Linden Realms Limits

[Waiomao]

Aloha. I've been in Linden Realms more than usual because of the corona virus. All this staying at home! I challenged myself to see what happens when the number of crystals collected goes to four digits (more than the three digits shown on the HUD). Yesterday I reached five digits (!!!), and the HUD works similarly: displays the last three digits until you collect another crystal, then displays the first three digits instead. Anyway, this has me wondering:

Is there a limit to the number of crystals we can collect before cashing them in?

Is there a "record board," or a record kept somewhere, of high scores (highest number of each crystal collected)? 

I can complete the four quests in about a half hour now; is there a record kept of fastest game?

Honestly, I suspect that LL may avoid keeping these types of records because attempts at high score would likely even further inspire cheaters. The cheaters (fast movers and long jumpers) are a creative bunch and it feels like there are even more in the new build of LR than there were six months ago.

[Mollymews]

haven't tested it with the new Realms

but with the old Realms all the player data was on the game server, the HUD is just a display

sometimes with the old Realms the HUD never attached to the viewer, but the server assumed that it had. So could play the game and cash out even when not wearing the HUD

i assume that is the same with new Realms

what the upper limit for crystals could be tho I dunno

[Lucia Nightfire]

The only things I can say about this pic is that it is real, it happened, it should no longer be possible to achieve this "high score" the way I achieved it and I'm not allowed to "test" Linden Realms anymore. 😭

Edited April 26, 2020 by Lucia Nightfire

[Waiomao]

Wow, 999,999 of each crystal! That would take years of constant play... or (ahem) "a short cut."

LR 2020 payouts would be:
999,999 red crystals = L$19,999
999,999 yellow crystals = L$39,999
999,999 orange crystals = L$99,999
999,999 green crystals = L$999,999
999,999 blue crystals = L$1,999,998
Total payout = L$3,159,994

No wonder they don't want you in there! 😄  

[Waiomao]

I have conflicting views of Linden Realms cheaters. Or maybe a balanced one? First, I admire anyone with the depth of technical skill needed to pull off a sweet hack. Linden Realms DEFCON style! On the other hand, I get enormously discouraged when I'm in game, think I'm doing well, and other players go speeding past or sailing over me, sweeping up in a flash all the crystals I was headed for. I see this most often in Deathly Swamp. When I first experienced that I wondered what setting or keyboard shortcut I didn't know about, felt like a stoopid noob playing incorrectly.

Hacking the HUD rather than the ability to move definitely seems more fair to other players. Not clear who a hacked high payout is stealing from, except maybe SL's user statistics (a player in the game for just minutes rather than for weeks, months, or years reduces the number of users online). But surely the moles have high payouts flagged. On the other hand, all payouts have to be spent inworld, so support the SL economy. That's a strong disincentive for SL to chase cheaters or follow up on reports. I wonder what criteria are needed to tip the balance either way? Interesting to ponder things like that.

[Lucia Nightfire]

They could have implemented this feature years ago and shut down a majority of the cheating vectors.

Another feature would be to not allow object data to be shown when selecting objects via edit menu similar to how data isn't shown when selecting objects over banned land.

This would also deter tpv's, legit and illegal, from listing hunt targets or objects of interest in Area Search.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Lucia Nightfire

[Waiomao]

Aloha Lucia. Just cashed out and made what I thought was a sh*t ton of L$.

Thanks for the link! Wow, that bug fix suggestion was first made in '14, updated in '19, but presumably not implemented. I wonder what they worry might be broken by that fix?

After reading your comment above I went back in and did a right click > edit on several crystals. The name shown for each was LR - Collision or LR - Land, so it looks like the moles DID use at least one of your ideas :-)

[Claireschen Hesten]

19 hours ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

The only things I can say about this pic is that it is real, it happened, it should no longer be possible to achieve this "high score" the way I achieved it and I'm not allowed to "test" Linden Realms anymore. 😭

I didn't know such a count was possible i'm unwelcome in the realms for a different reason pretty sure i got my orange count in to 6 digits only cashing out what i needed to the nearest probably 1k in orange thought i was being good having a stockpile i could call on when needed ended up not being a good idea

[AlohaShoyu]

Hi Clairschen. I was thinking about doing the same - using Linden Realms to "bank" crystals and then cash them out on a rainy day. Thanks for the warning!

 

[Mollymews]

On 4/27/2020 at 10:21 AM, Waiomao said:

I have conflicting views of Linden Realms cheaters. Or maybe a balanced one? First, I admire anyone with the depth of technical skill needed to pull off a sweet hack. Linden Realms DEFCON style! On the other hand, I get enormously discouraged when I'm in game, think I'm doing well, and other players go speeding past or sailing over me, sweeping up in a flash all the crystals I was headed for. I see this most often in Deathly Swamp. When I first experienced that I wondered what setting or keyboard shortcut I didn't know about, felt like a stoopid noob playing incorrectly.

Hacking the HUD rather than the ability to move definitely seems more fair to other players. Not clear who a hacked high payout is stealing from, except maybe SL's user statistics (a player in the game for just minutes rather than for weeks, months, or years reduces the number of users online). But surely the moles have high payouts flagged. On the other hand, all payouts have to be spent inworld, so support the SL economy. That's a strong disincentive for SL to chase cheaters or follow up on reports. I wonder what criteria are needed to tip the balance either way? Interesting to ponder things like that.

 

On 4/27/2020 at 9:57 AM, Waiomao said:

Wow, 999,999 of each crystal! That would take years of constant play... or (ahem) "a short cut."

Lucia ran up those scores on the original version of Linden Realms.  The original version had no rules or blocks against using bot programs to collect crystals. A good bot program could clear a region of crystals in a minute or less. Linden  did then get into DEFCON wars with the players and progressively broke all the shorts and cheats

without a bot program the most common way to snaffle the higher pay blue and green crystal back in the day was to teleport to the crystal. Could do this even without any kind of script.  Enable viewer double-click teleport,  double click on the terrain under the crystal, and voila. This would work even when a crystal was under a rock or tree

with the new version of Realms, the one you are playing now, then lots of the old ways of doing these kinds of things Linden broke

the people who are moving faster than you are using a speed booster. Of which there are quite a few on Marketplace. Using speed boosters on the old Realms were broken by the ingame cloud puffers, but from what I understand the new Realms allows the use of speed boosters 

i think they are allowed now because I understand there is now a limit on how many crystals can be cashed in a week. Am not sure what that limit is but someone mentioned on here previously that it was 50L?  On the old Realms there was no limit to the number of crystals that could be cashed at any time

Edited May 2, 2020 by Mollymews
defcon

[Jaylinbridges]

On 5/1/2020 at 11:11 PM, Mollymews said:

but from what I understand the new Realms allows the use of speed boosters 

i think they are allowed now because I understand there is now a limit on how many crystals can be cashed in a week. Am not sure what that limit is but someone mentioned on here previously that it was 50L?

Actually, no and no.  However there is little enforcement of speed boosters in the new LR.  They rely on tattlers to take photos or videos of an avatar flying over rocks and things, including the big jumpers.  Since the staff reduction, I don't know if it's being enforced at all, even with an AR with a video showing the cheating.  And since most of the cheaters are throwaway accounts, they just make a new one the next day.

There is no limit on # of crystals/week.  You must have Payment Info On File to cash in crystals however.  The 50L limit/week is all you can get per avatar for completing the 4 quests, allowed once/week.  So that has resulted in thousands of new Alt accounts with NO PIOF on file, running them thru the quests,  often 2, 3, or 4 paired at a time using RLV attachments.  

I always watch these alts (blank profiles of course, no PIOF) on radar and realize they are not competition for collecting crystals.  So there are now  more crystals to collect for us with PIOF, a plus I think.   The four quests can be completed with no cheating in 15 mins btw.  You don't waste time collecting crystals though, just finish each quest and TP back to a recovery tank nearest the next quest.  

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Jaylinbridges

[Mollymews]

23 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Actually, no and no.  However there is little enforcement of speed boosters in the new LR.  They rely on tattlers to take photos or videos of an avatar flying over rocks and things, including the big jumpers

thanks for the info

are the cloud puffers in the new version of the game ?  In the old game that used to be the way to send players home who were using scripted boosters. The puffer would detect when an avatar was moving faster than they could run normally

 

[Jaylinbridges]

On 5/3/2020 at 6:06 PM, Mollymews said:

are the cloud puffers in the new version of the game ?

I don't think so, have never encountered one. They do have the "evil green mist" which randomly strikes you anywhere for no apparent reason.  This includes killing you after you are already dead and in a recovery pool, which is supposed to be a safe zone.  You get killed by one of the usual characters, sent to a recovery tank, and the evil mist then attacks you in the tank, and usually removes your HUD too.  This wastes at least one minute of your playtime, but is not a penalty.  

There is also the Sploch, a swamp dweller that tries to attach to your body and kill you.  It's a small black mass of swamp crap that cries when you outrun it. It's only purpose is to prevent you from collecting crystals in the hill beyond the swamp quest island, if you have NOT completed the swamp quest first.  If you enter the rear swamp hill by jumping the swamp rocks, you will always complete the swamp quest first, so you never see the Sploch.   However if you decide to jump the cliffs at the top of the hill, it triggers the Sploches.  So that seems to be the only enforcement built into LR now.  To jump the cliffs you need a jump enhancer, or flying hud.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Jaylinbridges

[Waiomao]

Aloha. There is something like a "puffer" or "evil green mist" called Air Blob in LR. Like you said Jay it attacks anywhere, anytime. Molly, it doesn't seem to be linked to scripted boosters; I get the Air Blob regularly. I always wondered if Air Blob attacks when you approach the limit of your cache, and it frees some up for you. There have been times when I've been playing hard and get attacked by Air Blob every minute or so, as if it is hinting that I should exit LR and give my processor and cache a break :-) 

[Mollymews]

i probably should go and play the new Linden Realms myself and see what the differences are between the old and new versions. Seems the gameplay on the new is a bit more interesting than on the old version

in a previous life I used to go on the old game a lot. Grinding to get L$ to pay the rent on a 512m parcel back then and buy some little things. A time when I never had enough RL discretionary money. These days my RL has improved a bit so am able to put my own money into SL

this is not say that I never liked playing the old game. Was quite soothing, going round and round, like a lawn mower. Is other people today who are in the same RL situation today as I was back in the day.  So that holds me back a little bit from playing the new game.  Not being in the game myself, I think makes it a bit easier for others to get the little money that is available