camping, pathetic or productive?

I stay away from big cities, for the exact same reason ^_^

to be fair, I have experienced major lag in sims with 5 or less people, the Achub sim was terrible and there was only 4 or us in there at the time, but there were huuge textures all over the place, huge alpha prims etc. no campers there but the effect was the same...

what if the eyes hate it?

Yeah, I popped in to Toxia once on a saturday night, stupid me...Ppl could only move in slowmotion, let alone fighting! I stayed a while because it was kinda funny looking at them saying: "Run, but I'll get you!" and then move an inch every minute.

Mandy C

Camping is just a method to game the Traffic System.

Thats all it ever was - ever since the first camp chairs (I beleive located in Lost Dog in 05)

If you get rid of the Traffic Metric you remove enough incentive for having camp chairs that the negative aspects (lag / sim monololies / inflated number of concurrent users / zombie camper leeches) will be historical foot notes.

It's weird because as I said, I recently rented a parcel, on the mainland, near a public sandbox. I was pretty nervous at first, and spent a few days first visiting the area at various times of the day as I was afraid the area would prove a lagfest. It wasn't so bad, so I eventually rented the parcel. Several weeks there now, and still not so bad. There are almost constantly people in that sandbox, maybe 5-15 at any given time, building things. Weird things ^_^ This is on the mainland, Columbia sim to be specific. I should note also, I have a pretty beefy gaming computer, and a good cable connection, so I am not sure how much that parlays into me having fewer issues on my mainland parcel.

But I've had other places though that gave me terrible lag, with no public sandboxes, and no camping chairs anywhere around. Sometimes not even that many actual people, and I can still barely move. I suspect fancy flexy floaty dresses with high res alpha textures, are as much of a "bad neighbor" in their own way, as a couple of camping chairs. Oh well.

There must be something causing lag in certain areas, not related to 3-5 people sitting in a chair. Is it the chair scripts? Or maybe places that have a LOT of chairs, also tend to have a LOT of big gaudy textures, flashing/spinning/particle-shooting gizmos, and stuff every bloated thing they can fit in under their prim count?

Personally I never thought prims were all that useful of a way to regulate bandwidth. It may not be relevant at all, but in the modding I did in other games, the number of "faces" on an item, the specific type of scripts, the resolution of images, plants with a lot of alpha textures, caused a lot more "lag" issue (even in single player games that were not online) than the number of primitive objects (and it amazes me sometimes how complex of an item people can create from a single prim, some with a huge number of "faces" on a single prim).

Obviously LL needs to resolve lag issues to make SL survive, but I do think we are having a lot of frustrated people perhaps looking for scapegoats (not to mention a few who maybe like to jump on anyone with a different moral value system than their own, most especially "those camping chair welfare bum freeloader scum".

I think camping chairs and other ways for free account holders to earn a few linden dollars, may be a popular target for a lot of reasons NOT related in the least bit to actual lag.

I once visited a gorgeous sim that I've since forgotten the name of shortly after flexi prims came out and it was full of wonderful new flexi trees... I. Could. Hardly. Move.

I did a bit of camping when I first came to SL nearly a year ago. it provided me with a few L$ to spend on nothing much. But after I went premium I didn't need to camp any more. In the sim where I live there was until recently a horrible ugly casino that was empty unless the camp chairs were turned on, and it lagged my home.

So camping is annoying when you're not doing it. Dance pads are a little different in that if you have hardly any cash and you want to dance in a club, it's better to earn 2 L$ every 10 minutes while dancing than earning nothing from the danceball!!!

I'm sorry, but that's simply wrong. I've wanted to pick up the skills needed for building for more than a year but haven't been able to because I'm simply not very talented at visual art and have bad problems visualising properly, or making design decisions and having ideas to do with them.

I am extremely sensitive to the issue of people causing lag issues for neighbors. It sounds like casinos are often the biggest headaches, and curious to know exactly what about casinos does this. I suspect they have a host of other scripts running too.

I am a little confused though, why a 2 L$ / 10min dance pad, is an entirely different thing than the same script on a park bench? Why does one make someone a bum, and the other is just a good honest way to make some money while having fun?

One thing I've noticed from the arguements for and against camping is how the ones with the "get a job" seem to have forgotten (or never knew) what it was like to be the new guy with a casual interest in finding out more of SL.

Most new people to SL don't understand enough of it to be able to make a good business out of making clothes or other items. And FORGET getting a job that isn't prostitution. What's left? Being a stripper or a camper. And don't most strip poles amount to camping chairs anyway? You sit on something to do an animation and someone pays you. Sounds the same to me!

A lot of the holier-than-thou business owners that are jealous of the other businesses that use camping to help them out aren't doing anything to help the new guy so they need to shut the hell up or make some decent freebies so they don't feel the need to camp in order to get things.

I'm not down for the gaming of the system with camping bots and things like that but I will concede that camping serves a purpose that ultimately benefits the new guys even if that wasn't the intent.

The only way they could fix this situation is to...

a) get rid of traffic and replace it with some other rating system that more accurately reflects a business's success and value.

b) bring back the old system of verifying your account through a cell phone or CC with the 50L/week stipend and the 250L upon sign up. This is plenty to start out with and is more likely to get people to put down that first US$5.00 when they come across something that's a little more expensive than what they can afford for free.

That's much better than "everything is expensive to me because I'm broke and don't want to have to spend a lot of money on something I don't fully understand yet".

Events are never won by the best looking avatar, but by the one with the most friends.
Sploders never give out more than was put in, so they are not a way of earning money.
Besides that: To play a sploder, you first need money to put in

Sploders are incredibly annoying and are always "talking" (when they are in use). You can mute them, but then you have no idea what everyone else is talking about. Leave them unmuted and you will not be able to keep up with the conversation (those two sentences might not make since - sometimes everyone is focused on Sploder and if you have muted it, you can't figure out what is going on, most times it is a mix interest in it and other chatter). At events where I am a guest I sometimes feel the need to "play" them as a way to pay the people involved ("house take", or at events where I am "employed" I feel that I need to play as part of work.

Actually, I have seen no evidence that LL considers camping to be a problem in need of a fix. To the contrary, the more accounts (free or alts) the better they look. Camping keeps people coming back, and also inflates online numbers.

Actually LL has already stated that they are working on a new system to replace the current traffic system. They have already admitted that it's gamed and not accurate. Why else would they work on another system to replace it??

They also state that they are working on..................

Don't hold your breath on this one.

No shit.

You're missing the point once again. The debate isn't about whether or not LL will change the traffic system but whether Camping is productive or detrimental to SL.

Actually I was responding to this post of yours. As to "missing the point once again", I am so very sorry. I assumed that part of the point is why camping exists, from many of the previous posts.

Short story is that camping has had no impact on my SL experience, nor have ad farms or lots of other things that bother seemingly large amount of people. I still feel badly for those that have their online experience diminished by the performance problems attributed to these activities, and would like to see the issue resolved.

The use of campers to generate the false appearance of business success can be laid at the feet of the people that developed the way Search works. The Traffic numbers shown now are not really traffic numbers at all. They are often baised by paying people to Camp at the places to make it appear to have a lot of customers than it really does.

SL is an economy. The sale of goods and services here should be baised on the worth of the items bought and sold by the people doing the buying. The busineses doing the best job of selling things--should be given a fair way to float to the top in Search. They certainly do not have that now. Worse--shoppers have no really good way to judge what others really think about the goods or services offered out there. Showing up at the top of the search list could simply mean the place has a lot of campers. Thus customers are in many cases being mislead and cheated.

I suggest two numbers should be shown for Traffic:

A simple count of visitors (perhaps unique visitors for a given day to make it harder to juice the numbers) to any place of business accumulated over a specified period of time-- say the past week. And the same figure divided by the number of square meters. Highly efficient business would float to the top in the latter number--so search should be based on the ranking of the latter number.

With these two numbers and a bit of common sense, I think the people would quickly figure out if the place really attracted people or did'nt. Also they could figure out what probably attracted them--was it the store or a club on the same land?. Right now they don't know-and in truth, the the current search results are of no value for the people that are looking to get the most for their money.

I find myself in agreement with Chris finally!

There's an elitist attitude here at times and in threads like this it really shines through. If campers are akin to beggars then do you think that people who take freebies are akin to beggars?

If a business owner thinks that paying campers increases their sales, then why are you as another business owner bothered? You think it's a bad business move, so why care if another business owner isn't as competitive?

How many of you think that paying LL loads of money to get your ad higher up the search is ok? Paying campers or paying LL, what's the difference if you're going after the same result?

Better watch it Ciaran, you will be on the watch list now.

In moderation, camping is fine.

In excess, like many things, it is not.

It can be incredibly hard to actually get out and meet people in SL, and can take a long long time to feel like you have anything worthwhile to contribute from the building/scripting end. I've been in SL for almost a year now and aside from pick up lines I've talked to 2 landlords and helped one or two people get boxes off their hands. I'm not the kind of person that's good at starting or maintaining conversations. =/ God alone knows why I'm still here, although I do enjoy the building aspect and the forums make it seem not *quite* so empty of a world.

Anyways, my point being- I've been here for almost a year and I have 4 boxes I finished *tonight* to put into my shop (and I keep talking myself out of actually bringing them down from the skybox workshop). My first boxes.... even though I've owned the shop for a month and been in game for a year. I'm still not happy with one of my boxes but the other three are "acceptable". I expect to see a return on the investment to purchase land, upload fees for all sorts of disasters, initial expenses to buy the building (I suck at building making, although I did try... I did manage my own interior stuff though.) and to put together a polished enough looking avatar to do my own modeling (remember, I don't actually know anyone at all in game.) sometime between never and when hell starts serving frosty cones.

I can understand why people camp, although I'm more inclined to pull out my credit card, close my eyes and remind myself that I like the game enough to pay for it.... but I'm looking at 75$USD in start up fees not counting my premium account. If you don't whip out the credit card, you've got months of camping ahead of you- or finding one of those often discussed "jobs" that people seem to think are falling from the sky. They're not, by the way. =/

So it's a good way to jump start the newbies who aren't willing to throw out cash at a game that's, admittedly, a little shaky right now. It takes lindens to make lindens unless you're throwing cash at the problem.

It sucks, however, when you get 30 zombies in one sim making it impossible for the rest of the sim to do their daily thing. A couple of campers? No problem. A factory of campers? Ugh.

yes i agree completely cap.
i want to see one of these enigmatic 'boxes'.

I started SL ...

I looked in amazment how I was going to afford L$1 I wasnt quite ready to jump in for at least a month, my scripting skills wernt that great and my building skills were non existant.
I camped.....and camped...and camped, I met some other people during that time and those people are still my friends.

Then I became a member, got my firstland, learnt to build developed a few items and sold a few.

Then I needed to buy some land so I had to buy some lindens, as always the purchase system went nuts and rather than pay for 5,000 lindens the purchase failed so I tried again .... 3 more times it said it failed. I thought it odd so I went to check my account and there it was L$20,000 so I was stiffed by the lindex. So I used that money and bought and sold some land made some decent profit and I carried on my building and scripting bought a 886 in piserchia... that grew to a 1024 that grey again and again... then my RL wife joined in the game and she signed up... unfortunately I had been bitten by the camping bug and I was starting to just play SL to sit in a camping area.... not good

Then my SL business started to take off and I had to make a choice... and THANK GOD I chose to play the game, now I use my spare time to build and friends who are builders, I write scripts and hack other scripts..... theres NO WAY camping comes close to my business income, which is what i use for ingame expenses with tier etc paid for out of game. My wife started her business and we bought more land and we now own just over quarter of pisherchia. I consider myself reinvesting by purchasing other services etc from others and providing a money tree to newbies and considering opening it up to 90 day rather than 30 day. My wife runs a couple of camp bags for group members and she kicks bots STREIGHT away.

So what am I saying...

Well I think Camping DOES have a place on SL, but they need to do like money trees and create campers that will only accept accounts under e.g. 30 days so you get the time to build on your in game experience. I do think that you cant have a game like SL and enjoy a free service for ever because the "I am not going to pay ..i want it free" is what is known as a ponse .... New players need the time to see if its for them... they need a way to earn money to buy a decent avatar , hair etc ... but when does it end... I personally feel that Tier is VERY EXPENSIVE.... but I like the game so I pay, I want to help noobs ... so I do a tree but rather than sit on my fat english arse.. I decided to make SL work for me and i enjoy it so much more

For others I dont know .... but if you camp .. then your world has just got a LOT touger with casinos gone. Every camp space available will have 20 campbots with lightning reflexes competing against jo avatar for that 2/10 chair or pad. I am sure LL hope that for every 1000 sign up then 100 become premium but what about the 600 that dont sign up and the 300 that just sit and pay nothing into the game ( I accept that MANY free accounts DO buy lindens too).

I think the Lindens have it right..." Your World ... your imagination" and if you come to SL and walk away thinking theres nothing here and nothing to do .... then all that tells people is that YOU have no imagination and you cant see further than a 2/10 camping chair or 20 L$ whore

30 days is such a short period though =/ I spent about 3 days in, realized I was in over my head, and ignored the game for the next 3 weeks-by the time I realized there was more than money trees for the under 30 day'ers it was all gone. 60 or 90 would be lovely options... I digress.

Of course if there was a way to really educate the people incoming without burying them under documentation it'd be even better. Lots of stuff just doesn't make any sense to newbies because it requires prior knowledge- and really *understood* prior knowledge. Throwing someone at the current building system and hoping they learn it on their own is a nightmare- especially if you expect them to be able to fend for themselves off the income. It reminds me of trying to learn Blender without reading the manual. Dur. You wind up feeling really stupid a lot of the time and even when you don't feel stupid you've still got a box stuck on your head... it's not an encouraging learning environment.

The problem with camping is the same problem with social programs that reinforce the poor/needy rather than educate. They're great systems. They are doing what they're supposed to be doing (helping out someone in need) but they are only fixing the symptoms of the problem rather than the root of it and without education and reintroduction into the workforce, you'd better have a lot of money in your pocket, or do the virtual equivalent of scrubbing toilets.... (Not that there's anything wrong with toilet scrubbing, but it's not a job many people aspire to)

(Shop is in my profile picks in game, I moved my boxes down and now I'm running around frantically like my mom always did before company came over shuffling stuff around and trying not to panic about the spots on the rug.)