Jaylinbridges

As I already said here, my estimates are based on personal in-game observation of actual cheating over the last 2 years. You watch a quest where cheating is possible, for hours, and record every time a player cheats, vs a player that plays the game according to the allowed rules. You divide the # of cheaters by the total number of players, and convert it to a percentage. It is an estimate only because the time I can sample is limited. There is about twice as much of the quest cheating in PaleoQuest because of the Follower HUD, as there is in Linden Realms. Their is NO programmed or automated cheating, no bots. A following HUD just lets multiple avatars reach the same quest point with only one avatar, as you know. Then each avatar completes the Quest as an individual. Think of it as mass transportation to a destination The assumption is these Followers all belong to the same person, running multiple viewers and/or computers to collect multiple quest awards. They could also be family members, club members, or your partners too, with different locations and IP#s. Is that also cheating? I once brought my partner into Paleoquest to show her what I was wasting my time on doing. After she was killed once by a dinosaur in the swamp, she TPed out and said it was the most stupid game ever. Had I stuck her on a Follower HUD with me to show that it was a game of skill if you practiced and had some coordination, maybe she would have stuck with it on her own. But I didn't because I would look like a cheater, and besides it's the one place I can go that she won't follow me. 😎 I have suggested they find a way to detect these HUDs long ago, to stop this kind of gaming. So you claiming I am against enforcement is just false. LL could have limited private scripts in the Experience program, but chose not to when Experiences were introduced. There would be no cheating without a script to override their rules. I also suggested they actually post the prohibited actions in the games, where everyone would see them. Before last week, they hid the rules in the back room on a changing texture blackboard, where no one ever goes. And the rules were general and vague. Don't wear a HUD. Don't take advantage of any exploits you find. Huh? The large threatening signs they have installed where you can't miss it has actually had a huge effect so far. I have not seen any cheaters the past few days. It's like a speed trap. The cops hide the speed limit sign behind a bush, so they can write tickets close to the donut shop. Let folks know the speed limit so they can slow down, instead of trapping them.

Thank You! I need to start working on my SL businesses today - I am losing money when my stores are not fully stocked.

I don't see any of the people in those ancient threads complaining about cheating, complaining about the payout cut now. None. Stop repeating false assumptions! And if you check, you will find about 4 who were complaining, not hundreds. I read thru those old threads. One was about cheaters in the pre 2018 LR game, back in 2012. The new LR fixed most of those issues, so that thread is irrelevant. Another was upset that the new LR in 2018 was too hard for her, and blamed the cheaters for her lack of skill. I played the first days in the new LR and never blamed cheaters because I had to learn some new jumping skills. The game was in no way ruined as she hysterically claimed, but improved. The most recent thread claimed cheaters were beating him to a crystal. Guess what? That happens about once a year. I never run into speed enhanced crystal collectors. But if someone is closer to a high value crystal than I am, and we both run at legal speeds, they will arrive first. It's called Newtonian motion. In fact, when they added the PIOF to the crystal collecting rules, 95% of the crystal collectors vanished. That was over a year ago. Then the cheaters concentrated on the quests, because that was all they could do, and started using follower avatars. While this gave them an advantage in earning $L for the quests, they had zero affect on normal players, and zero effect on crystal collectors. Details, the truth is in the details. Not opinions by the non players here, or dragging up old threads.

Absolutely no evidence of your assumption. Why would the Realms self appointed cops also complain when the Lindens took some action? Were they mad their vigilante game was ruined? Nobody is having it both ways. You use that expression a lot, and it often makes no sense. We have no evidence of how LL determined there was cheating, but it was not as bad as they claimed. A personal example here: I was minding my own business in the desert quest, running to the treasure chest while trying not to get killed by a rock monster. After finishing that quest, I saw a green crystal in the desert, so I collected it on my way out. The collection game is about collecting crystals of any value, after you complete a quest. So here is this non player sitting in the recovery tank in the desert, sending out nasty IM's to anyone that collected a green crystal. She was claiming it was against the rules to collect more than one green crystal, because she could never find one. Mind you, she was not looking for them, but just camming the players. Then she accused me of being part of a RL Brazilian drug cartel that was haressing her family, and said she knew where I lived. Umm, other than being able to find Brazil on a world map, I have no connection to that country. My ancestors immigrated to the United States in the 18th Century, from England. She also said she was ARing me, and anyone else that broke her rules by collecting a green crystal. She did this on three occasions over a three week period. Also claimed she knew some important Lindens that would ban me from the game. I got tired of her threats and false claims and ignorance of the game, and ARed her w/ the offending IM's to LL. If the Lindens believed this person, who was clearly mentally disturbed, they need to improve their Governance staff.

One of the accepted false beliefs throughout this thread (and others) is that exploiting the LR or Paleoquest somehow harms other players. And will harm more players if nothing is done. I disagree with both of these assumptions. The per cent of visible "cheaters", based on my regular visits to both games, I would estimate to be about 10% in LR and 20% in Paleoquest. So 80% to 90% of the players were playing their solitary game honestly. So lets penalize the large majority. What kind of critical thinking is that? And since everyone agrees it was not an economic decision, the payouts themselves can't be the issue. Both games are single player solitary run and jump hunt games. There is no score visible to anyone but yourself. There is NO competition. In reality, the cheaters whiz through the quests quickly, and leave. They don't affect anyone else. A few players who have nothing better to do than watch the cheaters, claim it makes them feel bad. That is not harm. I feel bad that the world is full of billionaires and homeless too (income disparity), but I am not harmed by that fact in any way. Does Microsoft disable your Windows 10 registration because they think you cheat at MS Solitaire? LL chose the easiest way to discourage these "immoral, horrible, selfish, mass murderers and child rapists" (sic) they call the cheaters, by harming everyone equally. That is not how any civilized RL country operates. The guilty are supposed to be punished, but the innocent bystanders are not also punished. That is the issue here - the action taken was more based on spite than reason. Actually when LL finally put up the large signs listing all the actions prohibited in the games, just this week, that was more effective than halving the payouts. Now every cheater has to decide if saving a few minutes in their personal quest time is worth it. LL should have done that first. It cost them nothing. Then if the visible Followers continued, offer a small $L reward for turning them in. The games would be full of bounty hunters overnight, and the cheaters would be gone forever.

There are really only two illegal items they need to detect: Followers, and Enhanced jumping. Speed enhancers gain you almost nothing - there is no competition for crystal collecting anymore. You might save a minute traveling between regions, vs normal run speed. Jump enhancers change your gravity/mass allowing you to jump higher, and float forward. Only useful in the swamps and lava pools. It takes 20 secs to legally jump the rock pads. A jump enhancer can do it in 10 secs. I never figured out why saving 10 seconds once a week was that important. There is a speed monitor in FS, or you can wear a HUD that lists your speed. The problem is, running or jumping down hill you go faster, and climbing uphill you go slower. Only on flat ground is your speed constant. The games are full of hills and valleys. Any speed monitor gives you false speed alerts when you run or jump downhill. You must run in the Realms, or be killed - they even tell you that in the rules. Normal jumping also is no faster than running, though some dumb bunnies don't realize that. Bots can do nothing. I've never seen a bot in the games collect a crystal or complete a quest. An avatar must be controlled directly by a RL person to collect anything, and be within 5 m of the object before touching it.

For your female alts? When you can get into the sites, still not accessible. LL has been listening to the threads here about devaluing their payout games. They finally put up some highly visible signs detailing what is not allowed at the portal entrance, in the village square, and near the payout machines, for both PaleoQuest and Linden Realms. Twelve huge signs in all, from Abnor Mole. This should scare the cheaters for awhile. But no sign they are going to un-punish the innocent by restoring the old payouts, which were in affect for many years, and had no effect on the $L value (despite some opinions here.)

You can buy 241 lindens, the minimum amount for US $2.50. That includes the $1.49 transaction fee. $2.50 is the minimum dollar amount for a $L purchase. The linden is at a historic highs against the dollar now, with $1 USD buying only 239 lindens (not counting the transaction fee added.) This is SL, not RL. Your "exploitation extension theory" may apply to Russia, or Florida, but I would need examples of how this works in SL. Landlords collecting tier and then evicting the tenants and keeping their lindens? Not a successful business model. I don't know of any land company owners who play in LR, and would extend their evil ways to their land business, because they "cheated" LL out of an extra 25L/week.

If you are using Firestorm or another TPV, search for Cheap Rentals in Websearch. Dozens of rental companies pop up, with furnished skyboxes from 25L and up. I don't know about LL's viewer, heard their Search is broken.

Try detaching your peenes

You can play and collect a quest once a week. So your monthly number needs to be 4.33 times your $400= $1732/mo USD. But I think your estimates are too low, way too low compared to the payout/mo before all the devalued changes Patch made. I am not an armchair quarterback like most here, but have actually played the game for years. Some of that time is observation, which doesn't need much effort. Before the recent changes, the number of payouts in LR averaged around 30/ hour. That is from sitting in the village and clicking a counter every time the quest payout machine paid out lindens. That is a 24 hr average. During busy times the payouts could run 120/ hr, with players lined up waiting. During the slowest hours (midnight to 3am SLT) payouts could drop to 15/hr. And at that time there were six LR estates, with 12 payout machines total. My estimates are more recent, with only 2 LR estate regions left. SL has reduced the number of players drastically in the last year, with their obsession on enforcing the arbitrary rules. Ghost town is an apt description of the Realms today, thanks to the added PIOF requirements, and now the halving of quest payouts. 30 payouts/hr as an average for one full day, is 252,000 L/week, or about $1000 USD/week, assuming the OLD 50L/week payout. Monthly that is $4,365 USD/mo still a minor hit for a multi-million dollar company. When there were 6 regions and 10 times more players, of course it was more, but they fixed that. Claiming cheating in the Realms quest payout is devaluing the currency is quite the exaggeration. Let's say 20% of the players were somehow cheating, 20% of $4365/mo is $873 USD per month. After the payout cut, it is $436/mo. Do you seriously think LL paying out an additional $400/mo, money that remains in the SL economy, is affecting anything, much less the Linden to dollar ratio? Of course it does affect the thousands of players who earned a few extra Lindens to spend in SL. BTW, to buy 1000 $L for $4 USD has a $1.49 service fee attached. A 38% service fee to pay SL for tokens is worse than the Mafia. But that is required now to simply play any of the lindens games. As one player told me the other day (who had not heard about the PIOF requirement) "if I could afford to buy lindens with PIOF, I wouldn't be here running the quest." I could have suggested she could be a stripper in an adult club to earn those lindens, but she did not seem to be the prostitute type.

No, but you have it mostly wrong. LL created the games with low payouts for a reason, and promoted them to new users. If you have a problem with that take it up with the Lindens that created the games. I have no interest in your own SL history. I joined SL to work, and found a job my first week here, 10 years ago. But I also had some talents that not everyone in the world does, it was why I was asked to join SL. I now have two small businesses, that net me about $50K L/month, small potatoes, but I have not had to buy Lindens in 9 years. Some of those new and poor residents do add to the SL economy and my businesses, by their "milking" of the Linden Realms. This thread was about SL business, and why is SL trying to kill it, just as another reminder.

So it's not financial to devalue their games to abandonment. That was really my point - there was no really valid business reason. Right now there are 8 players in one of the Linden Realms spread over 12 regions, and in the 2nd LR Estate there are 7 players spread over 12 regions. Before they decided to devalue the game, there would be 40 players in each of the 6 LR Estates at this time of day. So from 240 concurrent players to 15 players - because of the changes the OP detailed in this thread. And the moles don't have time to change out the Christmas decorations, 3 months later, because nobody cares anymore. Meanwhile in the land of Housing Associations and Covenant Rules up the wazoo - Bellisseria, the same SL management enforces the last day you can have a Holiday decoration on your parcel, that you pay Premium dollars for. I think it was like a week after New Years for snow and Christmas. The new game is GOH, where you pay LL $1000 USD to get 10 alts with Premium accounts, and then try to capture the most impressive Belli view playing GOH on the web. Then you can play dollhouse decorating until the next round of Linden Homes is released. This is encouraged by LL of course, because $$$.

At least we don't have any cat animations yet. So let's evolve and ask why the Hall of the Realms still has their 2020 Christmas decorations up?

Most activities in SL are a small fraction of what SL is. Nobody is asking you to play the Realms or Paleoquest. The OP was making the point that LL is changing their historical model to maximize profits at the expense of the average and newer player, which may backfire. If a company makes a move that just pisses you off, even if it is not essential to you, it is just one more reason to leave SL for friendlier worlds. Please read the original post again, and the Title of this thread.

Not surprising - I don't know of anyone who admits they play either. But I do know that some players come to my clubs, tip the venue and the DJ's 10 or 20 L, all they can afford, and spend the rest on land fees for their 50L/week skybox. I know of some that buy my products also, the lost cost ones, under 100L. Most of their Lindens get recycled in SL. None have converted lindens to their RL currency. Their may be a few supporting their RL expenses this way, but they would need to live in a very poor country with a highly devalued currency against the dollar. There are former British, Portuguese, and Spanish colonies where the wages for unskilled workers are still slave wages. I find they are more likely to play these games than "wealthy" Americans or Europeans. IF you are not part of a specialized cult, they can be invisible to you, in RL or SL.

So you are suggesting every player should only play the game once in their lifetime? It takes about 30 mins max to solve all 4 quests. With practice, 15 mins, and no cheating. Why even have a game if the purpose was for a newbie to play it once, and move on, with their pixel bear and shield. The success and popularity of the Linden Realms and Paleoquest was entirely because you could earn a few lindens every time you played. That was once a bragging point for LL. They were also surprised that residents would be interested in getting lindens this way. Classic case of not knowing their entire audience.

How much do you think LL saved by cutting the Linden Realms quest payout in half? I estimate they saved about $500 USD/week. Minimum wage on the US west coast is around $600/week, for 40 hours. LL is a 1/2 a billion dollar company, and they are worried about saving $500/week? Of course thousands of players have quit the game now, and some were newbies, some were people just unable to put their dollars into LL. I asked Patch Linden if he was planning on ending the Realms and Paleoquest last week. He said of course not. But that still seems to be the plan. The Realms has been around for 10 years, and every change has made the games less desirable to play. And NO ONE would play such a repetitive game that takes up your time, for no reward. So they hand out a teddy bear? Once. Can you resell them? That's no reward, and 25L once a week is not either. You can still collect crystals all week. It takes about one hour of frantic running all over to collect 25L worth of crystals. Fewer crystals if you are new to the game. And the other changes they have made, by cutting the number of Linden Realms down to two, from the prior six estates of last year, has also reduced the collection rate. Clearly their plan of killing the games is working - fewer players need fewer regions. Regions cost them real dollars, as AWS does not accept Lindens for server fees. The official reason for devaluing the games was too many cheaters. What per cent of players were cheating? I think about 20% at most. So lets devalue the games for everyone, based on a small minority of cheaters. Perhaps all the highways should be changed to horse trails, to reduce the auto accident rate ...

Which is what LL management also thinks. Hence they devalue the games assuming no one with money or the ability to work in SL will care. The rest, who for many reasons may not be able to afford or justify $10 USD per month, can always play Solitaire in Windows If LL really wanted to go after the game cheaters, they could. It might take one linden to work part time on the effort, since all preventive measures can not be automated. But that would cost them a Linden salary, which is many times more than they would ever lose from all the game cheaters.

As long as LL refuses to enforce the "following" alts (attached to one main alt) in PaleoQuest and Linden Realms, that could be the case. I don't think that LL intended to increase user numbers, by penalizing everyone because of the few cheaters. This will decrease user numbers, if anything. IF they are under any pressure from the new owners, it is to increase revenue and profits, by weeding out the non-paying customers. The ideal SL resident would be a fully employed unmarried male in his 20's to 40's, who spends $500 USD/month on his hobbies. The hard core gamer and online sex seeker, in other words. Newbies with no lindens contribute nothing to the LL bottom line, and by cutting their main source of income, they hope they will leave (or find a RL job). The Realms has already been reduced from 6 estates of 12/regions per estate, to only 2 estates. By taking 4 of the LR estates offline, they have saved the cost of running 48 regions. This also reduces the number of crystals available, making the crystal collecting slow and frustrating. This discourages more players. Soon they can cut another LR estate off, leaving just one left. The plan seems to be to slowly kill the games entirely, by providing zero incentive to play. The main focus now is selling $99/yr Premium accounts, and adding new regions in Bellessaria for the Premium members. The official reason for cutting the Quest payouts in half was to discourage the cheaters. But since this also discourages the majority of honest players, and they must know that, I believe the real reason was economic.

In The USA, your paypal account must be verified and attached to a valid bank account before LL will accept the paypal account for PIOF. Are those with many alts in the Realms or Paleoquest at once all using the same verified paypal account? Paypal bank accounts must agree with the name information you provide paypal, even if you use different email addresses for the paypal account. LL does not normally see your banking information from paypal, but they do have the paypal account info (email address). Those using ****1. ****2, **** 3, up to ****99 as PIOF accts must have figured it out. (where **** is some combination of characters).

I too was wondering what the reason was, so I asked at the Home & Garden interview with the Linden Moles and Patch Linden this last Friday. I asked this question there: The PaleoQuest and Linden Realms cash rewards for completing the Quests were cut in half this week? Why? Are these games the Moles built going away? Patch Linden answered in the youtube archived video of the session here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv_7x0xq-Pg The relevant question and answers start at time 56:30 during that show. Basically the payouts were reduced because "some people" were cheating and ignoring the Linden warnings etc. So they decided to "devalue" the games for everyone by cutting the quest payouts in half. Also Patch threatened to terminate your SL accounts if caught cheating in the Linden games, although this is nothing new. The actual rules regarding bots and alts are NOT at all clear. Can an alt of your main account play a Linden payout game? Can both an alt and your main account play, but on different days, or weeks? What is a "bot" that Patch refers too? If an Alt and your main collect crystals in LR, but at different times or days, is this cheating? How can this be, since there is no limit on the number of crystals you can capture before cashing them to lindens? Why are the attached avatar scripts allowed in the games? Why can one person attach 4 avatars to his body - is this really impossible to detect? Does LL really expect unpaid newbie players to spend time policing the games for obvious clear cheating? Where is the fun in that? Fuzzy vague rules do not help honest players enjoy the game, or earn a few lindens to spend in SL. Are you willing to risk your SL account because someone thinks you are cheating? The actual anti-cheat devices in Paleoquest and the Realms are terribly flawed, with about a 99.9% false positive rate. Are the Lindens aware of how ineffective their algorithms really are? The majority must suffer from the sins of a few apparently. It seems to me that clearer rules, posted where everyone can see them, and some actual monitoring of the activity in the Realms and PaleoQuest, instead of relying on newbie residents sending in AR reports that must include a video of the cheater and their ID tag, would be a less dramatic approach. Does LL really believe cutting the weekly payout for honest but poor players will benefit SL inworld businesses, or retain new residents?

Also in PaleoQuest, they cut the weekly quest payout to 50 L$, from 100 L$. This will affect a few poor residents who paid for their 50L/week skybox rent from these games, and still had a few lindens left. New management is cutting costs, and really don't want new people that can't afford to pay there way into SL. Once you learn to walk and run, and a few basics like entering a portal, there is a way to earn a few lindens pretty quickly in PaleoQuest, and you don't need payment info on file. Basically collect dinosaur eggs in quest #1, then return to the lobby and cash in your collectables. I think 10 lindens in 30 mins is doable for most beginners, after a little practice. 20 blue eggs = 1L, 20 pink eggs = 2L. Just don't get hit by a volcanic boulder or poisonous darts, or you lose all your eggs.

Today PaleoQuest started a weekly payout of 50 $L for completing the 5 quests, down from 100 $L up to now. Have not see any announcement from LL about cutting the payout in half yet. Everything about Linden Realms and Paleoquest suggest LL is discouraging players, by making the time spent in the game not worth it. A result of new ownership counting the pennies? AND, Linden Realms reduced the payout for completing the 4 quests to only 25 $L per week, from 50 $L/week. The higher payouts have been in effect since both games started. Linden Labs must be in financial trouble if they felt they were losing too many lindens with the old payouts. Or they just want to close down both games, since then they can sell the regions to paying customers.

Classic Search in Firestorm works perfectly. LL viewer search is broken.