New Stipend Policy

I don't doubt it.

...or just whining too loud


llsetwhinelevel(username,var);

Oh, sure, but that's only if your main goal is just to make money by whatever means. That's fine for those people.

But, suppose that somebody actually, in particular, wants a robot. They maybe don't even want to sell it, they just want a robot for themselves, because they want their Second Life to involve, um, having a robot. And they have an idea for what they want their robot to be like.

They have a stark choice. They can make their robot themselves. But as you've said, it almost certainly won't be as good as yours. And because your robots have a lot of influence, they've had a lot of affect on the "SL standard" for the quality of a robot. So there's a good chance people will keep referring them to your "better" robots, or similar - or they'll just be going around SL with that vaguely uncomfortable feeling you always get when you realise everyone else at the party's wearing more upmarket and fashionable outfits than you. Or, they can buy your robot instead - but if they do that, it'll be your robot design and your ideas, rather than theirs. Conformity or inferiority, C/I displacement.

Now, as I say this doesn't mean you've done anything wrong, or that there's anything that can sensibly be done about it, or similar. The only way I can think of doing it would be for people to actually build "construction kits" which let people customise things to some extent while using quality content as their blocks. I only know a few of those - Cubey Terra's plane kits, and Timeless Prototype's Sky Station Kit - but I hope it's a field that develops.

May I say with respect: Anyone who wanders around parties worried that they don't have the most expensive or finest clothing is to need to re-examine thier lives. I find the most drive to excel comes from wishing to earn what one wants in thier own lives, not in trying to keep pace with what widely considered "the best".

With that idea I also say person building thier robot would build to thier best ability. The point then would be to continue to improve on it. You learn more and get better at the tasks involved. It good feeling to have overcome the challenges.

But it meaningless if your sole point is to mrely be better or as good as another. And for the whole time you building your skills you will feel inferior needlessly.

I do not yet know anything abut how to build or make clothes in theis game. But I do not dispair my ignorance, instead I will be to cure it. It look like fun to do! That is all the motivation needed.

This isn't a case of not having the finest clothing yourself. This is a case of knowing that everyone else has finer clothing than you.



There must, however, be components that can't be learned (else anyone could learn to be as good as the best artists in the world!)

I have been in that position, quite exactly. Though I very much liked and admired the clothing these wealthy people had and wanted to have such myself one day I did not feel ashamed nor did I begrudge them. I knew that I could choose to get there myself somehow.

Though it is true one person can never be best at all things and by nature of the world one will fine one has limits it is still not something to give up over. The drive to meet one own best is the best motive one can have for these things. If your motive only out of fear of not being best, then you will only be miserable, even if you have it in you to be best. If your motive to push your own limits then you will know exhileration and joy when you expand them.

God bless you.

There may yet be hope.

By "get there", do you mean "become wealthy like them"? If that's the case, that's a bit of a flaw in the analogy. As I said above, this isn't just about making money. Can they know that they'll "get there" in the sense of being able to make dresses that good? They might believe they can, but reality says that only a minority actually can.



I've already said what the motive is, though. It's not anything to do with my own limits or anything like that. The motive is that I want to be a gal with (in this example) a robot. And I'm left with the choice of buying one from an established place (which will be the same as all the others), or making my own (and having the worst built robot on the grid). "Pushing my limits" isn't my issue, I don't want to create for the sake of creating, I want to create for the sake of having it afterwards. I know that some people do create for the sake of creating, but if I want to enact "my imagination" in "my world" my concern is doing that, not a personal development programme.

(In actual fact by the way I don't care that much for robots, and the stuff I tend to make does tend to be made for the sake of creating - but that's only an adaptation I've made. I actually came to SL with a dream in mind but after it got C/Ied repeatedly I gave up and just made whatever I turned out to be able to do well.)

Get there in many aspect of what I saw. Smart, educated, respectable, wealthy, comfortable with themselves. I am still working on all these things.
If one wishes to have, one must earn. That is reality, and has been recognised so for many centuries. How one make earn a matter of choice and knowing one self. I wished to have a fine dress in this game. I earn it quicky in my life by working well in my job. I pay on exchange market and have fine dress now.

I also want to have finery unique to my avatar. I now make choice, to again earn with what have already done in life and pay for unique jewlery, or I can earn it in future by learning how to make jewlery myself.

I do not expect my forst tries to be as nice as what has been made by people who discovered this game years before I did. I would be fool to. I would also be fool to expect not to have to earn the fine things I want in some way. That is not personal development program as much as it is recognising reality.

And that's fine. But the point is not just if you want "a fine dress" but if you actually have a design of dress in your head that you want to wear. You bought L$ with money from your real job. In an attempt to save this thread from getting mod-locked for becoming a private discussion, the original issue was why people don't seem to be doing that very much, or at least are doing it a lot less than creators sell L$. And the reason, I suspect, is that the people buying the stuff have probably felt the C/I sting at least once, whereas the creators haven't, and as such the buyers are getting much lower value from their SL.



Yes, it's reality, but the fact it's reality doesn't make it any better! And also, what you're saying isn't quite true. The person who dealt the final C/I to me, that wrote off my dream, wasn't an older established user, it was someone who joined SL slightly after I did. But they still quickly managed to compete with the "quality standard" builds in the same market, because they were talented. And that immediately proved to me that a) I wasn't and b) that was my only chance - if either of a) or b) were false I'd have already done it myself. Now, ok, not so much of a problem. But when you say "I wouldn't expect what I'd do on my first try to be as nice as people who've been here for years"; you wouldn't, but there are some people for whom it would be - well, maybe not their first try, but their early tries (I'm sure you know what I mean). The fact that people are still succeeding now is actually meaningless to the majority - it's that pre-talented minority who are getting around the situation and succeeding.

And as I say, this has an effect on the economy because it means that creators get far higher value from SL than consumers do. As a result, consumers are willing to spend less, they don't buy L$ and the value of the L$ goes down.

I'd be okay with selling less items if the exchange rate was still at L$250. I suspect very few people who purchase content - most of which is well above the L$50 range - purchase entirely with the L$50 handout they get. Totalled, however, its enough to make a negative impact on the economy as a whole.

That said, I suspect the economy will stablize around L$400 / US$1 because of the price of a premium account. Regardless, I'm opposed to the "something for nothing"; you're already getting into SL for free, and using the servers that premium users are paying the bills on. That should be enough without a welfare hand out in a world where you don't need to eat, sleep, don't need shelter, and have unlimited free raw materials to build with.

Regards,

-Flip

Compare this to other online worlds. It costs a ton more to get started with a basic look and feel in There, or ActiveWorlds...and they have monthly fees! So apply that same cost to buying a few Lindens on LindeX. As I said before - if you're not willing to spend the cost of a cup of coffee, or a movie ticket to get started on something as entertaining as SL...then you'll probably always be a drain on the economy.

Your point is well taken however; perhaps uploads could be free for the first month of a new account (alts excluded, of course). This is highly gameable, however, which is unfortunate. Maybe your first 10 uploads could be included. All 7 of my alt accounts get L$50 a week, which is just ridiculous (they were created before the current alt limitations).

There's no barrier being put up to people joining here - once again, I point out avatars don't *need* anything; not sleep, not food, not shelter. There's a full library of free content provided to newcomers, as well as a TON of free items available here, the GNUbie store in Indigo, and YadNi's. No one is forcing people to pay; in fact, I myself provide a ton of freebies to help out new players. I'm just against welfare in a world where its completely un-necessary.

Regards,

-Flip

My last word, premium stipend is not welfare but a paid for service! How can we help it if Linden Labs just "prints" the money?

We can't, but we can understand it and know why it may not be working for everyone.

It is important that we all take the time to consider our choices. Too many are gasping thier contract with linden lab and refusing to hear why it not working. Instead, realise that linden lab will be responsible to that contract but may not be able to offer it again. If we could look at the game as we must see the world, we see there are way to make it so we can fit us all and have the fun a game is supposed to be.

If stipends are reduced you must decide if the new contract is worth what you pay, then pay it or not. Linden lab must carefully adjust the value they give for our money so that we want to still pay.

We will know if they understand this if the stipends for premium members are changed.

those that like second life and want to stay will buy lindens or even better make things to sell those that are just here for the free ride will leave

when I started i fell in love with second life and i did what i though natural to do look for where i could buy lindens. I found GOM (at the time the only place to buy L$) and I used the money i purchased at GOM and purchased my first 512 sq meters of land and quickly purchased more land in Cortina after that. I then started Making items to sell and started to expand buying more land and opening more shops.
NEVER once did i get or EXPECT a hand out.

and truthfully it is not hard to make things in second life My 7 year old son could make enough content so he could have enough money to live quite nicely in second life.
then again he is very smart little guy LOL smarter then i would like at times but he will probably grow up to be a computer program designer and make way more then I ever will.

Moving to Land and the Economy. Sorry I missed this.

I agree, Asha!

I see this thread was just moved to the Land and the Economy forum. For those of you who want to voluntarily opt out of their weekly stipend (premium or basic), please visit this thread. Several of us have already committed to doing just that.

/130/a0/109283/1.html

it's fun that you say that yumi because i remember of a newbie that made her first clothing and had a tiny house on a 300sqm land.
She was wandering in cordova, she wanted a robot, but not any robot, her robot, she never scripted before, so she started to build her robot shape, she wanted it very simple, it looked like a shiny black ball with a red line on its middle (it seems to be an image anchored in several person's mind as she saw someone making a robot with the same look months later) at first all it was doing was spinning slowly on itself. Then she torn appart a "wild slime follow drone" (one f these green and annoying things that where around back in time) , this examination made her understand how to make her robot follow her and she added it to the robot. next she was thinking the robot should obey to her voice, so she examinated some basic scripts (like the old show hide pose balls) and a few days later the robot was obeying to the follow/stay command pair. And so on , little after little , by wanting to have her own little robot she learned the basics of scripting.

This newbie was me, and today i still have this little robot that got more and more functions. (most are useless gadgets lol)
so Yumi i think personally its the best robot for me because i made it at the image of what i was imaginating. it might not please you but it pleased me when i made it, and its what make it the best in SL

what you call an artist is just someone that happend to make stuffs he isn't alone to like.

Damn right.

Hippies, open up your wallets!!! Life AIN'T free.

Neither was my stipend.

Still waiting for you here, Jamie.

One small note is that the robot example was specific to Enabran (that's, um, why it referred to robots). According to the join dates you joined a fair bit before Enabran did and certainly before his robots had begun to influence the SL society.

You've also jumped over a fair bit already and it's something that's very easy for talented people to miss. You "had a tiny house and made [your] first clothing". There's new folks who'd already give their back teeth to be able to do that - not because they're stopped, not because they can't learn, but because they can't have the ideas and/or can't realise them in a quality way.



I like how you followed the format of the old Charles Schultz story, but it has the same problem as that story: it was Charles Schultz. He was still Charles Schultz years before he drew Peanuts, he just didn't know it. He was exceptional so why should the story be taken to apply to other people in general? And, I'm afraid, the same applies to you here. Find me a similar example, but from someone who buys L$, and I'll believe that it shows that people are buying L$ with a positive attitude.

Actually they will probably come in and find out the advertisements about being able to make real world dollars in SL are hogwash and leave. It's also gonna hurt all merchants since most of our income comes from new folks buying not old timers. Well the new folks just lost any and all buying power in SL.

Sorry Flip but your assumptions are way of. I still remember buying first land and trying to put one of those free houses for a 512 on it. The reason it was free is it was too prim heavy to put in any furniture afterwards. Most freebies are creations gone wrong. As far as the free skins hair and clothing may as well make your own using the default linden tools as the free stuff is almost all exclusively incredibly low quality or non functional.

From my experience, the majority of new folks don't arrive wanting to make real world dollars.

Of the people who come to NCI, most of them are interested in earning their money inside SL, and in learning to build or create items to be able to do that.

Mentor Colleagues who work HI and the WAs have mentioned that there are some folks who arrive immediately wanting to know how to buy more L$. I don't know what proportion this is, though.

If the majority of people arriving on SL are doing so in the hope that they will earn their L$ by creating stuff (and I don't know that this is true), then the L$ will always continue falling even without the stipend because that majority will be unlikely to buy L$, since in their perception, doing so (other than for buying land) would be a sign of failure.

If the stipend was the problem, why hasn't (for instance) WoW Gold fallen through the floor? Every gold piece that's on sale was farmed and printed from nowhere. The reason is that buyers aren't paying for a currency, they're paying for entertainment, and they're likely doing that when they buy L$ as well.