MP Gachas

[Walelu Summerwind]

I used to enjoy shopping on MP, but, now it's becoming a real hassle just to find what I'm looking for. I'm really getting tired of page after page of gachas. I realize that some ppl really love gachas.. and that's cool. I just wish MP was more organized. I was browsing MP tonight looking for lingerie and found pages of gachas selling everything BUT lingerie. Gachas need their own subsection!!! This has been driving me crazy for a long time. I got Lindens burning a hole in my mesh pockets!  ? (steps down from my soapbox and sneaks out of the forum!)

[Garnet Psaltery]

Someone asked this question in the 'September 2018 - A Conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg' topic.  I'd be interested to hear an official answer to it.

[Sandy Schnook]

It's gotten stupid ridiculous trying to get past them.  Demos need a subsection under the main items they are for also.  I once passed 30 or so pages of demos, after someone uploaded a ton of them in the section I wanted to look through.

 

Added:  It's gotten bad enough on the MP that shopping in-world is the easier choice.  Always was my first choice to shop in-world, this just hammers the point home.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Sandy Schnook
Additional comment

[Walelu Summerwind]

5 minutes ago, Sandy Schnook said:

It's gotten stupid ridiculous trying to get past them.  Demos need a subsection under the main items they are for also.  I once passed 30 or so pages of demos, after someone uploaded a ton of them in the section I wanted to look through.

 

Added:  It's gotten bad enough on the MP that shopping in-world is the easier choice.  Always was my first choice to shop in-world, this just hammers the point home.

I like shopping in world too.. but sometimes late at night its fun just to window shop on MP.. or when you can't access the store because the sim is full ....(cough, cough.. Blueberry..) I've been trying to go there in world for 2 day so today I thought I'd look on MP.. I put Blueberry in the search then defined my apparel search and BOOM nothing but gachas for pages ?

[Claireschen Hesten]

Agreed, adding NOT gacha to a search will weed out gacha items but the re-sellers have got wise to this and they aren't pointing out their items are gacha's so NOT gacha is getting ineffective. any time i've put on such items opened or not i've listed it in the used items category (which is really where such items should go) and put gacha in the title so it can be excluded by people trying to weed them out. Using the used items category hasn't stopped the gacha's i've put up from selling listed them at enough to recoup what i shelled out, bit more when i had a rare and they all got snapped up quickly

Browsing the main categories looking for what's new it seems to be nothing but gacha and it's annoying

Edited September 7, 2018 by Claireschen Hesten

[Callum Meriman]

It's not 100% perfect, but it helps a alot. Over on the left of the MP is this:

<removed wrong screenshot, correct way is below>

Down the bottom tick modify/transfer and most gatchas will go away

Edited September 7, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Sandy Schnook]

It does seem to be much better if you go straight to her store on the MP rather then searching blueberry, then selecting apparel>lingerie.  Searching that way instead of going straight to her merchant page brought up 343 pages at 12 items per page.  And because I seem to have no life, I conducted an experiment.  I left it sorted by relevance, 12 items per page and skipped ahead to every 3rd page.  Nothing from Blueberry's actual store ever came up.  About 1 percent was other gachas and things from a couple other stores, but I'd say about 340 of those pages were nothing but Blueberry gachas.  Now granted you can go straight to her merchant storefront on the MP, but that's not always intuitive to everyone.  There are work arounds as Callum shows, but it still would be nice to put them in their own section and enforce that.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Sandy Schnook
Additional comment

[Sandy Schnook]

BTW just did Callum's refinement to my original search and have 67 items left, of which all but a few are gacha items.

[Callum Meriman]

37 minutes ago, Sandy Schnook said:

BTW just did Callum's refinement to my original search and have 67 items left, of which all but a few are gacha items.

Derp on me! Try it this way! Sorry.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Callum Meriman

[Sandy Schnook]

45 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

Derp on me! Try it this way! Sorry.

Tried it and have 17 pages, and think I know part of the issue. If you stop at Intimates, you do get many hits from the store itself.  If you go one more level into Lingerie, it all becomes gachas.  So in this case it may be how she listed her intimate items.  Regardless, I do still think gachas should have their own subsection,  and demos should be select-able from the page the for sale item is on.  

[Rhonda Huntress]

43 minutes ago, Sandy Schnook said:

and demos should be select-able from the page the for sale item is on. 

Of the two companies the Lab bought, OnRes had, in my opinion, a better layout including a single listing for the product with all colors, packs and demos selected from that page.  SLExchange  XStreet had a larger user base and was easier for the merchant to set up so that is the version LL went with.  I doubt there is much XStreet code left because the whole back end has been reworked to be manageable within SL but the basic design that end users see has not changed much at all.

[Marianne Little]

56 minutes ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

Of the two companies the Lab bought, OnRes had, in my opinion, a better layout including a single listing for the product with all colors, packs and demos selected from that page.  SLExchange  XStreet had a larger user base and was easier for the merchant to set up so that is the version LL went with.  I doubt there is much XStreet code left because the whole back end has been reworked to be manageable within SL but the basic design that end users see has not changed much at all.

That is the only reasonable way to manage a site.

For gachas, I think the best would be their own section. We already have used items, but that part is too small to have all the gacha items.

I am a frequent shopper of gacha items, and I would hate to see them banned from MP. I would also hate to see all of them: pets, skin, heads, hair, makeup, gadgets, weapons, vehicles and home & garden, forced in under "used items" as it is today. Technically, is it used when it's not unpacked?

I suggest updating "used items" with categories like the main page. One could make fewer ones of course, have buildings in under home & garden.

Better, give gacha their own section, but for the love of god, don't lump all together. They must be divided in categories.

All will benefit from it, both us who want to buy gacha things, and those who will avoid them.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Marianne Little

[Skell Dagger]

What I would like to see is a checkbox (or maybe two) at the point of listing, for the merchant to specify 'this is a demo' and/or 'this is a gacha item'. It could be right by the Copy/Mod/Transfer permissions boxes. People soon got used to checking the '100% mesh' and 'partial mesh' buttons, so checking one more box wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Following on from that, there could then be two checkboxes at the point of search for the customer: 'include demo items' and 'include gacha items'. By doing that the default search mode would not include demos and gachas, but the user could specify whether or not they wanted to view them in the results.

Most people, I think, don't actively search for demos first. (They won't search for eg: blue AND dress AND demo.) They'll search for whatever they want, then click the 'get demo version' link. I certainly wouldn't miss not seeing demos and gachas being included in the search, unless I actively specify that I want to see them.

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 hours ago, Sandy Schnook said:

It does seem to be much better if you go straight to her store on the MP rather then searching blueberry, then selecting apparel>lingerie.  Searching that way instead of going straight to her merchant page brought up 343 pages at 12 items per page.  And because I seem to have no life, I conducted an experiment.  I left it sorted by relevance, 12 items per page and skipped ahead to every 3rd page.  Nothing from Blueberry's actual store ever came up.  About 1 percent was other gachas and things from a couple other stores, but I'd say about 340 of those pages were nothing but Blueberry gachas.  Now granted you can go straight to her merchant storefront on the MP, but that's not always intuitive to everyone.  There are work arounds as Callum shows, but it still would be nice to put them in their own section and enforce that.

How is it "not intuitive" to go to a store if you want things from that store? In fact, it's been repeatedly requested that store names don't show up when searching for a keyword, because it's annoying to have your search results fill up with items from an unrelated store that happens to have the word you're searching for as part of its name - it sounds like this has finally been done.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

Personally, i refuse to buy limited quantity items from the MP. Be they Gatchas or breedables. You have ZERO recourse if the box is empty. It is very very much BUYER BEWARE. I have been burned several times with LL saying "Not our problem, we dont get involved between users." Yet they took a cut of that sale. in some cases, a 10K L horse, a very large cut. They profited from the sale of an empty box, yet refuse to fix the problem. 
Gatchaa need their own section, if only so people like myself dont buy one by accident thinking its a standard store item. If you are selling Gatchas, you should list that in the name of the item. 

[Fionalein]

17 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Personally, i refuse to buy limited quantity items from the MP.

Your problems are those of "second hand" sales, there are many other uses of limited quantity items like "first 100 customers can get it half price" or "I will only sell 50 of those ever" and similar stuff, which do not have any of the problems you named.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

4 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

Your problems are those of "second hand" sales, there are many other uses of limited quantity items like "first 100 customers can get it half price" or "I will only sell 50 of those ever" and similar stuff, which do not have any of the problems you named.

no, those have their own issues. Like, i have yet to see a shop that doesnt at some point sell that limited quantity item at a later date. At a much much lower rate because their customers were shouting for it. And the ones that bought it at 2 or 3K now watch others get it for 400L.. I have yet to see anything that is limited that sparked my interest that much. 

[Dillon Levenque]

21 hours ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

Someone asked this question in the 'September 2018 - A Conversation with Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg' topic.  I'd be interested to hear an official answer to it.

Is there a Jira? Seems to me this is a big enough deal to warrant it. The massive infusion of gacha items on MP really is a pain. I don't want gachas; I want things from the creator/store so that I have a way to get questions answered or to know who to shop often if it's something I really like.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Dillon Levenque
errant 't'

[Garnet Psaltery]

24 minutes ago, Dillon Levenque said:

Is there a Jira? Seems to me this is a big enough deal to warrant it. The massive infusion of gatcha items on MP really is a pain. I don't want gatchas; I want things from the creator/store so that I have a way to get questions answered or to know who to shop often if it's something I really like.

Someone else could tell you if there is a Jira, perhaps.  I find that system scary.

[Blush Bravin]

I don't have the issues many are saying they have with gacha and the MP, but it is most likely because I rarely go in and just window shop in the new entries. I tend to go in looking for something specific. So I search with very narrow filters, or for the specific name of the item, or specifically in the creator's store front. So if I wanted to get something from say Blueberry. I wouldn't search for Blueberry in the items tab, I would search in the merchant tab and go directly to her store, unless I wanted a specific Blueberry gacha, in which case, I'd search for the exact name of the item I want to purchase. 

Today, I got the notion that I wanted to check out braided hairstyles from creators I'd never seen before, so to do that I turned to the MP. I searched for "braid AND mesh NOT (brand I did not want to see). The result was kinda crazy until I ticked the mod and copy in the permission section and hit refine search. The result was perfect. No gachas and nothing from that brand I don't like. I wouldn't have mined getting a gacha hairstyle except that there is NO WAY I'm buying hair I can't modify and make copies. 

I understand the frustration some are having, but I also tend to think if you use the filters properly you'll not have near the level of frustration you are currently experiencing. 

I'm not in favor of relegating gachas to their own category. I think they need to be in the category based on what the object actually is and not that it's a gacha. I am in favor of a check box denoting that the item is a gacha much the same as what we have now for mesh and non mesh items. My two cents.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2018 by Blush Bravin

[Whirly Fizzle]

1 hour ago, Dillon Levenque said:

Is there a Jira? Seems to me this is a big enough deal to warrant it. The massive infusion of gatcha items on MP really is a pain. I don't want gatchas; I want things from the creator/store so that I have a way to get questions answered or to know who to shop often if it's something I really like.

BUG-216417 - Secondlife Marketplace and gacha items

[Ceka Cianci]

They need a system that keeps the market cleaned up some anyways..

Something like having a time limit on listings..Something like,if an item  hasn't sold in like one or two years, it gets taken down and can't be relisted for say,30 days or even 6 months.

There is so much stuff on the market that clutters it up..

Plus, they should go back to having to have an in world presence,I think..

 

I'm currently doing a search for ankle boots on the market and having to wade through stuff that looks like it's from 2006..

Edited September 8, 2018 by Ceka Cianci

[Marianne Little]

I like Gachas, because I don't need x copies of the hair edited to fit different ears and hats. I don't use Gachas for that, only for a specific photo.

Different users, different uses.

I only need dining chairs in 4-6. I sort and find really cheap homes and garden things, that I use only once. Past years gachas is still looking great, and often offerend for half the pull price or less, rares for 2-3 times the pull price.

I feel that clothes is just as safe in my Inventory as no copy. I don't buy items worth thousands of Lindens.

I never had an empty box. It is a totally differnt shopping from @Drake1 Nightfire.

I think Gachas would be killed, if one could not resell.

I sort things in copy - if I will avoid Gachas, and newest first, if I will avoid 2006 items. Both together.

[Blush Bravin]

3 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Something like having a time limit on listings..Something like,if an item  hasn't sold in like one or two years, it gets taken down and can't be relisted for say,30 days or even 6 months.

I love the idea of having a filter for this, so that we could exclude a particular time range. I'd rather not see items removed unless the person selling the product is no longer active in SL. I don't think anyone who has not logged into SL in the past few months should still be able to sell items in the MP.

59 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

I never had an empty box. It is a totally differnt shopping from @Drake1 Nightfire.

I've bought lots and lots of gacha items in the MP. In fact, I don't play the machine except in very rare occasions. I've never had an incident with any of my purchases. I love .. LOVE .. shopping for gacha items as some are super cute, it's the only way to get them, and I usually don't even have to pay the pull price to get it. 

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

I only need dining chairs in 4-6. I sort and find really cheap homes and garden things, that I use only once. Past years gachas is still looking great, and often offerend for half the pull price or less, rares for 2-3 times the pull price.

In the past three years, almost all of the deco items I buy for my house are gacha items I've purchased in the marketplace. My method of finding gacha items I want is not looking at gacha events though. I go sightseeing in my favorite regions and inspect all the cute things in the builds. Typically those things end up being gacha prizes. I then go find them in the MP. Sometimes they aren't there though. Then I go without because I usually won't play the machine.

[Ceka Cianci]

7 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

I love the idea of having a filter for this, so that we could exclude a particular time range. I'd rather not see items removed unless the person selling the product is no longer active in SL. I don't think anyone who has not logged into SL in the past few months should still be able to sell items in the MP.

Honestly,I'm up for anything that works well and is fair really..