What about the poor people with no talent?

I've always socialized fine with you. Which is a really odd thing to say, coming from one Aspie to another... LOL!!!

Yef, well, you socialize well with everyone, so I'm not sure I can attribute any of that success to me.

GOM in NOT - fortunately - an integral part of SL. Not that i emember. It was something somehow recently. It was the way some people BOUGHT their huge fortunes in Sl, and it is the something that is spoiling day by day the game. I will always fight against that. and being a lifer you are not getting rid of me so easily

Your freedom of buying with real money would be granted. You can pay paypal !!
Are people afraid to face the challenge and sell their stuff for $ rather than for $L?
Good stuff would sell of course (as it is in other places). You just simply set the $ price rather than the $L. So easy, so clear, so honest.
On the other hand those that still want to sell and buy "in game" use $L being sure that that would not be a subtle way to steal more money from their pockets and to give realmoney to those they don't want to give to.
Very simple., very easy, very clear, very honest.

Actually I'm not depriving you of your freedom of chioce, you are depriving me from mine.
What you are depriving me is of the chance of FULLY enjoying the game without spending more rl money. that is the discrimination and the free choice they are taking away from us. And don't talk to me about free stuff - i'm nt an idiot. Though I saw some free stuf sold for $L too. You nenver know where the greed of people ends.

-----
I guess that Vestalia when she goes to the movie, is happy to pay the entrance ticket, then a further ticket for her seat and lastly a further one to be able to actually watch the movie. Maybe she still keeps her nice smile one her face and thinks that is fair anyway.

And her friend not only bought the scenario, but also had to pay for the chance to install in on his puter and further he had to pay to be able to actually see it.

Maybe Vestalia is happy with that and thinks it rocks.

i'm not going to bother you people anylonger about the subject, i promise. The scenario i would like to see in Sl, given the current prices would be:

a basic salary of at least 2000 $L a week even for basic accounts;
a weekly bonus tied to the time one spends in Sl and the contribution he/she gives to Sl life.

Given that, you can convert your $l to $ whenever you like

Why not make that $5000 ? And a car ? And some free land ?
Oh, and a couch, where you can rest your lazy ass ?

Dudes, are y'all joking, yes?

We are talking about spending real money for attachments that tend to disappear at each teleport, planes that cannot fly over sim borders without crashing, scripts that we all hope will survive the next patch (and you Raphael should remember this very well!), skins and dresses that take a hour to rezz and if there are more than 10 ppl around they prolly won't rezz at all, games that are unplayable if there is some ppl to play with due to lag...

I have been in SL for over one year (since November 2003) and never saw 1 problem fixed by Lindens. They just are proud SL is huge now (and probably their incomes too), but problems are exactly the same as more than one year ago, maybe worse. I can only become sad seeing all these efforts of scripters, builders and real artists wasted in such a crap.
Are we really happy with that? and does it worth invest real $ in that? I think instead I could use my real $ to <CENSORED>

Sorry for my bad english.

Wow, sorry you guys are having such a miserable time. I'm having so much fun I want to do what I want to do with my RL $. I don't get it.

Since LL pays the bandwidth bill and servers to store your creations, people who don't log in often and don't create anything should get bigger bonus, right?

I want my Sl to "Retired" I do not want to be hounded to spend all my off time working to help them make there SL. I have the skills to sell things in SL I chose not to. That takes my time too. (I will say that is they way to do it. Work for yourself.) I have a pile of L$ I have made and payed for @ GOM. So don't tell me to go to GOM Been there done that!

I do not like to go to clubs! That is my choise. I did go "When L Labs payed us to play the game" I went and I did enjoy them. (and the extra L$) Now I do not go to them anymore. That is my choise.

Rating people was sort of a job. It was a job you could do when you wanted to ie working for yourself! I will not get out as much in SL is that the best thing for SL?

I can empathize with most points of view expressed in this thread, so I'm not arguing with anyone... just throwing in my two cents, based on how I play SL.

I'm not an expert on anything... I play with building and textures (forget scripting) but I'll never win any prizes for anything I make in SL. I'm appreciative of the $500 stipend, although when I want something expensive I use GOM. Anything I spend there I chalk up to RL "entertainment" costs.

If the day ever comes where how much I "earn" in SL or how much I "lose" takes on any real life importance, that's the day I'll quit playing. This is my favorite entertainment and it doesn't bother me to spend a little money on it from time to time.

This would lead to massive inflation.

At the current exchange rate, Linden would be paying you $8 US a week just for showing up, and you would be free to take it to GOM and cash it back out. Since there would be more people looking to cash in their free Lindens (for free real life money) than people buying them, the exchange rate would change, and Lindens would be worth fewer USD.

Any prices that are tied to the exchange rate (i.e. from people who are trying to earn real money for their creations) will go up correspondingly, and sooner or later, everyone else will have to raise their prices too, so they can buy things they want to buy. Linden doesn't set the prices for good from independent creators, so this is beyond their control. The end result would be that things that cost $50L now would end up costing around $2000L.

If you want $2000L a week to play, you can easily get them on GOM, and play for a little over $30 a month. That's a little pricey, but that's because $2000L buys quite a bit of stuff in-game.

I was going to say - I've always found Jillian perfectly sociable! Even before I knew she was a fellow Aspie.

And this is tonight news: market disappeared, the guy [not saying the name for now] said "the land being sold apparently i dont entirely know myself"... And that guy was the guy that rented all stalls! GREAT. And all those rented stalls (mine among them)? How we are protected? Should I search for an in-world lawyer? Perry Mason perhaps? That studied at Cartoonia University? Pah-leeeeeeeze!
Real money need real warranties and SL asks for the first, but gives none of the seconds.
Not trying to change anyone's heart of course, but when something will go wrong don't cry.. LMAO

Here, here, huzzah and I second this motion.

[rant]
Y'know its fine that people dont want to create content, or gadgets or gizmos or clubs or events and they just want to go and enjoy the content of other peopls making. Seriously, I am fine with that. I am however, not fine, with rewarding you for doing nothing.
If I spend countless hours tweaking shaping and building some amazing thing, and you cry because you cant afford it, maybe you should think about doing something to EARN your stuff in world.
this is what you get when you pay for SL
a. the grid
b. maintenance
and
c. customer service.

Notice how nowhere in there did it say: "free stuff from people who worked their butts off".
You might also be suprised to find out how many people are out there working their butts off, with no reward, and no compensation, just to provide other people in Second Life with a better environment. People make clothes, objects scripts, games, clubs, events and all sorts of other things that involve actual EFFORT just to make other people happy, because they are generous and giving people.
So... until YOU have contirbuted something to the community besides lag, kindly shut up and collect your allowance as it is.
[/rant]

Your humble servant,
-Spider Mandala

Arrogant yes, but it is ignorance that does not see the point I was making. If someone wants to be retired, lazy, unemployed, great for them. But, don't expect the society to adjust down to your level. That is the epitome of arrogance.

I am in fact the opposite of lazy. I make more $L, most likely, than the average builder. My only problem is that now the game I liked to play, one chock full of events and fun, is becoming the land of the three clubs who can afford to host events. Also, I am not paid as much to host events. In other words, I got a wage cut so someone else could make more money. That seems less than fair to me. The fact that the *consumer* for my content was asked to make a huge paradigm shift with no programs for bridging is a contributing problem. The issue is not as simple as saying get a job to those too lazy to work. Some of us work plenty. We just make less or no money now for our efforts.

Perseph -- I don't think anyone can argue that there was no "bridging" event to smooth the transition. But I don't think anyone can really predict whether it would have been better/less painful to make a quick change and let people adjust, or do small events which constantly cause renewed strife within the community. Kind of like taking off a band-aid.

That said, I don't get the "wage cut so someone else makes more money bit". Who's making more money? If you are talking about the tutorial events, how can you begrudge LL trying to incentivize people teaching other people so that MORE people become self-sufficient?

If you are talking about other people making more money, I am not sure who you are referring to. No one is getting a new subsidy, at least not that I see.

It is now harder for the non-creating player to make more money to buy stuff. True. As I've said before, if LL doesn't like how these latest changes affect SL and evolve the community, there is no doubt they will make more changes to try to fix the situation. But I do think that GOM is a wonderful thing and there is no shame in using it to get more enjoyment out of SL. My thoughts on that are in this thread:
/130/8c/32623/6.html#post377920

Persephone, the problem you mention - less clubs, less malls, less employment - is a consequence of an adaptation of the whole of SL to the "new economy", which reflects reality and not a hyped-up economy.

Under the previous model, since LL finantially supported contest events, you had too many clubs/malls/employment, since this support was "artificial". We shouldn't forget that we're just a small town with about 17,000 inhabitants. And 1000 clubs and malls and casinos. Now there is simply no way to support them all with such a small resident base. People didn't care because the support from LL managed them to attract a few residents and make a profit, even if their club/malls were empty due to lack of resident population. But the events were a way to stimulate artificially an economy (and since clubs/malls need nuilding/scripting, this also meant no unemployment for builders and scripters).

The current economic structure is now much more adjusted to "reality". As an example of RL, I live (IRL) in a village with a population of about 18,000 (very near to what SL has). It's a touristic village by the sea, so, there is perhaps a slightly larger-than-usual ratio of clubs and restaurants and hotels. I think there are not more than a dozen of those. I remember 3 very small shopping malls (less than 50 shops). A few supermarkets, and one or two "attractions" (like a casino!), and that's all. Compare that to SL, where you had perhaps 1000 clubs, malls and casinos! There is no way SL could handle them all...

Like you said, the current model is now reflecting the weakness of an artificially subsided economy. Suddenly, there is no way that we can have 1000 clubs, all of them making money. Instead, there are just a few around who "struggle to survive". Suddenly, malls are closing - people prefer to shop online at SL Exchange or SecondServer anyway (and merchants prefer to pay a small comission on sales instead of renting floor space, since mall owners aren't really into events for atrracting people any more). Of course, a few big malls are still around and most probably will still be - because they generated enough income without stipends.

Conversely, the owners of business enterprises who do survive are less generous with their spending. When they want to change their buildings (or scripts), they will now hire only the best builders/scripters, and negotiate the price to a lower value, since most builders/scripters are unemployed right now. Less quality will slowly have no place in SL, except for freebies. The few things remaining in SL will be the high-quality stuff. After all, since money is now much harder to get, when you want a product/service, you're going to spend it wisely, and try to get the most for your money. Whereas previously you would afford to buy everything, give/throw away the items that you didn't like, and keep just the ones that worked well for you. Again, this was encouraging low quality creative content to exist. Now the reverse is true!

Let's face it. The subsidy-dependent economy is over. This is the New Economy, and it's much tougher to struggle along it. People have to become much more creative in advertising their products/services, and have to increase quality in their products to be able to successfully market them. If this was LL's idea from the beginning, it's working, and I can very well understand them (yes, even if that means that I have to give away all my low-quality stuff and concentrate on just a very few items that still sell...)

Clarity is a wonderful thing, so thanks. No I am not talking about the LL tutorial events (in fact, I hustled to become approved to teach two tutorials, and consider it money well earned). In fact, I mean that the case was made, with no hard documentation presented to the public, that the dropping worth of the $L meant that we needed to take more money out of the system and who we had to take it from was one specific group: those who make money from rates, and those who make money from events (arguably part of the same social group). This idea meant that the value of the gaming experience for those who sell $L and who care about a strong $L was prioritized above the gaming experience of those who took a pay cut to stabilize the $L. I used to make a minimum of $250 per event. Now I make a maximum, doing the same event types for the same places, of $200 per event. In most places it is more like $100-150.

Therefore, the strong $L has been paid for by players like me. We do not, however, see the benefit of this as we are more likely to need to buy $L than to sell it due to the way we made $L in the first place. Am I being more clear, now? I do hope so. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

Now I wonder if you might clarify for me what you mean by "or do small events which constantly cause renewed strife within the community?" I do not understand what events have caused strife. I certainly believe that talking to an exceptionally affected group before they are affected is always strong governmental policy. I note that the Lindens are doing just this before making any changes to scripting capabilities in SL this time around. Could the same thing not have been done with events hosts and social players?

People predicted that marvellous things would come of this change from the increased high quality events to lower costs at the vendors. So far, I have yet to see a single positive to this change that has materialized. Or if it is positive, it has not been positive for me. Has anyone seen a benefit to this other than selling $L for more $US?

Thanks Persephone.

First, most importantly, let me clarify for your question. When I wrote about small events, I should not have used that word "events" -- too confusing. I meant that LL could either take one big action and remove the subsidies in one fell swoop, or they could take little steps and try to get to the same end point over time. I wasn't referring to in world events at all. When I said "cause strife" I meant that each time they took something little away, it was going to cause pain in the community. So is it better to have one big pain and heal from it, or lots of little pains over time.

Kind of. Money that you were expecting is no longer coming, but you aren't actually paying for it, i.e. LL removed subsidies but isn't charging you more.



I can't really disagree with you here, although I do believe that inflation was going to hurt more than those who sell $L. I believe that reducing subsidies will provide benefits for the entire community.

But I could be wrong. It is too soon to pass judgement on how the economy and culture has been effected. It will really depend on how members evaluate what they deserve for their basic fee, or their $9.95 a month (or more). Do they expect access to SL? Or do they expect to be given the ability to buy stuff without inserting more money. I am not passing judgement -- I am simply saying this is a personal decision that everyone will need to make.

It is quite clear that I personally believe that all SL owes me is a relatively bug-free existence, decent performance, and a world with a high-level of uptime (i.e. up and running). All those areas can be improved and I hope that's where LL puts their efforts. If I want an outfit or a car, that isn't LL's responsibility, that's mine. I'll either try to sell stuff, or I'll buy a couple candy bars worth of L$ on GOM -- which can buy an awful lot actually.

every privelege becomes seen as a right after about 5 minutes. that's just human nature. LL basically said "we've been giving you free money and now to fix economic problems and save us from big problems later we're going to give you a little less free money" and some people are screaming bloody murder. i have no doubt that human nature is for people to "evaluate" that they deserve access to SL and a wheelbarrow full of L$ for their $9.95 a month.

An idea that emerges again and again is the idea that all arts and culture should be capitalistically viable in game. If we are to compare our landscape with the RL one, why is it that we do not acknowledge that in RL there are arts and culture grants programs?

The world you mention as emerging is very different from the one I encountered in my free trial. I might well emerge myself: with a strong case of cognitive dissonance. I hope not. Thus far I have loved my second life. Even with all of its flaws. I don't want to be here, though, if there isn't anything going on here. If people are going to be shopping outside of SL, and socializing only in private homes or in the big money clubs, (the 2 or 3 that will survive without the arts and culture grants that would be available in rl to help smaller organizations or those concerned with quality content) then what will there be to do in SL? visit places made by the Lindens? look at the mansions of the wealthy? fly around with our virtual thumbs up our virtual... well you get the drift.

If this is just going to be a place where people only get together to talk about how to better build or advertise or make their gear, it will become a virtual chamber of commerce: not an experience most players probably want as a staple for the environment. I hope the reality you describe doesn't happen. I actually like going to malls in game, and I also actually like going to events at clubs other than the uber-clubs, meeting people, and bantering. The reason I expect more avenues for entertainment in SL than I do in my town is that I bought what I thought was a ticket to a virtual entertainment landscape when I bought my account. I don't have to pay a premium membership anymore for this avatar (though I do have two premium memberships for other avies) because I so loved this little universe that I convinced a bunch of other folks to come over from TSO and play with me here and thereby won the Vive La Evolution contest (talk about irony, hunh?)

I convinced them to come over, not by showing them the how to build classes or the mansions of the wealthy: I convinced them by taking them to the fun events! Showing them the fun malls! They bought into the idea that this is a place for entertainment as well. I think that most players play the game for entertainment and are willing to pay for that entertainment, but the amount we pay just went up, and it just became possibly a great deal less entertaining. I suppose if you don't really like arts and culture events, or if tringo and naked avie contests are all the social landscape you need, it won't matter much to you. It does, however, matter a great deal to me and to many of the people I brought with me. *frets*

Thank you for your respectful tone and very interesting points. ~ Perse.

Again I make the statement that the only people who will reap the rewards of these economic changes will be the ones who sell Lindens.

I never got any free $ other than the allowance that all players get and that stipend (the only free $) was not cut. In fact, the money that was cut was the money we got from being rated as good folks for one reason or another (a lovely way to ensure good manners in game) and the money that we got if we organized, posted, ran, and then reported upon events. The latter only differs from arts and cultural grants in that it was given with very little stipulation. I used to supplement my income through arts and cultural events that paid me about $50 per hour of my efforts. I could have these events despite the size of my place and not worry about having to have enough of them every hour and day to get me into the leaderboards. I could provide content and get a fair wage for what I provided. The last event I ran made me $20 total after about 3 hours of work (I was more casual than usual about it knowing that I wouldn't be recouping as much $L; usually I put in about 5-7 hours). This wasn't due to a lack of people wanting the event: it was due in part to a flawed process for charging for events and in part to the sudden removal of arts and cultural support funds. If I choose to do this event, now, it will be at whim and much more rarely. This does not seem to be true of only me: without saying a word, many of the people who used to run arts and culture events have stopped running them altogether, or quit doing them as often, since the people doing them now have to spend time doing other things if they want in world $L beyond the **free money** that we all still get.

Thanks for contributing to the discussion Zuzi. ~ Perse

If virtual money can be made into rl money, then money is money. I am making less virtual money so now will have to find new virtual avenues of making my virtual money. These virtual avenues require activities for which I have a high RL learning curve. If I am not going to buy Lindens, then I will have to spend real time and real effort and real money (already bought a scanner and am trying to use the free program GIMP but not yet having much luck with it at all) to garner those earned Lindens. My point is that $L and $USD are virtually (pardon the pun) indistinguishable. Therefore my virtual wage cut is in fact paying for the strong $L. Well, mine and that of a number of other events hosts. Oh, and everyone who made a substantial part of his or her income through rates. So though I am not being charged more $USD directly, the lack of equal access to $L that compared to what I once made equates to an indirect $USD charge as I will need to buy money unless I make the choice to simply do something other than host events. What I fear is that, like all things that change shape when in too close contact with hyper capitalism, this game will change into a place with nothing but the McDonalds equivalents of content: content that is made for the mass mass market and is proven capitalistically viable. Which is great if you like McDonalds. Not so great if one doesn't. *Is in the latter of the two camps, personally*

As Always, Foresti, thank you for your solutions-driven approach and your respectful tone.

~ Perse

Kind of. Money that you were expecting is no longer coming, but you aren't actually paying for it, i.e. LL removed subsidies but isn't charging you more.

Well I'm poor, have no talent, dress badly, and am kind of obnoxious. It hasn't stopped me... yet