tied to it.

Hmmmm, maybe something like a scavenger hunt: groups of established players getting together, leaving clues (notes or objects)... This would encourage noobies to explore the grid, perhaps learn some things about their screen and tools (how to use the camera control, how to change the light, how to take a screen shot, how to use the map, etc). For each clue solved, a little reward: some linden, an exclusive freebie, etc.

Don't know if such a thing would eliminate camp chairs (as my personal feeling is that campers are not new-borns) but it might be a fun project for both established players and newcomers.

(One of my most delightful afternoons in SL was going on a scavenger hunt through the elven lands [forgive me for not correctly remembering the sim names]. I was exposed to beautiful builds and sights and sounds I would never have stumbled upon otherwise.)

I am trying to promote exploration, hoping that this would make new players more curious about what SL has to offer.

So yes, you got it right: "paid to fly about".

One of the reasons I proposed to pay people when they leave the vehicle is to encourage them to disembark and either chat or explore buildings on foot.

I understand that this may seem "wrong" but considering that new players want money, and the two classic way to earn it (camping chairs and money trees) encourage "stationary" behaviour, I think this would be a step in the right direction.

It surely beats "paid to stay near a tree" or "paid to install an utility and camp while the player sleeps", at least to me.

What if, instead of being paid to fly about, new residents were given a list of places they could explore that included a good free item to be found at each place?

I think new people are unsure what to do, in many cases. This would give them a task to get them started, then I hope they would be able to find their niche after that.

Free items could perhaps be exchanged after a bit for X off that creator's products. So the free item would be similar to a coupon. If the new resident liked shirt X or vehicle Y s/he could use the freebie made by that creator to get some Lindens off.

Does that make any sense? It may not since I just thought of it 2 seconds ago.

The free items could be anywhere - not necessarily in the creator's shop. For instance, Fabulous Build A might give away a free outfit in conjunction with clothier B. Fabulous Build A gets explored right away. Clothier B might benefit down the line.

Interesting idea.

Waypoints would be kind of important to prevent it from being gamed - but possible to set such up I suppose.

Maybe direct sponsorship as well? Such as: see someone really trying to 'make a go of it' in business, sharing some land or funds and some advice, and maybe (just maybe!) your seed money will come back to you. I was given that chance, back in the day.

Whatever efforts are made, by whatever means or plan, odds are it will be appreciated.

The idea is interesting to me and I thought of a half dozen ways that it could be scripted, potentially. (I do tend to do this whenever a project is mentioned anyway, even if it's not something I'd be interested in.)

However, some issues:

1. Most things in SL are a long way apart from each other and reached by teleport. Visiting different builds doesn't necessarily mean travelling much physical distance. A vehicle wouldn't solve this; you can't expect people to just fly around, that's not how SL works in practice, and it would mean that all island builds would be excluded. An attachment which measured distance travelled by global co-ordinates, perhaps, but that's easily gamed by teleporting repeatedly around different map points. There'd have to be a pretty careful algorithm to make sure that someone stayed in a place for a certain length of time, which wasn't just based on frequency... and then who's to say that someone who TPs to the other side of the grid to get somewhere should get more than someone who goes to the next sim to explore?

2. Who's going to fund it? Why? It can't be used as an advertising gimmick if it's going to have any credibility, it won't improve dwell or Find, and people are jealous of their L$.

1) Waypoints. Not sure they are needed... the vehicle would dispense money to new avatars only, and considering you'd need to actually drive it, and that the money would not be much better than camping chairs... you have two choices "gaming it" by flying in circles (and get bored for a a bit of change) or fly somewhere... you still get the money, and you have the chance of seeing something. What would a normal human being do, considering that the reward is too small to repay you from boredom?

2) Not sure I understand what you mean with the second point... is it related with the "camping vehicle"?

I know that nobody flies around much anymore since the end of telehubs... but this is for new players only, so they shouldn't have many preconcepts about how things are supposed to work in here.

About the distance traveled... it's not a question of distance, more about how long you use it (it pays every X minutes, like camping chairs) as long as you move while on it (or wearing it if you prefer)... so distance is measured only to verify the avatar is moving around.

I think the best combination would be "money accumulates based on time you spend flying, and you get paid whenever you get out the vehicle (so chatting/looking inside vehicles is not penalized) and when you cross a sim border (if this is technically feasible in a script) - so the risk of losing money in case of mishap is mitigated and the player gets some sort of "prize" for moving around.

At worst I'd add some limit to the altitude the vehicle can reach... so you have to actually pilot it instead of going up to 1000m, say, and set it straight on while going AFK (which is what I'm trying to avoid in the first place).

About gaming... see above. If someone is capable to purposedly walk/fly in circles for 1 hour for what would amount to 60L$ (let's imagine I set it to pay 5$ x 5mins) instead of try to at least look at something different, so be it...
If we suspect there are hordes of mythical 3rd world people farming this too... we can always stop it...

Ok, Islands are excluded... I suppose the main grid, while thematically less cohesive, still is enough for a new player during his/her first month in here (I did mention it will work for new players only...)

Funding: see OP... Money trees do generate Dwell, but I doubt it's significant... and will go away anyway. THis is the same concept... more about community than making a buck... and I did outline sponsorship/publicity as a possible subsidy.

How complex would this be to do on as a small scale experiment?

I suppose it needs:
1) a scripter/Vehicle builder
2) a plot of land (512 m would do) to set the first hub up after testing the device (I think it would be better not to start with more than 3-4 vehicles)
3) some in-game publicity with greeters, and in the FIND listing
4) Money to dole out to users...

I think I can offer something for 2 and 4, and I could obviously volunteer for testing...

Anything else?

The idea is novel: to be paid to explore. In a general way, I like it.

Putting it in a vehicle is--as others have said--too restrictive. Needs to be an attachment or measured in some other way.

Collecting things is interesting.

Maybe taking snapshots would be interesting. Tie it into Snapzilla somehow.

Maybe players should have to write a trip report or rate/review the places they see.

Would be awesome if there was some way to tie it together in a website with pictures, reviews, slurls, etc. It's really hard to find neat places in SL, though it's hard to imagine that new players would be very good at it.

Gaming is a problem.

I don't know. I see lots of problems with it, but it has tremendous potential at the same time. Without a doubt, this is the best low-skilled "job" idea that I've seen.

1) About the attachment vs. vehicle. I proposed a vehicle for 2 reasons. Ability to add sponsor names/logos to the body (to help subsidy the venture) and because it seemed to be easier to make the vehicle autoreturn to base in case the user loses it, or logs off etc.
It also has more visual impact that having an attachment somewhere on yourself, and maybe it's easier to understand for a new player.
If an attachment has overwhelming advantages in terms of usability, sponsorship chances or just easier to implement... so be it.

2) The "treasure hunt" idea I don't like much because it requires having a large number of other people to consent to host some kind of token dispenser on their land. If the original idea proves useful and popular, I am sure it will be easier to convince shopowners or even regular citizens to put some kind of token vendor/dispenser on their land. At the start, I'd prefer a self contained solution: just 1 place where to get your vehicle (or attachment) so that if nobody else steps up to the plate I can do it myself.

3) The picture taking/notecard scripting... again, this would require someone to either collect the pictures or the notecards. I favour an automated and self-contained solution as explained at point 2... otherwise I (or anyone else) should devote their online time to collect things, pay people, explain why something is or is not acceptable etc.

4) Snapzilla/the site... seems a trifle too complex to do this as a first step... once again, let's make a simple, low-maintenance solution first (i.e. something where you just need to plonk down money at a sort of tip-jar and occasionally rotate sponsor placards if this is feasible), observe if:
a) it works reasonably well
b) people contribute money and/or ask for a copy of the hub for themselves
c) anyone is gaming it heavily

and then we can try more ambitious variations on the same theme.

Instead of a vehicle, you could use an attachment like they do at Numbakulla that records where you went and how long you were there. Every Tuesday for X amount of weeks, L$ are paid for nbr of places visited.

I'll check into that, thanks!

About vehicles, I just don't like vehicles for exploring, I guess.

I much prefer a flight enhancement script in an attachment. Vehicles are less intuitive to control than the avatar. If you see something you want to explore, then you have to get out of the vehicle, take it into inventory or delete it. Then, go do your exploring. Then, rez it again or go find it to start again. It just seems very awkward and invasive to the experience of exploring for me personally and I don't want to force that on noobs.

But I guess lots of people reallly do like to explore in vehicles, so maybe two different solutions could be offered and the person could choose the one they like. It'd be an interesting experiment to see how many people preferred the attachment vs the vehicle.