Coffee Pancake Posted July 16, 2018 Author Share Posted July 16, 2018 (edited) 7 hours ago, Fionalein said: I don't get it - wouldn't residents simply trade GEMs? Like cigarettes in postwar-Europe? Also: if GEMs cannot be traded on lindex creators have (almost) no use for them... PS: we also kinda have them, many breedables or inworld games already have a secondary currency: blood, souls, energy crystals, kitten$ ... you name it The idea would be that they could, but there would be no way to cash them out aside from a discount on LL services. If you have a few regions then X% off the monthly is nothing to be sniffed at, but that would require a huge amount of gems, way more than it would be possible to accumulate solo (and why they must be given based on measurable activity). Everything we do in SL is backed by someone with a real world bill to pay, but as they have no direct value, they can't replace the L$ economy. It also adds commonality to mini games, raise pets by day 4 hours ago, Gadget Portal said: Too much work for too little a return It's not about finical ROI. The goal is to encourage engagement. More people doing more stuff with common purpose. Simple example.. you have a social place that paid you a GEM everytime you spoke in local chat. Might just be all it takes to keep us from standing about in silence, and also creates a need for a moderator to remove people who spam. Once you have some meaningful sinks, then people are going to want the things, spread those around well enough and everyone will have a need for them. People bemoan the 10L$ texture upload fee even though it has almost not actual value. It certainly doesn't come anywhere even close to paying the staggering CDN services LL employs to host and distribute that texture forever, so why do they charge it ... as a brake on uploads. That insignificant fee is enough to make people think twice. If it didn't work, they wouldn't have stuck with it this long. The exact same mechanic works the other way, but why give people actual money when a token with some in game value would work the same. 7 hours ago, Bree Giffen said: I'm not sure that a secondary in-game currency would add enough value in SL to justify it's existence. It would add another level of complexity for users on top of an already complex world. SL should be getting simpler and friendlier for users. LL needs to make buying/selling linden dollars as easy as possible. Buying L$ is already as simple as it gets. The hold up isn't that it's complicated, it's that you have to spend real cash. Going from zero to real cash is quite a hill that we all remember climbing at some point. Everyone has played mobile games where multiple currencies are ubiquitous, everyone knows what they are and every developer see's them as having value or they wouldn't be added to literally everything. They reward participation and make the act of buying the premium currency just a little easier. Edited July 16, 2018 by CoffeeDujour Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Hexem Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 26 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said: It's not about finical ROI. The goal is to encourage engagement. More people doing more stuff with common purpose. No, I got what you meant. This is LL we're talking about, though. They have bugs and feature requests going back more than a decade. An overhaul of the financial system in SL they'd never do, unless it was going to make them rich. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qie Niangao Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 21 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said: Residents can exchange GEMS between each other in the same was as L$, this includes offering scripted interfaces, vendors, selling time and services, everything they do with L$ now. If residents can trade GEMs (especially if by script) then they'd be convertible for L$s. That's assuming somebody wants GEMs enough to pay L$s for them, and if that's not the case it's hard to see what value they'd add. Do other secondary in-game currencies somehow prevent users from trading for the primary game currency? If so, how? If GEMs are convertible for L$s, then they're just one more currency exchange from US$s. Unless there's some entity like Supply Linden acting as the "central bank" of GEMs, there'd be uncontrolled volatility as GEMs speculators alternately corner and crash the market. If not Betteridge's, I invoke Gresham's law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klytyna Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said: Do other secondary in-game currencies somehow prevent users from trading for the primary game currency? If so, how? Take something like STO, for example, they have the "buy for dollars" currency, Zen, an exchange for converting zen into dilithium, unofficial backdoors for converting zen into energy credits, and then there are lobi, and fleet credits, and...Meh The dilithium, is supposed to be aquired inworld by "activity", but at some point they introduced a system that basically allos experienced players to aquire the stuff with 5 mins a day of setting up non player based non activity tasks. So instead of dil aquisition and caps on how much you can process encouraging people to spend several hours a day PLAYING the game, they spend 30 mins a day swapping between alts for 5 min "earn without playing" schemes. People then trade their non-activity based dil earnings for zen, at rates that are runous, because there is TOO much dilithium about due to the non-activity farming, so then they respond by lowering payouts on the activity based dil scemes, and adding more dilithium sinks, so the players who ACTUALLY play the game suffer from reduced income, , and steeper cost-hills to climb to complete those "play the game projects. Even worse, the people who spend dollars to buy zen to trade for dilithium need a lot less zen to get the dilithium they need, so they spend less dollars. When I started in STO, the dil exchange rate was 160 to the zen and there was typically more than 250,000 zen on the system, when i gave up, the rate was more than 400 to the zen, speculators were pushing for 500, and the amout of zen the actual paid for with real money currency on the exchange had dropped to less that 75,000. 1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said: Unless there's some entity like Supply Linden acting as the "central bank" of GEMs, there'd be uncontrolled volatility as GEMs speculators alternately corner and crash the market. Pretty much this, plays hell with the market, causes trouble, divides the world into gem farmers and dollar whales. Serfs and Lords. In addition, adding this sort of activity based secondary currency turns SL into what we keep telling people it is not... A Game (tm) with a mission objective, earn gems. A game where people will try to cheat, and will probably succeed, until the point's reached where clampdowns and restrictions on the system take away all the supposed benefits of the system anyway. 2 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said: The goal is to encourage engagement. More people doing more stuff with common purpose. Rightless gem farmer serfs labouring for their Dollar spending Lords... Providing the affluent with "tier discount tokens" for pennies... "Engage" with the Game in pointess tedious grinding tasks, to churn out gems that you trade illicitly at ruinous rates for a handfull of trickle-down linden from some entitled fool with more dollars than braincells. "You there... Peasant! Give me $50 worth of tier discount tokens and I will give you a prim hovel on my estate and a whole shiny dollar to call your own!" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleMe Jewell Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 (edited) 2 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said: The goal is to encourage engagement. More people doing more stuff with common purpose. Simple example.. you have a social place that paid you a GEM everytime you spoke in local chat. Why is engaging with others more meaningful than simply shopping or quietly building or doing various hunts or exploring on your own or other solo activities? most of those activities contribute to the SL economy, thus they are beneficial to LL. SL's motto is "Your world. Your imagination". What if I want MY world to have limited socializing? What if I want to just enjoy the things others create, but without actually having to interact with everyone? Will I become a second class citizen because I don't get any GEMs for my inworld involvement? Though I guess that would depend on whether or not anyone would know my GEM balance or get privileges other than discounts for the GEMs. 2 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said: Buying L$ is already as simple as it gets. The hold up isn't that it's complicated, While most of us on the forums find buying L$ a rather simple process, based on the posts that we get there are quite a few people inworld that would disagree with us. Tons of people cannot figure out the difference between the two Buy options, constantly mess up and then can't figure out why they don't have L$. Edited July 16, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionalein Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 3 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said: Simple example.. you have a social place that paid you a GEM everytime you spoke in local chat. Might just be all it takes to keep us from standing about in silence, and also creates a need for a moderator to remove people who spam. And make a certain Forumite a millionaire again? They will just send their bot army to chat with itself... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derekmate Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 No. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lucagrabacr Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 I think it would devalue L$ to a certain extent, so I don't think it's a good idea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffee Pancake Posted July 16, 2018 Author Share Posted July 16, 2018 4 hours ago, Klytyna said: "Engage" with the Game in pointess tedious grinding tasks, to churn out gems that you trade illicitly at ruinous rates for a handfull of trickle-down linden from some entitled fool with more dollars than braincells. We have that already .. it's called fishing and rather than doing something productive, it;s literally gaming the system for land owners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionalein Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 1 hour ago, CoffeeDujour said: We have that already .. it's called fishing and rather than doing something productive, it;s literally gaming the system for land owners. Wrong - fishing gets my inventory sorted 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sammy Huntsman Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 (edited) I have one big thing, why are we rewarding people with something as basic as logging in? I see a problem here, it will become the whole gold star principle. That, and would that not get confusing? I am sorry, but I would find that kinda confusing. That and you are literally forcing people into posting onto the forum and logging in, and stepping out of their comfort zone, as if you don't. You get jack *****, and reputation? Why do we need trophies, for even complimenting someone? I also have one big thing, to force a new currency on people. Who have been using Lindens for years, that would cause a bit of an uproar. That and if people start changing their stuff to this new inworld currency. It would mean, people would actually be forced out of their comfort zones. That and people who upload. Would practically have no way of spending, since I know most stores would adopt this new currency. Me for example, I have a few friends and do not want to widen my circle, as I have developed a close bond. That and I have Aspergers, I am very socially awkward. I try my best to interact, but than I just go back to the way I was. Which I am happy with, if people want to engage with other people, why do we need to reward that? I am sorry, but this whole gold sticker principle, it sounds rather stupid. As Lindens would probably add, things that to most are trivial, but to others its like they won the damn lottery. Edited July 17, 2018 by halebore Aeon Forgot to add something. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellestones Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) thinking about this a bit more where I can see GEMs shining would be in-conjunction with grid-wide experiences games. A grid-wide game experience framework which uses GEMs as the currency in which the players can use their game-acquired GEMs to help gain/secure game assets in any resident-built game across the grid developed using the framework LL have made noises about Grid-wide experiences and I think GEMs could be a part of that. A grid-wide game experience framework which could have an option to enable GEMs or not as the creator and/or land owner desires edit add: it could be that GEMs enabled game operators buy the gems from LL and dispense them to the players of their games. Different value gems, etc Edited July 17, 2018 by ellestones Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sammy Huntsman Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 I just think that something like that, in the aspect she wants. Would be very bad for them, if they use them in the Linden Experiences. Such as the VIP/Premium games they have. However, allow people to convert, said GEMS into L,s and vice Versa. That would be the smarter way of doing things, not making it a gridewide thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellestones Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 @halebore Aeon Grid-wide experiences are enabled or not by the estate/region owner as the current thinking goes. When enabling a grid-wide experience on our own regions then an additional option to allow/disallow GEMs-enabled game experiences Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sammy Huntsman Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 Yes but here is my issue with that, you are gonna get a lot of places that do that. As it will be trendy, and some people will not want to do that. So you are gonna see a rush of complaints, that its getting as annoying as event repetitiveness. Something like that, would honestly ruin the true nature of SL. Which is not a trophy hunting platform, or earning some arbitrary secondary currency platform. As they have stated, SL is what you make it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellestones Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 @halebore Aeon its LL that decided to implement Experiences to drive new signups and to try to boost retention of signups. The Portal Park game experiences framework was built by LL to determine how inworld game experiences might be implemented to help with this my thinking is that should LL continue with this then a GEMs currency used within this framework could enhance the experience of those who choose to participate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klytyna Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 6 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said: We have that already .. it's called fishing and rather than doing something productive, it;s literally gaming the system for land owners. All the more reason not to implement CWAT's... "Coffee's WORTHLESS Activity Tokens" Al your proposal would do is replace fish hunt with something even more pointless and grindy, with a lower payout rate, and make it universal, turning SL into one of those grindfest Chinese MMO's players complain about so much, while increasing the "SL Learning Curve" and the number of poor sods posting on the forum ... "how do u win dis game, it r hard!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qie Niangao Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 Until the past few posts, I thought I understood the idea to be an incentive system rewarding behaviors measured by the Lab. For me, that already sets off red flags of "gaming the system" -- as with RL bonuses, whatever is measured will be distorted. And in this case, if GEMs have any value, we can be sure armies of bots will be proving "I am not a bot" for any criterion we devise. But now there also seems to be a suggestion that GEMs could be dispensed by private Experience managers, like fishing participation trophies or something, and be shared in common across those Experiences. That can only work if those Experience managers must buy the GEMs they give out, else every low-life gacha seller will be handing out a bushel of GEMs per play. And if they are buying GEMs, what's the advantage over simply giving out L$s like Linden Realms? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callum Meriman Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 9 hours ago, halebore Aeon said: I have one big thing, why are we rewarding people with something as basic as logging in? I see a problem here, it will become the whole gold star principle. That, and would that not get confusing? I am sorry, but I would find that kinda confusing. That and you are literally forcing people into posting onto the forum and logging in, and stepping out of their comfort zone, as if you don't. Also my issue. As a completionist I hate daily token grinding in MMOs. I would abhor this game to also end up as a token grind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellestones Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said: But now there also seems to be a suggestion that GEMs could be dispensed by private Experience managers, like fishing participation trophies or something, and be shared in common across those Experiences. That can only work if those Experience managers must buy the GEMs they give out, else every low-life gacha seller will be handing out a bushel of GEMs per play. And if they are buying GEMs, what's the advantage over simply giving out L$s like Linden Realms? i kinda narrowed it from the broad use case that Coffee posited. Narrowed it because of the inworld games I play i try to put it into a gameplay context using 3 existing SL games as a parrallel. Linden Realms, Greedy Greedy and vehicle racing suppose I played a Linden Realms like game. Run round and collect GEMs. I can use these to purchase my way into a Greedy Greedy tournament. Make it past the bubble and I win heaps more GEMs. I can also use GEMs to buy my way into a vehicle rally/race. Win that I got heaps more. And so on why would I want zillions of GEMs ? So I can buy my way into higher stakes games. Is a bit like how some poker sites work. Is the real world environment where people play for real money (SL L$ being the realworld equivalent), and the other environment where we play for fun tokens/GEMs. Where we play to get zillions of fun tokens/money just to buy in to even higher stakes fun money games. I used to play the fun money poker tournaments online. Made my way up from the 10/20 Sit n Go's to the 20k and 100k buyin fun money tournaments. Was lots of fun. Win a tournament and 5 or 6 million richer each time in SL in another life I used to go round and play fun Greedy Greedy just to get on the leaderboards where they were available. Same with motorbike tracks. Get on the sim bike where they had them and try to get on the leaderboard. Getting on leaderboards and playing to win zillions of anything is what I like doing Somebody has to stake me (the player) the game tokens/GEMs. If I (the player) have to buy the GEMs myself and they were tradeable (meaning I can sell/trade them for L$) then LL would probably get caught by the Skill Gaming regulations but if the sim owner/game operator staked me into say a min. stake 10/20 game (where they bought the GEMs from LL) in return for my adding activity time to their sim, then its outside of the regulations. In my own case I don't think cashing out is needed. I rather use whatever GEMs I won to buy into bigger games on the same sim and/or elsewhere i think something like GEMs would add higher levels to aspire to, for people who like playing games with a little bit of competitive edge to them. Not only did I beat you but I got your loot as well the other thing is to just have a 1,000,000 gemstone. Heaps of them even. A million GEMs buyin Greedy Greedy tournament. I be into that Edited July 17, 2018 by ellestones (..they bought..) 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sammy Huntsman Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) But in today's society, everyone wants a reward to even login to another game. Like its an achievement unto itself. I think that with this, you are gonna get people cheating the system like any other game. I think this whole concept of even Xbox, or even PS4 rewarding players, for like playing a certain number of hours is very arbitrary. We are gonna turn this into an achievement hunt. Games and even platforms are not even about that. But on the note of SL not being a game, there are certain aspects that SL would be classified as a sandbox game. Yet on the other hand, parts of SL are not a game. Take for example, the ability to build anywhere, and I know you are gonna tell me. All games have endings, not all games have had endings. Yet they were released to the public, for a bit Minecraft didn't have an ending. It just had you build in a world, made of a bunch of cubes. Hell you see a lot of Steam games which are early access, they don't have an ending. Until about 10 or so updates. For the Longest time Subnautica, and the Stranded Deep, really had no ending. Edited July 17, 2018 by halebore Aeon Forgot to add something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleMe Jewell Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) 6 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said: But in today's society, everyone wants a reward to even login to another game. Like its an achievement unto itself. Possibly because in RL we gave everyone a Participation trophy in everything imaginable just for showing up (in the US, at least) Edited July 17, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sammy Huntsman Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 Oh its the same way in Canada, after I left school. The system, adopted the whole everyone's a winner ideal. But I am before that, so I still don't think it necessary to reward everyone, or give out gold stars. For the smallest things, such as you logged on, here is a gold star. Like this is ridiculous, and I am getting tired of it. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wulfie Reanimator Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 (edited) So let me clarify something.. You cannot buy GEMS like you can with L$. GEMS can be traded between residents. Explain to me what is stopping me from buying GEMS from another resident? What about people who actively use multiple accounts, earning double/triple/quadruple the amount per week? It is also very difficult to distinguish bots from people automatically. The concept of incentivising activity is not bad, but I don't think a new currency is the right way to go about it. Edit: And the sneaky second page reveals itself to me again, I should learn something by now. Edited July 17, 2018 by Wulfie Reanimator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qie Niangao Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 3 hours ago, ellestones said: ... i think something like GEMs would add higher levels to aspire to, for people who like playing games with a little bit of competitive edge to them. Not only did I beat you but I got your loot as well the other thing is to just have a 1,000,000 gemstone. Heaps of them even. A million GEMs buyin Greedy Greedy tournament. I be into that Thanks. I think I'm just not wired for GEMs. I played Linden Realms a few times when it first came out, went to the Cornfield and Horizons once each, and otherwise play no games outside Second Life, so maybe that's why I'm not grokking the whole concept of game reward tokens. Heck, I can't even put up with gachas -- too game-like for my patience -- so I'm pretty much resigned to never understanding any of this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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