New Gacha type event - does it comply? (renamed for clarity after some answers were found)

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

I took a rare log in other day and at a store saw that thing. The shop owner replaced all his vendors with that and to get complete outfits cost a lot more. Greed.

[Kytteh Wytchwood]

On 10/7/2021 at 10:05 PM, Jaylinbridges said:

every color of the same skirt is a separate product you must pay 350 $L for. 

Those honest merchants. 

Fortunately mesh and texture HUDs have made that practice extinct for the most part.

 

 

 

When you shop in real life, you have to buy the skirts individually. These virtual merchants are adopting the same process.

What one creator does, doesn't mean the other creator has to follow what that store does and how they sell their products.

It's not being dishonest, it's their creation and their store. They sell how they want to.

You don't have to offer a texture hud to appease the consumer.

Isn't this a platform for business to make profit?

Would you rather that creators continue to bend over backwards and give away their products and sell for less than their worth?

$1.25 USD is what these skirts are worth to you?

It's very hard to rig, if you have no experience with 3D mesh model software.

I know times are hard but that doesn't mean a creator should heavily reduce their prices because of ungrateful demands of the public.

[diamond Marchant]

On 10/7/2021 at 6:38 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm very happy people have worked out solutions to this completely unfounded ban that had no basis in law or judicial action but was just a kind of "reading" of what [to] some people was a "climate".

Yes!

I also am happy that several solutions have emerged to fill  the "shopping as a game" void left by the banning of Gatchas.

The Miepon and Bee and Follow Up machines appear to be appropriate for store type environments, where multiple people can advance the conveyor belt (but someone who pays for something can hold the machine for some number of seconds and get subsequent items). These machines appear at Stop n Shop, an event organized by the Lindens.

The HUD-based machines (like at Arcade) makes sense when you have a bunch of avatars in a small space all competing for the same machines. The HUD provides the illusion that you are the only one using the machine.  The sequence of numbers presented on the conveyor changes at the end of some time period, so you do get new items at some point without buying anything. As has been been mentioned before, you can send in an alt if you want an immediate change in the conveyor. YaY alts!

My impression is that the Arcade situation is more like a beta test and the problems will get worked out.

Like others, I have found quality items at reasonable prices in all machine types. And I actually think all this shopping strategery [sic] is fun but maybe I'm a weirdo.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

10 hours ago, Kytteh Wytchwood said:

Isn't this a platform for business to make profit?

 

 

apparently for the ones who sell the skirts in eaches rather than with a HUD.

[Chic Aeon]

I haven't really been reading this whole thread so if someone wrote about this, apologies, but in the beginning we all seemed to be expecting the machines at this newly opened event to be "play down".  They are not -- or at least some of them are not.  Pasting this update in from my blog.  Head spinning a bit on this. I bet a LOT of folks got a surprise. 

 

[Marianne Little]

20 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

I haven't really been reading this whole thread so if someone wrote about this, apologies, but in the beginning we all seemed to be expecting the machines at this newly opened event to be "play down".  They are not -- or at least some of them are not.  Pasting this update in from my blog.  Head spinning a bit on this. I bet a LOT of folks got a surprise. 

 

Huh. It is a loophole in the rules I suppose. The prices reset but you can still see what you buy. But it is annoying and it increases the risk of people buying what they don't need or want just to get what they think is number two in the list.

It feels like cheating... but is it illegal? I think not, since we see what we buy all the time. The best one can do is warn about these gacha sellers in blogs, Facebook and other places outside this official forum. Because we can't name them here.

It was not midnight SL time, when the list resets automatically?

[Jaylinbridges]

If the personal list reset after the first buy, there would be no reason to have a visible list.  So this sounds like a malfunction, or you happen to buy just as the daily list reset went into effect.

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Nick0678]

So is this the legit Gacha system?

[Chic Aeon]

11 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

If the personal list reset after the first buy, there would be no reason to have a visible list.  So this sounds like a malfunction, or you happen to buy just as the daily list reset went into effect.

 

Please see later posts on how this all turned out. Leaving the original post as originally written. 

************************************

No, wasn't a reset time -- and yes, agreed NO REASON to have those balls there other than confusion.  So it WORKS (surprisingly) like  a lucky board. You GET what it says you will, yes. 

 

I bought a rare the other day on a different machine at the same event but didn't NOTICE (at least that is my presumption) that it scrambled the balls after buying because I had no intention of playing again.  The fact that it looks so much like the D-lab machine which I was TOLD let's you buy the next number in the list after you buy the current prize -- is VERY manipulative, for sure.  Down right nasty.  

 

So can someone who BUYS the current object please watch and see if it happens to them too? 

 

 This all came about because I was trying to test to see if the creators got to set their own percentages for the rare -- which I believe they do as that was the method in every gacha even I was in previously.  The machine in question was from a  a creator that I had played often in the past and NEVER got a rare.  So far two of us had played every day and only seen one of two rares once in the list.  While others here got rares easily -- as did "I" on another machine. 

 

And to the person that I was talking about this with when the event first open -- and I am guessing is still reading this thread, I do finally see their point about the randomness of the '"set" hud.    I still think LL will think this is OK, but for me -- the best machine and the only one I would use as a creator would be the D-lab machine. It is the most friendly to those playing.   

At least I am glad I was thinking bout buying that second rare in the ball list LOL -- or we may not have known for a long while. 

 

It COULD have been a malfunction; but that's not good either. 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Chic Aeon
adding info

[Marianne Little]

I only played 1 machine, and you have probably guessed which one from my posts. I paid attention to the prices very carefully because I was having my alts there before and after the change (Midnight).

Neither me or my army of alts saw the numbers change after buying the first prize. But as you said, it was not all machines that did this, and this was probably a honest one.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Marianne Little
added a few words

[Chic Aeon]

2 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Neither me or my army of alts saw the numbers change after buying the first prize. But as you said, it was not all machines that did this, and this was probably a honest one.

Thanks.  I will probably --- eventually --- want to buy something else there but most likely not this round.   So it will still be a question as to the creators have the ability to turn on some sort of "sort" function  or not.  If they DO then that certainly should be known to the public.  I like this creators stuff and they seem like a very nice person, but as I said I NEVER got a rare on a variety of their machines so that sort of fogs their business practice morals for me.  

 

If I go back and get the other rare as the buy item I will try again as a test.   If it does it twice on THAT machine, we will know I guess -- well anecdotally anyway.  :D.

[Desiree Moonwinder]

On 10/7/2021 at 2:41 AM, Sid Nagy said:

If nobody reports a gacha machine still around, LL will not likely find them.
The staff is limited and they have other things to do like not fixing what is broken.
 

Yeah.  Its all about plausible deniability.  

I would hope they permaban anyone who puts a gacha out, though.  Banning gachas is the best thing to happen in SL in years. 

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

I was logged in yesterday and someone in a group were saying how the new machines with few exceptions were very manipulating. Someone was accusing a creator of one of them and that person said he was gonna AR any complainers of slander and stuff. Time to ban them.

[Chic Aeon]

OK. I dusted off some alts (I have NO IDEA how long it has been since Lani was on the main grid. I recognized the photo shoot. I think it was the Shop and Hop in JUNE -- WHICH JUNE I have no idea. 

 

Anyway on the second try one of the rares came up in the second slot. So while the item I had to buy to get to the rare was horrid I took one for the team and played.  And the machine worked just as it should. So maybe someone had to reset the scripts or the server the hud runs off of or whatever and "I" just got caught in the middle. 

 

THAT is good news.  

[Jaylinbridges]

That HUD must talk to an external server thru SL and needs to keep track of your cue sequence, time of day, and purchases at the least.  Plenty of weak paths with those systems.  Breedables use them also, and they all have daily random failures.   If your intention is to play for more than the first number showing, best to take a time-dated screen shot of your personal cue before and after the purchase.  How are you going to prove the machine was broken to the owner otherwise?

 

[Marianne Little]

I heard in a group today about one merchant in The Arcade that changes numbers. The person who asked about it had sent a notecard about it without a reply. I don't remember if she sent both to the merchant and The Arcade. Anyways, I learnt the name (private, we did not take it in group chat) and found an excuse to go and play.

On goes my alts and me, we keep a keen eye on the numbers after we paid for the first prize. Nothing changed. I got two rares and some nice commons, plus a rare dress from another vendor.

I am pretty sure the scrambling of numbers is not intentionally. And accusing a merchant about fraud in open chat is not smart. What one can do is contacting them first, and also send the notecard to The Arcade.

Very few will have taken screenshots before as @Jaylinbridgessay here, because it is pretty clear what you get. It is even a white arrow with "Up next" pointing to the second prize. (The green arrow is added by me, to show where "Up next" is.

So when that number is replaced by another, it is too late to take a screenshot. I am not sure how The Arcade is going to deal with this. Several customers reporting that this has happened to them, will maybe help them find the issue.

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

So when that number is replaced by another, it is too late to take a screenshot. I am not sure how The Arcade is going to deal with this. Several customers reporting that this has happened to them, will maybe help them find the issue.

Thanks for reporting. Sounds like more of a flaw somewhere in the coding? or the server code?  Not my area at all but glad to know it wasn't just me.  Appreciate the report. And yes, I was taking before and after shots THIS LAST TIME LOL. But who would have thought that happened. So creators seem to be in the clear and that's a very good thing!

 

 

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

 

 

🤪

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Tarina Sewell