camping, pathetic or productive?

As far as I can tell the arguments against buying Lindens are:
1) People feel uncomfortable trading real money for virtual money. (Many people do not realise that if they don't like SL, they can sell their Lindens back. IMHO this is why LL completely hiding the ability to _sell_ L$ from the user interface is a bad idea.)

2) People feel unsure about the results of their spending. Ok, they can buy some L$ and buy the hair or clothes or skin or gadget they like. But will they just have to buy more L$ when they want a different one? (Probably yes) If so, they'll start to feel a huge pressure to buy the "right" thing first time, and at that point the huge range of choices and options available on SL becomes a source of stress.

3) People feel that since others do not have to pay real money for their L$, if they themselves do, they have "lost the game" and there is no point staying anyway.

I camped for about 10 minutes my first day or so in world. I realized what a waste of time it was , for me anyway. Not why I came into SL.

Actually I did the math on that a few months back and the electricity cost was less that 2% of the amount you made camping at a 2/10L location. Those are pretty hard to find now from what I have seen, but even at 2/15L it is still quite a good deal.

The amount of money campers make and spend is not as insignificant as a lot of people think. 15 campers, camping 24/7 for a month make enough each month, to pay the tier on an estate sim ($295).

Lets say for sake of argument we have 15,000 people camping all the time in SL, and only half of those spend what they make. They are spending $150,000 US dollars per month. Thats not a small amount of money by any means.

I know people that have started businesses and own nearly 1/4 sim that made their initial money by camping. Way back when I started I bought my copy of Prim-Docker with money I made camping. (That seems like a lifetime ago now).

How much do you make for one hour, or One day of camping?
I made $L10,000 for an hour of Terraforming. My Dear one Najmah made $L40,000 for creating Four waterfalls, a Little less than Four days work All Together. My Girl alex has made All told probably $L160,000 off of Four swords she designed and built, and the Money is Still coming in on those. From what i have heard of it, My weekly Stipend is probably as much as people make Camping. If they Took a Small Portion of the time they Spent camping, and applied it to learning the mechanics of Building, Terraforming, Scripting, Clothing design or Particles they would be making Far better Money than they are Just sitting like a Lump.
My vote went for "Slightly less pathetic than Begging", But that was only because the pollster didn't Offer "Definately MORE pathetic than Begging" At least beggars are exercising some Imagination coming up with a New story of woe each day to drum up Donations.

Angel.

All well and good if you HAVE those skills, or have the time and desire to learn them. Not everyone does.

It's not likely to be quite that bad . 15,000 camping 24/7 yields 10.8 million user hours, which is half of the total, leaving very little for the rest of us .

But even at a $150k/month total it's only 2% of the total amount of US$ that passes through the LindeX alone.

Some people will probably leave, but I don't think it'll be a mad rush. Some alts that exist only for camping, some people who were casual about the game to start with.



Yeah, I wonder about the effect of that one. It's been sold as "make millions in SL!" so... yeah.




My early attempts at such made less than camping and needed some land.

To me the biggest turnoff of campers is the "I'm entitled to get something for nothing" attitude. People who are willing to WORK for their money deserve my respect. People who demand something for no work deserve none. At least in most other games you must actually DO something to earn the local currency.

Which is why I selected the "little better than begging" option.

This is also why I will also despise anyone who sells freebies.

When I joined SL camping didn't exist so I went premium (annual - deffo value for money!), got my little patch of first land and saved up my stipend if I wanted anything. It took me over a year before I could make anything worth selling. In that time I bought some L$ (surprisingly not that much!) and often went for long periods of time without spending any money in SL. Was my experience diminshed for the lack of money? Far from it! I had a great time meeting new people and exploring the grid. I actually managed to visit every sim that was open to the public back then, something which is probably impossible now

My suggestion to anyone who takes the camping route is to leave it behind and set out across the grid. You never know who or what you'll find. But you'll never find it on a dance pad or camping chair.

FWIW, I voted for the 'an annoying waste of resources for others in the sim' option.

Tried it. I can see how it would finance a newbie for awhile...It is boring and pathetic though. Often, in the camping spots when you try to strike up conversation everyone is afk...Waste of resources if you ask me.

To be completely candid, I think camping should be wiped completely from Second Life—and here is how I got there:


• Sitting around collecting money for doing absolutely nothing is not a standard we want to set for anybody, virtual or tangible. Some may think I’m being dramatic about this one, but the truth is, we really are teaching people it’s OK to collect welfare.
• Because Second Life has a working economy, we quickly fashion ways to take advantage of the system, so that we may profit. This is the nature of the beast, and will not change anytime soon. It goes for both sides—both the campers and the land owners are selfishly gaming the system, in order to prosper. Is this as bad as gold-farming? Does it make it OK to do, because both parties are benefiting—like a parasite and host, each living symbiotically off the other in a victimless situation. Should we turn a blind-eye? Or does this “gaming” of the system corrupt the delicate balance the economy teeters on?
• Oh, so you’re not getting enough traffic because your design skills couldn’t find their way out of a wet paper bag? ( . ) <--that’s not a period in the parenthesis, that’s the worlds smallest violin. Instead of gaming the system, why don’t you try and hire talented designers and artists to craft an ad campaign that’s worth a damn. Smart advertising, good design, and word of mouth should bring you plenty of business. I don’t recall ever seeing camping chairs or dance pads at Voodoo Lounge—maybe at one point they had them, but they don’t anymore because there is sufficient press and disciples spreading the word.
• Because there is no way to stop someone from creating as many alts as they want, it should be bannable if you get caught creating alts to merely camp your own camping locations. Shame on you. Why don’t you stop taking, and give a little for peet-sake. If I every could understand camping for a complete noob to make a few bucks for a new shirt, sure, fine…but for a land owner to create alts to camp his or her own camping areas…man, that’s just sad. I think justice should be handed out, in a strike one, two , three mentality—if you get caught gaming the system three times….you’re out, for good.

I have many ideas about this. The system is a good one for noobs (perhaps a time limit could be set from the time of birth) to make a few bucks, but because greedy, uninspired land owners are working the system, camping needs to be either eliminated, or severely tweaked.

Unfortunately until traffic is done away with or changed, and a better way is devised to allow those who don't want to buy Lindens to earn them (or stop hyping the money aspect of the game) if the Providers want the mass signups, i don't see camping going away. I don't mind the individual camper, if they want to be a zombie fine, i don't even reallt begrudge the business owner bot camper looking to hype his business. I don't like the camperbot farms that we hear about from time to time, using up the respources and taking all the money directly out of SL, and not actually "Living" here.

Micheal, there's always been (and still are) money trees for new residents who need a few L$ to pick up a collection of 1L$ freebie boxes from places like Yadni's. No need for camping chairs at all. And at least money trees encourage new residents to travel around the grid even if it's only from one money tree to the next. Hopefully they'll see something or meet someone along their journeys that sparks off their creativity, sense of fun, whatever and gets them off the gold-farming ratrace mentality.

Unless we want a SL Congress. Then these people will be perfect for it.

That's what I did once I realized camping was bogus. I made note of some of the more obscure trees were, since the more known ones were usually empty or only had a buck or 2 on them. wth a few. I also had some luck playing Sploders,I made 900L my Second Night in World, and benefitted also from a random act of generosity from another resident..That stake enabled me to buy basics every girl needs, and I was able to do enough to realize that SL was worth it for me, and went Premium about a week later.

You forgot to add, "See my ad below for professional design services."

that is the way SL used to be, a newbie would say hello and be polite and we would help them out (clothes, landmarks, cheap essential things and sometimes a little cash, not charity but kindness, karma even, people would pay it forward and the next generation of newbies would get a little help. We are after all people behind the avatars and we're sharing this experience. When people are using SL as simply a way to generate some 'free money' it degrades the overall zeitgeist.

Don't be a jackass. Just because I'm a designer, and actually care about how the community views me, doesn't mean I deserve to be trolled.

What the hell does my job in SL have to do with anything? Did I offer up my services to anybody? Of course not. I have tact, unlike someone I won't mention.

When I first started SL, I was hestitant about buying Linden dollars with my credit card. You can start small but the first $2USD you put it makes it easier to do another $5USD, then $15USD, then .. well, more. As a "gaming mom" with a household full of avid gameplayers of various ages, we spend quite a bit in our household as it is for games & MMO subscriptions, too much money already down that route, and before I "commited" to another one, I wanted to know more about it. The fact that SL offered Free Basic Accounts, and even camping as a way to start out with no upfront investment, was a MAJOR draw to me in gradually escalating my commitment to the SL world.

So I rather liked the ability to "camp" for my first dollars while I got acclimated to what exactly SL was, how it functioned, how my avatar functioned, what the economy was like. I was very interested in eventually creating/selling my own user content, but this can be a very big learning curve for some. There was no way I was going to be making any money my first few days, or perhaps even my first few months, designing and selling custom content.

I also used the "camping" aspect to role-play to an extent -- I was poor, new to the world, and learning to get by. Actually dancing on a dancepad to earn some quickie "advertising" cash for a merchant, fit it quite well for my own orientation to the world. This actually made the entire SL world a LOT more intriguing to me. I much preferred however some of the more imaginative twists on camping chairs, such as the window washing/floor mopping type jobs etc. I had a very hard time however finding those. The closest I came was acting as a DJ in one little shop, my favorite spot. I graduated to money trees as I soon found the money was a bit better, plus gave me an excuse to move around a bit more and see more of the world. A few places, I even decided to explore further or landmarked to return to later. There were some sleazy places I knew I would never be back to, but also quite a few spots that actually made a very favorable impression on me, to return to again.

After I made my first $L100 and could actually afford a week rent on a studio skybox, I had enough enjoyment and growing confidence in what SL was about, to decide I wanted an even larger place to call my own, and started buying $L instead. Yes, camping is a inefficient way to make $L, but its not a bad little introduction while you discover what-is-what, what things are worth, what can be had for free, etc.

I also am extremely sensitive however to the impact it has on neighboring property owners, so what I would ideally like is some sort of compromise that keeps an available way for newcomers to earn low-wage "manual labor" money while acclimating to the world, without it having an adverse impact on the longterm residents. I also respected more the camping areas that discouraged AFK botting by making you respond periodically or risk losing your income.

In all, camping and free accounts gave me a chance to sample the waters a bit, and if those had not been around, it is most likely I would have logged in for a half hour, found the entire Second Life concept too alien and confusing to absorb easily, and logged out again for good. Camping gave me a little shortterm "goal" with minor rewards to focus on while I learned the things I needed to about the world. If I am going to spend money upfront, it will normally only be for something I have already researched beforehand, and the entire SL experience is not really one you can research any other way, than first hand trying it out.

As far as those who sniff at wanting to clear out the riffraff by abolishing both camping and free accounts, well you might succeed but also lose some very worthwhile longterm members of the community who came to SL simply because of the free open borders type entry.

If SL is really to grow, then this is how some of us are going to be getting our start. You can close us out by making SL less attractive to us, but you might want to think first if that's a longterm result that will really benefit you.

Not all people on free accounts and using camping chairs, are unclean lepers and welfare bums. Many of us are just new immigrants, trying to decide whether we really want to make longterm commitments to this world. And how a world looks at and treats new arrivals, has a huge impact on where and what type of world it will be a few years down the road. If what you want most is a world completely free of riffraff, you can probably get that by closing the borders to questionable newcomers, but the longterm impact may differ from what you intended.

PS: by the way I did not vote in the poll, as none of the choices really seemed applicable, or even close to a compromise choice.

Please see this thread or work it out yourself:

/327/cc/198727/1.html

Because you are an elitist who insults the builds of people who do not have your skills while telling them to go hire a real designer. I saw very little tact in your post, mainly insults toward campers and those who pay them. As for how the community views me, the community can kiss my ass. I don't pander to the community.

Why would there even need to be a way to allow people to just get L$ out of thin air?

Simply verifying would have given you L$250 at no cost and you could have spent all the time you wasted camping figuring out whether SL was for you or not.

Noone has to jump in and wave US$ LL's way from the very first minute, but there was no need for you to camp to get some starting money either.

Who said thin air? I said a way tp EARN them.

I verified, almost immediately in order to join the forums community (I believe I did, in order to join forums that is a requirement? And to eventually get my first purchased $L.)

I never got any L$250 for verifying. Perhaps that is something they no longer do? In any case I am not going to jump to give my CC info until I know I want to.

I went back and reviewed my entire SL history, no $L250 credit for having payment info verified. Never told I would get one, and never got one.

In any case, I didn't consider my time camping either to be "wasted" (I was learning about the world, in a manner that was easy for me to acclimate to, and that I felt comfortable with) nor to be "freeloading", and am also a bit confused how I can waste my time freeloading. Either I am adding a benefit to someone and earning a benefit myself, or I would not be doing it. I would have preferred to have "mopped floors", washed windows, etc, (which I believe are all simply more "imaginative" forms of the camoing chair?) but had difficulty finding those.

If there are aspects to camping that have adverse impact on others, then yes that is not something a new person would understand, and that the community can somehow manage without slapping all of these "moral outrage" values to it. This whole concept of pronouncing who are the "good" people and who are the "lameass worthless losers" makes me very depressed about the world. Luckily, it is not all that often I see it in SL (yet). Perhaps that will eventually be what changes my mind. Luckily though, for every person I've seen so far like that, I have also met more people who were NOT like that.

So far, I had an enjoyable orientation, that convinced me to stay with SL, and camping was a part of that enjoyable process for me.

As a newcomer, those were the facts as I knew them.

There are already plenty of acceptable ways to earn money in L$ by providing services to others who are willing to pay for them, be it creating/designing/build or being a host or a store employee or whatever else. If someone can't be bothered with that, nor be bothered to buy L$ what else is there or why should there even be something else?

Camping is about getting something for nothing. It gets the land owner more traffic, but that's the result of the avie simply being there, it's nothing the camper has to do.

I just noticed your join date .

LL recently changed it so that the signup bonus only gets paid 45 days after you verified/put your payment info on file, so you should still be getting it some time, although it won't really be much anymore.