Sorina Garrigus

There are a LOT more games within Second Life than most people are aware of and I think they are a very important part of Second Life as they help answer the question to noobs after they first log on. "I have hair, now what do I do now" I have my favorites but being a big supporter of game maker's I seen them all. I tend to be drawn personally to games that show some innovation and originality. One good example is Galaxy War. Galaxy War in a nut shell is simple real time 3D version of Risk kinda sorta. .Instead of conquring countries you attack other planets (occupied or unoccupied by your opponent. You do so by clicking on your planet(s) then click on your target planet to attack. Half your armies from your planets attack the target planet. When you or your opponent army occupies a planet it produces more army troups over time. Planets produce armies at different rates. when you move your armies your are shown moving with a creative use of particle effects. It can be played Player vs player, player vs computer or co-op (both players vs computer). Sadly the game maker left SL hopefully not for good so it can't be purchased. But I keep it out at my Celestial Game Tower location near the two towers. Over the years there have been some games that have stood out as SL must have classsic games. Greedy Greedy was already mentioned and is more popular than some of the Yahtzee style games out there. UNA (Ingredients compare to UNO Uno/Una is a varation of the card game Crazy Eights but honestly more people are familiar with UNO. Chess. There are dozens of chess games out there but the one made by Lamorna Proctor is among the higher quality and most popular one out there. Danger Zone: Is a gem collecting game which can be compared to a game of Chicken. Your options are to either stay or go. During the game Dangers are presented (sharks, boulders, lighting, buzz saws...) and if they come up twice you get killed. But if you leave before you a duplicate danger comes up you keep the gems which are added to your points. A very fun and very visual game. Battle Sludo: Is a variation of race board games such as parcheesy or the commercial RL game Sorry. Bridge: Made by Coral Guasman which may be primmy by some peoples standards is full of detail and attention to the game. Clued Up: A murder mystery game in which the play I am sure most are familiar with. this game is to new to be considered a SL classic game but it definitely is a stand out game and I haven't really seen anyone come out with a simular style game SLopoly: A Monopoly style game but is having a name change. Though in part I understand why but at the same time there are dozens upon dozens upon dozens of games in RL ending with opoly. I am starting a RL "boardgame cafe" so yes Mr senator I can infact testify I have seen dozens of ...opoly games . Whatever the name its definitely a SL classic game. Poker: There are a good number of poker games but when considering a poker game keep in mind that playing poker for money/linden currency is not allowed. The game itself is fine of course just be sure your playing for fun. One day maybe the Laws will change and maybe SL wagering policies might change at that time. But I am certain Vegas lobbiest will try to make that a long time to come Combat Cards: A game that one might compare to Magic the Gathering but its definitely its own game. This is what you would call a Collectable Card Game (or CCG) Another CCG game out there that has done a great job is Logos. Both game makers have a youtube introduction clip you can help familiarize yourself with the game. En Garde: A turn based card game in which two players duel against each other. your avatar's are moving forward and backwards by playing cards in an effort to score a strike on the other. FrootCake: A wonderful game of getting the least amount of fruitcake. There are lots of other greats and thats before we even get to the area of arcade games and virtual sports. I know I mist some and I appolgize but really I can go on days

I agree but it didnt use to be that way the ad searches use to be more relevant than they are now. Low overhead is a good way to go if you can do it. My overhead is pretty high compared to when I started on a small 1024 lot years ago. but lately I been doing decent from my other income sources outside my store. I been trying to find good ways to get people take advantage of the games I have out in my store to come and bring friends to play and which with luck some might purchase. That was in part what my ad was written to try to do. I will let the ad run for a bit, see what kind of results it produces. its had some hits maybe one a day on average for teleports but I think anything less than $3000 your pretty much are having ads that arent being seen in a lot of cases

I did an experiment and I changed one of my ads and paid L$1005 for it. I search for the words Game Tower (My place is called Celestial Game Tower) and two pages come up in search but my classified is no where to be seen. I search game store and my classified finally shows up on page 10. I then tried searching for "game store" with the quotes and imy L$1005 ad didnt come up at all but some of my L$51 ads did. I think because store was in the title of the ad of the cheap one where game store was in the bulk of the ad. Problem seems to be they tweaked the search not to favor relevance. But the regular (non ad) search comes up just fine and I am one of the top hits typically if searching for Game store. So if seems to me if they use the same search routines they do for the ads they do for search and then list them in order of how much paid in it would make more sense. It seemed it use to be like that.

I just calculated that given the amount of views of my ad haven't increase in a year or more ( recall a year and a half ago I was at about 240 and now my main ad is at 245 teleports) I estimated I paid at the very least L$19584 (estimated $80 US dollar value) for pretty much no ads displayed and of course loss of business to boot. How much would one have to pay to have their ads listed and how much does one have to pay for it to pop up in relevant searches? I was a bit stunned that a search for the words game store which I am the only one except one other wouldnt get my add posted when searching for game stores.

I am considering canceling most of my classified ads I had out for years now. The issue is the ads that pop up in search all have very very little relevance in many cases. For example I searched my own store by typing Game Store. In Phonenx or other older style viewer searching in the classified tab I am 6 out of the 7 hits that come up. But when I search in the search all table I dont come up AT ALL. The last page there are ads is page 7 so I have been charged for by Linden Labs for services not rendered. Judging on the number of hits I had on my ads it hasnt changed by much at all since last year. I have 9 ads I been paying 51 and nobody is seeing them unless they look at my profile or happen to search in the old system. To top it off there were classified hits about male escorts in a search for game store and my game store doesnt even come up. First is there a fix for this or is this how it is. It only shows the top paying ads with disregard to search relevance and your paid for ads don't show at all. Legally speaking it is not legal to have paid services when services are not rendered as it is in this case. Second who or where would I go to to get the problem fixed and a refund? Business slowed down a bit and this is clearly one of the big reasons why. I don't recall any notices that went out about changes in the classified ad system where some paid for ads just dont show up in searches. Maybe if I paid 100000 for an ad it would but thats kind of obsurd.

Now we have no money, just limited function tokens. Now we have no ownership, just revokable limited licenses..... Jami Did you get censored or something? I saw the comment in my email and now its gone. But the revokable limited licences for linden currency isn't new. It wouldn't hold up in court for a second of course given they have clear inherent value and would be just as illegal for LL to take them away. Hopefully LL will rethink TOS in this and other matters to avoid unnessessary lawsuits. Not that LL should not have the right to discontinue business with an individual. They just need to have something in place where one could liquidate various financial assets and not seize the poker chip style linden currency, objects and land which have very clear inherent real world value. The market place demonstrates Linden currency has value pretty apparently given they take RL money or Linden Currency on purchases. The new CEO needs to look at TOS so it can be taken seriously in a legal setting. Writing TOS so you can seize various financial assets illegally for any or no reason needs to be rethought. As is its just the foundation for a class action waiting to happen

And yet, you will find no CEO that has more closely related experience to an open ended virtual world than someone with game experience. From multi-user, to software, to game/world-centric communities that outlast the popularity of any given game. This particular CEO also has experience with virtual goods and content creation. @ Dartagan I would say a perfect CEO for SL would have equal experience at a MMO like World of Warcraft, myspace/facebook, ebay and perhaps mayor of a small town somewhere. For content creation LL does very little of that themselves. When they try they seem to get a bit side tracked. Also you can't change the reality that Second Life is not a game by wanting the answer to be different. You contradicted yourself a bit and said it was and wasn't a game in the same breath. You were right when you said its a virtual world expressing many things which of course supports my open slate description. But a game being one of them isn't correct. It is very true there are various games within Second Life. RPGs, simple games of skill, arcades, bowling, Collectable Card Games, Board games card games, virtual sports etc. But these things aren't what SL is just parts of what's in it. I neck deep in the game industry in Second Life and I can say Second Life is definitely not a game. A game almost always has rules in order to win or progress, structure, points, leveling etc so on. For example say my RL town has a water slide theme park ther. Does that mean my town is a theme park. No its a town that has a waterslide park, it probably also has an art museum, a game room, some night clubs, various stores. But none of these individual things make it one thing. Now take the internet as a whole has games on it also but its not a game. I watch tv shows on hulu all the time but the internet isn't a tv. I read news on the internet but its not a newspaper. I realize some people treat SL as a game but that doesn't make it one. But I do agree reaching people on more familiar ground is good but if you market Second Life as a game and people come here and say how do I play this game there are no real answers. What could be done is strengthen RPG creators, game makers tool sets to boost those capabilities to create more viable games that can approach in quality of what they might be use to. But Marketing a "game" thats not a game as a game is doomed to failure.

@ Samuel Gaming development expertise doesn't Apply to SL outside of some technical issues. Gaming development is what some creators in Second Life do. Not Linden Labs. They just give people to the tools to do so. In my mind the focus should be improving said tools, have an open discussion with current creators on what could be done to improve the quality of various forms of SL entertainment, and no I don't think pose balls needs too much more help. They do just fine already. SL should level up the tools.

@ Dartagan Experience is nice but exeperience at a game company does not prepare one for what Second Life is about. Best if he took a fresh look at things not think in game terms

Words to remeber Rod: "Toto I don't think were in OZ anymore" Also If I could offer you only one tip for the future, customer service would be it. The long term benefits of customer service have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience... I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your avatar; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your avatar until they have derezed. Don't worry about the content; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your Second life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind. The kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing everyday that scares you. Sing. Don't be reckless with other people's sims, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don't waste your time on a bad viewer; Sometimes it's ahead, Most the time its behind. The code is long, and in the end, it's only useful if people use it. Remember the compliments you receive, forget the griefing; If you Succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love notecards, throw away your old bad policies. Stretch. Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your Second Life. The most interesting avatarsI know didn't know in 2004 what they wanted to do with their Second lives, some of the most interesting ones from 2003 I know still don't. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your customers, you'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe you'll marry a furry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children avatars, maybe you won't, maybe you'll sell all your sims at $L 1 per Sq Meter, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't Congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your avatar, Use it every way you can... Don't be afraid of it, or what other people Think of it, It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own... Dance... even if you have nowhere to do it but on a pole in Zindra. Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your Lindens, you never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your creators; They are the best link to Second Life's past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that creators come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in communication and improve script features because the older you get, the more you need the creators you knew when you were young. Live in Zindra once, but leave before it makes you hard; Live in a PG sim once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths, sims will lag, Escorts will Philander, People want to play Zyngo, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young land prices were reasonable, TOS was fair, people were free to gamble in the land of the free, and Lindens respected the Avatars that built Second Life. Respect your Avatars that build Second Life. Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, Maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out. Don't mess too much with your prim hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look Phillip's. Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth. But trust me on the customer service...

How do you age verify a teeny bopper? Teens have been in SL for ages thinking its some forbidden fruit.

I just watched the Torley video (Who apparently shops at the gap in Chernobyl) and the changes in part are good for people concerned about someone impersonating your friends though I can see noobs that are unaware falling for some griefing/hurassment attempts by others. But I don't see it resolving completely issues of content creators and other people that deal are in the virtual public eye one way or another. They should maybe make it so changing your name can't duplicate anyones original SL name. Or perhaps a way to request your name not be able to be copied. This issue is the SL rumor mill really doesn't rely on facts. They just see drama, they are excited by said drama and they relay and spread the drama to others. For a video demonstration of how this happens click the youtube link

Ceera and others concerned with the abuse issue. Lamorna Proctor is working on a system for this problem. If LL doesn't have a strong system in place this will help. Basically anyone that has this device on their land it will boot them if they are impersonating a registered individual. It can be found on Zyngo Island. I am not sure if its live yet or what the status is but its something.

Its up. hmmm considers getting the banning impersonators item at Zyngo Island. But again. For the of lag get the priorities straight. Work on the chassis and the wheels of the car and put down the turtle wax. 1) I had to refund 2 people this week because of object delivery failures in vendors because there is no simple check sum abilities in scripts/SL infrastructure. Market place can fail just as easily without it. 2) I tried to say something in chat of my own group and I couldn't get in to post anything. Fix group chat lag. 3) Viewer 2 though a bit improved still has big UI issues, let alone its not a good tool for busy people in SL that might get multiple IMs. It's improving but it will probably hit version 3.0 before the big issues are dealed with. There are more but you get the idea. A nice tool for RPG sim goers and griefers alike is fine (at least one of those is fine) but maybe work on the engine and resecure the wheels before waxing the car that is SL

To Maddie: There are others that like it but for me I prefer to be able to put windows where I find them more useful rather than locked down. At least they are undockable. I would like to see the option to have them always undocked. I have to send them back to the side bar. Also it would be nice if the sidebar could switch sides though I would almost always have it off if given that option. The Kirsten viewer can hide the side bar. As for clutter I find the side bar and the windows have more clutter or the appearances of clutter because of lack of transparencies hiding the screen. I also miss the old chat window with the tabs. Someone said that was still an option but I don't see it. Heck I had to hunt through the menu to find the mini maps. And for the life of me I can't find a way to turn off those annoying hover tips. It use to be in the menu but so much is hidden you can't find anything. Also I would love to see a different menu for right clicking. It's a pain having such a small menu. Before I was able to almost instintively get to what I needed with nice big buttons. Now you have to carefully scroll down to the pay option. If your doing that a lot say at a dollar store buying a bunch or playing skill games its a pain. But they are making some progress but I still think LL needs to look at third parties for inspiration more. Clearly they already have.

Nice. We gone from Sam's Club Soda to Shasta cola. Good to see progress. Don't get me wrong I like Shasta, mostly because I am cheap and won't by a 2 liter for $1.49. But I see some features such as the sit down anywhere or undocking side bar features and its been credited to Snowstorm. Both were developed on third party viewers. It would be nice to give those credit for their hard work and innovations. Like LOM said the Kirsten viewer did a lot of these things months ago. Emerald/Pheonix had sit anywhere and many more features for probably well over a year. To Hitomi: For a long time now LL had a release candidate viewer as an optional download though I haven't checked the download page recently. So LL has made viewers in the past available for general use with a disclaimer of course. To Rich D: I so agree the color scheme is HORRID. It looks like it was inspired by a combination of the matrix and stale pea soup. Reskining is nice but the default shouldn't be an eyesore. To Ari: I gave Imprudence a try after the Emerald Drama. It's fine but there are too many useful features in it and when Pheonix came out I went back to that. Also the Bleepity bleeps that were responsible for the drama are long gone and apparently off to terrorize other virtual worlds based on an email I got for being on their forum log. Also LL is satisfied with Pheonix. I will give 2.2 a try with an alt at least. Getting ruthed every time I try it with my main avatar gets rather old when I go back to my viewer I can get work done with. Hopefully they will fix that bug. It seems to affect my primary avatar more than my alts.

Great to hear about groups. I had to create 3 different alts just to handle the groups I have now for business. An Increase has been a request since 2004 at least so better late than never we will have to go with. Hopefully the exploit and hurassment potentials have been addressed for Display names. If done wrong its just a LL supplied griefing tool ready to explode. Even if done right it will have those issues. I know of at least one person that developed a system in advance to help combat this kind of griefing issue. I will have to take a look at snowstorm see if its worth using. It would take a LOT of changes to make it 2.0 worth using but sounds like some headway is being made. I still like to see vast improvements in making the interface much more inherently intuitive mostly for the sake of the noobs. Any common place every day usage in my book should be able to be figured out in seconds or with a tiny bit of looking. If one has to ask or google for answers like the current 2.0 it needs work. The bug I really want to see fixed is the ruthing of avatars that go back and forth. I got a conference IM from someone the other day in a panic because her old boyfriend became her new girl friend named Ruth. For me I get old huds attached when I go into 2.0, I get ruthed, and other issues. I will only check 2.0 changes with an alt I don't care as much about getting messed up.

Seems like a bad move. If there were other non SL users there it was a potential cross promotional tool. Also I am curious how the would facebookify SL. To me the simplest and most practical solution is have a Myspace like page people can create complete with blogs and such and just have the viewer access and display that. web based would be MUCH more practical. You can access it whe you can't get into SL. Maybe through ones Iphone or Ipad which can't log in. I can see some one finding out about some live music event while at RL work and head home to log in. That way you can access it from anywhere. I am in bed right now with my Ipad and could be hearing about an exciting event instead of writing this. By the way these forums/blogs don't work well with the iPad to post. A work around is to click the HTML button and then you can type. Also why is LL working on facebookifying SL. Why not fix problems thAt are years old like group chat lag, adding check sum capabilities to server based vendors etc. It's great to move forward but are we forgetting about some very old issues that need to be addressed?

User hours are down. Less time inworld means users aren't as happy as they were. If they are not here they do not use the services nor do they spend money. The less time they spend in rentals the less useful those rentals become. I agree that could be the case but you have to consider the reduced use of bots with various camping bans and other marketing efforts banned that get exploited. That was a while back but I still see them but greatly reduced. Some places still have money balls and other marketing efforts to get people there that were banned that didn't get the memo though.

I personally have no problem with bulk discounts. Say a landbarron owns over 500 sims they get some kind of price break and should. Buying in bulk isn't a new cost saving tactic. BUT those discounts need to be transparent and known and available to all instead of deals (metaphorically) made in back alleys. Look at mainland costs. The prices stop at a full sims worth. I asked once and they said that it just repeats. I see no reason to continue those prices for a sim costs on mainland on their prices lists say all the way up to 50 full sims worth of land.

The L$ vs. the US dollar in mid-June that has since returned to typical levels. 6 months ago I was selling at 260ish all the time sometimes lower. I was able to do that regularly for a couple years.Now it typically has been selling at 269ish -274ish and thats a price I had to wait for. I am trying to sell at 265 and its not selling. I would really like to see these reports not come from LL but some nonbiased third party that evaluates these things. But I do have to say at least for me games have been selling more frequently but I am suspecting its more to do with my current marketing tactic than anything else.

There are people that have waaaaaaaaaay more than 5. The people that would abuse camping and the lucky chairs all the time. Some people have avatars for each letter of the alphabet for the chairs.

my real life picture in which he photoshopped a bullet hole in my head.Seriously, if this is accurate especially the quoted part any linden that may have reviewed this situation and saw that photo and ignored it should be fired without hesitation. Second call the police have them contact Linden Labs a photo like that is the same as a death threat. Now when Linden Labs ignores something like that, its just beyond disgusting and pretty much criminal neglect. Bad customer service is one thing but ignoring a clear communcation of a death threat is 1000% unexceptable. Again hell with Linden Labs. They are not the authorities contrary to popular belief. For the most part they are a kids working in cubicals. Just contact the police if that what it takes and press charges for a death threat.