What about the poor people with no talent?

Cherry, why not host your roleplaying events on my premises and receive Chung support?

With 30 attendants as you describe it you would have received 750 L$ in Chung support as compared to 300 L$ you were able collect in cover charges.

Joan River's daughter has no talent. What about her?

Reading this thread made me lower my tier at once
and will try to convince my group mates too (W the lifers lol)

No, Anshe, I am not selling land for that
I live in a deanshechungized sim lol

What was it Judge Smails said, "Well, the world needs ditch diggers too." We live in a world of have's and have-nots. One of the things I like most about this world is that if you want to do something, you can do it. It does take work, it does take thinking and it does take money but you can do it. There are schools and groups for just about anything you could want to do here. There are plenty of places you can earn money for doing little more than hanging out or sitting in a chair. Sure, it may be paltry but if you have a plan you can come up with a timetable for getting things done.

I'm not lumping you in this category but I've long been tired of whiners who amble around and do nothing but complain about how they never have any money. AN YONE can do well here! Sit down and figure out how you are going to make x amount of dollars needed to buy property or build something or collaborate with someone on something. Once you have a clear goal you'll find reaching it is not all that hard.

The have not's are those without the capacity or desire to make something of themselves. The fact that you posted this message tells me you have the desire and seek guidance. My point is that you need to work within your environment and that you are the only one that can help yourself. The Lindens should not alter their models based on people in your situation.

The goods for sale which you "love to buy" apparently have value to you, viz. the value of participating in the fun and social side of SL and not going around dressed in standard free Linden clothing.


Virtual or not, the goods nonetheless seem to have some measure of value to you.


If the virtual object being purchased has value to the buyer, then that buyer is not throwing it away.


If that's true, then you're "throwing away" only worthless virtual currency on things which apparently have value to you.
Receiving something you value in exchange for something you consider worthless sounds like a good deal to me.


If you regard L$ as worthless virtual currency, then any greed for it is equally worthless. Perhaps a cause for astonishment, though if I felt that way, I would ignore worthless desire of worthless gain as unworthy of my consideration.

I understand where you're coming from esmay, really I do... but I have to say that were it not for the ability to make real money here I could never devote the time necessary to do what I do in SL. I'm a self employed artist. In an average week between working on new skins and other products, maintaining my stores, and providing ongoing service to the people who buy my things (skins in particular) I can easily spend 20-40 hours, not counting time spent socializing and relaxing. In fact I rarely have time to just socialize and relax anymore. I enjoy doing the things I do, don't get me wrong, but if I'm going to spend that much time doing what is truly work (no matter how much I enjoy doing it) I don't just want to be compensated for it, I need to be compensated for it... or else I have to devote that time to other real life paid work. As much as I like to think of myself as a generous and altruistic person, altruism alone doesn't pay my bills.

She buys her L$'s.

and if she can't afford to spend RL money, surely Simon Oz will buy $L for her .

Vestalia, you didn't understand a thing about what i said Virtual stuff have a value in Vl, not in rl. Virtual stuff has to be paid in virtual money. If i pay you good money i don't want just a virtual dress, i want the real one,lol.

And Chip, I value you a lot and think you really are a generous person. Just how many $L milion do you have to make to pay your bills in rl? I surely hope it does help you, that would be good. what i find discriminating and unfair is that users are somehow forced to buy $L to be able to "live" in Sl.

What some arrogant and selfish people seem to forget in this new rush for gold era is that real money, thoso you buy your bread and butter and everything else with, don't grow on trees and one has to work hard to earn it. Are those people to be discriminated in Sl? Can't they enjoy the same fun as others?

Maybe it would be a good idea to create a separete business oriented Sl, so people that want to invest a lot of rl money can do that at will and leave Sl the fun and relatively cheap place it used to be.
A new Far West would hardly be welcome...

Well, yeah. SL is a complete luxury item. If you can't justify buying L$'s, and you can't justify a premium account, then stay away from the expensive items. You can have loads of fun in SL without spending a dime past the $9.95 for a basic account.

What does everybody need all these fountains of fake moeny for exactly anyway? I can't count all the free stuff I've gotten just for hanging around and shooting the sh*t. I think the fact that you can convert Lindens to real dollars has clouded people's judgement.

that is exactly the reason why Lindens should NOT be converted to real money
Maybe you're rich enough to be able to throw money away without thinking twice about that. good for you. just please don't come here and throw that on people's face. Some do have some troubles getting to the end of the month and though they should be allowed to FULLY partecipate to Sl has their creativity might be much better than mine (definitely) or yours (i don't know about you of course, so couldn't say what your creativity is).

esmay - in a game where players create content, why should i as a player give my hard work away for free to "the poor people with no talent?"

admittedly, at the moment i do in fact give away most of the stuff i've made for free, but i should not feel compelled to just because other players want it.

No offense but your logic is as one-sided as what you are railing against. If my motivation for being here is to make money (regardless of my means) then I should be able to A)make money and B)let people know how filthy rich I am. I'm not but I hope to be one day and when I am, my enjoyment will include flaunting it. That may make me an a-hole but it's my choice. There is no reason for me to curb my enthusiasm just becasue there are people out there who, for whatever reason, have no money.

I would turn it around and say that I'm tired of so-called 'poor' people throwing it my face about how poor and unskilled they are. If 'some' have trouble getting to the end of the month then maybe some should reconsider broadband Internet. Or spend some of the time they do here, somewhere else trying to make money or better themselves.

Haaaaaa

What about the entire "teenage" cast of The OC?

Are there no workshops? Are there no prisons? Are there no poorhouses? They had better go there then!

(E. Scrooge)

Heh heh heh

I used to play this game called TSO where, if you had time, you could sit and click all day and make tons of money. The most successful people were the ones who could sit in front of their computer and click. For those of us who had real jobs and real life demands, we could only scrap at the bottom of the barrell.

What I love about SL is that I can take my RL money and enjoy my VR/SL life even more.

Now you are talking about creating a separate place for people who don't want to invest creative work or real life dollars into SL. That sounds like you want to create a "virtual ghetto", or am I missing the finer points of your suggestion?

April, I work all day away from home, when I get back home in the evening I have things to do there. when at last i'm done with everything I would like to spend a couple of hours RELAXING and having fun with friends and not being forced to start another job or to be creative. I do work long hours to get the money to live in RL, please spare me the need to work other hours to live in Sl !!.
That doesn't mean i do nothing there, BUT one thing is scripting for fun and one is scripting out of necessity.
Not everyone has a lot of time or energies left to be hyperactive in Sl too. Many people feel like me I think.
Though I do understand there are people that might like to get some money from their virtual experience too. There is nothing wrong in that, but I feel that doing that in Sl as it used to be (and still is I don't know for how long) will force many people to leave or be unhappy.
So the idea to have a separate business oriented Sl might be a solution not to spoil the game as it is and still give business people a chance to sell their products for real money.

Personally, as I am there to have fun and relax as i said, I would not want people to spend real money for what i made and sell. $L are fine, if they don't cost a thing

arrogance deserves no comment

But can't you already do that in SL without segragation? I don't really understand the problem. There are tons of free stuff. But if I want to pay more $ for what I want, why should I be made to feel guilty and why should people who I am willing to pay be made to feel guilty? This isn't Communism.

A neighbor of mine recently paid real money for photorealistic add-on scenery of Manhattan for his copy of Flight Simulator. Because he can not now evict 8 million RL people from his own private island, should he have contested paying his $29.99 USD?
Last week. I paid real money to watch the movie Casablanca. Because I didn’t actually sit in a bar being romanced by Humphrey Bogart, should I have paid for the rental with stage money instead of USD?
What we valued when we paid our USD was not connected to some insular context of the content.


I don’t understand how something being virtual or not affects anything.

When we buy something, we pay for what we *value* in the purchase. If you didn’t value wearing a nice dress in SL, then you wouldn’t think to want one. If you think the money you spend for an SL dresses should include a real one to make it worth the expense, then clearly you shouldn’t purchase SL dresses.
But if you want the SL dress to heighten your game experience, if you value it, then I don’t understand why you question that you should pay for it.


Again, if you value that object, then it’s not throwing money away.

You’re very correct – real money is hard enough to earn. Consider what that really means.
Barring those living from inheritances, parental support, etc., most earn money through some equation of time-expended and result-produced.
If I spend the time and produce the result at my job, and my employer accepts the work I did, then I expect to be paid for it. If I don’t get paid, I won’t do the work unless I’ve volunteered otherwise. We exchange a thing of value -- my work -- for another thing of value -- my pay.

Is this then somehow different? --

Here’s a person who spends the time to produce a result, and if you find value in it, expects to trade that result for compensation. If you don’t value the work, don’t buy it. If you don’t value it enough for what it would cost you, don’t buy it.


Does the hard work you endure to earn money override the work of those who produce the things you desire?
How is it that your work is worthy of compensation, but the work of others not?
And are the people who create the things you want to own therefore to be discriminated against in SL? Can’t they enjoy the same right to compensation for their efforts as others?

What some people seem to forget in this rush to not spend gold is that the things we value normally do not grow on trees, and someone needed to work hard to produce them. Either we respect what we gain from them, or we are thieves.

If you value the things you want to own, then a statement like….

….means that you want to pay people for something you value with something which is objectively worthless.
Would you accept such terms from the people who pay you your hard earned dollars?


That is simply a rude question. Chip's RL expenses are none of your affair.


The two can and do co-exist. You cited an example in your other post of having produced script which you don’t expect people to pay real money for, and I applaud your actions following your convictions. There are many in SL who do as much -- I have a large and fine collection of freebee clothes and objects, and I dearly thank those who voluntarily produced them.

But I see no evidence that people producing free work are constrained by the presence of those who do not. I see no good ethic in any insistence that those who produce must work free for my pleasure.

Thank you Vestalia, you said what I wanted to say but in a much better way.

guilty? no you don't have to feel guilty. There is nothing wrong in trying go gain some real $ from the net. and fortunately i have enough $L to survive till Sl or GOM die. Just look at it this way.... if i don't get a good "free" salary in Sl to be able to buy virtual stuff i may like ( free stuff as you well know is ... well often poor) I would be forced to start a job there or spend more Rl money to afford it. Both alternatives at present are not what i consider fun and relax. Fortunately, just as a personal situation, I have enough to survive.
But that doesn't apply to many people already playing there or newbies. They would be forced to throw further resources in Sl to keep up and enjoy and that is not only unfair, in my opinion, but also dangerous to Sl itself. Fun and GOM are incompatible. When it comes to money people lose their mind often. So what i feel, from previous experiences, is that either GOM will kill Sl, or Sl will kill GOM. The former being the most possible outcome.
I do like Sl, I do like the creativity people put in it, the amazing things they were able to build. Money kills fantasy, particularly real money. So i feel angry about this turn things are taking and will do whatever i can to prevent it from happening - very little indeed i fear.
I repeat, just to be clear, wealth is not a crime. I don't mind if there are people that like to have huge amounts of $L. just what good or what merit is there if they just bought their wealth? There is no creativity involved in that, just money transactions. They do not contribute to the growth of Sl. Selling $L for real money was and is a big mistake. Different, and more difficult of course, would be creating wealth through competition, by making newer and better stuff people would want to buy (with $L i mean). Or one might decide to sell his/her own stuff Rl, nothing bad about that. If the stuff is good, people might want to buy it for a few $ (already happens elsewhere), without fuss, without GOM and without spoiling the fun of those that - for any reasons - can't afford to spend more real money.

when ever did i say that?? I do sell my stuff in Sl and feel no guilt for that. But I do sell as long as peope get a salary and don't have to invest real money to buy something that I made for fun. And that is my personal position and don't ask anyone to share it.

What i am definitely against is buying $L for real $. If you decide to sell for $L, fine. If you decide to dell for real $ fine too. If your stuff is good enough (as i think) surely people will want to spend a few $ to buy it. But that is it. Rl stay real and $L stay virtual. It is the only way to have Sl survive and grow. Otherwise it will sonn become just one big shopping mall. Is that what you would like?

I see a number of communication difficulties here as a result of OR approaches as opposed to AND approaches. Can we have more nods to checkboxes, as opposed to radio buttons? (Thanks, Dave. )

And don't forget: social skills are certainly a talent too. Heck, SL is a social community. At least, that's what Spider says... and I trust him.

Oh dear. Good thing I can script a bit.

Okay, I'm confused. What's the difference between selling something for $ and buying $L for $? If I buy say a bunch of houses for $ and then sell them for $L, isn't that the same thing?

What exactly do you want to happen? That no one sells anything expensive, no one sells anything, or no one sells $L? If you look at GOM, IGE, eBay and the Land Auctions, you will see a lot of $L selling for $. This is an integral part of SL. If you want to change something so integral, I think you will find a lot of people, myself included, will leave.

Not trying to sound harsh and please forgive me if it does sound harsh. But instead of trying to change the basic principle of a game, it might be better to try a game that has that principle already built in. I came to SL because I wanted to create and enjoy other people's creations. I paid $L5000 for Chip's skin because to me it was money well spent.I have friends who use the basic SL skin and are fine with it, but this was my choice. I am glad to have this choice and I don't wish to have it taken away.