Merchants

[Gadget Portal]

So, the sim I'm on with my girlfriend has officially gone over 300 MB in script memory. About the time that happened, the script subsystem failed. Most notably, HTTP functions crapped out. Long story short, a couple people had like, hundreds of these breedables rezzed out.

The breedable owners are freaking out, if the sim isn't fixed soon, the breedables are going to die because they're not eating, because they don't have HTTP communication with the breedable servers.

So I (apparently naively) suggested to just store them in inventory until the sim is sorted out and people realize they can't have so many rezzed, and I'm told that the animals still starve to death in your inventory, so as soon as you rez them, the server uses llDie() to remotely take away your pets.

So I then suggested just telling the breedable creator types about the tech issues. The reply was that since it's an issue with the sim and not the breedables, they'll offer no support.

Call me crazy, but that feels like... fraud. Remotely deleting items already paid for, due to a flaw in the system?

Maybe it's me, but I think that's the craziest thing I've heard since I got into SL.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Ugg, it's a problem, agreed. We produce a breedable and we talk to other breedable producers. Many of us share the same problems, but they do indeed come down to problems with SL and stability.

Most breedables will last days or longer before they actually starve in inventory, but it's a big inconvenience to pick them up and place them again, because most breedables have things that you set up such as their home position, food position relative to the pet, etc. So it's not just as easy as picking them up and setting them down.

When they fail, it's generally due to an SL problem. Many of us breedable producers spend large amounts of time and effort (daily, without fail), to determine whether it's a bug of ours or an SL issue. Most of us I think also refund as much as we possibly can, with no proof or way to verify causes.

Some breedables need to keep a unique ID in their own database to keep track of pets, and so there's not a decent built-in alternative than to have to do lots of HTTP calls. It's rediculous that LL doesn't provide a way to keep unique objects unique (all merchants selling no copy items could benefit from this).

For instance, some people try to cheat the breedables system by requesting a rollback. If we don't make tons of HTTP calls to verify each and every pet as unique, it results in a rollback doubling their amount of pets. Of course they can cheat and make copies of any no copy object by doing this, but it's particularly difficult with breedables.

Breedables can push the scripting ability to the limits. Not in terms of doing crazy things scripting in LL wasn't meant for, but they depend on a stable system in order to work. Unfortunately LL is not that system. We're faced with constantly trying to find ways to work around this lack of stability with inventory, objects and rezzing.

Mentioned a couple times already that it takes a full time support staff to keep up with problems that SL causes with breedables. This costs hundreds of dollars USD a week.

It's not the other way around, that breedables are the evil here, many breedables are pretty efficient given the tools we have to work with, it's that SL falls apart the more you have to depend on the stability of the system.

Believe me, if there were anything we could do to make them more efficient, more dependable, easier to use, we would do "that". We can only do as well as SL will allow to build a stable product. We can only make them as efficient as SL allows in the hardware and resources they give us to work with.

It's as painful (and costly) for us as it is for you, believe me. We refund and replace like crazy to keep up with SL.

Pets live and die and create new life, that's the general model for breedables. That we can't possibly verify or refund every possible SL problem isn't fraud.

That SL should be able to be stable enough to handle the basic functionality it would take for breedables to work like they should is the larger issue, because it isn't only breedables that it affects.

[Poenald Palen]

There are solutions, and at least one each from all 3 perspectives.

It seems like you all have something at stake as well! I mean, if the breedables people end up losing a customer they lose all the feedmoney and the evangelising/marketing/word of mouth.

Not only that, but the land lord may lose a renter or two!

On top of that, the users lose their investment and it can set them back on any plans they had to expand...so, they lose time.

But, all of these things where foreseeable....but, yeah....no one expects it to happen much. Usually someone will do something, so pass the buck. lol.

So, you could all:

1. Ask the pet maker to allow feeding while they are in inventory.
2. Find some way to rent a plot of land from another land lord or buy one from LL. Then, one after the other, these guys can go and feed thier pets until the things are done, then another can arrive and rez...of course, the previous animals are all taken up into inventory to make way for the next in line.
3. The guys with breedables really consider more eggs in the basket, maybe even through your land lord offerings (if available) and expand a little to cover it all...if possible.
4. Implement policy and checks to help keep it all working for those you can host. Maybe even team up with another land lord and take a commision for everyone you send his way and ask them to do this to help stem leaving? Or, buy more land yourself and then offer a sort of discount if they rent at both places? This way it will not be so exorbitant of an expense for them, your fees are coverd (if not extra profit) and the sim works well.

All 3 of these require the both of you to act, and the creators...well, I have a feeling they don't care. They help LL sell land, why would they sour thier ties with LL on that? So...yeah, sadly, more land is the answer!

[Osprey Therian Member]

Seems as though you should be able to activate a 'hibernate' setting.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

---

Poenald Palen wrote:

So, you could all:

1. Ask the pet maker to allow feeding while they are in inventory.

---

Would love to, however this is impossible. Scripts don't run in inventory.

Kinda-sorta possible if we kept track of food as well as the pet in an external database rather than in an SL object, however, it'd require .... you guessed it, even more HTTP calls and points of failure.

[Amethyst Jetaime Advisor]

Far be it for me to tell anyone what is enjoyable or not in SL.  However I personally don't find breedables appealing and think that people that get into them in such a big way are a little nuts. But if people enjoy it then more power to them.

I do take issue with abuse of sim resources by having hundreds of breedable animals out on a sim unless they are on  sims catering to breedables.  I would never buy or rent land on a sim that doesn't specifically ban them.

Maybe it is a limitation of SL, that is the cause of the problems but isn't this a bit like saying that if I drive a top of the line race car at 200 miles an hour on a crowded road not meant for such speed, its not my fault if I cause a big pileup?

As for the economics of it, I'm just glad that LL doesn't charge us for 'food' to keep our avi's alive.  That is just a way for the creators to have an ongoing revenue stream so they can maintain servers that control all aspects of their product and also reap ongoing profits  .  There are plenty of animals in SL that don't require that you spend more to maintain them than you did when you bought it and that the creator can not kill because you did something they don't like.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

---

Osprey Therian wrote:

Seems as though you should be able to activate a 'hibernate' setting.

---

Exactly. We've done just that to compensate. Ours go into hibernation when they reach zero hunger. They can get out of hibernation again by feeding them back up to 100%.

Not a total solution, but they don't die in inventory. Ours don't die due to starvation, they only die at the end of their lifespan.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

You know, I have to agree with you. No matter how efficient, there's a big difference between one breedable and a thousand of them. Completely understand especially landlords that don't want a huge amount on their land, or mainland parcels hogging up resources (although the latter is being worked on I believe, a parcel can't use more than its share of memory on parcels).

I "could" build in a way to limit the amount of breedables an avatar could have rezzed out, for instance, but that seems a little overkill.

Even the food model I kind of agree with. Considering getting rid of food for a better model, but like I said the costs of running the darn things are substantial, so it's "really" difficult coming up with a flat-fee model that justifies a full time support staff and external server.

[Sassy Romano Member]

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

---

Poenald Palen wrote:

So, you could all:

1. Ask the pet maker to allow feeding while they are in inventory.

---

Would love to, however this is impossible. Scripts don't run in inventory.

Kinda-sorta possible if we kept track of food as well as the pet in an external database rather than in an SL object, however, it'd require .... you guessed it, even more HTTP calls and points of failure.

---

Touch breedable, choose "keep feeding in inventory" option

Take breedable to inventory

Before re-rez  customer makes sure that there's sufficient food nearby.

On re-rez, make the same http requests that you were going to anyway but then just do the calculation, if sufficient food is still nearby that would have sustained it while in inventory, debit food amount and don't de-rez otherwise die, get sick or whatever.

No need to keep track of food usage in an external database, no special additional http calls either.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Kind of what we're doing now, except that there's no check first to make sure the total is there. If they're starved when they come out of inventory, what I do is let them take a bite every 5 minutes until they're back up up to fully fed. Otherwise they nibble once every 6 hours.

That buffer is just to make sure SL doesn't glitch when they get rezzed and they gobble a large amount of food that they shouldn't have all at once.

It's more calls to the food object than your method, so yours is more efficient ... but I'm cringing at the lump sum