Doors that spam in an expensive house

I buy a lot of houses in SL. I like houses. If I see something neat, I buy it.

Yesterday I bought a rather small house, 10 x 30 on a 20 x 30 base for almost $L1,000. I thought it would be nice to have events on. It came with several doors. When I click on a door, a dialogue box popped up to ask me if I wanted the door locked or unlocked. I clicked unlock and then it spammed "door unlocked" nine times. I thought this is crazy. I clicked the same door again and the same thing happened. I thought this has to be an error. Let me contact the builder and let him know.

He was very condescending. He said he was working on a script that would fix the spam. I asked for some replacement doors that didn't have this security feature and he said he didn't have any. His suggestion was that I just leave the doors open and locked them in that position. He was argumentive and didn't even give me a "I'm sorry for the inconvenience", until I asked for it.

I ended up deleting his scripts and putting in a basic door script. But am I wrong for expecting a $1k house not to spam and doors not to pop up a dialogue box every time I click on them?

This is from clicking on one door:
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked
Door: unlocked

Then he claimed that other people who bought the house had no problems with this. As if I was being unreasonable.

sound;like the begining of a drama ...

Just out of curiosity, are you on a wireless connection by any chance? Because that looks exactly like the type of artifact that sometimes happens with a wireless connection.

I'm not saying thats what it is, just trying to cover all the bases.

The spam is a bug, but the confirmation dialog is just bad design.

No I wasn't on wireless. The designer knew this was happening, it happened to other people but he claimed they weren't bothered.


Kyrah, it's not drama. How could it be? I won't be buying from this person again. I may not even use the house that much longer. But thanks for your helpful comment. It's just something that happened and I wanted to see what people thought and maybe get designers/builders to not do this.

Your house is haunted
Obsessive compulsive doors
My, aren't they chatty?

LOL! You win $100 for the best response. I just dropped it on you in world, enjoy.

The generous soul
Shows her appreciation
It pays to haiku

Well, since a house is just about the easiest thing in SL to make, if you paid L$1000 for one, it better do everything short of wipe your... well, you know.

Generally speaking, it's pretty bad form to put a product on the market knowing it's defective, so I have no sympathy for this builder. If he's aware of the problem, he should fix it or stop selling the product. No question.

It takes all of 2 seconds to comment out the line that causes an object to whisper, so if this builder has to be "working on a script to fix the spam", something is very wrong. I'm more inclined to believe that he's not "working on" anything, but he's instead waiting to stumble across a door script he can steal that doesn't whisper. He obviously doesn't possess the knowledge to have scripted the doors himself if he thinks it's a big deal to make them keep quiet.

Whatever the case may be, there's no excuse for him being rude about it. Without hearing both sides of the story, I of course can not know for certain that he was, but IF your side is acurate (the fact that you respectfully did not use his name here leads to believe that it probably is) then chances are he won't be in business for long. I'd be curious to know what his build and behavior feedback ratings are.

In the future, you might want to stick to doing business only with merchants who offer a guarantee. I don't sell houses, but everything I do make and sell comes with a 100% quality satisfaction guarantee right on the box. There's no reason this guy couldn't do the same unless he knows he's selling things that people are going to complain about.

well sorry for my previous rudeness

is just i dont like this kind of public exposition

maybe i am just tired

I'm sorry I offended you. I didn't think of this as public exposition. I never gave anything that could have linked this to any one builder.

I thought this was a forum for discussion. I thought that builders would want to know it's annoying and also an opinion on how it was handled. I got some interesting and helpful feedback. And there was no drama. But thanks for your concern.

For many, this isn't the case. I do a brisk business from folks who either can't or won't build their own homes.

Design is key, blah blah blah, insert artistic design tripe here.



LF

Accidents happen... you can try to make sure you CYA, but sometimes things just go wrong.

The key is how the merchant handles the issue when it arises. A proper way to handle it would have been to either replace the defective goods or offer a full refund. Good customer service is worth more than any advertising you can do. People are truly appreciative when they feel the merchant is really attempting to rectify the situation.

Sorry to hear this happened, April.

LOL! I made free doors for some people who had paid 20 times that for a house which came with NO doors.

No names, no packdrill....

But honestly - the free linden doors can be jazzed up with new textures, or there are about 20 free scripts for doors which lock, slide, chat to you or spam....

However, if you are going to have the door propped permanently open and locked as suggested by your builder, where is the need for a script? A plain prim will do that, no spam or script required.
Cali

My guess:

Remember llDialog is really just a pretty interface for an llListen

The GOOD way to do it is like this:

on touch:
1. open a listen on unique non-0 channel (technically, I like to close the channel before this, just in case)
2. set a 30-or-so second timer
3. trigger dialog box
REMEMBER: Dialog box makes your AV say something.

timer:
1. close the listen
2. set the timer to 0 (end the timer)

listen:
1. listen only to a unique, non-0 channel, and if possible, only to the owner's key
2. have if statements to parse the message of the dialog box and implement desired functions
3. close the listen

--------------

Knowing all that, what is likely happening is that whoever scripted the door script used an open listen on channel 0. Further, each different door has a confirmation message.

Ergo, when you choose the dialog box to open/close/lock/unlock, you're really speaking to 10 different listening doors, each of whom unlock and spit out a confirmation message.

Spam and LAG!

If the script is open source, you can probably make a few changes to the script to make it work better. At the VERY least, if the procedure as I documented above isn't implemented, each listen should be set to a unique channel, non-0.

Sorry, LF. I wasn't trying to belittle your business or the work of any house builder. I realize not everyone is willing or able to build his or her own house, and builders such as yourself provide a vauluable service. There are a great many houses in SL that are masterful works of art, and are indeed worth a lot, both economically and otherwise.

All I meant was that as SL building projects go, even the most ornate houses are relatively simple, and so there's no excuse for this particular one not to function properly. It's not like it's a complex object like a vehicle with flight controls, weapons systems, exhaust, moving parts, sound systems, etc., any one of which can interfere with the others or malfunction while in flight, and can take months to develop, and even longer to troubleshoot. It's a house. Even if it's the most exqusitely modeled and beautiful house in the history of the world, it's still just a house. All it's gotta do is sit there. There's simply no reason for it to have such an annoying defect.

Sure, mistakes happen, but once the builder is made aware of the problem, he or she has an obligation to either fix it, pull the product off the market until it's fixed, or issue a warning to consumers before the time of purchase.



Yes, I know someone as well who paid 20K for a house way back when he was relatively new and didn't know how to build. Maybe I'm in the wong business, hehe.

I get what you're saying, Chosen, but convincing architecture is, in many ways, more complex than you lead people to believe. No, it isn't a piece of scripted magic like a vehicle is - buildings don't need to go anywhere. That doesn't mean they are 'simple'.

Creating a convincing build takes a lot of time and effort and large projects can take months to complete. You're not just slapping up a few prims and slathering on some textures. There's a lot of variables to take into account to make a build successful. Camera angles, appropriate proportions, texturing, creative and imaginative uses of prims to drag down the final count, proper placement on the parcel (to ensure best view to privacy ratio), installing scripted windows, doors, lights, securty systems, elevators/teleporters, etc. All of those come into account.

Anyway... I just wanted to state that if it was as easy as some are portraying it to be, there would be no need for builders and we'd have nothing but a bunch of fabulous looking builds in SL.

I'd also like to say that I agree with you 100% in that there is no reason for that annoying defect. Considering most builds, as you mention, don't have a lot of scripted features - borking one of the only scripts in the product is not good.

Accidents happen, but a builder should test any scripted functionality before launching the product. This will help reduce the chance of defects. If one slips through, swift and appropriate action in the form of a replacement or full refund should be standard protocol.

I made a resizer script that I accidentally left some debug chat in. It was spamming and I didnt realize it when it boxed it ready for sale. It took about 30 sales before the first customer complained!

Obviously I thanked him and updated the script. To me that seems the only reasonable response to a complaint.

A complaining customer is to be treated with the utmost respect. They are the key to improve on your product!

I'm sorry that the OP bumped into a creator that had a different opion

Mandy

Hmmmm..... Five years ago.

yeah.. Shit. I read it all before realising the date
be more careful Mandy.

Yeah, duh, I didn't even notice the age of the post either, however, I couldn't agree more with Mandy about using complaints as a way to improve your product. I've made little mistakes here and there at times, and when I get a complaint, the first thing I do is fix the issue and take care of the customer, and then THANK them for telling me (because they're generally apologizing for 'bugging' me). I tell them that it's no bother, and that I'm glad they contacted me so I could fix the problem, and to feel free to contact me any time they have an issue. Most of the time, I get amazed customers who just cannot believe that there's actually vendors in SL who:
A) Respond to an issue, and
B) Thank the customer for pointing it out, and
C) getting their issue serviced either immediately or within a few hrs to a day.

I've even gone out of my way to help residents who have difficulty doing simple stuff like placing objects, and I've gone to their home or business and set the object in place for them. That's going a bit overboard, but, there's times when I get customers who say 'so and so' sent me. In the end it helps your sales.

I met a sweet gal from Greece the other day, and she invited me to her sim that's ran by Greeks, and got the 50 cent tour. They had a bunch of awesome SL replicas of RL Greek architecture like the Parthenon and other stuff. When I got there, a bunch of the folks involved in running and building the sim welcomed me, and the first thing out of the mouth of one of the main builders was that they had one of my clocks in their sim for two months now, and that they love it. It's not the first time I've been complimented on my stuff, and it's a wonderful feeling when you run into happy customers. I can't imagine what people who don't take care of their customers do. If I blew off customers, I'd be afraid of running into them in world and getting the 3rd degree because I sold them junk or refused to respond to an issue. Maybe those folks have to run around SL with an alt because they're afraid to show their face. Me personally, I'm glad I can show my face in SL without having to worry about such things, and, on top of that, I get to enjoy the compliments of folks who (happily) enjoy my products.

A pretty sad testament to the 'typical' SL content creators.

Since I`m a house builder in sl for sometime i`d like to chime in on this one. Several years ago i decided to invest into a scripting package for doors and windows. After alot of research and thought I picked a system i thought would be easy for a buyer to use ,,, one that was well tested and had rave reviews here in the forums and other places.

Lastyear after some updates ,, the door scripts at time would spam the owner. The creator of the scripts offered me a updated version. This is all fine.It did cost me a considerable amount of time to go back and replace and repackage all the houses I already had finished and out for sale. For all the hundreds or thousands of houses I had already sold with the old version of door scripts in them and no possible way to contact these people with a replacement, what are you to do ? I`ve always and will continue to back my products 100%. I`ve considered putting updaters in with the house in the case that in the future another bug arises , I can send updated scripts.

For all the new builders and you seasoned people too ,, take note that nothing is 100% fullproof inworld. Even the best throughly tested scripts can go bonkers. Take measures to insure your customers products they buy from you will continue to operate into the future.

Dani DD Designs

my suggestion would be to install a "service" requester, that sends a message looking for a updated version..... NEVER do forced updates unless you can't help it (like it's a service type product which has an exposed vulnerability)... sometimes users are just as happy with the old behavior, or have stripped out the unnecessary to them items, and might be very torqued if it suddenly changes or reappears, or maybe the transfer resets some other setting or item...

you can also simply archive all you buyers names/keys sorted by product, and send out notices when something breaks irrevocably, offering updates/replacements (just make sure you have an automated way to do this if the list is large.)

at the very least you can include an info board at your shops, detailing any problems, and any instructions for repairs or replacements.

That`s good advice Void. I would never put a forced updater in with the package. As far as my customers 2 years back , i dont see how i could search for there names and which houses they purchased, my search in my account to my knowledge doesnt go back that far? Maybe I`ve missed something. I did put a notice on the sim and offered updated scripts or for ease of the customer , I just sent a updated house. Some people dont have a clue how to replace scripts . I have found murphys law seems to be very much in effect .

unfortunately, unless you've been regularly downloading the history or tracking purchases another way, all that information is gone.... you can start now though for the future