Games and alts

[malienna]

I spend a lot of time playing fishing games in SL. I have become very good at determining which people are using multiple alts while fishing. The people who are using alts while fishing are getting triple or quadruple the lindens the rest of us are getting, which leaves less lindens for those of us playing fairly. Is there any way to prevent alts from fishing simultaneously? Should I contact a landowner when it is obvious who is using alts? 

[Lindal Kidd]

You can contact the land owner, but your opinion...and hers...and for that matter mine...about who is an alt and who is not is just that: an opinion.  A guess.  It might be a good guess, but there is no surefire way to determine who is, and is not, an alt.

[malienna]

One of the games I play has set it up so that when you try to withdraw from the ATM, it directs you to a website which then uses your IP address to determine whether you are an alt of someone else and then automatically bans you if your IP address has already been used by another avatar. I wonder how difficult it would be to implement this as a game creator. Seems like it would prevent the alt issue. 

[Tari Landar]

36 minutes ago, malienna said:

I spend a lot of time playing fishing games in SL. I have become very good at determining which people are using multiple alts while fishing. The people who are using alts while fishing are getting triple or quadruple the lindens the rest of us are getting, which leaves less lindens for those of us playing fairly. Is there any way to prevent alts from fishing simultaneously? Should I contact a landowner when it is obvious who is using alts? 

If there are rules against using alts (there aren't any, ftr, but even if there were, it's impossible to enforce-you can't know who is and isn't an alt *in game, it's literally impossible unless they tell you)..you can tattle to your little heart's content-most land owners probably will pretend to appease you, but will likely roll their eyes behind the screen and do nothing about it.  (that sounds way more snarky than I mean...landowners won't be jerks about it, but they do tend to share folks who tattle a lot to other landowners, it's a good way to get yourself banned from places for being obnoxious)

Personally I'd opt for being grateful that landowners are willing to pay you for your traffic and give you free money to spend to enjoy your fishing experience(s).  You're not missing out on something because someone else is using more than one av. That's like saying it's not fair someone has more disposable income than others in sl, so therefore those of us with less should get more lol. I mean I'd love to own a lot of things in sl that I'll never own because I'm poor, but it is what it is, lol. The landowner is the one paying them to fish, so if anyone should be upset about it, it would be them. I can promise you they don't really care though, because...traffic. 

Used to get loads of people fishing on my lands that thought they were good at figuring out alts too, they're never right. A lot of people that play those fishing games work together, in that they go to the same spots, together, they're probably in a group chat or im-ing one another, it's just a nice passtime. If they use any kind of auto-fishing (like magic potions for the magic rods), it might look like they're casting together (but they're not really, because you can't cast at the exact second as someone else, you'll get a worm wriggle away and it'll re-do). I used to fish with a couple friends of mine too (obviously not on my own lands, lol) we were always at the same spots at the same time, lol. 

Edited October 15, 2019 by Tari Landar

[malienna]

5 minutes ago, Tari Landar said:

 You're not missing out on something because someone else is using more than one av. That's like saying it's not fair someone has more disposable income than others in sl, so therefore those of us with less should get more lol.

The landowner only has a certain amount of lindens to spend each day on the buoys though, so for example they might put in 400L, and if one person is using four alts they will drain that buoy very quickly, which means people like myself who are only using one avatar to fish with will not even get to fish at all.

[malienna]

I'm also talking about alts that are very obvious from their names. Like one will be "benjavi", second is "benjava", third is "benjave" lol

[Tari Landar]

17 minutes ago, malienna said:

The landowner only has a certain amount of lindens to spend each day on the buoys though, so for example they might put in 400L, and if one person is using four alts they will drain that buoy very quickly, which means people like myself who are only using one avatar to fish with will not even get to fish at all.

It's still the land owner's money, not yours, so it doesn't make much sense for you to be angry about it . So you don't fish at that land because someone else cleared the buoy, move on to another land. There are a LOT of them, it's not hard to find. You can only fish once per 24 hours at any of them anyway.

I can promise you land owners will likely be more annoyed by you tattling than they are people using alts.  They get the 4 person traffic whether or not it's one person on 4 avs or 4 different people. Some will tell you they care, and pretend to have altruistic reasons for hosting, but in reality, traffic is traffic and that's the real reason anyone hosts those games, lol. It's not a big deal.

[malienna]

I'm not angry, I just saw a huge sign on someone's sim that said "NO ALTS" etc. and wondered if I should be reporting or not. I thought the landowner would want to know since they are the one who put up the sign but I won't worry about it anymore lol. Had I not seen that sign I would have assumed landowners are grateful for the traffic and don't care if half of the traffic consists of alts

[malienna]

Do you think most landowners are of that mindset, they don't really care if people use alts when fishing? I'm now beginning to question whether it is even against the rules to use them or not - I am trying to look into this for each specific game now

Edited October 15, 2019 by malienna

[malienna]

In looking at the terms of service for various fishing games, there does not appear to be any rule against using alts while fishing (except for Alienum which has auto ban in place as I state earlier). It seems like this would mean that one may fish with alts on any land that does not specifically state that you can't use them, since the game TOS does not mention anything about alts. Does anyone know if this is true or not?

[Alwin Alcott]

7 minutes ago, malienna said:

Do you think most landowners are of that mindset, they don't really care if people use alts when fishing? I'm now beginning to question whether it is even against the rules to use them or not - I am trying to look into this for each specific game now

you mix two things... the fish game and SL
SL = alts are OK
fishing: you and some others think it's not ok ..( thats their right)

banning ip adresses is one of the worst ways .. there can be several not related accounts use the same ip, and yours can be mine tomorrow

the fishing game is intended to increase traffic, and the ones playing it earn a few lindens for doing so. Even if the owner doesn't like it that alts get paid, it still works as intented: make the traffic number raise. And if a owner gets more traffic = pay more, he should add more or deal with the fact people will move on when there's nothing left to earn there.

Every discussion about alts is subjective, ratio is mostly thrown out of the window with the first line.

[malienna]

For some reason I have always been under the impression that it was not okay to use alts in fishing games. I think this may have been a misunderstanding. I really wish I knew this earlier because it took me 35 hours of fishing to save up for a tiny avatar recently, and had I fished with four avatars it would have only taken me 8 hours lol

[Amina Sopwith]

3 minutes ago, malienna said:

For some reason I have always been under the impression that it was not okay to use alts in fishing games. I think this may have been a misunderstanding. I really wish I knew this earlier because it took me 35 hours of fishing to save up for a tiny avatar recently, and had I fished with four avatars it would have only taken me 8 hours lol

Honestly, just buy the Ls. You're surely spending more than this in electricity to power the computer.

[Alwin Alcott]

3 minutes ago, malienna said:

For some reason I have always been under the impression that it was not okay to use alts in fishing games. I think this may have been a misunderstanding. I really wish I knew this earlier because it took me 35 hours of fishing to save up for a tiny avatar recently, and had I fished with four avatars it would have only taken me 8 hours lol

i don't think you misunderstood, it can be a restriction made by the owners of the game (nót SL ) but there are no watertight ways to determin who is alt or not.
These games are nearly never paying enough and fast enough to get the warm experience to be a welcome  client.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

Just in case nobody's mentioned it yet, the whole point of these fishing games is traffic.

The land owner pays, the people come, traffic goes up.

Whether or not the money goes to multiple people or one person with multiple alts, traffic goes up equally. The land owner gets what they intended.

There's few arguments you can make besides appealing to fairness, as the goal isn't really to provide a fair game to people. Paying for traffic isn't any better.

[malienna]

What do landowners get from the increased traffic? I always wondered this because a lot of them are shelling out a ton of money into their fishing buoys to get traffic, and it would seem like they are losing money every day from having fishing on their land

[Tari Landar]

28 minutes ago, malienna said:

Do you think most landowners are of that mindset, they don't really care if people use alts when fishing? I'm now beginning to question whether it is even against the rules to use them or not - I am trying to look into this for each specific game now

Yep I do think that, in fact, I know it. You might find a very few who really care-but I tend to avoid those folks they are more drama prone than everyone else (like the signage, that screams "I like drama" to me, and most others. That's someone who will do the whole "but I want to help as many people as I can" altruistic approach, but really...yeah, no) I've been around these games in sl long enough to see these things play out over and over, lol. 

Most really don't care, it's all about the traffic for them, no matter what altruistic reasons they give for hosting these games...they benefit in traffic and clout in some cases (it's nice being known as someone who has a nice place, really, I'm not knocking it, but...they'll get that regardless, nice places and nice people get praise). They are paying the same money out whether it is one person on multiple avs, or multiple people.

I know how long it can take to earn a lot of money playing these games too, like I said, I don't just host them (when I own land) I actually play them. But in the end your options aren't so limited in earning at places that this is really going to be a problem for you. There are tons of places to fish, but you're going to earn at the same pace regardless unless there is a multiplier/event going on at the time. 

The game that tries to have restrictions set to IP isn't as effective as they think, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of alts playing that game, successfully i might add, and have been for years. The only reason that "restriction" is in place, really, is to get people to stop complaining in group chat, on lands, and to landowners about alts. SO they pretend to have a rule in place that "prevents" alt use.  It doesn't, it can't, and it won't  So I wouldn't care if I were you, just enjoy your fishing  

[malienna]

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and answer my gazillion questions!:) This helps to clarify a lot for me, I will go back to enjoying my fishing and feeling incredibly grateful to landowners for the lindens and lovely surroundings. I appreciate this group so much! ♥

[Tari Landar]

4 minutes ago, malienna said:

What do landowners get from the increased traffic? I always wondered this because a lot of them are shelling out a ton of money into their fishing buoys to get traffic, and it would seem like they are losing money every day from having fishing on their land

They do lose money daily, really, but it's like any advertising. If they have a store, that's a great way to get traffic. Clubs use it for the same reason. Some use it because they just enjoy the company of others and are willing to pay for it. Search rankings can be higher with traffic, of course

I used it because I had a bunch of land and didn't know wth to do with it, lmao.  I set up an arcade, beer pong, some other games, oui coupes from curio obscura(I friggen love that store, lol), a cojple other "hunt" games, a maze for the coins, fishing spot for the buoy =, my house/workshop, some furnishings, a garden and just left it all open for public use. The traffic was nice, the company nicer, but having a use for all my junk that I loved but could only use so much on my own was pretty cool too. Plus, you could get pretty high in the rankings (which is good for all of nothing but clout) if you had a nice spot. I also had my store out for a while too, so..again, traffic for that. I got tired of having the store open. I did have a tip jar out, and I'd be lying if I said it never made a linden, it made like $1500L over the course of about 6 months actually, lmao..LOTS of places have those, even if you don't see them right away  

 

[malienna]

Thank you for sharing your own experiences! That is something I wondered about for ages. I always feel really guilty fishing because I didn't understand what the landowner was receiving from it, I am definitely going to start tipping then, as I fish so often and don't feel right about taking people's money without giving anything in return. Especially knowing some just do it for the company - my goodness! That makes me feel even worse lol. I will definitely try to be more friendly when I'm fishing now, knowing that. At least contribute in a small way even if I can't afford to tip huge amounts. 

[Tari Landar]

Oh trust me, they don't mind.  You should definitely NOT feel bad whatsoever. If they did mind, they'd stop doing it. It can be costly for land owners, but I won't pretend (like some do) that they get nothing at all from it. I also don't kiss their butts, lol. That might be because I was one and I am willing to admit that I gained as much as any visitor would. Some of them don't seem willing to admit this, neither do some of the CSRs, and it can be particularly annoying when they don't, but..eh, we all benefit.

Sometimes just having folks to hang out with is a nice benefit and worth a few hundred linden a day. I put waaaaaaay more money into it as a landowner than I think most people would think reasonable, but I had the funding to do so at the time, and it's no worse than people who spend thousands on pixel clothes, we all like what we like. But, the benefits still outweigh the costs. I probably still have money in my landowner account, and I know I have coins and gems that have money in them (or did, when I picked them up, hopefully the company left it there, if not, well, lesson learned on my part, lol)

Traffic really is a huge thing though, places are always trying to get higher in rankings both in search and within the games themselves. It's probably the driving force behind most places. In which case, your time is worth far, far more than the pittance you get paid to fish (I say that because I realize without multipliers, you're really not making jack off each landowner, it's a very small amount). 

That's also part of why I put entertaining things out, because people's time should be worth as much as I was gaining in traffic, lol.  And come on who doesn't like sitting in a itty bitty car and riving around, playing arcade and fair games while fishing/coin hunting, chatting with other folks, or playing in mazes? 

[Tari Landar]

Oh and in case anyone is wondering...

If you go inactive, for more than a year (it's prob been way longer than that), and you, as a landowner, have money in these objects, coins, buoys, gems....it magically disappears or stays put but you can't actually have it 

This thread made me log in and check those coins I KNOW had a balance (cuz I left it there on purpose)...all the ones I know had a bigger balance are empty, any under $5l  will register, but won't actually give you the money out of them. So that's another draw for landowners...once they put money in, they can't get it back out. 

 

Edited October 15, 2019 by Tari Landar

[Lindal Kidd]

3 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

Traffic really is a huge thing though, places are always trying to get higher in rankings both in search and within the games themselves. It's probably the driving force behind most places.

This is true.  On the other hand, it's a lot less true than it used to be.  The weighting of traffic statistics in determining search results has been greatly reduced by LL.  However, I think a lot of people either don't know this, or don't care.

[ItHadToComeToThis]

The way I see “alts” is this...

It really isn’t any of your business and if that’s what triggering you in life then maybe you should put the keyboard down and go outside for a bit. People have alts, their alts have alts, they use their alts for all kinds of things. Leave them to it, your only creating more stress for yourself by worrying otherwise

[malienna]

1 hour ago, ItHadToComeToThis said:

The way I see “alts” is this...

It really isn’t any of your business and if that’s what triggering you in life then maybe you should put the keyboard down and go outside for a bit. People have alts, their alts have alts, they use their alts for all kinds of things. Leave them to it, your only creating more stress for yourself by worrying otherwise

I am not triggered by alts lol I have alts myself. Now that I know most landowners don't care if people use alts while fishing it totally changes my point of view,  since it is quite foolish for someone like me to fish with only one avatar if it is allowed to fish with more than one, since someone who fishes using four avatars simultaneously will be making 56L per buoy instead of 14L.