Linden Realms, Portal Park, and Decoy Crystals

[AlohaShoyu]

Hi everybody. I play Linden Realms every week, a game with its own region that is accessed via Portal Park. Linden Realms has changed a lot within the past two years, and for a few weeks there have been problems accessing the region. When I attempt to enter the portal in Portal Park I often see an error message saying Dyna Mole's 'Linden Realms Portal.' No destinations available. Please try again later.

It feels something like the traffic lights on a freeway on-ramp, the ones that allow a car on the motorway every twenty seconds or so. The portal sometimes requires a wait of several minutes though, as if LL is trying to limit the number of residents in the Linden Realms regions. Does anyone know the reason behind this? As with freeway traffic, this Portal Park error creates a bottleneck and residents get frustrated. My first thought was that LL is trying to reduce the number of game pay-outs, but the pay-out was already recently reduced from L50 to L25, such a small amount that the number of players seems to have been reduced greatly.

I've also found in recent weeks that there are often "decoy crystals" - crystals that you can run over or click on, and nothing changes. The crystals do not enter your Linden Realms HUD inventory. It is as if these decoy crystals are there simply to frustrate players. To be fair, if I don't notice that my Linden Realms HUD has detached, any crystals I run over persist as decoy crystals there until my HUD reattaches. If the HUD reattaches after I have crossed a region border, the crystals persist unless I return to that region. If I return, the decoy crystals vanish.  There is only one decoy crystal that is clearly intentional as a part of the game (in The Valley, LR 184 for example); the rest of these seems like errors. Are the decoy crystals I'm seeing the result of players once again using bots to clear all the crystals in a region? 

I enjoy Linden Realms; it's an easy retro game pastime and provides me with a handful of Linden Dollars that help with rent. But I worry that LL may be intentionally frustrating both access and play as a precursor to eliminating Linden Realms entirely. The only upside of this is that if Linden Realms were taken down I would no longer have to enter Portal Park - a fellow resident has made Portal Park 1 his home, and his avatar stands there staring at everyone as they arrive. Legal? Yes. Creepy? Definitely.

[Waiomao]

Aloha. Yeah, Linden Realms is simple fun but I've noticed the stuff you mentioned too. When LL cut the Linden Realms payout in half, then when they demanded PIOF, and then when they added signage discouraging cheating, it felt like a LOT of people stopped playing. The shift was amazing... a lot of the time I felt like I had Linden Realms to myself. But recently I've noticed cheaters coming back, for example folks using animations to jump higher, run faster, or fly. There are suddenly "gymnasts" and "roller skaters" in Linden Realms again. Ugghh. I hate reporting the cheaters (nobody likes to be a snitch) but there are so many of them these days that I feel forced into doing it. I don't know if LL is planning to phase out Linden Realms, but it's slipping to the point that probably only a handful of residents would miss Linden Realms if it were gone.

Oh - and yeah, I've blocked that staring dude who set his home to Portal Park 1. A couple of my friends spoke to him when he first appeared, trying to say gently that it looks weird and sort of predatory to be staring at folks as they teleport in, but he doesn't care. I wondered if he was filming everyone as they arrived, but he's been there for months so I doubt he has a film project going - maybe he just enjoys making women uncomfortable. Block him. 

[Rowan Amore]

You could give a shout to @Dyna Mole

[Iwilei]

 

38 minutes ago, AlohaShoyu said:

The only upside of this is that if Linden Realms were taken down I would no longer have to enter Portal Park - a fellow resident has made Portal Park 1 his home, and his avatar stands there staring at everyone as they arrive. Legal? Yes. Creepy? Definitely.

Whoa! I thought that resident who's in Portal Park 1 24/7/365 was some sort of greeter, like you see in bars and restaurants. He reminds me of how real estate people pounce as soon as you arrive on a rental property to check it out. But I've never seen him interact with anyone. He just stands there like a scarecrow. There's nobody like that in Portal Park 2. Yeah, I blocked him too.

[Halomonas]

I've seen the same problems raised by the OP. As for the portal error, Rowan Amore has the right idea: contact Dyna Mole.

[Unpronounceable1]

2 hours ago, AlohaShoyu said:

I've also found in recent weeks that there are often "decoy crystals" - crystals that you can run over or click on, and nothing changes. The crystals do not enter your Linden Realms HUD inventory. It is as if these decoy crystals are there simply to frustrate players.

Wow, yeah, these really bug me too. I hate running around a bunch of rock monsters only to find that the crystal I was working towards is a dud. Worst when it's a green or blue one! Most of the time clicking on the crystal (rather than running on them) will make them disappear, and if I have time I'll park myself in some safe spot, cam out over the crystals, and click on as many as I can find. The "decoys" often disappear, so it's sort of a community service to help prevent other players from getting tricked. It used to be that these "decoys" were only in The Valley, but now they're  e v e r y w h e r e.

[AlohaShoyu]

Thanks everyone... I'm glad it's not just me 🙂

Dyna Mole's profile explains that a support case should be submitted, so I just added BUG-231914 - Linden Realms Portal says "no destination available" https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-231914

[Sparkle Bunny]

I always go through Portal Park 2, so have not encountered creepy dude. I have noticed more 'ghost' crystals than formerly, and, yeah, my entirely unscientific opinion is that it's down to them getting hoovered up by speed-enhanced avs faster than the server can keep track of them. It happened a lot in the old Realms. I would also not be surprised if the portal shutdowns were the next stage in discouraging people from playing the Realms at all. If I run into that message, I only persevere about half the time; the other 50%, I just go off and do something else, which I'm sure is the intention. They're weaning us off. Maybe creepy dude is part of this endeavour

[Jaylinbridges]

On 3/11/2022 at 9:48 AM, AlohaShoyu said:

It feels something like the traffic lights on a freeway on-ramp, the ones that allow a car on the motorway every twenty seconds or so. The portal sometimes requires a wait of several minutes though, as if LL is trying to limit the number of residents in the Linden Realms regions. Does anyone know the reason behind this? As with freeway traffic, this Portal Park error creates a bottleneck and residents get frustrated. My first thought was that LL is trying to reduce the number of game pay-outs, but the pay-out was already recently reduced from L50 to L25, such a small amount that the number of players seems to have been reduced greatly.

I've also found in recent weeks that there are often "decoy crystals" - crystals that you can run over or click on, and nothing changes. The crystals do not enter your Linden Realms HUD inventory. It is as if these decoy crystals are there simply to frustrate players. To be fair, if I don't notice that my Linden Realms HUD has detached, any crystals I run over persist as decoy crystals there until my HUD reattaches. If the HUD reattaches after I have crossed a region border, the crystals persist unless I return to that region. If I return, the decoy crystals vanish.  There is only one decoy crystal that is clearly intentional as a part of the game (in The Valley, LR 184 for example); the rest of these seems like errors. Are the decoy crystals I'm seeing the result of players once again using bots to clear all the crystals in a region? 

The TL;DR summary is:  This is all expected behavior, so don't expect LL to fix it.

The gateway traffic jams is largely because more avatars are playing the Realms, with fewer Realm estates now available.  Prior to the payout cut and crackdown on players using Followers, there were 6 active Realm estates, with 12 regions per estate, all identical in landscaping and functions.  Now there are two estates , LR 167 and LR 187. The other four have been taken offline over a year ago.  When the Village region gets to capacity, the Try Again Later message seems to pop up.  I could not enter the Realms just now, from Portal 1, which was directing traffic to LR187.  I TPed to Portal 2, and entered LR167 on the first try.  Both estates are up and active, but LR 187 is blocked until the avatars in LR187 move to another region.  The intelligent switching at the portals seems to be broken also.

There are no "decoy crystals", except the one you mentioned. It is called "Dummy Crystal v2" and is a leftover from the old Realms.  Perhaps it is an NFT, so you can't take it away.  (I heard Patch paid a fortune for it, but you know rumors...) 

The crystals that you cannot collect are phantom crystals, caused by your viewer not getting the message that they have derezzed.  This happens if you are within a region range, but inactive for a while.  The crystals actually derez if not taken within some time frame, around 10 mins or so.  But because you were not within the range to see them derez, they are still there in your cache.  If you click on one, it will vanish immediately since you just asked the servers to resend that information, and the updated data discovers it is in the non rez state.  This is an issue all over the SL grid, but the frequent refreshing of crystals in the Realms just makes it easier to see.  I doubt a JIRA will fix this basic SL design problem, since most residents never see it.

Is LL trying to kill the Realms?  I asked Patch that question last year and he said no.  But they are doing nothing to make the Realms more fun or worthwhile to play either.  Too many players in just 2 estates also means fewer of the high value crystals last for long.  The main complaint from newbie players is, where are the green crystals?  They got snapped up in seconds or a few minutes, and won't be back for another 25 mins - because too many players and too infrequent green and blue crystal recycling.  I try to play the Realms once a week, and everything is harder to do there now, more time spent for less rewards.  Is that the plan?  Who knows?

Edited March 13, 2022 by Jaylinbridges

[Mollymews]

On 3/12/2022 at 7:21 AM, Waiomao said:

 recently I've noticed cheaters coming back, for example folks using animations to jump higher, run faster, or fly. There are suddenly "gymnasts" and "roller skaters" in Linden Realms again

a way to prevent this kind of cheating is for the Linden Realms game HUD to monitor the speed of the avatar to who it is attached.  Would require some work to do this tho, and if it was to be done then when could it be done given everything else LPDW has on their work list at the moment

[Jaylinbridges]

5 hours ago, Mollymews said:

a way to prevent this kind of cheating is for the Linden Realms game HUD to monitor the speed of the avatar to who it is attached.  Would require some work to do this tho, and if it was to be done then when could it be done given everything else LPDW has on their work list at the moment

Yes it would require more work that any effort would justify. Speed detectors are famous for false positives, since they fail to account for the hills and  normal gravity in the SL Realms.  As you run uphill, you slow down, and as you run downhill you speed up.  The downhill speed can be 50% larger than the flat ground speed, setting off detectors for anyone using the standard LL avatar run speed.  These became so obnoxious when a few self appointed police decided to use them, that the use of the detector HUD was an AR offense.  Harassment and false accusations made in public chat by name was against the TOS. The Realm cops quickly went away or were banned.

Jumping is a waste of momentum.  You will not move any faster forward by hopping around like a grasshopper.  There is one spot in the Realms where an illegal Hud enhancing jump can get you to a crystal region before running the quest.  There are already detectors for entering from the wrong end, and the black splotches will get you, if the green mist doesn't.  Flying is also mostly useless.  Crystals grow from the land, and are not in the sky.  Flying (actually changing gravity with a forward jump so you don't fall as fast) is another false cheat.  You can legally jump the rocks in the last two quests in 20 to 30 secs.  You can fly over them in 15 seconds.  What's the rush?  You have a week to finish the quest.

The only serious cheating were those using the Follower Huds.  I have not seen them in use since Abnor Mole put up the large signs warning against their use.  Maybe a few new players can not read English, and they need the warning signs in other languages.  

I don't agree that there is any noticeable increase in cheating.  It may have gone from 0% cheating to 5% cheating this year.  I expect  declining currencies against the US dollar might cause a few to try for a quick Linden.  25 Lindens/week won't get you far in the real world today.  Inflation anyone?

 

[Lucia Nightfire]

9 hours ago, Mollymews said:

a way to prevent this kind of cheating is for the Linden Realms game HUD to monitor the speed of the avatar to who it is attached.  Would require some work to do this tho, and if it was to be done then when could it be done given everything else LPDW has on their work list at the moment

They should have already implemented a ton of overhead monitoring to check for this, unless the cloud guy was removed.

There are edge cases where this monitoring triggers false positives, too.

LL simply needs to implement https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-6707 a region/parcel setting to block all script execution except for scripts compiled with experiences allowed on the land.

[Jaylinbridges]

On 3/13/2022 at 6:06 PM, Lucia Nightfire said:

LL simply needs to implement https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-6707 a region/parcel setting to block all script execution except for scripts compiled with experiences allowed on the land

And how would that impact the hundreds of tiny animal and furry attachments that are the most common avatar form in the Linden games?  Don't these need scripts to simulate some motions?  I use a Kittycat Avatar, which is basically a deformed standard avatar with a full alpha layer, plus the cat as an attachment with a transponder. The motion is entirely from standard LL avatar scripts for movement and jumping translated to the body, leg motion and physics of a real cat, using the arrow keys and PageUp keys for movement.  Flying is disabled in the games, so you cannot fly using the Home key.

Here is my Worn Items when I wear the kittycat avatar. Would this still work with only Experience approved scripts allowed?

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Jaylinbridges

[Lucia Nightfire]

1 hour ago, Jaylinbridges said:

And how would that impact the hundreds of tiny animal and furry attachments that are the most common avatar form in the Linden games?  Don't these need scripts to simulate some motions?  I use a Kittycat Avatar, which is basically a deformed standard avatar with a full alpha layer, plus the cat as an attachment with a transponder. The motion is entirely from standard LL avatar scripts for movement and jumping translated to the body, leg motion and physics of a real cat, using the arrow keys and PageUp keys for movement.  Flying is disabled in the games, so you cannot fly using the Home key.

Here is my Worn Items when I wear the kittycat avatar. Would this still work with only Experience approved scripts allowed?

 

Unless your attached scripts were compiled with an experience allowed over the land, they wouldn't work. You'd be SOL. That's the point.

The proposed feature is asking for an optional setting for the behavior, not on by default.

It would be a conscious decision to enforce allowed experience-only compiled script operation.

[XemmaN]

server LR 187 closed?

😹

Edited March 18, 2022 by XemmaN