camping questions

How does camping work be it on the owner side or user side?
I notice different places work differently.
I was also told that the owners pay for camping.
I like to know more information about this because I am trying to figure out unique thing around camping that doesn't involve the gambling or perhaps something bit different.

Camping is a bad thing, from everyone's point of view.

From the owner's side...

it costs money.
it lags the sim and annoys your neighbours.
its a way of artificially increasing your popularity - cheating.


From the neighbour's side...

it clogs up a sim and lags them to hell.
it may prevent people getting to land that they own and pay for.


From the user's side...

it's soul destroying.
its wasting resources that affects everyone else in the region.
its lazy - sucking the welfare nipple.
it's a waste of time where you could be doing something more interesting.

It's far better to spend $10 buying some game money and doing something useful with it instead.

Lewis

The owner places a camping chair, dance pad, or other item in their area. This item contains a script which detects when someone is sitting on it and gives out money to them at a slow rate. The L$ money comes from the owner's account (L$ are almost never created from nothing in Second Life except in exchange for US$).

The owners are generally prepared to pay for this because:
a) having camping chairs attracts traffic which increases the popularity rating of their location in the Search menus;
b) having dancers, or similar people, present in their location makes it look busy and enhances the realism and versimilitude of the location;
c) in some cases, tasks such as mannequining may also result in better sales for items sold in the location, too.

Some locations require the user to repeat phrases spoken by the chairs in order to make sure they're not idle. In this case they typically want to attract users who will interact with others, thus making the location become a social destination as well as just gaining traffic points.

Of course the downside of this is that Second Life slows down a lot when there are lots of avatars in a region. By having, for example, a live mannequin instead of a picture showing an outfit, customers can see the outfit a lot more easily but also the mannequin is adding 1 entire avatar's worth of processor load to the server, which can cause a lot of slow down when there are a lot of people around. Also if the avatar is idle, visitors do not get the benefit they would normally get from having those other avatars there (ie, people to talk to)

If you're looking to innovate something may I suggest there's much richer fields than camping to do so in?

we use camping chairs at our place, set to a very low amount so as not to pack the sim, to give a bit of spending money to the newbs. We find this much more effective than money trees, and maybe we have a couple campers a nite. Yes we get a tad bit of traffic from it, but not enuff to crow about. The owners of the chair pays the camper. Like anything else if used wisely can be a good thing

I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but the only one ever creating L$ is LL through stipends or direct sales by Supply Linden.
If you buy L$ on the LindEx you're buying L$ that another resident put up for sale, no L$ are created (exception above).

Nothing makes a parcel look more deserted than a dozen zombie campers. Maybe there are some real people in between all those green dots, but once I notice any campers I know I should keep on looking. Quite a few times newbies will walk up to me and ask "Do you know where all the people are? I see a bunch of green dots but noone's around?" When you explain that they're just zombies they quickly move off in search of another place for social interaction. I doubt they're return visitors either.
It might be me personally, but if I don't see anyone, I know it might be a quiet time and come back later. I'll check back a few times if it looks nice, as opposed to when I see campers that's my one and only visit because I know that other than aimlessly wandering around, there's no way to really tell if there are actual people around or not.

I'm thinking they want free traffic without even paying pennies for it. As far as I've read, if you don't supply the answer they unsit you at which point they no longer have to pay, but still get the traffic from the avie that is AFK.

In defense of camping, the ones at Belle Belle (guitar playing, gardening, window cleaning and street sweeping) are really quite nice and do actually add atmosphere, but only because they were unique (until she started selling them and turned up all over).

The usual occasions when L$ are created are stipends and Supply Linden sales, and on both of those occasions US$ was exchanged (for the Premium membership or directly on the LindeX). I didn't say (or rather I didn't mean to say) that every time US$ are exchanged, L$ is created.



That's true but it's also possible that they want to encourage people to be there at their keyboards while camping so that they can chat to others who are camping or others who arrive there, making the location more social.

That's something I've always felt.

If you are paying people to just sit on your property, you're admitting that there isn't really any other reason for people to stay - and if there's no reason to stay, is there even less reason to visit in the first place?

Certainly ingenuity and coming up with a new idea and attraction is a wonderful idea which I'd encourage anyone to do - but incorporating camping chairs into it would, at least for me, destroy the whole concept.

Lewis

For some reason when I looked I thought you were new and thought I'd clear it up since a lot of newcomers seem to think LL gets all the money from L$ sales every time.

Now I noticed you're "older" than me so I think I need more sleep . Sorry .

Yeah I am just trying to figure things out.
I just finished looking at this thing about being able to buy credit on the account page and my poor brain just doesn't get it.
I was thinking about creating like something people could pay to ride from this ideal of object I made but I don't know yet how to do the script and not sure if anyone would actually pay to ride or use the item.
I am just working out the details of how to take the textured image and turn it into playable object for vistors right now bit clueless.
Not sure if people would use it though unless there was some type of reward in using or riding the animated prim.
I have been taking break from learning how to build, uploading textures and ran out of what I want to withdrawal from my bank in real life. I have already way beyond what I want to spent and I did it in my first week.
So I have been exploring camping which often seems in some places more expensive if I have to gamble 100L or more to get better pay out.

There is actually very little in SL that people go to repeatedly or for extended times.

If you look at the 'most popular' places, the majority of them are actually clubs or casinos, which more often than not are full of zombie campers in the first place.

People will rarely pay for anything - even L$1 - because there is a 'welfare culture' and an expectation that everything should be provided for free, regardless of the fact that it costs you to provide it for them.

Generally, now that you have point-to-point teleportation, people will go to what they want to, do what they need to, then go somewhere else or home. There's very little exploring done, and of course as you don't have to fly past things to get to your destination, people don't have the opportunity to stop any more if they find something interesting on the way.

Lewis

I have personally limited just going through the map and popping into new places because of just not wanting to pop into someone's residences.
I was reccently exploring with friend and he wanted to check out this rental highrise.
I accidentally got stuck on this woman's deck so I try to move out of deck and apologize I lost where we are so I land while walking there is this empty lot but there these two people standing around on it.
One starts to shove me. I am just trying to get to lot on other side where the rental unit is.
This is why I don't go exploring just randomly much. It is really annoying.
I have only been here a month and I don't have tons of money in real life but I have spent a lot and most likely might spend more but at this point I am really need to reduce what I spend in this game because it is real money when I buy versus being hired for service or recieve a bonus and I can't continue to spend personally 100 to 250 usd in this game every month personally. I don't mind paying for services and the things I need or leaving tips at camping places or giving free items to the owners that I have created if I like the place.
If this is requirement to play is to spend my maxium buying allowance every month I personally can't continue being here and giving out free content to new friends and creating content for the game.
At this point I just trying to keep enough in my sl wallet to upload textures and buy few items. I can see myself easily going through 10k of lindens just uploading textures and snapshot images.
Most of people I have talked to only are willing to invest certain amount of money in the game because they have real life expenses.
Some of them do provide services and help others too so its not like they are sitting eating bonbons expecting free stuff. Not everyone can afford to be land baron or spend hundreds of real life dollars to get lindens.

If you are creating content you should be able to sell it, too. Remember that the whole L$ market on SL is supposed to be enabling, not disabling - the idea isn't that people are keeping you down by charging you for things, the idea is that that way you can charge for your things too.



There are plenty of ways of earning money in the world other than being a land baron.

ok if you cant afford to play secondlife dont play.

camping kills secondlife and the land woners are cheating the popular listings page.

i make "stuff" making stuff doenst cost money apart from 10L to upload a texture / animation / sound .

I therefore give everything i make away for free or 1L . Why - well 10 peeps take it and im even on my texture upload etc.

Prims dont cost anything to make.

I personally (and this is a VERY personal point) think that 99.99% of "stuff" sold is over priced crap.

If you spend 30 mins learning how to use Gimp or avimator or audiocity ( all free software ) you would be able to contrinbute to secondlife with your own creations.

Its surprisingly easy to throw a few prims together upload a texture and throw in a script and whoop bang you have a " unique" creation. cost.. 10L

I dont count " my personal " time as well SL is fun.

I just dont get why people camp -- i've many a time gone upto people who have time: 35mins 11L above their head or whatever and thought geeze spend $1 and enjoy yourself its probably costing you that in lindens for the electricity.

( goes back to making another freebie )

Probably because they come here with the lure of 'hey, you can make money' without realising that, to be able to, you need to have land as well, which has to be paid for somehow. I'm personally spending around $50 a month on SL, with land and premium tier - which I'd need to sell 1,250 of my little $10 items each month just to break even. My most expensive item is less than a dollar - the full kitchen including applicances - yet people won't buy it.

Spending several thousand L$ for a talking penis... well... for some reason they don't have any problem with that.

Lewis

When I see Campers, I now run away quick and find another place. Campers are a sign of a SIM that will lag badly, and will be NO fun. But, 'Okay'. I confess. I have been camping. *covers head with hands for the pummeling that is surely coming*
AND, even worse, I have sent people camping.

Months ago, when I first started, I wasn't sure I was going to actually stay with SL, and didn't want to cough up RL $. But I quickly discovered that a few Lindens are sometimes needed even to buy those L$1 freebies that are so popular, and some great amusement park rides need L$10, and slipping a Linden into the waist band of a dancer is always fun.

Now, when a noobie needs money, (and if he's a good noobie with the right attitude), I'll tell them about camping. Most outgrow it and move on, but those initial Lindens can be very needed. For some, its the difference between a fun time in SL and frustration.
I even keep a list of places where the camping pays reasonably, and isn't just a gambling scam in disguise.

The store owners are getting what they want: False popularity statistics
The campers make some spare change.
Shoppers pretty quickly learn that there are better shopping experiences to be had elsewhere.
The others in the SIM move out to less laggy places.

Tell a newbie to get verified and they will get some Lindens. 250L$ I believe. Tell them how long it will take to make that much if they tried to camp for it. 24 hours I believe. Tell them there's no charge to your credit card to get verified AND people will look at your profile and hold you in higher esteem.

13.9 hours, at $3/10m. Set your Avatar up camping when you go to bed... Wake up, go to school or work, come home.. money in the bank (if you can stay connected and earn continuously.

Also mention to the noob that a few months ago, a hacker broke into SL's webserver by exploiting the code in the LSL Wiki... and that they made off with copies of everyone's login info and paypal info (all unencrypted), and encrypted copies of their credit card info.

And then remind them of the actual VALUE of $250 lindens. and that for a $1USD bribe, Linden Labs wants to add your info to the pile of people who might get their info stolen next time.

And point out to the noob that they risk nothing by parking their avatar in a camping chair for a few hours, but they risk identity theft, having their credit destroyed, etc... all for $L250! (and mention that even when demanded to do so, Linden Labs refuses to remove your credit card information from their database.)

Sign me up!

If you are seeing them inworld as a newb, they don't qualify for the 250L. That's only if you get verified WHEN YOU SIGN UP. So they are SoL.

I will freely admit I camped when I first came here by way of a friend. I earned around 500-600L in time and was able to ditch the newb appearance and pay for a few of my own uploads, to which I got a job to pay for more uploads, to which I started a small shop.

I'm not dropping money into a game I can't try out, and trying it out in newb mode is god awful and if I hadn't been told before I came to the game that I could look better, I never would have stayed (this sentiment echoes with all the people I bring here).

If I had only the newb mode and a few laggy sims... ugh!

Thanks to some of the camping places, I was able to test it out fully though and here I am (albeit still looking for a new platform).

As for the OP:

For owners, camping chair traffic can put you higher than what a classified costs to get visibility. For others, it's a way to put in a popular keyworded search and bring up thier store with a few chairs. For others yet, it brings money in by way of gambling to increase chair payouts. For more still, it's a way to showcase OTHER vendors in SL.

For users, it's a nice way to get a few bucks to start with so you can pay for 1L boxes, save a bit more for that first outfit to take away from newb mode (lots of people won't hire newb outfitters) and a few hours of camping while asleep can pay for an upload.

There are some camping chairs I certainly agree with, there are those I do not.

I don't believe in mass amounts of chairs unless you own your own sim and choose to spend your resources that way preventing real people from coming in. I don't like those who run rigged chairs.

I do like small shop owners who wish to bring a few people in, I do like some who place a few in thier sim to help out newbs (especially ones that are placed next to freebie boxes).

I spent over 100 usd already this month personally so am I expected to pay over 100 usd every month to be able to playing Second life every month as requirement to play this game? I didn't see this in the knowledge base as requirement to play this game. I am premium member from the get go, in spite of some worries I had with using my bank card.
I actually called my bank prior to joining because I was convern about the security risk of my bank information if I joined.
I am not ready to sell my stuff yet or make this into real job and while they said prior to joining there are people making 20k a year earning Lindens here and supporting themselves from what I gather it just hype and I knew it personally that wasn't why I joined this game in first place.
I joined to create and learn how to create better stuff to share with others nothing else, nothing more. At this point its taken me 2 weeks to figure out how to set permissions and it will take bit before I am willing to just share my creations with just anyone or even know how without getting ripped off.
So what do I do other then camp or turn tricks? Sorry I am not doing cyber sex for lindens.

No, you aren't required to keep spending real money at all (ie, don't panic )



No, there are actually people doing that. It's very difficult to do (and it gets harder as time goes by), and you have to be prepared to spend most of your SL time working on it and take even some RL risks, but it is possible. However, don't think that you can't sell any of your stuff unless you want to be a massive money maker.



Well, there's no fee of any kind for time spent in Second Life. If you're busy learning to create things, you don't usually need to buy stuff as well. And texture uploads only require a few L$.



Keep refining your skills and then put some of the things you've made up on sale. Alternatively you could try for a hosting job, use money trees since you're new, invest in land and rent it out.. there's several different ways.

You're totally right, I should have to deal with a sucky FPS and having to go build somewhere else because the sim where I own land has horrible performance because of a club owner with camping chairs, all so you can free-load.

How thoughtful of you.

Plus I've never seen a place with L$3/10m, most of them are L$2, with a good number of them only being L$1.

And you are right! All the newbs who want to get away from that noobish appearance to start off and check things out should just have to pay and buy without knowing anything and hand over thier credit cards while they are at it! Just so you can play the game YOUR way and not thiers. How courteous of you! Oh, I bet you've never bought freebie items either! And you've never been seen at YadNi's! Bunch of silly creators and owners who want to give back to SL, piddle on them!

BTW, you don't know where to look if you can't find 3/10's. There are plenty, along with several 5/10's. (No, I'm not sharing the info either.)

I've donated plenty of my own free creations to Yadni's, I don't really need a lecture from anyone on the subject.

There are plenty of other ways to get money if you don't want to use a credit card, though that's a silly excuse. Camping is detrimental to the system and completely unfair to people who actually are present in-world to play but can't because someone's hogging all of the sim resources being a zombie. It's not worth it for the money, and it's selfish to those who can't use the land that they're paying for because of it.

It's not about making money, it's about being used by selfish landowners who want to cheat to the top of the popular places list at the expense of everyone else in a sim. It's about destroying SL and making it phenomenally laggy because you want to spend 13 hours making a dollar's worth of Lindens.

So you've directly contributed to those you call freeloaders?



Not exactly. Just because you deem something silly and people don't play the way you want them doesn't make them any less than you. Don't be a hypocrite and define what's right and wrong based on how YOU want to play. It's not detrimental if a store owner wants to plop up a few chairs for the ads and the newbs want to camp there for some cash. Who are you to tell them to drop money on a game right away without testing the waters?

If you have no scripting knowledge and no idea about textures yet, tell me, in all newbish glory, what's an easy avenue to make a few hundred L? Hardly anyone will hire newbs, generally the ones that do are tip based and considering working for 20L for two hours of spamming, hosting, dancing, etc. anyways nets the same money you could make walking away from your comp without a boss... tough call. But, I know this for fact when I was making this very point about how hard it was on newbs. I created an alt in all newb glory who was not hired for a single job applied for in about 10 different areas from writing, to modeling, to hosting. Also interesting to note, my male test in newb was easily hired several times over, while the female wasn't even asked to come back.



I could just as easily argue it's about the selfishness of those who think they deserve something better over others. You do know in most places a dollar's worth of Lindens does buy a whole outfit these days?

I'm not all for a whole sim being taken down by a 512m plot with 50 1 prim camp chairs, but I'm certainly not going to sit and tell people how to play. I may do things others don't like, but I'm not going to stop being me or doing as I wish, because someone else may not agree with it.

Hey, if you want to pony up thousands of Lindens to advertise your space, instead of a few hundred that gets you just as much advertising, that's your right. But it's certainly not right to force your opinions as fact on others.