How Did They Do That?!

I was out shopping for low prim furniture, when I came across a lovely aquarium display. It was expensive ($L 1,000) but said it was copyable and modable. When I inspected the display model, it showed itself to be using only 3 prims!

I figured it was possible, since I had just bought a very detailed circular bar that only uses 1 prim that same day. I also attempted to contact the creator by IM to ask about it. Well, I shopped some more, finding most comperable aquariums cost only L$ 300-500, but used a lot more than 3 prims. So I went back and bought the aquarium.

Guess what? Not only did the actual aquarium tank alone use up 24 prims, but every rock and fish uses up even more. Needless to say, the $1,000 item is unusable in my home.

When I finally reached the vendor, he basically laughed at me and quoted the L$ to US$ exchange rate, explaining that I hadn't been ripped off that badly. I guess I can eat the aquarium; sorry it's no transfer or I'd give it away.

But my question is this: How did they make that display on the showroom floor use only 3 prims?

And also, since their display and notecard never says how many prims it really uses... do you think that this practice is deceptive?

Edited: Removed names of people/places.

It sounds like you've misinterpreted the vendor device prim count as the object prim count.
If the ad didn't actually specify three prims then I'm afraid it's all down to your misreading the information that was available, admittedly on the part of the creator, not a lot of information

edit: I ought to warn you also, that it is against the forum rules to actually name names. Would you delete the details? I know you've done it for the purpose of demonstration but you stand a risk of having the dreaded threadlock

I don't think it's deceptive at all. A visual inspection alone suggests that it must be substantially more than 3 prims. A friendly suggestion to the creator that perhaps he/she include information on prim count in the notecard might be nice, but I don't suspect they were actually being deceptive about it.

Either you saw the prim count for the vending system itself, or you were looking at a temp-on-rez "hologram" of the actual tank.

In either case, since you were looking for a low-prim tank and the seller didn't state the exact prim count, you should have sent him an IM to verify what you thought you saw.

Tuck it away for later use. One day it is quite likely you'll expand to own far more land, and then you can enjoy the fish tank.

And as the above posters mentiuoned, do delete the merchant's name from this post. Naming names in forum posts is against forum rules.

Now personally, if I was the merchant who sold you the tank, I'd just give you a refund, for the sake of customer service. As the merchant himself stated, it's not a lot of real money. On the other hand, since the tank is no-transfer, there is no way he could be sure you won't keep the tank and use it later, so giving you a refund means giving you his item for free. Such decistions are ultimately up to each merchant to make.

Moral: If something looks "too good to be true", it usually is.

Yeah.

I used to be very militant about this; no transfer = no refund because I'd had a number of people try to scam me back in 2005.

The same sort of people that would pay the vendor half the price twice (it refunds all if you do that) then said: look at your transaction history, I paid you. Which you do see, and if you don't check the detailed history you don't see the paybacks. Those were the types that made no transfer = no refund, as far as I was concerned.

Now? I've really lightened up, mainly because I think the grid is a lot bigger and there are other places that attract the scammers. Usually it's the scammers that make the refund policy for all, sad to say.

<i>Usually it's the scammers that make the refund policy for all, sad to say.</i>

...just like when I teach my classes, it's the cheaters and lazy bums that make the late homework and regrade policies.

Sigh.

-Rob