Bonus stipends

The old ratings were wiped out recently, Prokofy. The elder players have absolutely no advantage when it comes to stipend. Unless you've now decided that the FIC includes all players older than two months...

How tragically common... an erroneous opinion promulgated by the absolute monarch of disinformation.

GNU Wave Dollar store in Davenport.... houses, vehicles, clothes, textures, etc.
The contributions to the store were made by (imo) very talented players like Juro Kothari, Jai Nomad, Mr and Mrs Fair-Chang, Fleabite Beach, Cua Currie -- too many to mention really... it's all $1 or free - not to mention great quality.

Siggy.

Also, ask around about Yadni and his amazing junk yard. A place where you can aquire hundreds of great items all for under $50 total...

Clothing, avs, buildings, furniture, decrative items, vehicals, weapons, scripts, etc...

It's prety good stuff. Maybe not the best stuff in the game (you get what you pay for...) but it IS plentiful and Yadni has obviously spent considerable time and effort to organize and make this stuff available for everyone.

There are plenty of other players around who give away boxes of free stuff as well. Just wander around at random for a week and start friendly conversations with whoever you meet. Don't just walk up to people and say 'Give me free stuff!' Ask them about their builds or if they would like to play chess by the welcome area or some other game you've found in SL or even if they would like to show you a game they know of...

I spent my first few weeks in SL just opening boxes like presents and going through them. Loads of toys and things to play with. Lots of stuff to look at and say "how'd they do that?" and "Hey, this gives me an idea for something I want to try to build".

Also, you could ask around about 'linden trees'. They are specificaly there for new players to pick up some free cash - no strings attached. It's not all that much and you can only use them for the first 30 days of a new account, but it's something. And it gets players moving around and perhaps exploring areas they otherwise might never visit. (BTW, there's one in the northeast corner of tavaru. )

Above all, RELAX. It's OK in SL to be broke. Maybe not _quite_ as fun, but then again, it's not like you have to buy groceries for your AV to keep playing either.

Making friends in SL is free...

Racer P.

To me, it says a lot (or little) about someone if they put so much emphasis on money and overlook the wonderful social aspects of SL. SL is about connections, it's a community. You can do both, even . . . some of my best friends are big rollers in here.

Sometimes not a lot of effort is needed, and by opening yourself up you paradoxically gain more control over your life -- and your Second Life -- and feeling more relaxed. When in doubt, give a friendly "Hello!" and if something moves you, be sure to mention it to the creator(s). Build relationships, certainly not in a forced, deliberate way, but let the tides guide you on your adventures.

As has been mentioned in this thread, it helps to make friends. In my personal experience, I wholeheartedly agree with this. When I came to SL, I didn't ask any questions about money. I understand this is rather atypical, and yes, I am an eccentric person, but one of the reason why I came here was to celebrate the cool stuff people make. It still is.

Yeah there's overpriced stuff IMO -- I don't buy it. I go scrounging at freebie shops like YadNi's and the GNU Wave one and the Free Bazaar in Stillman, and I check out good deals at the various yardsales of the gridverse and Mash + Baccara's Continental Madness which is still going at Purple. I'm big into bargains. Occasionally I'll treat myself to a luxury item, but whatever, it's all fun.

And if you want a simple point-and-click way to make money, you can always try the Gnome Factory...

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The old ratings were not "wiped out," that's silly. Go back and read the liner notes. They just explained that ratings would only last six months or whatever. So obviously people who had networks of friends in the game from time immemorial were able to quickly restore those ratings if they had to, if LL erased any old long-term ones in this process.

In no way, shape, or form did they erase all ratings completely and start the clock at 0 -- that's what you are making it sound like and you know that is not how LL did it, and your efforts to try to portray me as "misunderstanding" and "that's how tragic misunderstandings of judgemental asshats get started" are all tripe. I don't know where you get that. I know because when I logged in after those changes, I still had ratings plusses having started in September, and still got more than $500. So please, spare me this idiocy.

I have no objection to the idea that obviously some people come in a game before me, and they acquire simmies or Afghan dogs or whatever the hell they acquire. It doesn't matter. That's the norm. Life is like that. And I have no objection to someone having a skill, being better than me at something, and getting paid well for it. That's admirable, and I'm not a whiney asswipe about that.

But what I do object to is when those long-lived and more-talented set themselves up as a wall of shame against newbies, and as a wall of judgement against anybody. They cannot get to do that. They hector and lecture and admonish newbies, midbies, and oldbies even who are their "peers" by always trying to "set them straight". They make them out to be loafers and spongers merely because they come in this game and say, whoah, this crap is damn expensive, geez, why do I pay for this. People are right to ask about this very, very rigged set-up here that rewards old players, keeps them subsidized for life, and keeps their plusses on plussing like the Energizer Bunny.

Come on, people, that's what this is about. An uneven playing field. That is the essential theory of the FIC. Not that there can't be a meritocracy. But that the meritocracy makes it out to be that a) they got where they got all through merit, which is tripe, because they were heavily subsidized by LL and b) that they can lord it over others who are either newer or have less talent. They can't. And I'm here to remind them of that.

Well if you don't have any marketable skills to earn the L$ then buy the L$. Your avatar doesn't get hungry or cold or tired, you don't need any of these 1k items. You want them. If Linden gave you money, they would have to give everyone else money and then the value of L$ would lower and merchant prices would rise to compensate and you would still be complaining.

Prokofy, you're incorrect about the ratings. I know this, because almost all of my ratings were wiped out. Like most players, I made most of my ratings early in my SL career. When LL wiped out ratings older than 6 months, that was a serious ratings setback. Well c'est la vie.

It's not a serious issue to me personally since new players seem to need the bonus more than older players like you or me. It does, however, seem kind of odd that a "rating" system for "Building", "Appearance", and "Behavior" doesn't even remotely reflect the actual building skills, appearance, or behaviour of the individual. But that's an entirely different issue.



Considering that the players most affected by the 6+ month ratings wipe are by definition older players, then I don't think you can say that ratings are "rigged" in their favour.

On another note, you've mentioned subsidies several times recently. What are you referring to by that? Do you mean the dwell bonuses?

No, Cubey, it's not that I'm "wrong" about the ratings because it is NOT TRUE that "all the ratings were wiped out and the clock was set to zero for everybody" which is how the previous poster made it sound, and that is misleading.

I pointed out that I, as someone who played less than six months logged in and found most of my ratings intact. If you, as an older player, saw most of yours wiped out, I guess you've been sitting on your laurels and getting paid off your old ratings for months -- years -- but didn't bother to get newer ones, whereas I had fresher ones as a newer player so I felt hardly any change.

LL wiped out ratings older than 6 months. That is the correct statement to make. That means that older players felt a terrible "hit". But I can't feel very sorry for them when they had months or years to collect up the wazoo from them -- and when they were FREE lol. I have to pay for them now, as do you. You got the benefit of free money from them for a long time. I didn't. Ok, whatever. But don't deny that it a boon, and a subsidy.

I also pointed out that older players have easier networks to access and restore all their ratings, if they were lost. That is what happened.



It reflects it enough to be of value.






Again, you don't seem to get it, because you are looking at this very literally at the snapshot moment that the Lindens wipe out ratings older than six months, and completely forgetting all the benefits that accrued over time with these plusses.

Let's say that you kept all your stipends ever received from the Lindens since day one. All the ratings you got over that entire period enabled you to have a higher bonus. Let's say you never spent a dime of your stipends and kept them in your account.

Now look in your game window, on the day after the Lindens wipe out the stipends rating delta, and the six-month old ratings, and look in my game window on the day after the Lindens do this, and see this: who has more money, Cubey?

Do you get it now? It's not just that you were in the game longer. It's that you were in the game longer with a subsidy, and a huge one, one that benefited you greatly, and which was now wiped out and maybe pinched, but which new players simply never had because the system changed. The benefits that accrued were substantial, even if one day the slate was wiped clean and everyone got to deal with only 6 month ratings.



Cubey, you are soaking it it. I always wonder why it is so hard to get across that you don't see it? Ratings that plussed up and kept your stipends fat all these years are what subsidized you. I don't have that subsidy. You get the 4096 free plot of land. You get the network to restore your plusses. And other things from previous versions and from various social and economic factors in the game.

I don't say this to be a lame whiner. I just point it out as a generic economic issue in a game. I don't care if you have pluses or what the hell you have because I can just go buy it all on GOM and it doesn't matter. But I am trying to get you to grasp the extent to which a class of people were subsidized to become the content barons (not my term) and the extent to which those benefits still acrue to them. That's it.

I don't know why this is so hard to get. It's a generic discussion about economies and classes, just a basic text-book discussion. You always personalize it and think it's about me "spewing venom" or being a whiner about coming in too late, or even start strenuously objecting that there are even any subsidies there at all, but it's not *about* that. It's just a statement about the problems that hinder the economy in this game, and the ways in which some are totally wedded to this subsidy system.

Trust me, if this was a system you weren't in yourself, you'd see it in a heartbeat.

I had 300 in each rating category and that caused me to get an extra L$250 a week. Now that they have been wiped I have 25 in each category causing me to get and extra L$ 100 a week. That extra L$ 150 does not a woman on welfare make. I couldn't even pay for my vendor spots with a measly L$250. I don't know where you get this idea of old players sitting on their butts letting the money roll in. Cause rate money has never done more than trickle in for me.

*Almost* free... they were only a dollar each, so you're almost right. I think it would have made much more sense to reset all ratings to zero.



Having the advantage of, for example, 12 months over 6 months in-game will definitely yield more money. That's a factor of time, though, and not preferential treatment or a "subsidy". Anyone staying long enough in SL (or any game at all) will have accumulated points, skills, or levels than a new player. How is that unfair? I think you should look up the word "subsidy" because I don't think it means what you think it means.




I doubt this statement. Many older players have the same number of friends and aquantances online that 6 month players have. And besides... as far as I know, most poeple aren't so obsessed with ratings that they'll go around asking friends to re-rate them. They'll just disappear again in 6 months, anyway.





As I said before, that's not a "subsidy" -- the the result of having accumulated ratings over time (assuming that the player in question didn't spend any money over that time). If all players play by the same rules and can "level up" in ratings in the same way, then of course older players have more ratings than younger players. It's the same in absolutely any game. You're implying preferential treatment to older players by using the word "subsidy". There's no gift or donation of cash involved here. Did you expect new players to arrive in SL with as much cash, ratings, and skills as 6+ month players?



But... this "subsidy" you claim was simply the game rules regarding ratings that *everyone* played by, and then the first people to be negatively affected by their removal are the same old players you claim are being subsidized.

Look at it like a bank account. Person A opens a savings account in 2003 and Person B opens one in 2005. Obviously Person A has earned more in interest than Person B because they collected interest longer. Does that mean that the bank is subsidizing Person A unfairly? No. It's simply a factor of time.

Had you joined sooner, Prokofy, you would have accumulated a simular amount of ratings (only to have them wiped out). Where were you in 2003? Why didn't you sign up?



And I wonder why it is so hard to get across that *you* don't see it. I'm beginning to think that you're not so much debating these issues as trying to play up the drama and cause as much damage as you can by spreading half-baked conspiracy theories and outright lies. Eventually someone has to be stupid enough to believe your ludicrous statements, right? And if they don't, then they're conspiring against you.




Again, go pick up a dictionary. That's not a subsidy. Everyone played under the same rules, and never got "fat" stipends or "fat" anything. Rules back then were as difficult for newbies, if not more. Taxes alone kept many players cash-strapped. In many ways, in-game finances now are much simpler and easier than they were early on.




I bought my 4096 parcel for about L$10000 during the early days of the land boom. That doesn't seem free to me. As for the land tier, I have a $225 US charge on my credit card. Maybe you can explain how *that* means it's free.

At the time that LL offered that to all current players, I had no idea if I'd stay in SL longer than a few months, or if SL would last out the year before going belly-up. It's not an easy thing to throw hundreds of real dollars into a game with no proven track record. It's quite a risk. But LL needed the start-up cash, so they sold a bunch of these Lifetime accounts.

It turned out to be a great value... the risk paid off. But even if you average out the cost over the number of months I've been in the game since my initial purchase of the account, it turns out to be a low number, but not free. I paid for it. I took the risk. A great many others didn't, and stayed with the monthly accounts.



Riiiight. When you don't actually have facts, just be vague.



That's what you *claim*.





See what? The only thing you've said that even remotely resembles any factual point of debate is that older players have accrued more ratings and/or cash than younger players. Of course they have. They've been doing it longer.

crickey Kasandra, you're right a measy 150L is making people upset? sometimes I think this game should be called 'Get A Life' instead....

Yeah, there's relatively few items you really NEED to buy, and even those "need" items are more "handy". Land's the only thing you're missing out on, and TigerTor's apartments for the landless (or any one of another number of free/lowcost places) will give you a place to set as home and stick up a few knick-knacks.

That said, there's several ways to earn money in SL, few of which are half as strenuous as killing mobs in EQ/World of Warcraft/FFXI/whathaveyou for hours on end. Tringo is still popular, and so long as you can avoid excessive lag, you just need good puzzle skills. There's things like the money trees, Prim Factory, etc. for newbies. You can make stuff and sell it - $50/week may not be much, but you can rent a stall with it. There's giveaways at clubs, and of course various games of chance (which I don't PERSONALLY recommend, but it's an option).

You can also continue with the basic account and buy money on GOM or similar when you can spare the cash; if ALL you want is Lindens it's a slightly more cost-effective method.

Second Life isn't exactly a MMOG as it is known, but the maxim of getting what you put into it still applies.

I know the answer...

REPARATIONS.

We pay newbies for the unfairness that they claim they now face, not because of some current injustice, but because of a past injustice (not to them personally) that they blame for their current lack of wealth/status/celebrity.

Reparations will adequately dismantle the feted inner core that this world revolves around and allow for true justice and equality. Oh, except for the people paying the reparations. And since leaving a game is easier (emotionally, financially and physically) than denouncing citizenship in RL, I expect all those now taxed, burdened and blighted by the reparations will let you stick your entitlements right up your asses and /wave one last time as you all complain that there is no good stuff in SL and having money is pointless if there isnt some tangible value placed on it. Oh, and then you'll blame LL for their "economic idiocy" and quit too. I miss SL already

Champie

Let's assume, for the sake of demonstrating the flaw in this logic, that every player gets 10 ratings a month. This makes the math simple.

In one year, a person would acrue 120 ratings. In two years, 240, and so on.

Now, lets say person A joined two years ago, and has 240 ratings. Person B joined seven months ago, so has 70 ratings. Suddenly all ratings are wiped out that are older than 6 months.

Person B barely feels the change. This is obvious. Person A, however, looses signifigantly more ratings. It doesn't matter that for the last six months person A has still been getting rated. Person A is still hurt an order of magnitude more than person B.

This has nothing to do with "resting on ones laurels" as you might say.






The money we as oldbies got was no freer than yours, Prokofy. We payed the same for ratings you did, and got the same fraction of money as a result.



Actually, most oldbie sprobably have no larger, or even a signifigantly smaller, social network compared to the newer players. Why? Attrition. I'm not even that much of an oldbie compared to some, and my 'social contats' as such are fragmented, with the majority of them having retired or vanished into the aether.




When Clubby McClubber has a build rating higher than I do, despite never having rezed more than a plywood cube in his life, no, it has no value. Ratings are an ego-boost, and a tiny source of income. Nothing more, don't kid yourself.


As to the rest of your ramblings, Cubey quite nicely summarized them with his bank account analogy. I see no reason to waste my time on them.

Flashfire, welcome to the club!

We are the Basic Members!

And we are the Second Class Citizens of Second Life!

That means nothing we ever say regarding the economics of the game, or the various means for making a living in it, can possibly be valid.

There can't possibly be any unbalance in the game; it has to be all our fault - we're wanting something for nothing, or we're lazy, etc. etc.

We get preached at, for instance, that we should "make friends," as if this were a brand new concept to us, or as if we were some sort of antisocial troglodytes.

Or we're told to make things. Indeed, making this is one of the only ways to make money in this game, aside from dealing in real estate. We can't do real estate, but fortunately, we can at least make whatever we want, even on a basic membership. ( And now it doesn't cost anything to make things, whereas it used to.)

But if we suggest that these options are rather limiting, and it would be nice to have some other goals in the game, we're told to go dance at a club (like we haven't already), or explore the land (like we haven't already), or play Bingo (like we haven't already), or otherwise amble around aimlessly, or - and this is the crushing blow that's ALWAYS terrific for growing a game - "Maybe this just isn't the game for you."

As Second Class Citizens, we are considered to have no legitimate voice in the game. For one thing, we are by definition newer than the older players, and they figure we just don't know what we're doing. We just need to do it all like THEY did. Then, too, I think there is some resentment that we are playing the whole thing for just $10 spent one time. (Of course, all players could rachet down to a basic membership, except that they can't stand to do that, and they know it.)

They see us as having a free ride. I see them as having started off playing a whole different game, one that had more options in it for making money, such as events subsidies and an affordable ratings game. We now have fewer options, and older players seem loathe to admit that. If they came into the game at this point, instead of when they did, they might begin to understand what it's like to flail around trying to find something meaningful to do, and some variety of ways to make money, even if you come in now with a premium membership.

Though I believe this is a huge problem in the game right now, none of the older players are willing to recognize it. They want us to do it the way they did it, even though we can't possibly do it the way they did it since the game isn't the same anymore, even with a premium membership, and even if we WANTED to do things the way they did. So you might as well save your breath.

Instead, do what I do! Try to beat them at their own game! ("Them" being the players AND the Lindens, lol.) Show them you can have what you want without having a premium membership! I have made that my goal, at least for the present - to get everything I want without paying rl money for it (not easy, but I like a challenge). And eventually, if I get sick of doing that, I will start paying rl money for things, or at least for a premium membership.

A few other small points:

1. The person who said he doesn't pay any attention to selling to basic members because they wouldn't have anywhere to put things is wrong. You can rent a place where you can put your items. Or you can live in a group-owned community. I live in Meins, where I "paid" for my land in Lindens, and pay "tier" on it every week in Lindens. There I have 472 prims at my disposal and a whole lot of land to do with pretty much as I like.

2. The person who advised getting all the free items you can is right. My inventory is stuffed with free stuff, all neatly categorized into folders. When I haven't been able to find what I want free, I build it. (Simple stuff, so far.)

3. As for living in free apartments, those can have a hidden cost. I was in this one place where you were expected to put in a certain amount of your game time in the apartment. Fair enough, and I put in a LOT of time in the apartment, since I did all my building things there. But it turned out what was meant (but wasn't stated) was you were expected to put in a PERCENTAGE of ALL your game time in that apartment. So resident A, who spends only 60 minutes on the game per week, would be fine if he spent, say, six minutes or so in the apartment (or somewhere around that percentage). But one who spends 30 hours in the game per week would be expected to spend 3 hours in the apartment. So - one resident stays 6 minutes and is fine; the other stays 3 hours and gets kicked out. But there are some low-cost places around you can rent, and I think those are better. In all cases, just as when you own land, your prims will be limited.

In sum, it will take some time for people to realize there is validity in (a) the criticisms new players have and (b) the criticisms new players who are basic members have. Though (b) is looked upon with more disdain than (a), the critiques of many people in both categories - that there aren't enough options in this game for making money - are dismissed, as if we all somehow just don't understand. (Or are lazy, etc.)

But I believe the Lindens know this is a problem, and will hopefully come up with some way to ameliorate it, and give aimless newbies more reason to join the game, instead of going away saying it is just pointless and impossible to enjoy, as they do now.

Meanwhile, Power to the Basic Members! Basic Members Unite!

coco

this is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Has Prokofy found another general for his Proletariate army?

I'm a Basic Member, and I'm ready to fight for my rights in Second Life!

Uh, I hate to participate in discussion necromancy, but...

If anyone wants to tell Linden Lab we have a minor playing the game with mommy's credit card, there he is.

"Power to the basic members! Basic members unite!" is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, Champie, and somewhat not.

I say it as a joke, of course. But on the other hand, I am kind of hoping some other basic membership person with more time and energy than I have will actually form a group for basic members, to share ideas of how to succeed and have fun without any money, lol, and the like - sort of a support/advocacy group. There is a need for it. Try being a basic member and you'll see what I mean. (Although you may be already, of course, and still disagree with me.)

One thing I want to add, though, to balance my post above to the original poster:

This business about being able to rez prims without having to pay for it is VERY important, and a huge improvement over the way things apparently used to be. I can't emphasize that enough.

I would far rather be able to create things for free than anything else ever. I'd rather have that than have easy ratings, or have subsidized events, or to have bigger stipends, or anything.

I would say I'm almost entirely IN this game because I am able to create things for free. Not being able to - that must have seemed like a creativity tax!

coco

Coco, The manner in which you approach and play the game and present yourself in print is far different than the original poster. It is no surprise that your resourcefulness and creative thinking has led to your being one of very few, if not the only, basic players with close to 500 prims to play with. I hope to meet you in world. On the other hand, the poster comes off as whining and immature by bemoaning the unattainability of $800-1000 luxory items. He gives the impression that the free and low priced vehicles and toys which you and Torley have pointed to are not good enough. And expecting this or any other game to price itself according to gas prices is delusional. We all have to make choices on where we spend our entertainment $'s. Before tiering up in pursuit of the almighty prim, I reduced my DVD rental membership down from it's max level back to basic and evaluated what amount I typically spent on a night out. Giving up one night out per month justifies the gaming expenditure.
But, it has been a colder winter than I had planned on (Mother Nature's fault, not mine) so if you all could please give me some spare change if you see me in world it would help me to pay my gas bill and I'm starting to plan a vaction so....

Coco,

Well said. It IS possible to live in SL on a shoestring budget. I wholeheartedly agree w/everything you said. Even the great Anshe started as a basic account holder. And I'll do whatever I can to aid the nOOb beginning basic player.

What I won't do is work my a** off on cool products and give them away for free.

Have a nice day y'all

Its interesting. I'm working on a new vehicle (a mouselook hovercar/plane thing - see attached image).

This is obviously a custom job, but I regularily have people come up to me and ask for a free copy. I also regularily have people come along and try and fly it -- and of course they get ejected because only the owner (me) can fly it right now. This isn't when the car is off by itself, with no-one else around. I'm standing right next to it, sometimes even editing it. Personally, I wouldn't dream of just walking up to someone else's vehicle and just jumping in and trying to fly off with it without at least talking to them first. Especially if they're listed as the creator and owner of said vehicle, and they're standing right next to it.

I have to explain to them that no, they can't have a copy, because it isn't done and I will be selling it eventually and they can buy a copy when I'm done and its for sale.

I thought stuff like this was obvious...

- Jon

Hey Jon. Glad to see the "car" is coming along nicely. I don't know about these people you've encountered, but I'll often try to sit in a car just to check it out. I don't expect it to fly for me, I just want to see myself sitting in it. As for asking for a copy... Some people never get beyond n00b status! And there's plenty of nice free stuff out there, so I bet a lot of people have been able to get stuff that looks just as cool for the asking. *shrug*