Put Dwell Payouts In Each Resident Account

I propose reconfiguring the dwell system to work as follows:

1. The existing dwell formula calculation and payout system is scrapped.
2. The Lindens determine the amount they are willing to spend on dwell payouts per week.
3. Each individual account is given a "pay packet" of dwell dollars he can see visually on his UI in his accounts history and in groups under "details".
4. As the resident travels around and dwells, remaining at any location for more than 5 minutes, he can visually see how his dwell dollars are being spent, whether it is in increments of 10 parts to a dollar or whatever. It might be that 10 dwell points = 1 Linden dollar in payout.
5. At the end of the day, when he logs off, he knows how much he has spent, and logging in 24 hours later, he has a new pay packet to work with.
6. The Lindens manage the whole system and maintain payouts but each individual player more directly controls how the payout is going from his account to the land he choses to dwell on.
7. As each player may have up to 5 accounts, he can have up to 5 dwell pay packets.
8. If a player does not log in, his pay packet does not fill up for that day.

This system would end the confusion about dwell and how it is given, spent, and obtained. It enables residents to feel more control about how they are giving dwell when they visit a site, and enables them to stay longer or to pick and chose among events and venues to award their dwell points. Those seeking to collect dwell also have a way of seeing more quickly how numbers of visitors are tabulating roughly to equal dwell payments. Ideally, the dwell payments would payout daily (as in TSO) but weekly is acceptable, too.

Many people worry about gaming the system, but in this method, the individual resident makes conscious decisions. Already, hosts park avs on their lots or find ways to magnetize them to generate dwell, so this system doesn't change that problem but makes people become more conscious of their dwell dollars, helps them participate better in the payout, and makes for a more accurate and meaningful dwell dollar in the end. Most people would resent being magnetized, warehoused, and harvested for dwell, and will vote with their wings.

I don't see that your proposal does anything to solve the problems you describe with the current system. In addition, it loses the flexibility of the current system to normalize dwell generation from all avs over all land parcels on a given day. The one nice thing about the current dwell system is that it pays the same total of L$ every day. Your system would always fall short of the potential maximum or leave some parcels underpaid. Also, events held in the morning would get more dwell than those in the evening when people had exhausted their dwell pay packet.

The calculations for dwell are not that complicated, but they are difficult to use to create an accurate number if you want to do them incrementally in real time. If you want people to be aware of how they are "spending" their dwell, you could theoretically record all the dwell time for an av in a day, and display that in a window that shows percentage breakdown by parcel, updating the info every minute. If you showed it graphically as histograms, you'd see the bar for the parcel you are on grow while all the others shrank.

If we want to "end the confusion about dwell and how it is given, spent, and obtained", what we need is more information about how the dwell system operates, not a different confusing system. There is a huge amount of inertia around the current dwell system to overcome to change or replace it, as it is so entrenched in our current economy.

That said, I'm in favor of changes that would more fairly reward creation of interesting content and entertaining activities. I consider dwell payments and DI awards to be rewards to residents for helping entertain LL's paying customers. There is probably a better way to do that than the current system. But it's not what you are proposing.

You're assuming that my plan would work by having dwell points increase the longer you stay on a lot. But obviously there would have to be a timeout or a limit. So let's say you have 100 dwell points a day. You can visit 10 places and leave 10 points on each one, or visit 20 places and leave 5 points on each one, but you can't stay on one site and use up all 100 on that one site. It would encourage more visiting and more attendance at a variety of events and venues if you could personally spread your dwell points over them, seeing them at work instantly.

What I'd like to end is the idea that you can have 5 people or 5 alts log in and each stay on only five minutes and 10 seconds and award a lot a bunch of traffic for that day. That's currently how the system can be gamed.



But that's if you keep the old system, then try to display it in a window, which is just too complicated. In my system, everyone gets 100 points, they draw it down, when it is spent, it is spent, then they wait for the next day. It's all pretty simple.



I've seen the Lindens now publish how their dwell formula is reached, but there is still confusion and misunderstanding about it, and some weeks it just seems plain broken.

I'm for democratizing the dwell system by putting the points in each person's hand -- like a vote on the feature voting system which has 10 votes for each -- so that people can literally vote with their feet/wings, and not have to rely on an impersonal, complicated, hard-to-follow system to generate something that affects their personl income and their group's income.



I disagree. When people can start seeing how, like bees, they literally track dwell pollen on to lots that literally draws down from their pay packets right before their eyes, not only will they become more discriminating, but they will visit their friends more in person instead of endlessly IMing them and standing around like zombies, which alone will improve the f2f type culture in the game. They will make sure that as a routine, they give out, say 50 points a day just to their 5 friends or partners or group members or whatever. There will be more competition to make more interesting and attractive events when people really can see how dwell is spent, where it comes form, and where to get it: from other people, you see f2f, not from an impersonal company with a complicated mathematical formula that is sometimes broken or "down".

From a few posts back in another thread:



Are YOU trying to run the game by posting constructive threads about dwell like this one? And everyone else just has a "false sense of heightened enlightenment" and should STFU?. Because by YOUR logic, no one should be posting any suggestions about ways to improve the game because we're all just operating on selfish motives. But I guess you place yourself above your own rules. Can i just ask you something? Why are you such a hypocrite? Do you not see how much you contradict yourself constantly?

edit to add: I'm sorry for hijacking, but i just thought it's something for you to think about before you go accusing others again of trying to influence the game as you are right now.

Geez, Ingrid, simmer down. It's just a proposition, hon.

I think this kind of rabid post says more about you and your grouplet trying to shoot down anything I do than it suggests any real willingness to discuss ideas. Does it so horrify you that I might have a good idea that might even benefit *you* that you'd have to smear me, and not grapple with the idea, in posting? That's really unseemly.

I don't really see anything in what you are saying. Proposing an idea that might benefit people is hardly arrogating myself to the level of "deciding what's good for the community". It's just a proposal!

Yes, there's a difference between making a proposal in a proposition on the voting feature (they ask you to discuss it first on the forums and iron it out before posting it), and acting like a) one is the community or its leader and b) one knows what is good for the community.

I really think there's a keen distinction in tone and posturing between those saying "let me set you straight" or "let me break it down to you" or "you're violating this or that hidden code of honour" or "if you know what's good for you, do X" or "don't just work for Prok, broaden your resume" or "I have a RL newsclipping about a RL crime that I know would cause a feeding frenzy here but I won't publish it because I'm nice and I'm just going to let you writhe over the knowledge I could expose you 'for the good of the community'"

Yeah, worlds apart.

I figure if enough people found flaws in this idea, I wouldn't bother to post it for a vote. Or, if they made constructive suggestions, I'd incorporate them. After all, it isn't just to fill up my dwell till -- I never get enough dwell anywhere to get on any of these leadership lists anyway, geez.

I haven't corralled a Linden, held meetings with influential people, started a popular third-party website, or sold my own creations in-game for more than $50 LOL. Honestly, don't you get it? It's just an idea.

That post was from a context about the very issue of forum behaviour and absence of decorum.

I don't think you'll find me criticizing somebody who just posts an idea for improving the game, Ingrid.

What you will find is a bullshit detector that finds posts like "let's all praise the helpers" as just self-replicating and self-celebratory ummm...well, this is a PG site, nevermind.

Yeah, hon, and maybe even a good one. But you said we shouldn't listen to suggestions from people who are trying to influence the game. Or, wait maybe you only meant other people who aren't you?


LOL


But all kidding aside, the bottom line is, you don't need to shoot down other players ideas when they are only trying to add to SL, as you are, just because they are part of a group that you feel envious of. There's room for everyone to contribute.

Ummm...Ingrid? Hello? Huh?

Where are the IDEAS??? I don't see any IDEAS. When I've responded to people that they shouldn't act like they "represent the community" or "know what's good for the community" it's NEVER because they put for an IdEA or suggestion. It's only because they were slamming me, telling me how to behave, saying there are certain ways other people have to behave, i.e. "dressing me down" if they happen to also side with me on a notion, etc. etc. That ought to be self-evident.

IDEAS, Ingrid! Where???

Mash and Baccarra, their teleporting system to the new continent. Free items.. Cabin Head... *sigh* the list could go on forever...

Anywho, it was rude of me to interrupt a possibly constructive thread about dwell and I apologize for that. I just thought it was worth mentioning, so that maybe everyone can have their say without so much trouble.

The teleportation system to the new continent was fine, what I criticized was a) getting dwell dollars and traffic to your store under the guise of providing "public transporation; b) having a public transportation system which ought to be the function of the "federal government" in private hands; c) offering the land as 'public access' but then telling vendors of transportation services they couldn't have a for-profit rate but only a symbolic rate.

In other words, I criticized *features* of this idea and some very significant public aspects of it that would be normal in any society discussing public transportation, I didn't criticize their right to put out an idea or project. Try to make that distinction.

You're not making that distinction, and you're confusing a) my criticism of ideas with b) my claim that other people can't put out ideas.

So if you have a criticism of the dwell idea, rather than trying to catch me out as a "hypocrite," just criticize the idea if you don't like it. Ideas, Ingrid, Ideas.

As for Cabinhead, I view it as a funnel, with tacit or actual Linden endorsement and referrals built in, one way or another. That troubles me, grabbing the newbie stream like that. But few people are going to bother about some unfair practices and there isn't much I can do about this beyond hoping that whatever independent alternatives I and other players provide for new players will get a fair hearing now and then and at least won't be blackballed by the funnelers. So again, I criticized the idea because I saw it as favouritism, funnelling, and apprenticing. That doesn't mean I say they don't have the right to put out ideas and projects. They do. Obviously nothing got in their way. Just as I have the right to criticize them. Or do I?

We all should be able to to make suggestions and critique what happens in Second Life. Not just you.

I agree.. ideas, ideas... everyone's ideas, new players, old players...

I propose we end dwell altogether. Its flawed and malfunctioning - ending it would solve many problems.

Just as support for events was ended... so lets end Dwell!

Agreed... it should be replaced with hamsters.

I find this idea very intriguing ....

Im reminded of the portion of the TSO population that was scrupulous about tipping when they spent time on lots.

Anyway, before the thread got sidetracked, I was wondering how unused points would work. I can see some portion of the population wanting a cash refund for the portion that they didn't "spend" in any given day. And the arguments for "carrying forward" unspent amounts to be spent in the futuer ... like "next Saturday when that big party is scheduled".

I agree that we need to do something about dwell. I find the current system hopelessly confusing, and tend to ignore it entirely. And am aways quite wondrous of those who are trying to actually /work/ with it.

Well, I was thinking it would pump too many dollars and too much inflation into the system to allow it to accumulate and be passed forward like that.

If you recall in TSO, if you didn't log on, you didn't get that day's traffic payout. It works both ways. If you, as the property owner, don't log on, the dwell payout doesn't pump into your account. Now, what about group land you ask? What if 3 out of 5 don't log on? Well, the way that was set up in TSO was that each and every person on that lot had a portion of the traffic/dwell equivalent, which was lot points. They paid it out. It wasn't some huge fantastic sum, but more than the pittance and the mysterious pittance we get now.

I think probably you have to spend it, and it has to tap out like in some span of 5-20 minutes.

What it would do is force people to log on more, travel more, and spend more. And that could place a load on the whole SL system and for that reason alone, maybe the game devs wouldn't like it. I'm just not sure if that is what would happen. I think it would be good to spread out travel more and encourage log ins more.

I admit, even though I look at dwell every day, I have no clue as to how it is really figured or what the dwell pool size is. With that said, why does everyone keep trying to implement functions of TSO (which I have never played nor have a desire too) into SL? Isn't SL supposed to be its own virtual world, not a copy of another one.

To me, I would rather the Lindens actually explain, in very simple terms how dwell is really figured out and maybe even make it more transparent. Maybe after that, I can see Prokofy's idea possibly being implemented.

Timmy, people clamour for TSO because they saw something worked in a world to promote cooperation, businesss, interesting lots, themed lots, etc. and they wonder -- why not try it here? SL puts so much emphasis on graphics, technology, content, etc but sometimes you just wish it would care a little bit more about the PEOPLE in it and serve them with stuff like this! It's what the people who clamor for the events stipends are constantly whining about -- but who can blame them? And by PEOPLE you know I don't mean socialism, I just mean PEOPLE. Not graphics, not technology, not rendering engines, not content that goes on stuff or in stuff but PEOPLE.

Now, did the Lindens finally explain what dwell was? They did indeed. I was one of those clamoring mercilessly for this formula. My first big argument with an older player here on the forums was over dwell. She told me I was a sucker for collecting it. I and a TSO friend parked our avs on our lot for hours thinking we were helping ourselves LOL. Boy, were we dumb -- but yet, I still feel virtuous when my av parks on group land and I can figure I'm leaving the group at least SOMETHING in dwell dollars by sitting on group land, instead of say, a sandbox, to clean my inventory or work through IMs. No? Yes, of course.

Now, is that formula sensible? No it is not. It is wierd and arcane. Look it up in the google here it's on the Linden forums somehwere. Basically they take eye of newt and tongue of snake on the third moontide of the fifth month blah blah. It has to do with what pool of log-ins there are that day, and the amount shrinks then based on that day's population.

In TSO, it calcuated every other day. Here it generates once a week. They have the power to tweak it, and many suspect they manualyl do tweak it to work all their levers for Linden sinks that they need to stabilize the economy. Sometimes, dwell is just "broken" for days -- weeks! But we can't know if this isn't once of those secret federal government "stabilization initiatives" they just don't want us to know about lol? ROFL.

Timmy, I like to feel I'm doing some good traveling around this game and visiting people. I just wish I had dwell dollars on my feet. I wish I controlled this process instead of looking helplessly into my group menu each week never knowing what the hell I will find there. I often marvel how my tenants and I can have numerous events in a week and there doesn't seem to be more dwell, but less. It just doesn't add up.

TSO? A game that EA envisioned having over a million subscribers which got at most about 105k? 10% of the low end of their target?

That broken economy? Cooperation? What? Roomies ripping down other roomie's homes, mafias out of control, tagging, etc., etc.

People paying you exorbitant sums to go sit on their land while you go do your laundry, watch TV, or read a book, or what have you, in RL, was ridiculous. I went back to give it another whirl about a year ago - I made 70k on a 3 day weekend, had people handing me "valuable" pets left and right, a free home on a max sized lot, etc. This was a direct reflection of the broken economy.

This is not TSO - it never will be. TSO was and continues to be a near failure.

P.S., It's lovely that you have no qualms about tossing aroung the word "people" as if you were speaking for those other than you and your friends from TSO who are homesick and want to meld SL into some mutated, illegitimate spawn of the two games. It's one thing to learn from another game's successes or failures, it's a completely different thing to try and directly insert systems from a different game. So much for imagination.

Let's see, you don't like content creators, beta testers, freebies, no copy items, scripters, group tools, the voting proposition system, the Lindens political bent, the dwell system, "cubes of death", gorillas, and on and on and on and on...

Tell me; is there anything about SL you do like? Besides your own ideas, Anshe, or your clique from TSO? Is there anything about SL you DON'T want to change?

Claps loudly.

can someone direct me to the dwell formula?

since last year all i've known about dwell is you get diaily dwell points and they are split amongst all the places you visit proportionate to the amount of time you spend there. the problem i found with this is that my dwell numbers didn't ever seem to reflect this. specially the 5 minute minimum as i experimented to figure out the number of points per av using alts.

any one have the formula or solid numbers on this?

So? still pretty impressive. I think it was more like 40k no? I know another game at that population talking about a million *cough*.


Um, well, which is it, Nolan? I criticized these things like the mafia and the uber-mafia designed to get rid of mafias, the SSG, and you call it "destroying the community" lol? When in fact it was what many players of concern did to improve the game and it did improve the game. In fact, you're out of touch and ill-informed and probably never played TSO? or not for long? The roomie-rip-down issue was removed more than a year ago when they took off the roomie build perms and made it so only the prop owner could assign build perms. Hmm...kinda like officers here in TSO...and how they can't control other officers selling land out from under them...hmmm....




Yeah. Yawn. With people like you doing stuff like that, sure, it broke LOL. Some of us didn't chase after rare pets and maxed homes but tried to do more rich content



*Shrugs*. Not for many who enjoyed it and continue to enjoy it. I continue to believe TSO solved problems that only now SL grapples with in some areas.




*rolls eyes*. Jeska? Where's the Linden ire over this one?

Whatever. I'll go on suggesting things that I think are beneficial to this game or any game.

No, it maxed at 105K. SL has not maxed, and I don't see that point coming for some time. They have had a great growth rate for a business their size. Even comparing LL to EA/Maxis in this manner is ridiculous. EA has millions and millions to spend. LL is small potatoes, therefore the definition of "failure" must be scaled accordingly. By the way, 100k is considered a failure for a company EA's size. They (EA) killed MCO because it hit only 60k. Juxtapose 100k or 60k as a failure along side SL's growing 30k and you have to admit that you really cannot compare them. I don't see LL closing the doors anytime soon.
I never stated you were "destroying the community" you don't have that power. I stated you went after the BDSM set in TSO (which you told me), and that you were "hurting" SL. I hope you don't need me to detail the difference between "destroying" and "hurting". You sure have a flair for exaggeration and drama don't you? The BDSM thing is what set off my radar. Especially after I saw you going after groups here.

As far as your comment "probably never played TSO? or not for long?", isn't this the attitude YOU supposedly hate here in SL?

I left TSO because of mafias and pure boredom. I was a co-owner of a #1 house on BF for months. It was drag. Thanks for your usual pompous remarks. I am not out of touch, have several friends who play TSO, I have done 3 different stints in TSO, I was a beta member/founder. I dunno how many times I have to tell you that. But then you don't remember anything that doesn't pertain to your narrow view. Too trivial for one of your grand stature to bother with. Are you trying to tell me the economy in TSO is NOT screwed? That's funny, becuase my ex still plays it, and she claims it's as bad or worse than the last time I played. She gave up on her pet store because of it. As far as the roomie rip down thing goes, good! I am glad they fixed it, and yes, that was apparently fixed after I played last, because people were still buzzing about it.
Will you stop putting words in people's mouths? My god, either you really just don't read, or else you just see the absolute worst case scenario in people.

Here's how it went: I met folks who would pay me 1 to 2k per hour to sit in their house and skill. Some random stranger IMs me and says "Hey, I am quitting TSO, want a house?" I said "Sure!" Hardly chasing. Then, people were having raffles at their homes for pets. I was excited about pets because I had heard that they represented a commodity. Again, someone handing me pets is hardly chasing. So I went between houses that weekend and made 70k in cash - on top of the house and pets! At first I was happy, until reality sunk in, and I asked people about it. Most of them concurred that the economy was broken.

By the way, I never owned a rare pet. Once again, you are projecting.
I think you are wrong, and you're being here exemplifies that.


Huh? Over what?
Suggesting is one thing, setting up fake question threads so that you can once again make points about the group tools, and the newly retitled group of "neo-isolationists", is a completely different thing. As is deriding people after you solicit their responses. This is why I clapped for Ingrid's post, apparently you think only your ideas have any merit, and that shouting people down with a 12 post a day average (not including your 3 admitted alts), is the way to go about business.

Let's see; "Um", "Yawn", "Shrug", "rolls eyes", "So?", "whatever". I think that's a new record for condescending remarks! It really makes your whole post sound rather immature. Did you learn to use such terms from The Chicago Book of Style?

In closing, leave dwell alone. I don't see any reason to revamp it completely. Making it more transparent is fine, as is getting rid of the bugs in it, but there is nothing inherently wrong with the structure.

Could you just stay with the topic on hand here, Nolan? It's about dwell.

Could you take all your personal disputes somewhere else? I won't rehearse all the rebuttals needed to counter all your charming mistatements but let me just address one pertinent one -- yes, I went after BDSM leaders who saw nothing wrong with publishing really explicit profiles with URLs that linked to their RL sites, and with their behaviour ingame on public lots *in a game with children and teenagers all over the place*. Did you have a different position on that issue? Oh. I didn't think so. Would it be relevant here? No, because there's no children or teens here, or shouldn't be, and adult lifestyles are matters of choice and privacy. Next? Then...your point? Well, whatever, take it to the off-topic lounge.

I was following your lead. You were getting all excited about importing aspects of TSO into SL. That means you brought up TSO, it was therefore your topic, and I rebutted it. I have a right to an opinion you know, and that opinion is that TSO is broken and that SL is already too much like TSO, so no thanks. I am a TSO transplant in case you've forgotten already again, so I do have some sentimental memories of TSO, but I don't care to have what I consider some of the worst aspects of TSO imported into SL.

You then responded with a condescending, assumptive, highly erroneous Karnak the Magnificent point by point. I rebutted that point by point with one of my own. Again, following your lead.

People howling about their dwell and not wanting to pay to attend events is a sickness. We don't need welfare, we need people to start behaving as normal consumers and producers do. Otherwise any and all comparisions to a RL economy with respect to that of SL's simply make no sense. The government does NOT give money to clubs in RL. They do NOT give money to online entertainment producers. They do not give me money for having a hot tub party at my house.

With that in mind, I wouldn't mind if they just got rid of ALL incentive programs except for educational event support.

Again, you are putting words in my mouth. Please stop assuming and telling me what my feelings are.

Of course I am against children being exposed to sexually explicit situations, and if people did that they should have been punished or banned. They should have used the access lists. If memory serves, wasn't there a restriction on chatting with minors?

There is not something inherently bad about the BDSM community, unless you count the misperceptions many hold with regard to said community. Just as in any community, you have people that will do the wrong thing.

Here is a post by Haney, you may have already read it. Apparently most people who have asked about dwell in the past and were referred to that link didn't really feel that it answers their questions.
/16/ff/23421/1.html

I also found this from Cory Linden, from this thread /111/0c/24313/1.html which gets a little more in depth: