Dwellfarers

I have to agree with Ingrid here. People moving on to First Land just love low prim boxed housing. The Free Linden boxed houses use too many prims for 512m2, and although there are several other free, or L$1 resident-made houses out there, they tend to be so widely distributed that they just shout "newbie!" when placed on land. Residents may only live in their boxed housing for a few days or weeks, but it's worth it to them. Ask not only Barnsworth, but Whisper Lily, Cage Mandala, Planet Mars and many more like them - they all have very satisfied customers.

Simple furniture? Sure, big market for it. Once you have your boxed house up, you'll need to furnish it so it doesn't look so bare! Low prim furniture without poses (and prior to v1.4, hardly any furniture had poses), priced reasonably, sells like hot cakes. There were many items I bought for my first house - desk, chair, couch, fireplace - that I could have made myself, perhaps - but I saved the time and effort, and the texture uploading fees by buying from my fellow residents. Many of the items I bought were made by people just 1 or 2 weeks into the game themselves.

I find it interesting that you are denying the retail sales potential of "simple items" in Second Life without personal experience of them yourself - when you just need to look at malls and free markets everywhere to see the success they have.

They really told you everything there is to dwell except the value each point has, but they did explain that that value is variable.

Now that you two made up (congrats) repost the unanswered questions and concerns in a new thread so that everyone will be able to avoid the super post wars I just skimmed through lol!

OH dear Lisse, there you go again, but since we made up, I'm not going to be snarky : )

You said:



Again, this is a misinterpretation based on some prior posture which is erroneous LOL.

I never denied the retail sales potential of simple items like couches and flowers, I did something different, I asked "Why the heck do people who fly and don't have to go to the bathroom all the time like in TSO need furniture?" The manner in which the question is posed may seem provocative and seem like I'm objecting to furniture, but in fact, I'm just trying to ensure that people sit up and give me a robust, stringent answer. And they did. Answer: people like to nest and decorate.

I understand this perfectly. On days two, three, four in SL, I stocked up on every piece of furniture I could find that was put out for free at a bazaar, available in a store like GNU for a $1, or was even just two prims stuck together that a friend made to illustrate that box couches with indentation look not-so-bad. I put together a vast collection of junk, and I still have it organized in foldiers. It's like being alive in offline custom Sims, where you can find thousands upon thousands of little thingies to dress up your little sim and his dollhouse. It's great!

But...by day 25? Day 50? You get annoyed that the Calla Lilies, every time you put them out, are a kind of spawn because they're copyable, so they leave one copy inside your folder, and one out in your world. And you start to just have too much stuff in the inventory. And you look around your house, and it just seems cluttered and stupid, and you begin to wish for the cleaner lines and freer landscapes of a being that flies and has no objective need to sit at a table and eat a plate of that chopped-liver looking stuff like in TSO.

OK?

When I have more simoleons, I mean Lindens, I fully intend to go and stock up on stuff like Ingrid's furniture and more of that beautiful stuff I see endlessly laid out in these vast, empty, echoing malls in SL that I wander through at night, that seem like some artifacts of a lost world. Yep, I surely do want to have an SL mansion some day with all the bells and whistles.

Ok now that my head is swimming um where was this post going again?

I was just skimming this thread and can say with certainty, $100L in sales per day is easily achievable after 1-2 weeks in game. I have done it, and have no real building skills. The only potential issue with doing this is you have to figure out what people want to buy, not what you want to sell.

I understand your need to understand the dwell system. Every little bit helps. I don't beleive Lisse was talking down to you. I agree with her opinion that any business model relying on dwell payments / developer's incentive awards is doomed from it's inception. I have had some fairly large events, I do not beleive my daily dwell payment has ever exceeded $550L. Usually it's closer to $100-250. Given the amount of work and money usually required to get the $550L payment, it would probably be more efficient to concentrate on another revenue source. But the dwell payment is a nice bonus, and as you've mentioned, the fact that you are on the top 20 places, gets you more visitors.

Is the only remaining question what is the daily dwell pool?

$100 a day in dwell is $3000 in a week. That's $12.00 real-life if the GOM stays at $4.00. That pays a couple-three tier levels, it pays for an account and a half, or two year-long accounts. It's real money.

The question is -- to get that dwell, did you have to pay out a gadzillion amount in money-balls, contest prizes, expensive outfits, blah blah? You tell me. I suspect that might be the case, and even if you bank up your system with a dance machine, lights, bar, etc. and think it's a one-time investment, you'll have to keep thinking up something new each week and that means texture uploads, paying managers, whatever. The costs you incur trying to get in the top dwell are probably ten times what you get in dwell.

If those costs get you a grant from the Lindens, great, but surely neither they nor you see this as a very good system because of the administrative work and delays. It also doesn't truly reward innovation. Once again, a visitor points system generated by people going to content and sticking with content would be a much more interesting and rewarding way to solve not only the starter fluid problem but the rating problem (the devaluation of ratings on individual avatars).

No, the outstanding question isn't merely the size of the pool, the question is the formula for how they allocate it then after the size, and for me, the most perplexing question is why a club owner who gets five 1/5 points of dwell spread over time, after all his costs of land and event expenses, is punished, and I get to log on my sim and wait five minutes, and reward my group with the exact same full point. I'd like to understand whether the points have an increasing value in duration of time stayed on a lot -- THAT formula is the biggest mystery -- and I'd like to understand why the system punishes the club owner when it is supposed to reward him or her.

Somebody was saying dwell is a fool's errand? But it sounds like you can get real-life money in the form of a prize for the most dwell -- and 49 people got it.

*Goes to park avatar on group land again.*

Just when I think I understand dwell, then I don't get it again when I see the weekly record:

Summary for this week, beginning on 12/7/2004
The next stipend day is 12/14/2004

Balance $ 0

Group Individual Share
Credits 210 13
Debits -300 -19
Total -90 -6


OK lookie there. I took in 210 credits in dwell, did I? That should have given each person in the group 13 dollars/points. Instead, it debited out 300 -- more than the 210 you'd think it would debit out by first paying off any 30 listings and next paying off each group member, leaving any remainders. Instead, it has a -300 -- What's that? Perhaps 30 for a weekly listing times number of properties? But only one of the four properties in the group has a weekly listed option checked off. Where does the debit 300 come from? So now the group is in the hole, and owing the kitty.

I just don't get it.