New Gacha Policy Discussion

[Mollymews]

28 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

They have created a world where hidden chance mechanics will rule the day so long as they show what your current losing purchase is.

They should have clearly outlawed all random vendors.

Linden are all about legal liability for them. Apparently Linden don't see conveyor systems as incurring a legal liability for them. Why I dunno

i think tho that Linden are being consistent in their approach to this matter. They have only ever taken a legal liability position on all matters

is the consistency I think Linden can be credited for

edit add: thinking about this a bit more

i didn't think Linden would allow conveyors.  But I suppose when you think about each purchase of a known item as an independent event then it can make sense

Edited August 6, 2021 by Mollymews
edit to remove moral as is immaterial

[Elyssa Artis]

3 minutes ago, CelestineDemetria said:

my original question I had asked to get clarification.  I was asking about the original box from the creator being sold to you "Randomly" only per say knowing it's a cat in a box .- someone stated as long as you know the color- Nope. As Long as you know the Attributes of the Animal being purchased from the Creator at point of sales.

 

Not the secondary breeding after that is not in question with traits and what not popping out, that I already know is fine from reading it.

So you read the line specifying colors, saying that information should be known and other unknown traits are acceptable and you ended up at just knowing the animal is okay.
And the other girl ended up at the color was just an example and all traits should be known.

Please LL, can you clarify exactly what traits must be known, as your initial answer is not clear enough.

[Coffee Pancake]

5 minutes ago, Viche Hexem said:

This is more of a problem with faith in the vendor's designers to make it actually be fair and holding them accountable for that.

How can you hold them to account?

The mechanics will be entirely unknown to you.

It's trivial for the mechanics to be kept entirely secret from LL too by putting the tracking & decision making on an external service.

 

Random chance mechanics are not about fun, they are about maximizing profits .. which is painfully easy to accomplish in a way that meets these new guidelines.

Gumball machines are dumb, they can't know what color gumball you want and actively work against you. Programed random chance algorithms are the very opposite of dumb and us humans are great at making predictable stupid choices.

 

[Lucia Nightfire]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

How can you hold them to account?

The mechanics will be entirely unknown to you.

It's trivial for the mechanics to be kept entirely secret from LL too by putting the tracking & decision making on an external service.

 

Random chance mechanics are not about fun, they are about maximizing profits .. which is painfully easy to accomplish in a way that meets these new guidelines.

Gumball machines are dumb, they can't know what color gumball you want and actively work against you. Programed random chance algorithms are the very opposite of dumb and us humans are great at making predictable stupid choices.

 

And don't forget the profiling, particularly who is a big/reoccurring spender or not.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Lucia Nightfire

[Silent Mistwalker]

18 minutes ago, Elyssa Artis said:

It's not an example when they specifically reference the other unknown traits and say that's okay.
To me, I think it should be all traits being known. They all contribute towards the item being common or rare.
They have clearly stated that other unknown traits, that they have or develop (presumably through breeding), is okay.

 

Patch did use  the word example.

 

Quote

A:  If you buy a brown cat, and a blue cat (as examples), as long as you knew you were getting a brown cat and a blue cat at the time of sale, this is acceptable at the present including the various unknown traits they may come with or develop.  Secondarily, when those cats make little kittens with unknown outcomes, this is also acceptable.  Lastly, the resale of any breedables will require at the time of purchase that the purchaser knows what they are purchasing at the root level (for example, it is a blue cat).  

 

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, Lucia Nightfire said:

And don't forget the profiling, particularly who is a big/common spender or not.

The focus lock in element of a roller (that's going to be required to avoid technical issues and race conditions) makes this almost inevitable. The machine will know it has one persons attention.

[Elyssa Artis]

Just now, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

Patch did use  the word example.

 

 

He did, but of the colors, otherwise he would be listing out every color. But again, it obviously isn't clear enough, so if they can state what traits need to be known, as a firm list.
Something like:
Color needs to be known
Color, tails and ears need to be known
Color, tails, ears and 2 generations of genetics need to be known

That would be absolutely ideal, and avoid all confusion.

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, Elyssa Artis said:

He did, but of the colors, otherwise he would be listing out every color. But again, it obviously isn't clear enough, so if they can state what traits need to be known, as a firm list.
Something like:
Color needs to be known
Color, tails and ears need to be known
Color, tails, ears and 2 generations of genetics need to be known

That would be absolutely ideal, and avoid all confusion.

They can't provide a set list of traits that covers all cases.

Ears and tails are relevant if you're breeding animals with ears and tails, if you're breeding plants or trains then what?

[Elyssa Artis]

Just now, Coffee Pancake said:

They can't provide a set list of traits that covers all cases.

Ears and tails are relevant if you're breeding animals with ears and tails, if you're breeding plants or trains then what?

That's fair.
Really all traits and 2 gen genetics of the starter packs should be known.
It all contributes to how 'rare' the item is.

Realistically though, it's likely why color is the thing given, because it's the only common thing between all these breedables, without killing the breedables industry.

[Elyssa Artis]

3 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

or trains 

Also, for real? Is that a thing? I gotta see that if it is

[Silent Mistwalker]

4 minutes ago, Elyssa Artis said:

He did, but of the colors, otherwise he would be listing out every color. But again, it obviously isn't clear enough, so if they can state what traits need to be known, as a firm list.
Something like:
Color needs to be known
Color, tails and ears need to be known
Color, tails, ears and 2 generations of genetics need to be known

That would be absolutely ideal, and avoid all confusion.

Patch is fully aware there are several traits. Do you really expect him to sit down and go through every single type of animal available on the grid and determine what each animal's traits are? No, he is going to use the simplest example he can to save time and effort that he needs to be spending elsewhere to keep the grid alive.

[CelestineDemetria]

Just now, Elyssa Artis said:

Also, for real? Is that a thing? I gotta see that if it is

Was thinking maybe skirts.. You could breed a whole herd of wearable outfits.

🤪

[Elyssa Artis]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Patch is fully aware there are several traits. Do you really expect him to sit down and go through every single type of animal available on the grid and determine what each animal's traits are? No, he is going to use the simplest example he can to save time and effort that he needs to be spending elsewhere to keep the grid alive.

No, I don't, but without giving a firm guideline (aka, not something that has the word example anywhere), you can see 3 people at least had 3 different ideas about what it meant.
So if that comes down to only color being known, then say that. Color must be known, all other traits being unknown is acceptable.
Sometimes the shortest answer is the clearest.

[Dictatorshop]

Having read the majority of this thread's pages, with suggested workarounds and rolling vendors I just really need to ask why this even needs to be a thing?  Seriously as a creator and merchant of long standing in SL I honestly cannot understand why people cannot simply put a FAIR PRICE on their work and sell it without the need to turn their customers into shills.  

I realize what a sucker punch this must feel like right now to some, but is it so hard to contemplate just being straight with you customers and giving them a good value for their linden dollars?

I have read many justifications for why gachas are good, low point of entry etc. But it just doesn't pass the smell test if you lean in for a good whiff.

I encourage creators to take this as an opportunity.  All the gacha creators are in the same boat and instead of paddling in circles to try to find ways around the new ban just go about your business the way that those of us without significant gachas have been doing it for years.  You MIGHT do better than you think.  Just my two lindens for what it's worth.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Dictatorshop

[Rosa Hexem]

10 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

How can you hold them to account?

The mechanics will be entirely unknown to you.

It's trivial for the mechanics to be kept entirely secret from LL too by putting the tracking & decision making on an external service.

 

Random chance mechanics are not about fun, they are about maximizing profits .. which is painfully easy to accomplish in a way that meets these new guidelines.

Gumball machines are dumb, they can't know what color gumball you want and actively work against you. Programed random chance algorithms are the very opposite of dumb and us humans are great at making predictable stupid choices.

 

I'm still talking about the on-paper idea for a conveyor machine under the assumption that it's fair play in so far as this stuff can be fair play on SL because I want to see where this stuff is headed. You're talking about problems that existed while gacha was still a thing and, frankly, ones that I imagine were solutions desired to be found that they would at the height of gacha's popularity.

Ultimately I think your end goal here is to make a convincing argument for there to be no such thing as a purchase with a chance mechanic for fear of unfair rigging making the whole practice a scam. I am discussing how a conveyor system made in good faith could avoid issues that aren't built on the idea that the whole system itself should be banned due to corruption. Your concerns are valid, but our discussions are fundnamentally incompatible, I'm looking for ways to make this work, you're looking for basis to make it go away.

[Stella Davros]

36 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

Blocking previous buyer doesn't stop sniping when you have more than 2 people at the machine (or far away since anyone can pay from any rendered distance.)

Also, adding timeouts can potentially contribute to keeping people around, not just one person, thus contributing to the indirect traffic boosting element, whether that is desired or not by that store owner or other land owners in the region.

True, but you can set one hud where only who 's playng knows the next item

[Elyssa Artis]

1 minute ago, Dictatorshop said:

Having read the majority of this three's pages, with suggested workarounds and rolling vendors I just really need to ask why this even needs to be a thing?  Seriously as a creator and merchant of long standing in SL I honestly cannot understand why people cannot simply put a FAIR PRICE on their work and sell it without the need to turn their customers into shills.  

I realize what a sucker punch this must feel like right now to some, but is it so hard to contemplate just being straight with you customers and giving them a good value for their linden dollars?

I have read many justifications for why gachas are good, low point of entry etc. But it just doesn't pass the smell test if you lean in for a good whiff.

I encourage creators to take this as an opportunity.  All the gacha creators are in the same boat and instead of paddling in circles to try to find ways around the new ban just go about your business the way that those of us without significant gachas have been doing it for years.  You MIGHT do better than you think.  Just my two lindens for what it's worth.

Because some creators have spent so long investing mass amounts of time into gacha, doing one after the other, making quick bank, one ofter the other. Perhaps randomly trying regular releases that didn't do well right away, that they think they don't ever do well.

They never spent time building up their mainstore, customer group, or had a big enough selection of regular items in their mainstore and MP to realise that it all adds up over time to some very nice passive income.

 

3 minutes ago, CelestineDemetria said:

Was thinking maybe skirts.. You could breed a whole herd of wearable outfits.

🤪

 love it.

[Mollymews]

2 minutes ago, Stella Davros said:

True, but you can set one hud where only who 's playng knows the next item

bouncing of the HUD idea

we would mostly likely have to grant debit permission to these kinds of HUDs

[CelestineDemetria]

15 minutes ago, Elyssa Artis said:

He did, but of the colors, otherwise he would be listing out every color. But again, it obviously isn't clear enough, so if they can state what traits need to be known, as a firm list.
Something like:
Color needs to be known
Color, tails and ears need to be known
Color, tails, ears and 2 generations of genetics need to be known

That would be absolutely ideal, and avoid all confusion.

Or just tell Everyone you need to List the First 3 attributes. Color/species,Eyes,Gender and something that may make it different like 1 rare attribute.

Shrugs- Something common all breedables have.

Except trains DK what to do about them.. Hahaha

Edited August 6, 2021 by CelestineDemetria

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Elyssa Artis said:

Because some creators have spent so long investing mass amounts of time into gacha, doing one after the other, making quick bank, one ofter the other. Perhaps randomly trying regular releases that didn't do well right away, that they think they don't ever do well.

Gachas have always been a way to dump external content in SL that wouldn't ordinarily have a clear route to market.

[MoiraKathleen]

10 minutes ago, Elyssa Artis said:

He did, but of the colors, otherwise he would be listing out every color. But again, it obviously isn't clear enough, so if they can state what traits need to be known, as a firm list.
Something like:
Color needs to be known
Color, tails and ears need to be known
Color, tails, ears and 2 generations of genetics need to be known

That would be absolutely ideal, and avoid all confusion.

Patch said in the FAQ regarding breedables "Lastly, the resale of any breedables will require at the time of purchase that the purchaser knows what they are purchasing at the root level (for example, it is a blue cat). "  

To me, the key part of that sentence is the "what they are purchasing at the root level" where I would interpret "root level" to be the most important aspects/traits to be known about that type of breedable which is in the box or bag being purchased  (such as color for a cat, for example). 

I don't do breedables, so I don't know what the most important aspect(s) are for any given type of breedable,  so if for cats, it's color, ear shapes and tail, than perhaps that's what should be included in the description, just to be on the safe side - if those are things that are actually known?   

 

[Tari Landar]

30 minutes ago, Elyssa Artis said:

I agree, it does assume incorrectly that the color is the main factor, it doesn't mean that the answer they gave is just an example.
They clearly stated other unknown traits are okay. They are aware of the other traits.
But they are still reading this, so push that case, It totally is true, all traits, not just color contribute to a breedable being rare.
As it stands, that is indeed their ruling for now, so saying other people are ignorantly misinterpreting simply because you feel it shouldn't be that way is frankly quite rude.

I could be wrong, and I'm certainly I will be corrected if I am that what LL is saying with this new FAQ regarding breedables is that KNOWN and present traits at the time of purchase need to be clear to the buyer, but unknown (usually just called hidden or breedable) traits do not need to be disclosed.

They merely used coat color as one simplistic example. Let's say you have a cat and it's base traits (the ones you know it comes with, because it tells you this, or you can see it, etc..) are coat, ears, eyes, tail, gender and size. You must disclose that this cat has a blue coat, floppy ears, blue eyes, curly tail, a boy and is size large (insert whatever other examples you'd like there, lol those were just odd choices of mine). You do not have to disclose that this cat's lineage might pass on purple eyes, tipped ears, a floofy tail, a midget size or a brown coat, because it's secondary, and not actually a known factor at the time of purchase (it may not actually pass those on or it may take 5 more generations to find them, etc... breeding is an art form in sl sometimes, lol)

LL should probably ask people more versed in breedables for advice on how to best word that one, they're going to have to be more precise than "as long as they know its color", even if they meant any obvious or known traits. They need to be more clear for precisely this reason, people will assume they only mean color/coat, since that's the example they used, and not every other known trait. It's the combination of obvious/known traits that needs to be disclosed. 

[Leviathan Hydraconis]

Q:  But what about breedables (again)?

 

A:  If you buy a brown cat, and a blue cat (as examples), as long as you knew you were getting a brown cat and a blue cat at the time of sale, this is acceptable at the present including the various unknown traits they may come with or develop.  Secondarily, when those cats make little kittens with unknown outcomes, this is also acceptable.  Lastly, the resale of any breedables will require at the time of purchase that the purchaser knows what they are purchasing at the root level (for example, it is a blue cat).  

 

If a breedable creator told you,that you were getting a brown cat as a starter,they have to sell it that way.I don't think it pretains to random generated traited starter breedables,since it's a random scripted starter for life simulation.Also, it's rare anyone premakes set starters anymore,so breedables possibly won't be affected anytime soon,except those that do premake set ones.

 

Also,there are lindens that do breedables and know how they work.So they will adjust info as needed,I'm sure.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Leviathan Hydraconis

[CelestineDemetria]

3 minutes ago, Tari Landar said:

I could be wrong, and I'm certainly I will be corrected if I am that what LL is saying with this new FAQ regarding breedables is that KNOWN and present traits at the time of purchase need to be clear to the buyer, but unknown (usually just called hidden or breedable) traits do not need to be disclosed.

They merely used coat color as one simplistic example. Let's say you have a cat and it's base traits (the ones you know it comes with, because it tells you this, or you can see it, etc..) are coat, ears, eyes, tail, gender and size. You must disclose that this cat has a blue coat, floppy ears, blue eyes, curly tail, a boy and is size large (insert whatever other examples you'd like there, lol those were just odd choices of mine). You do not have to disclose that this cat's lineage might pass on purple eyes, tipped ears, a floofy tail, a midget size or a brown coat, because it's secondary, and not actually a known factor at the time of purchase (it may not actually pass those on or it may take 5 more generations to find them, etc... breeding is an art form in sl sometimes, lol)

LL should probably ask people more versed in breedables for advice on how to best word that one, they're going to have to be more precise than "as long as they know its color", even if they meant any obvious or known traits. They need to be more clear for precisely this reason, people will assume they only mean color/coat, since that's the example they used, and not every other known trait. It's the combination of obvious/known traits that needs to be disclosed. 

To me the way you put it sounds correct. "Known" attributes need to be known to buyer "Unknown" things are okay for down the line. 

But who knows it's SL.-Shrugs-

[Tari Landar]

1 minute ago, Leviathan Hydraconis said:

 

If a breedable creator told you,that you were getting a brown cat as a starter,they have to sell it that way.I don't think it pretains to random generated traited starter breedables,since it's a random scripted starter for life simulation.Also, it's rare anyone premakes set starters anymore,so breedables possibly won't be affected anytime soon,except those that do premake set ones.

Yes, it does pertain to randomly generated starter packs, it's the randomness that makes it apply. They cannot be random, the base traits that all of this particular breedable (whatever it is, cat, dog, mushroom, shoe..whatever) need to be known at the time of purchase. The randomness has to go, it's the problem in this particular case (the same with random breedable vendors).

That means breedable creators will indeed need to alter how they sell starter breedables, they cannot be random. But I'm certain they're all well aware of that by now, and working on it.