Adam Spark
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Posts posted by Adam Spark
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1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:
Poker games have buy-in fees. It's called ante up.
https://www.poker-king.com/dictionary/ante-up/
Please don't try to claim playing poker isn't gambling even if you are only playing with chips or toothpicks etc.
The only winner in gambling is the house.
I'm not trying to claim anything, I'm just posting my opinion on a forum like everyone else. I respect yours. Have a great day.
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Far be it for me to guess why gambling addicts become addicts I suppose, but without the possibility of winning something eventually, it is not gambling. Its just a buy-in fee, like a cover charge to access a club. The tokens, the twitter post clearly states, have no real value and are not exchangeable. Entertainment purposes only. I doubt many gambling addicts would bother with simply virtually pulling slot levers without the slimmest hope of getting anything else out of it. Its the hope of one day hitting a jackpot that has them hooked, isn't it?
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On 4/14/2023 at 3:53 PM, Bree Giffen said:
I was watching a video on this crypto world thing. I forgot the name of it but it had virtual real estate bought with crypto, NFTs, etc. This isn't a topic about all of that but what I saw was the type of content they had inside their virtual world and it was terrible. Second Life is way better. It had me thinking about the resources available in SL, scripting, control inputs, etc. that allow content to be created, specifically gaming content, and I was wondering what everyone thinks about the need for more resources to service this type of content? I know we have content. We have racecars and tracks and we have sailing and fishing but do we have the ability to make things much more game-like? In the crypto world they didn't have much interactive content and though SL has interactivity I think we need more.
I've seen some highly interactive, very sophisticated games in SL. I think LSL allows us to do about anything. The issue, in my opinion, is whether the content can keep a region running smoothly. I don't think there is very much we cannot literally do. I think the platform serves that. Your imagination, I think, is really your limit. I don't think that is just an ad slogan. The question isn't is it creatable. The question is, would it have high value on this lag-prone platform?
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9 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:
Not by script. You can llGetParcelFlags() but I think you'd need a bot to set them.
You don't even need a script.
Go into about land and uncheck "Anyone can visit" under the access tab, and the OP can keep everyone else out
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7 hours ago, DarksOkie said:
My husband and I hold events on our land we have a private parcel on a private sim that we rent is there anyway to limit the number of avatars that come to our land say for example we only want 25 people on our land at 1 time is there any thing that we can use to make that happen, I have looked on marketplace and couldn't find anything. I appreciate any assistance. Thank you!
You could turn access off in about land after a certain number is reached, or send invitations if you want 25 specific avatars, and turn off general access and put the 25 you invited into the always allowed list.
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Things I miss from my early days (beginning in Oct. 2006):
- The majority of residents seeing SL as something far more than a game
- Openness and a desire on the part of the vast majority of others to socialize as opposed to staying in their corner.
- The supporting of one another, even in business. The understanding that you don't do well in SL unless the industry you are in (whether its clothing, music venues, or whatever the case) does well as a whole. Work together. Prop each other up. Its a win-win.
- When people opened venues because they cared about their creation more than the owner tag above their head. I'm not saying this no longer happens. But the opposite exists far too much today.
- When people wanted to help each other and understood that they were new once too.
- When people cared about the grid and the promise of its future, and not just their own slice of it.
- Collaborative building that could be seen as you built, in-world. Yeah the builds look better today. It just sucks you can't be in SL (at least actively), to build them.
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8 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:
Given how Second Life works, Bingoland Park existed because someone created and maintained it.
Which means that it could return if someone recreates it and maintains it.
Even you...
I missed the old venue I had in 2007. So I made it again. I still missed the old one, because SL has changed. It isn't about the location's existence, but the experience within it. That is hard to recreate.
Besides that, some are creators and some enjoy creations. Both are equal. Missing something is not illegitimate just because they could, theoretically, just bring it back.
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On 2/6/2021 at 5:44 AM, Bollycoco Dallas said:
What are you thoughts about this Second Lifers,
Lately IMVU has this entire page dedicated to " IMVU vs Second Life" where IMVU describe themselves as "Award winning virtual world in graphics, and to be somehow better than Second Life"
its on IMVU official website made by IMVU, its a direct agressive marketing.
Right below
My thought on this? Its akin to a grower of apples creating an apples vs oranges webpage.
IMVU even calling itself a world almost makes me laugh. There are similarities, but they are barely at best in the same arena. IMVU reminds me a lot of Sansar.
Not knocking either one, by the way. I'm just confused by the comparison to SL - it sounds like a reach. And while graphics power is a fantastic bonus and should never be glossed over by a developer, its really just fit and finish stuff. It says nothing about your product and does nothing for one's social persona - that comes from who you are and your style choices, and features that promote social interaction. A graphics award does not even touch why IMVU is a social interaction winner. It might be, for some people. But graphics don't accomplish it. You can be better at producing social interaction and have 8-bit graphics for pete's sake.
Oh, and at least as of a few months ago - my most recent foray into the thing - IMVU being better graphically is also arguable at best.
It's all business spin designed to reach the SL audience because of the high numbers of people. Its akin to when Linden Lab heavily targeted the Facebook audience to boost numbers and put SL on steam to try and bring in gamers (SL is not a game. Yeah I'll keep saying it). That hasn't moved the needle much, assuming it hasn't actually hurt SL, which I think it has. But I digress on that.
They should be advertising their product, not posting random, out of thin air arguments as to why they are better than something else. This more resembles a shot fired than an advertisement in my opinion.
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If you are using Firestorm, and you are not photographing any objects that do not belong to you - go to World-Options-Show only my objects
In this case he could spend all week tossing stuff out and you'll never know the difference.
If you are photographing others objects in your scene, take it somewhere else like a sandbox. You might get griefed there too, obviously, but its a good play to escape this person and there are many you can visit, some with very low traffic.
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4 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:
Ah, ok. I hadn't known that it was slipped out before the forum announcement.
"In a way" it was SL2 simply because it was LL's second 3D world.
In the tiniest of ways, I suppose. But not in a meaningful one. I guess it depends on how much of a reach you are willing to make to say that, in a way, it was SL2.
For me, I don't see it that way because it wasn't even a world. It was a set of shared spaces, like a 3D web. There was no connectivity. No map, no crossing from one to another outside of a portal on their website...
The fact that it was 3D graphics was the largest connection to SL that it had in my opinion. Games, like World of Warcraft or Ark Survival Evolved, have that.
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49 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:
It wasn't an "accidental slip". LL started a thread here (in the forum at the time), stating that they were starting work on the next generation, and saying that, "If we don't do it, someone else will". They posted that some of what we had in SL would be transferable to the new world, which made it sound like SL2 to us and, in a way, it was SL2 - just not what we expected.
oh the slip was way before this, in a media interview. They were forced eventually to come here and face us and give us more info, probably earlier than they should, and I think that may have forced them to placate us with some things. In no meaningful way was it SL2 - it was not a connected world but a set of shared experiences. It was to run in Linden Lab's product line beside SL I fully believe. They did eventually say that they would work on transfer of items, but they were pretty quick to point out that because they were different platforms in basically every way, it would be hard to cross over anything in a meaningful way, as most everything would break and they were not planning on preventing that.
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incredible storytelling right here.
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I sure hope LL is back in the metaverse sweepstakes. Leaving was a huge mistake in my opinion.
As for mobile - it looks way better than I expected, but I'll need to see how inventory, chat, groups, notices and all that is managed, as well as interacting with objects and paying for items and all that. I'm still of the belief that SL on mobile is several times better in theory than it will be in practice, but who knows.
Emoji viewer? Ok that is awesome!
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5 hours ago, ChinRey said:
Yes but that actually makes it interesting, especially with the 20th anniversary coming up. Ten years ago, that's halfway from the beginning to now. Think of all the other virtual worlds that have popped up and died since then. Sansar, High FIdelity, Meta (not quite dead but definitely a zombie)...
You know what, I suspect the title was correct at that time. SL was in a bad shape in 2013 and LL had even started working on a replacement. But then Oz and Ebbe came along. Ebbe cleaned up LL's organisation. Oz was tasked with patching up SL to keep it going until Sansar was ready. Only he did such a good job that when Sansar inevitably folded, SL was stronger than it had been for many years. Yes, we can talk about all the things they didn't do or couldn't do and all the things they got wrong, it would be a long list. But there was also so much they got right and it was enough.
SL is still dying btw but aren't we all?
If only this were true. Well, I guess we will never know for certain, I should preface. But I see it differently based on all communication from LL during development, and seeing what Sansar is/was since launch.
But by all accounts, Sansar was supposed to be another product. I think one of the things that really hurt Sansar initially was the expectation of so many that we were getting a Second Life 2.0. (I pinned that on Linden Lab at the time, for their way too early "accidental" slip about its existence, and their about face of "we can't yet talk about that". It led to too much speculation) That was never supposed to happen. Yes, it was supposedly built in the spirit of SL, but that was it. Unfortunately, the intention to NOT replace SL with a rebuild from the ground up was a horrific decision from LL at the time, in my opinion. Building a separate VR-centric product was a disaster. Once they realized the state of their VR pipedream, they improved Sansar way too late and way too slowly with their mouse and keyboard improvements. Rebuilding SL from the ground up using modern technology was sorely needed and could have made for an even better grid than we have today. I still call for it today.
I agree though - it is dying, in the sense that it has a shelf life. Many of us will eventually see the death of SL, I think. It just isn't months or a couple years away.
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Just now, Count Burks said:
So the VAT office is totally fine now with not receiving their 20% in value added tax anymore because Linden Lab is just accepting their worthless virtual currency they printed out of thin air?
They are fine with receiving their 20% in VAT on anything bought with currency of value, which Linden Dollar tokens are not, yes. Either that or they have not yet stepped in and said they are not yet.
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5 minutes ago, Count Burks said:
Yet they are accepted by the company as equal funds to the USD$ to pay for products and services.
A company sells their identical product to two customers.
Customer A pays in USD$ and also pays the VAT
Customer B pays in currency that has no real world value and skips the VAT payment.
And according to your logic the tax office would be ok with the fact Customer B has not paid VAT for the product because he just paid with virtual currency that has no real value?
Exactly, otherwise they would not be allowed to do this.
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22 minutes ago, Count Burks said:
The point remains that the VAT office receives 501.6 US$ yearly in tax from Customer A and nothing from Customer B unless Linden Lab would secretly pay the VAT owed by Customer B to the tax office. And this because Customer B is earning income from virtual currencies inside of a virtual world without declaring this income and that scheme is how the VAT tax is circumvented.
I am aware there isn't any tax on user to user transactions inside of a virtual world, still in this case it is different because the platform provider Linden Lab is setting up a scheme to facilitate and bridge virtual world earnings to real world currency US$.
This scheme allows a flow of money where customer A is paying VAT tax and gets billed VAT while Customer B is not (at least not in a transparent manner).
The VAT office receives everything they are owed. They are not owed money from those who pay with $Ls, because $Ls have no value. They would not ask for customer Bs money if they looked into it. Your problem is with the tax regulators in your country for not forcing a tax on Linden Dollar payments, not with Linden Lab.
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4 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:
If a companies solemnly gets their income with a social platform than besides making a profit and trying to find new customers, some social awkward customer service and costumer care would help a lot.
I think, that if would ask all long term users, most of them will agree that costumer care and service could need a lot of improvement at the Lab.
Way to many great ideas that have come up on these and other forums over the years are simply swept under the carpet or totally ignored.
"Submit a ticket" at best. And than the ticket is ignored or silently closed.In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king.
They know that Second Life is that one-eyed product and so they don't care very much about what we think or feel.
I tried out several other platform during the last few weeks (because I will not set foot inworld again as long as the privacy thingy hasn't somehow improved) but there is no real competition out there.Every business could improve upon their customer service. I agree they have a long way to go.
As for Lab Gab, though, I would love for it to turn into a free for all discussion, but that doesn't happen anywhere, at least not where you can be certain you're hearing the truth. In terms of customer service, Lab Gab is an improvement over the years of "Lindens don't even log in due to company policy".
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18 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:
Lab Gab is nothing more than an advertorial.
They give it a journalistic look..... miming an interview, but they and only they control what is shown, asked and answered.
In a genuine interview setting, an independent reporter would select and ask the questions and ask even more questions when needed.Lab Gab is a promotional tool, nothing more. Giving some the illusion that they are open and transparent towards their customers, while everybody knows better, who has been around for a few years and isn't willing to bend over backwards for them to be a fanboy/girl no matter what.
Every interview is like that. In a "genuine" interview setting, the interviewed clears the subject and often reviews questions and will not answer honestly or at all any questions they do not wish to. They often do it to talk about something or promote something. If they clear taking follow up questions, they choose carefully what to indulge and how to indulge it. Almost every interview is an advertisement of or explanation of something going on presently. If they welcome an ask me anything session, its either lip service and you won't get the truth (most public figures, if not all, are coached on how to handle interviews. Heck, LL is probably told by lawyers what not to indulge at times, if not often), or you'll get it by THEIR choice. The interviewed is always in control and will refuse to answer off limits questions (sometimes to the point of ending the interview).
I would much rather just hear from them what they are doing than not even bother to make their presence known like lindens did for so many years.
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19 hours ago, Cali Souther said:
Typical of most businesses these days, all they care about it getting *new* customers and increasing the bottom line. They figure most of us will stick around as long as things don't get too bad.
Actually, that is typical of any business that does not want to have to shut its doors. A prerequisite, actually. Once growth becomes secondary, the business sinks and closes up. Not just these days either, thats always the case. And yes, only when things are too bad for them do people leave most any business. If they didn't care about getting new customers, this place would eventually turn into a boring ghost town, as people disappear at one point or another for a variety of reasons, some of which have nothing to do with SL itself. We'll all be gone one day, and not necessarily by choice. So yes, they are focused on new customers. Current ones benefit by that as it keeps this place running.
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12 hours ago, Count Burks said:
Customer A is a citizen of the UK and subject to 20% VAT
Customer B is a citizen of the UK and subject to 20% VAT
Customer A and Customer B both own a private region in Second Life
Customer A uses his region for his personal home for him and his partner and pays 209 + 20% VAT or 41.8 US$ Per month or 501.6 US$ annually in tax.
Customer B on the other hand uses his region for his club, he rents out shops and also does live singing in his club gathering more than enough income to pay his tier.
Customer B can now just sell his Linden Dollar income to pay for his tier and only pays 209 USD and not a single amount of tax or VAT on his region.
Customer B is not declaring income and revenue he generates from his activities, he is not a VAT registered business either. And more importantly the TAX office is not getting their 501.6 US$ per year from Customer B. This is how income is not being declared and how virtual currency which has no RL value is being used to circumvent payment of VAT or GST.
Like I mentioned above in my first post. Others are required to be a VAT registered business and be compliant. Linden Lab is asking for your VAT number. Linden Lab is also asking you to identify yourself as the owner of your business. But now a magical wormhole is discovered where certain people such as creators or store owners or mini rental infrastructures are exempt from paying VAT on their region.
The only reason they collect VAT is because legally, they HAVE to. What are the odds that they made this change without making sure it was not legally a scheme to get around tax collection?
Spoiler alert: Less than zero. They are a business with a ton of oversight. Once it became illegal to gamble in many US jurisdictions, they were FORCED to close casinos fast. LL does not have the freedom or lack of oversight to do things that get around laws. If they are messing with tax collection, there is a perfectly legal and lawyer cleared reason its happening. Further, its a beta program you have to sign up for, even if you have a qualifying subscription. If red flags are raised (by governments that impose these rules), it will get scrapped. The same thing happened with banking schemes back in the day. Banking got wiped from the grid when legal authorities got involved.
Neither Customer A or B has legal reason to declare anything unless he cashes out his Linden Dollars, as only then does it become something of value (real world currency). At this point, he pays all the pertinent taxes. If either withdraws, then he pays taxes. With this feature, neither customer has to withdraw.
Basically what this does is allow users who do not withdraw or purchase many/any Ls (which in-world have no value) to use them to pay for land from LL in a similar way we all pay for texture uploads or mesh uploads. Its the real world income that you convert your lindens to that gets taxed. L's generated in world can now be used to buy land, and that only makes basic sense in my opinion.
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22 hours ago, DemonicSage said:
Hey all! I hope you are all having a wonderful month! Today I would like to have a healthy debate and share opinions with the community. from all generations of life/age groups.
Here is my question: Given how anime avatars are more frequent and how LL likes to sometimes miscommunicate on rule regulations regarding said category or not defining enough on said loophole. What would be healthy alternative ways to help the LL team in defining the culture of these avatars? pretty sure there are popular bodies now that are indeed healthy to use but we still have very questionable creators that are still up for question with their said content given the controversy and media coverage of said questionable content. LL never really addressed this side of the community since if they tried they would enrage the base community that are anime lovers.
Please refrain of insulting, name calling , and other hostile intent. its a healthy debate and would like to hear your personal thoughts and opinions on this matter. thank you for at least reading and debating. lets help make this community more aware and open our minds more!
Creations are up to the creators, and categories of users/cultures/communities are up to the user. Linden Lab provides the platform, only. What we do with it is up to us to figure out. If you are looking for creations more suited towards your avatar, request it via notecard to creators of similar content. Linden Lab thankfully does not dictate too much (most of the time) or get their nose in what creators create too often (so long as its within the TOS rules).
I get frustrated with the fact that there is so much less male clothing in SL than female. Linden Lab will not, and should not, do anything about that, either. Contact stores and let them know what you would like to see. Some might even do custom work for you, at a higher price usually.
Linden Lab provides us the ability to do what we do (the servers, features, ect.). They play no policing role in what is on the grid - unless it violates the TOS and copyright laws. If its perfectly legal and within rules, they are a-ok with whatever we decide to make and whatever we do not.
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On 3/6/2023 at 6:05 PM, Coffee Pancake said:
Iono .. "cheap land" does not a virtual world make. See Opensim. I can't afford $209 a month on a region here any more than I could afford $229, but I can tell you want I wont be doing .. buying and burning L$ and friends have stated the same ..
I've already seen income in SL drop to the point I don't bother cashing out anymore.
The reason other grids struggle, in my opinion, has more to do with what is essentially a virtual world monopoly here in SL. Its really hard to get someone interested in a grid in its infancy (when OS and other grids were/are new), when there is already a grid with nearly 50K people populating it at peak times, 20 years of history, events every hour, shops on every corner, and the common misconception that joining another grid means "starting over" (I've been on both at once at various points). I've talked about other grids with so many people only to get responses like "I've spent so much here I don't want to start over" and "But there is nothing to do and no people over there". Its really difficult, I think, to compare features and price points on grids that are so lopsided in population. It makes it hard to try a grid out when it takes hours or days to find an unempty sim and you rarely if ever see more than a dozen events a week. Many people are interested in the price points, but not interested in leaving for ghost towns. Plus most, if not all viewers are based on the SL code. So SL is very ingrained in the virtual world system as a whole, which makes it very easy for folks to flock to and stick with SL. Cheap land does create interest. A lack of an audience/consumer base loses it faster than the grids can improve on it.
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No More Free Lunch
in General Discussion Forum
Posted
I don't even want to take the high road here, but I will take at face value that you want to discuss this because you just don't know.
Not a single premium member with 2 brain cells will be happy if this happened. Not a one. But lets assume, for a sec, they were...
It wouldn't last a week before they got their pitchforks out.
I went premium eventually, but let me tell you, I spent more money on SL while a basic resident than since I was premium. I bought Linden dollars fairly frequently and in bunches.
I also work in SL. You don't even need to buy Ls to get them. And either way, once you get them, you spend them.
Add this to the fact that segregating them means premiums would have less people to socialize with, perform for, and sell products to. Right now, SL concurrency is on a 13 or so year slide. At one point, peak hours saw 80K avatars logged in at once. These days, they struggle to hit 50k. I'm not sure they even do anymore. I think they are struggling to get 48K, if not 45K right now.
Lets put the number at 50K. That is a 40 percent drop. Lets say out of the 50K online at the peak of any given day, even 5 percent are basic. Which we all realize, I think, does not scratch the surface. Overnight, peak concurrency goes from struggling to hit 50k to struggling to hit 45K. OVERNIGHT. Nobody wants to be in a ghost town. The biggest issue with other grids is that everyone interested in virtual worlds are all in SL. Axing free accounts would give SL that same problem.
People draw people.
Its bad enough that creators and consumers get classed in the attitudes of a lot of people, and far too often in the actions of LL, failing to realize there is only one class of user in reality - the SL resident.