An Out of Control Situation.

Some real good ideas getting thrown around. I think a thread like this that looks at an actual problem instead of a hypothetical one is good for the game. I like the split dwell idea. That would really be good for the small 512 land owners toi get a lil piece of the pie too. We all share a sim, its a server, we all share its resources. If we have to suffer at times, why not be paid back.

Of course this doesn't apply to camping though, thats just an exploit pure and simple. You can't allow a situation where afkers replace at the keyboard people and shut them out. Thats a recipe for disaster and there is no defending it. People who try to defend are just seen as exploiters themselfs. People who sit an alt in a camping chair using resources paid for by at the keyboard players to shut them out. Free accounts used against the system in ways they were not intended. There is no defending this practice and it is going to be stopped.

I really like the free account idea for the purpose it was intended for. To introduce people into the game. To let them try it out and experience Second Life before they take the plunge. But don't take this as anything other then it is meant to be. SL is not a free game and it was never intended to be a free game. I had a free account for about two weeks till I upgraded.

I have been in discussion with people on how else are people suppose to make money in the game if not afk camping and it comes down to this. SL is not a free game. Sure if you just want to socialise and experience a club or two fine, but if you want to make it your home and really get involved there are costs involved. You couldn't play Everquest or WOW for free. But the costs are totally dependant on how much you want to get involved in various aspects.

When your free account starts infringing on my account that I pay fairly considerable money for, you are no longer welcome. If you want to sit afk in a camping chair in my sim and take away from my resources on an account that I am paying for, you are no longer welcome. When you are more willing to pay to the utility company for the energy you burn up sitting 24-7 in a camping chair then to pay to LL, you are no longer welcome.

The only way this game can be successful is when we all realise that we are in a partnership with LL and all our fellow gamers to make SL successful and a fun place to be. When a person exploits the system with ways to exploit dwell or any other system in the game, they are not only exploiting LL, they are exploiting every one of us.

As far as working with exploiters, well they know what they are doing, they know what they are. Sure they know they are operating in a loophole but they are going to do that till they are stopped, not out of the goodness of their hearts. Do not except the "can't beat them might as well join them" attitude as this whole game will fall and those who actually care about it don't want that to happen.

At the very least, if you see a small patch in a sim that has camping chairs, don't use them. Let them at least pay for the server and its monthly expenses. When you sit in a shared server afk in a camping chair, you are stealing from everyone who owns land in that sim. Free accounts don't entitle you to this and if you pay for an account, you should know better and are stealing from yourself.

a very interesting thread..... just off the top of my head, what if a basic acct just didnt produce dwell? They would still get thier stipend and be able to play but their av wouldnt generate any dwell? I feel this would not only stop the camping chairs but would also make people move about more over the land.

i think Argent's quota idea is horrible. So now a small plot holder cannot throw a party and have a bunch of people over to his/her land?

I onced owned a 250m2 plot in luskwood, and an informal gathering/party there one night was one of my fondest early SL memories. But now the right to gather on private land would be limited by economic resources? No!

It's not like I and many others haven't felt the pain of the poster. I have had to move several times in SL.

Then again, when wynx released the Tinies and that craze hit full stride, we had like 30 people in our store 24x7, and I'm sure our Bragg neighbors were cursing us under their breaths too.

LL is working on the zoning/covenant tools, so there is some light in this tunnel. You should also SERIOUSLY think about renting from hiro, anshe, prokofy or someone who offers zoning if you don't want to wait.

Zoning is on it's way. It doesn't help your immediate situation, but I would rather have more freedom and deal with these unpleasant consequences than less. At least they implemented better script load balancing.

This option assumes that Mr. 1024 is operating his business for the purpose of earning dwell. Some club owners operate to provide entertainment and the satisfaction it brings. (obviously, in the case mentioned he IS in it for dwell or he wouldn't be using camping chairs).

Just unintentionally crash the sim a bunch of times after people have been camped out for a REALLY long time, so they don't get their payouts. Repeat until they're so pissed at the owner of the plot for not paying out, they blame him, and go away.

Unintentionally crash, of course.

Regards,

-Flip

Sometimes the best defense is education. I offer the following message for anyone to share:

Greetings,

The fact that you recieved this note is probably because you were seen AFK in a camping device in a shared SIM. There are probably a lot of things you are not aware of and that is the purpose of this notecard.

While it is acknowledged that everyone needs to make a buck, camping devices are the most distructive things to the game. While some establishments will buy and pay for a entire SIM to set up a camping atmosphere, others like the one you are at do not. This small land in a shared SIM takes away resources from the entire SIM. A small land like the one you are on can actually use the lion's share of a SIM's resources and can actually stop active at the keyboard players from using and enjoying their own land. Some of these land owners have much more property in the sim then the one you are on and can't have three guests over because of so many people being on this one small lot. There are times when they can't even enter the sim to go to their own land.

But why does he pay better?

Sure the owner of this property may be able to pay a credit or two more to campers but that is because he is taking advantage of everyone who pays to live in this sim. Believe me, you do not want to support this kind of activity as you may very well be in a situation like this yourself one day and we have only each other to turn too currently as the owner is exploiting a loophole that is not closed yet.

But he is giving me free money?

He is exploiting a system called "Dwell" that was meant to reward people for creating interesting places in Second Life that people would want to visit. If you press that button called "Find", you will see a tab called "Popular Places". Clicking on that tab will give you a list of the most popular places in Second Life all based off this "Dwell". Unfortunately as you can see, this list does not only have places on it that are truely popular but also contains a lot of camping locations. A owner that makes the "Popular Places" list shares an even bigger prize as a reward for creating content for the people of Second Life.

What about the truely popular places?

Unfortunately the camping expoit has hurt them greatly. The incentive to create truely interesting places in SL has been deminished by the dwell exploiters. Every dwell exploiter on that popular places list knocks a truely creative person off of it. Because of this everyone in SL suffers.

So how an I suppose to make money then?

If you truely must camp, camp at a place that pays for the whole sim. You do not want to hurt your fellow gamers by camping in shared sims. It would be even better if you didn't camp at all. Lindens in this game are really cheap. You can get at last look 280 lindens for a dollar. I don't have to tell you that there are expenses with any on-line game. Servers and keeping them running are expensive. Ten, fifteen bucks a month is still really cheap entertainment and you would pay more just going to one movie or buying one DVD. Camping is really a bad deal with the electric expenses and wear and tear on your computer. Most harddrives are spinning at 7500 rpm constantly and are ticking timebombs. Its going to cost you way more time and money when those bearings give out. Shut your computer off and give it a rest when you are going to be afk at work or sleeping.

SL is only as good as what we all make it. We all want a great gaming experience and we don't want it to go in wrong directions. Only all of us working as a partnership can mean bright futures ahead.

Wow, Loniki - that's really well written! You should start up an SL blog! Good work.

-Flip

Thanks hon

Ohhh Lordy .. change the name from Yucca to Federal and history repeats itself again

Wow! Awesome Loniki - great job. I will be sure to distribute this message myself when I happen along a camping spot. I have a lot of sympathy for your situation (having recently gone through something similar myself) and I hope that Linden Lab does something soon to disincentive this kind of thing.

Only premium accounts can collect dwell, and only on land they own.

The premium account holder is paying the camper to come sit on their property, thereby increasing his dwell. He's just paying the earned dwell (either a portion of or all of it) back to the campers. Unless he's only paying part of it to the campers, I really don't see the point in doing it. Mabey I'm missing something obvious, but if it costs you more money than you bring in, or just breaking even, then there are other motives involved here..

It could be an lame attempt at griefing someone specific in the sim..

Personally, they could do away with dwell entirely and I could couldn't care less. I bought my land to play with, have some friend over to visit and somewhere quiet to work on products.. not to exploit the dwell system.

Thanks Persephone

Hi Teddy, the ppl with the chairs are paying less then they take in. The casinos with multipliers to the chairs get way more from slot machines then they actually pay out in the chairs. If a dwell exploiter makes it to the popular places list, the stakes hit the next lvl too. Rest assured the stakes are all totally financial no matter who it costs to get there.

No one cloggs up a sim by paying ppl to afk on it out of the goodness of their hearts and there is probably even absense of malice as far as their intentions to the other residents.
Someone who doesn't think about anyone other then themselves need have no malice towards others... They are also not present in any form associated with these operations, this is a totally scripted affair and most hide behind groups and pass the buck off to the other members of the same group if you happen to catch them on. In reality your contact is probably all the same person on their alts and they just don't care and do not wish to resolve anything.

The only way they will be stopped is if LL makes them or the players all unite in ways that have not occured yet to the extent needed.

Current status in Yucca. Sim has 32 people in it including myself, who just logged in. Of those 32 people 29 are in the casino. I was told I was going to have to wait for my clothes to rez in. Got to love waking up in grey. It is 2:40 SL time.

yes I know the land owners collect dwell but if basic aaccts didnt create dwell there would be no reason to pay them to sit in chairs, I thought I was clear on that

The lack of the DI payment will not affect these place in anyway, the "customers" you see in those chairs have to gamble big to get the chairs to pay off in a big way. The land owner is not making his bucks from traffic and or DI, so they will give a rats ass less thats its gone. Also the sitters have to type in a code word provided every three hours to get to stay in the chair. Yes it was genious to invent this money maker, cause the gambler as we always know ends up the loser, 9 times outa 10, but still the thought of all that big money just for sitting is more than most can pass up. I think LL would benefit greatly by over riding the ability to stay in one position, not moving for hours, instead of taking away DI. Yes i say move the zombies out, so the rest of us can enjoy our experience is the ultimate solution. If ya want the big bucks, learn how to contribute things people really want like perty hair and skin...lol

Ahhhhhh.. my mistake then.

if you did this you may as well throw traffic out completely - including the store - as it would be totally useless.

The Dwellopers Incentive was the big bugbear here - an it is pretty much slain.. the tiny teeny dwell amount is at best a non problem..

I use the traffic score to see how well travelled my place of business is.. it gives a good idea of how much it was used that day - I also compare it to my neighbours.. it gives me a good idea of how many folks went through our sim and where they went.

As for any kind of bonus being given out to an entire sim- what is the incentive to make anywhere nice at all then? what you'll see is folks making micro plots near nice places to get 'a peice of the pie' so you have person A working to make somewhere nice and usefull (who all this dwell crap is SUPPOSED to rewared) getting a smaller and smaller amount as 16 x 16 plots encroach as folks 'game the system' in different way.

I think all this would do is throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Without the Dwellopers Incentive - the incentive for camping chairs also drops - people won't be getting phat checks to make it worth while... after that high traffic rewards kinda start dropping off.. the dwell bonus given daily probably won't fuel their chairs for that long - and the benefits of high traffic may not make it worth it... being 'high on the find list' isn't THAT big a reward.

b

Nice dream world you live in there. I take this issue very personaly as I live in a sim where a club has locked me out more then once. When talking to the owner they offered to take a alt off line! I was like you have a club that currently has 40 AV's and you feel the need to have a lt online, WTF. As for your idea of buying the land last time I asked it was 20L/sqm! Then you say move, well the land is worthless due to not being able to get into the sim.

FYI, Linden labs is like deal with it. Hope they feel that way when the owner of the land I rent tells them to stuff their 1/2 a sim worth of fees.

the peeps who own those camping casinos need 2 realize they get a better ROI if they limit the number of chairz

u only have so many slot machines and dwell payments r teh suck. DI is going away. traffic ratings r not that important.

u will make more L$ if u trim ur chairs from 40 to about 15 max.

some free advice 4 the casino owners.

not that they will take it.

who am i neway? just some guy who pays his 2 sim tier off gaming profits without lagging sims 2 hell and back, thats all.

u peeps who have that many chairs r stupid. u r losing money and pissing other peeps off (like ur neighbors).

and ur going 2 F it up for those of us who r legit.

u will make more L$ if u trim ur expenses and treat ur neighbors right.

it really isnt rocket science.

lolz i know this will fall on deaf ears but o well

peace.
Rav.

What about a 95th % based system. And rather then keeping people out the owner would have the option to pay extra for usage. I.E. I throw a party one night a week the rest of the week traffic is almost none, there is not a problem. Now if I want to throw a party for 8 hours a night every night, well my 95th % usage would be higher and I have the option of having the land shutoff or paying increased fees. Theory here is that if the fees are right it will push people to own more land. If you own 1/2 the sim your allowed much higher usage then the AV that owns only 1/12 of it.


This would give people the option of using small land to overload the sim sure, but hey you want the resources you have to pay. On the other hand the person that holds one even a week or less would not see any diffrence in their play. Well other then they can have a even since the guy next to them had to upgrade to sim since it was cheaper then paying the extra fees based on his 95th % billing rate.

This is the system used in many hosting envoirments so its well grounded.

Seems like a simple solution given that they already are tracking the usage.


Pain

Nobody will ever actually tell them this though. This is why the system is the way it is in the first place. It keeps people moving, which is a BIG advantage to LL. When you move, LL collects DOUBLE tier from both your old land AND your new land for that month.

So you see, LL has a big RL economic incentive to keeping residents jumping around the grid and never finding a permanent home. From a purely revenue based standpoint, it would take a very large portion of the grid being released as public land, and REMAINING public land for a couple of months, for it to become more advantagous for LL to want you to have a permanent home, rather than want you to move somewhere new each month. This is what it would take, and it's extremely unlikely that it would ever happen.

There are a lot of things about this platform that "just don't seem fair". But, I guess it is what it is. Residents should find ways of working together in groups to make the best of these less than ideal circumstances.

yes that's an interesting spin on it Pain

While I posted this in the Linden Forum, it occured to me to repost it here for discussion:

Lately we have had some problems in my SIM and it has given me some time to look at the issue from a lot of different perspectives. I am aware of the developer awards going away so of course that will have a big effect on making it unprofitable for people who farmed dwell.

On the other hand it seems that a lot of people were receiving income from these camping devices and there are people who are wondering what is going to replace this. If you look at this logically, does it make sense that someone could afford to pay you 2L every ten minutes for sitting on their land while they made lets say for argument 3L, but you couldn't sit on your own land and collect that 3L directly?

The payouts are the same but a system is created where a middleman is needed and profits from this. Would it not make more sense to allow people to sit on their own lands and collect their own dwell? This way the load is spread out across all the sims and someone who is dead set on camping can make more camping on their own property or even a friends. This also gives added incentive for people with free accounts to upgrade and own property.

The developers incentives are going away but since dwell is not, perhaps a simple change of allowing any traffic on a property including your own to count towards dwell would be a step in the right direction. With out the developers incentive, camping chair rates are likely to drop and perhaps being allowed to camp on your own land will compensate for that drop when the middleman is removed from the equation. It also places the server load where it belongs, on an individuals land who is paying for it.

Well most of us are going to not provide them that money. Most of us will suck in our land in an existing sim before buying new land.

I actually thought of that. I don't think it would be fair to share all the dwell that way, but sharing (say) half the payout to compensate the other landowners on the sim might be reasonable.