What ticks you off about creators in SL?

[CadenzaInVivace]

[Rant thread]

Creators/shop owners bring lots of innovative things into SL everyday, but as we all know not every creator is a mini-visionary. What ticks you off about (some) creators in SL? Here are just some things I noticed over my 7-year experience in SL:

- People who refuse to provide customer service. Yes it's fine if you're too busy drawing lines in Illustrator to spend answering customer queries, at least hiring a part time CSR which will cost you like what, a few hundred L a day tops? Common sense dictates that you'll lose much more than a few hundred L a day if you piss off a truckload of customers by ignoring every single one of their queries. If you can't even afford to hire a part-time CSR, then you're either doing your business very wrong or you're just cheap, both meaning you should change careers and be a shopper instead

- People who claim to provide customer service, but in actuality simply don't. This is much worse than the point above, at least those people are straightforward about it. I'd really like to point some names out but unfortunately this forum doesn't allow me. I've had the WONDERFUL experience of trying to get in contact with a certain shop owner regarding a defective product for TWO YEARS (beat this lol). Truthfully, after a few weeks I've already given up but I kept sending notecards once every few months just to see if she'll reply. Even her own CSR is appalled why her boss is ignoring customer queries, especially major ones like mine which is about defective products, and kept apologizing to me everytime I talked to her. Tip: if you're just an a-hole and refuse to talk to customers, at least set up a damn redelivery system. The store I mentioned above doesn't even have a redelivery system, so anyone who bought something and didn't deliver is completely S.O.L, not even the CSR has a copy of the store's items

- People who refuse to provide demos. I'm a builder myself and I know it takes me a grand total of less than 1 minute to slap a huge demo sign on a product. It's somewhat understandable if you don't have demos for non-rigged accessories, but for rigged mesh it's a no-brainer to provide demos. Do you walk into your local Macy's, see a beautifully-photoshopped sign of a pair of sunglasses or dress, and then go directly to the cashier to buy it without trying it on? I don't think so

- People who charge for demos. Please, don't give me the bullsheet about "oh it takes lots of time and effort to create a demo so it's worth that 1L". Walmart does not charge 1 penny to use the dressing room. And I'm sure real life clothing designers spends MUCH more effort on designing clothes than an SL designer even if you work 25 hours a day, because you don't have to worry about 99% of the things that a RL business owner worries about. If you depend on profiting from piling up those 1L's through selling demos, then that's just sad. As for those people who charge MORE than 1L for demos, I seriously don't know what to say other than doing a facepalm. As an aside the most hefty "demo fee" I've ever seen in SL is 12L. Anyone ever seen one with a higher fee?

- People who disable modify perm unnecessarily. It's fine if you slap on "no modify" for combat huds. It's fine if you slap on "no modify" for those weird virtual tamagotchis. Please tell me why the hell would you slap on "no modify" for something like a pair of non-scripted shoes, and refuse to remove that restriction even when asked nicely because the person needs to manually adjust child prims to fit? It's common knowledge resizer scripts are about the most useless scripts in existence if you're a perfectionist fitter. If the reason is "I used a mesh kit and it's to hide the actual creator name", then it kinda failed because you can just inspect the object to find the original creator. I really don't know why else it's no modify

- People who don't know how to create 3D models but desperately attempt to make it look like they can. Through trying to hide creator name, or outright lying that they created the model, or charging crazy prices for it to make it look like it's an original work (you know they went over the line if a kit resell costs more than the original kit itself) or feebly attempting to edit the mesh kit's texture by some simple light settings in Photoshop and claim it as their own, or some other methods that I can't think of right now. It's fine if you can't create your own original stuff, not everyone is able to learn Maya. It's not fine if you are superficial about it. I've had several amusing conversations where creators lie that they created the mesh model, then got pwned when I showed them a link to the mesh kit. Unfortunately there are too little 3D creators in SL, 99.99% of the mesh stuff we see in the grid is from kits, and we have people like Meli Imako to thank for pumping out daily mesh kits at outrageously cheap prices which only makes the situation worse, as why should you create something original when you can buy the kit for 300L? But still Meli Imako's stuff are amazing, go search it up seriously

- People who hide their online status. Everyone knows you can still find whether or not a person is online by inspecting the person's status in a group. So why do you still hide your online status? When customers want to contact you, they gotta go through the unnecessary procedure of joining a group you're in to see whether or not you're online. This is like playing back a recording that says "I'm unavailable at the moment, please leave a message" when you're really there

No I'm not writing this because I just got pissed off by someone, I don't even sign into SL that much these days, pre-occupied with another game lol. Just a rant thread because I'm bored.

P.S.: I just saw the new "The Shops" system, and it's frigging amazing. Just to say that fortunately at least creators are absolute geniuses.

[Jewel Laurasia]

*yawn*  

 

wait wha?

[CadenzaInVivace]

---

Jewel Laurasia wrote:

*yawn*  

 

wait wha?

---

Hi.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

The 1L for a demo is so people can still have the "send as gift" option lit up.  creators are smart in that respect.  

 

Only thing that gets me, if I'm going to pay out the ass for a product. I want copy and mod. if you do not have those on the product or I can not buy them like that.   you just lost my business.

[Coventina Dalgleish]

WOW  everything now Just tried to make a post and it took me back to the log in screen so to heck with the last post   seems everything is a totally mis-managed here

 

Very typical of the way SL is onducted now build for the quantom machines and forget the little guys  no wonder Concurrence has not changed in  6 years

[bigmoe Whitfield]

what are you complaining about now?  ALSO this forum and the WEBPAGE login are openID, they use a hand off. the forum it's self the lab does not host, it's hosted at lithium, they have no control over there.  the openid is what lets you login to SL's site and this at once

 

Sometimes the cookies get corrupted or do not complete, so then you have to relogin in.  stop blaming everything on the lab.  sometimes it's a derp with a web browser or a connection or something along those lines. 

[MIstahMoose]

Nothing makes me mad about creators anymore

I just giggle because everyone and their great grandmothers have a shop/label themselves as a designer on SL

But its all fantasies, so whatevs yo' Be what you want ^.^

[KarenMichelle Lane]

What ever happened to Buyer Beware and do your homework before dropping down your hard earned Lindens?

Second Life is too short to be pissed off at creators.

[Marianne Little]

---

bigmoe Whitfield wrote:

The 1L for a demo is so people can still have the "send as gift" option lit up.  creators are smart in that respect.  

 

Only thing that gets me, if I'm going to pay out the ass for a product. I want copy and mod. if you do not have those on the product or I can not buy them like that.   you just lost my business.

---

That is a good point. I sometimes send demos to my alts.. It is troublesome to log off Marianne just for a quick: "Oh that looks cute". Standard sizes is not always standard. Plus that a poorly made alpha can totally ruin an outfit. No way to control that unless I try it on the alt's shape.

Those who will gift friends can also find demos a good feature. Almost all stuff is no transfer, so if the friend don't like it/can't use it because the friend has a non-standard shape, then it is money wasted. 

I wish we could gift demos, but since all good things can be abused I suppose we can't have nice things. (Griefer sending 1000 demos to someone to spam them)

 

Oh yes, alphas that show on the side of the mesh. And mesh that is invisible on the inside. I hate that, but at least I have the opinion of not buying it. Sloppy work, and a waste of my time and that 1 L

[Phil Deakins]

---

bigmoe Whitfield wrote:

Only thing that gets me, if I'm going to pay out the ass for a product. I want copy and mod. if you do not have those on the product or I can not buy them like that.   you just lost my business.

---

It depends what the object is. Some objects lend themselves to being copy and others definitely do not. For my part, I am more than happy to do without your business. It doesn't matter is offered, nobody gets a copyable item from me.

[Phil Deakins]

About the modification permission: As someone who had made and sold things always with the mod permission, I can fully understand why some sellers prefer their stuff to be no mod. Not only do buyers make a mess of modifiable things when editing them, but people also accidentally make a mess of them; by putting a texture on it when trying to put it on something else, for instance. Guess who they run to for help when things like that happen.

Of course, some types of items need to be mod, but others don't, therefore no-mod is not only understandable but it's also very acceptable, and anyone who simply must have mod, shop elsewhere.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

"accepetable" to whom?  I'm not bitching or trying to start a fight here phil, I really am at a loss. I've been in SL since 07.  I know how to make backup copies and how to undo a mess if I do make one (delete it, rez another lol)  so I've based my decision on the fact that if you make it no mod, I'm not buying it.   some mesh creators I WISH for loving god that they would allow people to change the textures on things,  provide the psd files. LET us make the modifcation you refuse to make (this is common). 

[Marianne Little]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

About the modification permission: As someone who had made and sold things always with the mod permission, I can fully understand why some sellers prefer their stuff to be no mod. Not only do buyers make a mess of modifiable things when editing them, but people also accidentally make a mess of them; by putting a texture on it when trying to put it on something else, for instance. Guess who they run to for help when things like that happen.

Of course, some types of items need to be mod, but others don't, therefore no-mod is not only understandable but it's also very acceptable, and anyone who simply must have mod, shop elsewhere.

---

I know what you mean because you sell transfer/no copy items, so one thing ruined, it's ruined for good. I have had that happen to me once or twice, let us say adding another texture to the floor and hitting a chair instead. But I am old enough to admit that was my mistake and don't try to cry myself to a new item.

Sadly, there is plenty of people who don't understand why they can't get a new one when the item is transfer.

But that's a part of the problem beeing a business owner. I could never do that in SL, residents would drive me mad. Hell is the other people!

Some times transfer is good, I just have to think twice "can I afford to loose it" when I buy. It is a 50L item or a 5000L item?

 

I like merchants who have a redelivery terminal for their copy/no trans stuff. I love that I don't have to notecard you if I must have a new item. That is a feature I don't like by buying things in folders, no container to rez and get a copy. And for you who include a backup box in your folders, I love you for taking that effort. 

[PaperB]

I dont think giving away psd with the texture for you to modify them is a posibility at all.

This is due to several things.

One is that at least with mesh, most people use templates and their part of the work is making these textures for that specific template.

Most times these templates has TOS regarding of the use of the them and this often include the use of the texture base offered in them.

Some other time this is not the case but, since its the retail merchant part of the work to make these textures, then why would they give it away full perm as a psd for every costumer thay buy a copy of this item that was not full perm to beggin with?, I dont think they will or should.

Another issue is that some times with non mesh, they use textures made by others and so they are not permited to distribute them at all.

Also, some huds and scripts for texture change and such force the merchant to put the item non mod beeing that the script itself is non mod.

For all this, most mesh clothing items out there are not mod. I agree that in the case of the alphas they should be mod and he alpha texture should be aviable for the costumer to modify it but, is not like every costumer knows how to do this anyway.

The only way i see that you would get to put your own texture is if you buy the original full perm template and do as you like with it. Like retail merchants do

[Kelli May]

 

- People who refuse to provide customer service.

- People who claim to provide customer service, but in actuality simply don't. 

Very few creators are full-time professionals. Most have jobs, families and other RL commitments to deal with, not to mention the desire for some SL-time to themselves. Not all business have enough income to spend even a few hundred L$ a day to employ someone to deal with customer service. The chances of getting a good, reliable CSR for that kind of wage is slim to none.

I built a few items for myself that friends urged me sell. I had a small store in a single location and listings on Marketplace. I didn't sell a lot, but I was frequently praised and the only complaint I remember was over botched permissions on an item (I refunded the money with a note of thanks for pointing out the error so I could fix it). Nevertheless, customer service issues almost ruined my enjoyment of SL. Customers assumed I'd be happy to spend any amount of time, any time they called me, dealing with any aspect of whatever I sold.

Items that sold for L$125 (less than the price of a pack of gum where I am) could suck up am hour of my free time. Could I make them a version with this specific change? Could I build a custom item? Could I fit something to their av? Would I sell them multiples at discount? If it wasn't requests, it'd be helpful suggestions. Everyone was an expert builder, scripter, advertiser and entrepreneaur and wanted to talk, at length, about how I should run my business.

 

- People who refuse to provide demos. 

I'm 100% with you on this one. No demo for rigged mesh, no sale.

 

- People who charge for demos. 

I can understand the L$1 demos on Marketplace, but I'm not thrilled to see them elsewhere. If the item looks good enough I'll chance L$1 on a demo but it does put me off. I understand some people do it for some kind of bookkeeping purposes, and I've even seen stores that take the L$1 and pay it straight back.

 

- People who disable modify perm unnecessarily. 

Agreed, with reservations. I prefer mod/copy, but I can't always have it. One reason I think some builders set no-mod is to protect the look of what they build. I've cringed at seeing what some customers have done to mod items I've sold them and prayed that no-one saw them and thought I'd picked that texture!

 

- People who don't know how to create 3D models but desperately attempt to make it look like they can. 

I've no expertise in 3D modelling so I can't comment.

 

- People who hide their online status. 

They want some private time in SL away from the borderline harrassment of some customers? See my answer on customer service.

---

CadenzaInVivace wrote:

P.S.: I just saw the new "The Shops" system, and it's frigging amazing. Just to say that fortunately at least creators are absolute geniuses.

---

Aren't 'The Shops' items no mod? I thought you were against that?

 

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

---

bigmoe Whitfield wrote:

"accepetable" to whom?

  I'm not bitching or trying to start a fight here phil, I really am at a loss. I've been in SL since 07.  I know how to make backup copies and how to undo a mess if I do make one (delete it, rez another lol)  so I've based my decision on the fact that if you make it no mod, I'm not buying it.   some mesh creators I WISH for loving god that they would allow people to change the textures on things,  provide the psd files. LET us make the modifcation you refuse to make (this is common). 

---

Well it's certainly acceptable to me   Imo, it should be acceptable to everyone. If you buy something that's no-mod, you can't mess it up. That ought to be acceptable to everyone. And, if sellers don't get your business because their stuff is no-mod, it's acceptable to both you and the sellers. Everyone's happy

[Christin73]

One thing that gets to me is overpricing. It seems as though mp prices are going up. Almost ot the point of not wanting to buy. Some things are worth a high price but others arnt. Then some wonder why they arnt selling anything. Then there is the lack of customer service when an item breaks down or have a question. I IMed someone 2 weeks ago regarding something and they have never gotten back to me. I dought they ever will.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Marianne Little wrote:

I have had that happen to me once or twice, let us say adding another texture to the floor and hitting a chair instead. But I am old enough to admit that was my mistake and don't try to cry myself to a new item. 

---

I've had customers do exactly that - aim at the floor but accidentally hit the furniture. I never refuse to sort a mess out, but I can fully understand why some sellers prefer not to deal with such accidents, and no-mod means nobody asks for that sort of help. And it's not only accidents that mess things up. I can provide a current example of where a competent builder could make a mess of an object....

I recently bought a table dice game called 'Chains'. It's an excellent game but it's 35 prims - unnecessarily so. As a creator of low prim stuff I know how to reduce the table's prims and LI by a huge amount, and the table is modifiable. I set it to Convex Hull which knocked 7 prims/LI off immediately. The table has 8 stools, each 2 prims. The same stools (almost identical) can be made with just 1 prim, which would knock a further 8 prims/LI off the total. That's 15 off 35 - a very big saving. There's another way to save a further 7 prims but that would require reprogramming part of its system so I'm not counting that. If I did, it would get the table down from 35 prims to 13 or 14.

However, as a creator, I know that we can't set the link numbers of the prims we link together (except the root prim, of course). And since the scripts are no-mod, I can't see how each stool is communicated with. So, if I unlink the current 2-prim stools, and replace them with 1-prim stools, I could very easily make a mess of the way the table functions. The thing is, I know that, but many people who are perfectly able to build/edit may not know that, and could easily break the functioning of the table. If someone broke it that way, it would not be an accident. They may think that, if they mess it up, they can always put it back the way it was, but they can't be sure of that. They can relink the original stools but they can't determine the link numbers and, depending on the scripting, it may never work properly again. Competent builders, who don't also write their own scripts, are much less likely to know about the link numbers, and how scripts can use them, than those who write their own scripts. I think the first group is the largest by a huge country mile.

So, with many things, no-mod is preferable and should be perfectly acceptable all round.

[Sassy Romano]

 

---

Christin73 wrote:

One thing that gets to me is overpricing. It seems as though mp prices are going up. Almost ot the point of not wanting to buy. Some things are worth a high price but others arnt

---

o·ver·price

[oh-ver-prahys] Show IPA

verb (used with object), o·ver·priced, o·ver·pric·ing. to price excessively high; set too high a price on.

 

There isn't really a problem with overpricing at all.  Who is to say what something should be worth?  A merchant can offer for sale (invitation to treat) any good or service at whatever price they feel like and if the potential buyer doesn't like the price then there's no trade.

 

It's really VERY simple in this respect.  Now on the other hand if you see something you like and don't like the price because it's higher than you want to pay then so be it.  You either pay the price or move on.  Just because you don't feel it's worth it does not by itself make it not worth it to the person who spent hours on it.

 

The market will decide whether it sells but even so, that doesn't mean that the merchant has to change the price, worth is relative.

 

 

[Perrie Juran]

Your sense of entitlement is duly noted.

/me yawns

[Lexia Moonstone]

every one that rezzes a new box is a creator in sl thats one of the thtings that makes SL a great place.

here's what ticks me off about creators in SL ( all thou they don't really tick me off that much, except for #4.)

1:  not cleaning up in a public sand box and then logging out for hours.

2:  over lapping textures that flicker, they are distracting and can cause eye strain.

3:  building giant box to hide in on the ground on the main land, at that point why not just use a sky box.

4: and most of all people that think like this:

---

CadenzaInVivace wrote:

-

People who refuse to provide customer service

. Yes it's fine if you're too busy drawing lines in Illustrator to spend answering customer queries, at least hiring a part time CSR which will cost you like what, a few hundred L a day tops? Common sense dictates that you'll lose much more than a few hundred L a day if you piss off a truckload of customers by ignoring every single one of their queries. If you can't even afford to hire a part-time CSR, then you're either doing your business very wrong or you're just cheap, both meaning you should change careers and be a shopper instead

No I'm not writing this because I just got pissed off by someone, I don't even sign into SL that much these days, pre-occupied with another game lol. 

Just a rant thread because I'm bored.

 

---

 

[Bobbie Faulds]

I understand some builders not wanting their vision of a building being changed. That being said, I won't purchase a building unless it's mod/copy. I've got several in my inventory that I've been able to drastically reduce the number of prims used, especially in some older buildings. One in particular had this lovely light looking texture on the outside, but you went in and it was all red and black and dark wood as well as poor texture matching,  I went through and retextured the inside with lighter colors and removed a lot of excess prims. I also fixed it where the repeats and offsets were off. By the time I finished, it looked totally different on the inside and I'd eliminated around 200 excess prims in the build.

 

My taste in interior design can be totally different from the maker. I am also a perfectionist where texture repeats and offsets are concerned. It will drive me nuts if they are off, if the texture seams or designs don't match. I want to be able to fix that. There are many designers in SL that are fantastic with the build but suck at texturing.

[LillyBeth Filth]

---

PaperB wrote:

I dont think giving away psd with the texture for you to modify them is a posibility at all.

This is due to several things.

One is that at least with mesh, most people use templates and their part of the work is making these textures for that specific template.

Most times these templates has TOS regarding of the use of the them and this often include the use of the texture base offered in them.

Some other time this is not the case but, since its the retail merchant part of the work to make these textures, then why would they give it away full perm as a psd for every costumer thay buy a copy of this item that was not full perm to beggin with?, I dont think they will or should.

Another issue is that some times with non mesh, they use textures made by others and so they are not permited to distribute them at all.

Also, some huds and scripts for texture change and such force the merchant to put the item non mod beeing that the script itself is non mod.

For all this, most mesh clothing items out there are not mod. I agree that in the case of the alphas they should be mod and he alpha texture should be aviable for the costumer to modify it but, is not like every costumer knows how to do this anyway.

The only way i see that you would get to put your own texture is if you buy the original full perm template and do as you like with it. Like retail merchants do

---

Good answer.

I guess only a creator can really think about this issue from a creators POV.

A lot of the work that goes into a mesh "is" the texturing and baked lighting.. sending a PSD out is like selling it full permissions only worse.

[Sassy Romano]

I only just noticed the huge error in your post.

 

A no mod script does NOT require that the creation is set to no mod object permission. I don't know where people get this idea but I know I have to explain it often enough!

 

Script no mod, object modify = no problem whatsoever.

 

[Phil Deakins]

That's right. All my stuff is mod but none of the scripts that are in them are. I've never checked it out but it may be that, when a modifiable object contains anything that's no-mod, then maybe the object appears to be no-mod to the customer before they buy it.

I do know that I've very occasionally had queries from potential customers because they thought that something was no-mod when the object itself wasn't but scripts inside were.