Madeliefste Oh

Someone can be for example an excellent scripter, without any knowlegde of uploading textures. I would not recommand jpg for uploading to SL. Choose tga 24 bits in stead. When your texture has transparency in it, then choose png as upload format. Make the texture in the size you need it. When your sign has a size for example 3:4 then you can make a texture for example 512 x 768. When uploaded to SL it will shrink to 512 x 512. But then applied to the sign the texture will fit perfectly, and shows no unwanted strechting.

Deja Letov wrote: However, there are plenty of vendor systems that can do this exact same thing for you. On the information aspect, the system I use is very helpful and tells exactly what people need to know. i do put it on the actual poster itself, but if you touch the item (vendor or the floor item, it doesn't matter) you get a detailed description, which is usually a copy of my marketplace listing but then the last line says : [06:36] CasperVend System: This product is the Gothic Library Prefab Building, and it's available for $750. Its permissions are: COPY, MOD, NO TRANS. When I first needed a vendor system, the system that you name was not available yet, as far as I know. Actually I could not find any vendor system that did split between more then two persons, and was both a single prim vendor. Then a friend wrote this script for us, that I have been using since. Till now it has functioned exactly as I needed. It does a better job then the 'distribution split' on the marketplace. So why change? It would involve a lot of extra work. I do make clear what the permissions are of my products. For two brands it is on the productboxes, and for my other brand (full perms) it is the shop description..

Jennifer Boyle wrote: Not possible? Hardly. Just make an alt that does nothing but act as seller and collect for sales. Periodically log onto that account and distribute its money, which shouldn't take five minutes to do. And how does this alt know which money goes to whom? I would need a huge administration, with 400 products, that can all have different splits. I guess it will take about an hour a day to keep track of this administration. Besides of that, my co-creators would not know which products are sold. Now my vendor script send them a message when they receive a split, so they know for what product they are paid.

I like to cooperate with other creators in SL. In most cases we work with a formula where every creator who has contributed to the product, gets a percentage of the sales. It happens often the we have to split sales among 3 persons. This can only be done by a script. But as soon as you use a splitting script, you can no longer use the buy option to put your products for sale. Only the pay functions allows you to work with a splitting script. That is the reason you cannot look into the boxes in my shop. I wish I could both show my customers the content and permissions of the items in the box, and at the same time split the prize amoung several merchants. But this is just not possible.

You should submit a case, here: https://support.secondlife.com/create-case/ In the dropdown menu you choose 'marketplace'.

Navy1 Coba wrote: LL's fraud division seemed aware of the scam since it has been used before. They were very quick to close the offenders account and then actually delete it. Granted I did provide them with transaction entries in my account and chat log. Since I have several affiliate vendors in my mall, I contacted them as well. Once of the larger producers was aware of this scam and gave me several tips on how to prevent it in the future. Please, teach us. What are those tips to prevent?

Oh I still forgot something: failed deliveries. Believe it or not, but failed deliveries with no copy items, happen about ten times as much, als failed deliveries of copy or full perms items. Where the shops are next to each other on the same sim, work with exact the same vendor script. That is a minus of no copy items. Since their is no technical explication for the high difference in delivery fails, you are tempted to conclude that some of customers just fake that the items did not arrive, to get one for free. But you can never know for sure... and neither do you know who is honest and did really not get the item, and who are the ones that play the trick with you. But you must respect them all. You cannot take the risk to accuse a honest person, so the consequence is that you are now and then giving away an extra example, while all of your intiution says 'he is just playing the same old trick I've seen so many times already'.

I have three brands. Each brand has it's own permission settings. Dynamic Curtains: all products in the shop are no copy/trans/mod (by menu). Madame Haute Couture, all products are copy/mod/no trans. cYo, all products are copy/mod/trans. Once choosen for the permission settings for the brand I never changed mind about this. The products for my oldest brand, Dynamic Curtains, I devellopped together with a scripter. We have been talking about how to set the permissions for several nights. It was clear that the curtains had to be mod, but besides that, copy or trans? We develloped all kind of 'what happens if... '-scenario's, and then judged about what permission settings would be best in that case. We were both sort of nervus to make a choice. I do not remember all arguments we discussed exactly, there were a lot.But one of them was 'no copy | trans comes closest to shopping in realility'. Another one pro no copy|trans was that each item would keep the same value for each resident. For example compare a copy item in the hands of a landlord who rents out 70 furnished houses, to a copy item in the hands of a small guy with just one house. The landlord profits 70 times as much from the copyability of the item then the little guy. And another argument was 'house stylists' must be able to transfer. I knew a few people who offered services as house stylist. They knew every respectable furniture shop in SL, had a great taste, and found people willing to let them style their house. After the styling was done, the items needed to be transfered to the owner of the house, who payed the bill as well ofcourse. These stylists never ever bought any no transfer item. In the end we choose for no copy | trans combined with a very affordable price. Cheap enough to buy a few at once (at least cheap enough in those days). It worked, above expectation. Right from day 1 that we opened the shop, the curtains started selling. Our expectation was: we open the shop, we show to some friends, we work out a marketingplan and then let's pray that the plan will work. But from the moment we opened the shop people we had never met before dropped by and started to buy. During the years we have had many customers who asked for a copy in stead of a transfer version. We refused, in many cases they still bought several sets of the curtains. We got builders who asked for a builders version, or offered ten to twenty times the price for a copy version. We refused, and after some teasing and begging most of them decided to look for copyable alternatives. What we started to do in stead of making copyable versions was giving 25% discount to high volume buyers. Dynamic Curtains has been doing pretty well during the first three years. And sales are still good. Ofcourse good in 2012 is something else then good in 2007, there is a lot more competition now, there are many shops specialised in just curtains now, there are curtain shops that offer copyable curtains for half the price we ask for or no copy curtains. Those have certainly gained a some of our potential customers. In the golden years it could easily happen that someone came in and bought 20 curtains. We don't see that type of customers anymore in our shop, people buy about 3 or 4 curtains at most at one time. So we must conclude that every customer that bought more in the past become a customer of a shop that offers copyable items. But still this did not made us doubt about the permission settings. And though a lot of competion is trying to beat us with lower prices and evenridicilous low prices, we also have never considered to lower our price. It is good as it as. Past have proven that this business model has worked for this type of product. The price must not be compared to what other merchants ask for their items, but the price must fit to the budget of your customer. We, very young, unexperienced creators, had picked a price just following our intuition, and sales have proven over and over again, that this price was just right for this product. So why change? When I go lower, my competitors might anwers by lowering prices as well, and after a price fight we probably end up in same position to each other again. The only effect will be that both of us have lost. Because a price competion brings us both in a more difficult position towards Linden Lab. The tier price isn't changing while we lower our prices. And the number of people who are buying curtains stays about the same as well. By lowering prices we all need to make more sales to be able to pay our tier and still stay profitable.

Hmmz, I have seen this technique of ripping before. It was in the days the before LL bought Xstreet. There was no way to put money on your Xstreet account or getting it out of your Xstreet account unless you used a terminal. It happened several times that invisible prims were place in front of an Xstreet terminal. The rippers did not only copy the exact text of the Xstreet terminal, but also made accounts that looked very much like the one of the terminal owner. I don't remember that name anymore, but let's say it was 'SLexchange Bigwing'. Then these invisible prims were place by accounts that had names like for example SLexchange Bigwings, SLexchange Bigvving (2x v in stead of w) or SLexchance Bigwing.

Few days ago I bumped into a newbie. Since I'm not much of a traveller anymore, but stay in my studio or shop, and even more in my 3D program, I don't happen to meet many new residents. Last one must have been more then half a year ago, and was the type of 'what do you wear under you clothes?'-newbie. But this guy, who was attracted by a sound I was working with and dropped in to explore what this sound was about. That leaded to a conversation. He told me he was new in SL, and when I checked his profile I saw he was 8 days old. He was well dressed for his age. He asked me where he was. I told him we were in my studio. He thought it was very big, he only had a small piece of land. This made me curious about him, just 8 days, well dressed an owning land, not the kind of newbie I used to drop into when I still travelled a lot. So I started asking how he liked SL so far, and why he had decided to buy land. 'I like it that you can create everything yourself here', was his answer. 'I'm learning Blender and I want to bring my creations here.' I asked him if he had any experience with other virtual worlds. 'Not really', he told me, he had been playing The Sims and then he discovered SL and wanted to try out. But this is much more interesting, in The Sims you can only build what is programmed for you. But I'm a quick learner, I wil get it this under control. I made my own t-shirt already. I think I'm going to learn scripting as well. I asked him if he was aware of places and groups where you can learn about creating in SL. He was not. I gave him a few landmarks and group names. 'You are very helpful, he said, 'ýou know, actually you are the first person I speak to here'. I was highly surprised. Eight days old, and never spoke to a single person... still renting land, buying skin,hair, shoes and making his own shirt. It stayed in my mind for a few days. I asked myself questions like: would I have stayed in SL when I would not have spoken to a single person during my whole first week?, and: does this say something about the psychology of this guy, or does it say something about SL anno 2012? Is this typical 2012, that a newbie can walk around for 8 days without speaking to a another avatar, or did the same thing already happen in 2007? I don't know The Sims from my own experience, but now and then I see how people play games. Most of what I see are people who don't play games in a social context, but from a cd-rom. The fun is just between them and the game, it is an individual experience. When that is where you come from, it is not strange that you don't start talking to people as soon as you arrive. There might be enough interesting things for you as individual to discover before you start socializing in SL. My guess is that it is not the typial "hard core dude kind of gamers" that will find a way to SL or will be open to enjoy SL. 'Gaining power by destroying' is not the only taste we have when it comes to gaming. The Sims is a nice example, but there are many other games based on a 'building your kingdom'-scenario. It is a whole different kind of energy these kind of games appeal to. It is not for the thrill of adrenaline, that people play these games, it is more for the joy of planting a sead and seeing grow day by day. But what both kind of plays have incommon is that they appeal to human instincts. We sit in a safe office or a warm house all day, we buy our meat and vegetables in a supermarket. We are workers and consumers, but deep inside something in us is still a hunter or a farmer. I think that a person who is attracted to the 'farmer' kind of games, is a person who might enjoy SL as well. Because the essence of SL appeals more to the farmer is us, then to the hunter. Though hunter kind of people who feel attracked the culture in SL might also have a good hunting time, it is not what the heart of SL is about. It is about planting a seed and taking care of its growth. We are living in an age of democratization of the media. My opinion is that we also live in an age of democratization of creativity. And I think Rodvik sees this trend as well. The aim of Rodvik's SL is to give people tools to express their creativity. In my opinion it is a smart move to define SL that way, as a world to be creative and express your self. This does not mean everyone has to become a content creator, you can also be creative in the way you dress, in the way you participate in a role-play, you can write a blog, post pictures on your Flickr page or express yourself in the way you flirt with other avatars. A whole different question is what the democratization of creativity means for the SL economy? SL is developping to a world where are more producers then consumers. Producers will now and then be consumer for other producers, after all not everybody has the patience and talent to make his own hair, skin or avatar animations. LL has never ever shown any interest in the character of the SL economy. It seems like they don't realise how this elusive phenomenon is directly related to their tier income. That makes LL a very risky 'business partner'. Do I have good faith for the future when it comes to the SL economy? No. Do I have hope? Yes. There are still so many people out there who don't know yet what SL can mean for them. They don't know what they are missing until they have tasted it. It is a pitty when it won't come on their path. I enourage every step that LL takes to seduce people to give SL a try.

Syo Emerald wrote: Hello everyone, a couple of months ago I opened a shop at the marketplace just out of fun and more like "Oh I wonder what happen if I click that button". I learned some basics about making tattoos...just for the fun of it and to try it. Now my question to the experianced merchants: What would you suggest to get into as a beginner? There is no such thing as a market that will garantee succes to a beginning creator. What you have done so far is exactly the right thing. "Just for the fun of it and to try it." My advise is: stay curious, keep learning and dare to dream. You might not have discovered your passion yet. For some people it is very clear from the beginning, when you are a for example a shoe addict in real life, and as soon as they discover SL the dream is to have a their own shoeshop one day. For others is it not so much the concrete objects they are interested in, but the passion is about a medium, for example movie making, or scripting, or creating textures in Photoshop or Gimp. Once you discover what your passion is about and you start making products driven by passion, there will be a market for your products, definitely. But it is not garanteed that you will reach the customers who are willing to buy your products. In other words: 'being in the heart of your creativity' is the drive that opens the market for you, but you will need good marketing skills as much to make potential customers aware of your creative work.

Rodvik can jump low, or Rodvik can jump high, but the fact is that Rodvic is just one person. And though he is the CEO of the compagny, as a single person he can only have a very little influence on the culture of SL. Because the culture - and the subcultures - are made by the masses. When nobody is going to use for example pathfinding, because it doesn't fit in what they want from SL, then it's simply a waist of the development time that went into that feature. Pathfinding is not such a good example, because I think it is a feature that is going to be adapted. But take viewer 2, the masses didn't want that viewer so the masses didn't use that viewer, after all there were better alternatives available. In the SL culture gaming is merely a role-playing thing. People who join and come with a gamers prespective will feel attrackted to the SL culture or one of it´s subcultures, or not at all. They will leave soon when they don´t feel attracked to the culture, or the speed or graphics don´t meet their standards. For these people SL is not the right place anyway, so there is nothing lost when they leave again. It is us, residents all together, that have made what SL is today. We are the people, we make the culture. No CEO is going to change anything about that. People who like what we made out of it so far, may stay and may become residents who leaves their footprints in the SL culture.

You are talking about the traditional type of hard core gamers, males between 14 and 34 year old. But that is no longer the only group the game industry is focussing on. As an example take Zynga, they state that the modern hard core gamer is a 43 old woman. And they are doing very well with focusing their products to this target group. What Zynga did well is trying to understand the psychology of their target group and translate this into the game design. Here is a nice slideshow about this: http://www.slideshare.net/ctrottier1/designing-games-for-the-43yearold-woman LL can learn something here about analysing their target group. LL doesn't have a clue about why people join, or why people leave, because they have never examened their target audience. And it doesn't have to be so hard, for example you can send people a 'we miss you' mail, when they didn't show up again within two weeks after signing up. Besides of offering a link to an attractive newbie place, they can include a survey and ask people who don't intend to come back to SL why they are leaving. Same thing can be done when land is abandonned by a resident, ask him why he stops owning land, send him a survey. But also ask the residents who did stayed in SL why they still are here. You could for example send a congratulation on a residents birthday, like: happy rezzday, your are 2 years old today. We would like to know why you are still with us, please complete the survey and get your rezzday award of 2000 linden. (Amount is just an example). SL has a very loyal residents base, despite all bugs and all frustrations LL puts on us, the most of us are still around. I think it is really worth it to examen what psychology is behind this loyality. LL should learn from it, and use this knowledge to pamper their new comers.

Pamela Galli wrote: A very insightful post Madeliefeste, esp the bolded parts! I would like to reprint it on my blog with attribution, with your permission. And I will tweet it. Go ahead Pamela, you have my permission.

It will help, maybe not enough for all merchants to survive the crisis, but anything LL does to promote their world is better then keeping silent. I really don't care that it might bring in people who have different expectations. When I first arrived in SL I came with a game mindset as well. And I had no clue where to start, trying to get stronger, trying to get money, getting to know the right people, finding a home, or learning how to make things. But soon enough I met people, and I talked to them in my attempt to find out how to play 'this world'. And they learned me everything what a newbie needs to know: how to travel around, how to use IM, where to go for freebies and how to make money by camping or dancing in a club. In I simply forgot my expectations that came from gaming experience, because this whole concept where you set your own goals seemed much more interesting to me, then playing around in a preprogrammed world. Above that I was highly fascinated by the idea this world was completely made and owned by it's residents. To me this seemed the place where the collective fantasy took place, all with all a place to be. Virtual wolds will never appeal to the masses who are looking for easy amusement. Freedom is not the easiest toy to play around with. You must be willing to take initiative and make your own meaning. I'm convinced that there are still millions of people who will enjoy SL, and have the potental to become a loyal resident. Some of them will be hanging around in the gaming community, some of them will be playing farmville sort of games, some of them will have no gaming experience at all, and some of them have even never touch a computer for their fun. But I see nowadays is the threshold to become a participant in the economy much higher then five, six years back when we had camping all around. When it was easy to get some startmoney by camping, almost every new resident did get involved in the economy. That stopped when LL banned camping. There is less money coming in the economy, but the supply of goods continues to increase. The more goods available, the harder it will be to get your product seen by potential buyers. So the profit per product will decrease for every merchant. We definitely need a lot of people with empty inventories around to keep this pyramid economy working.

You better study the marketplace guidelines: Item or Keyword Spam.Item spam is listing an item more than once, for any reason, and will not be tolerated. The SL Marketplace provides ways to increase visibility for nominal fees. Consider an Item Enhancement or a Banner Ad. Clear variations of an item, for example, an item offered in multiple sizes (such as small, medium, and large shoes), or an item offered in multiple colors (such as a blue and black sport coat), are, however, allowed and are not considered item spam. Keyword spam is the use of words (such as brand names, item names, or other terms) that have nothing to do with the item listed so that the listing will appear in search results. Keyword spam is not allowed because it clutters the SL Marketplace and makes buying and selling more difficult. In addition:We do not allow descriptions that promote unrelated items in other listings, for instance, items listed in other listing categories. For example, a listing for shoes cannot say things like, "Check out my other listings for cars and watches." However, it is permissible to include a link to one's store in-world or one's other listings, as long as the words used in the description do not skew search results. For example, the shoe merchant above could say: "I have these shoes in other colors, check those out here," but CANNOT say "I have these shoes in pink, yellow, blue, and green." We expressly prohibit the hiding of unrelated keywords using white-on-white text, tiny fonts, HTML code, or other means intended to circumvent the rules.

When you sell a pair of shoes, but you use keywords like: skin, eye, makeup, eyebrow, building, house, and so on, then you are asking to get flagged. Unrelated keywords are highly irritating for shoppers, so one day or another this irritation will lead to a flag.

I just replied to another thread about this same subject. I think I have a clue about what is happening when sales drop after an update. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Marketplace-update-and-sales-dropping/m-p/1631765#M25917

I think I'm getting a clue about why sales drop after an update: the item loose ''search-rank" after an update, and this rank comes only back after a few days. I conclude this from an experiment I was doing with an alt. This alt has just 3 items for sale on the marketplace. The item are ten days on the marketplace now. For the main keyword they have to compete with about 250 other items. (All three have the same main keyword). Item A is priced 50 L$, item B is priced 40 L$ and item C is priced 30 L$. Item A became a 'hit'. Within 8 days item A showed up as number 1 when is searched by relevance for the main keyword, item B showed up at place 6, and item C on place 7. It took longer for item B and C to climb up in search rank. Then we had the marketplace update, and then I saw this happen when I searched by relevance for the main keyword: Item A sunk to place 2 of first page. Item B and C fell up the first page (96 items shown) completely. They seemed to be back on place where there were right at the moment I placed them on the marketplace. Now we are one or two days further, and now the search rank is almost back on where it was before the update: Item is on place 2 now, item B is on place 5 and item C on place 6. So from what I observe I think that during an update, the marketplace rolls back to an "old search ranking point". Then later when the update is done, the search ranking is recalculated, and the items appear again on the place where they were befor the roll back, I think it also takes the sales in account that were made during the update and the roll back. It seem to take a few day before the search rank of the complete marketplace is recalculated.

Pamela Galli wrote: LL is not the government -- they don't have police investigators or courts and judges and prosecuters set up to handle small claims court. Should people pay a fee to sue another resident or should they be able to file frivolous lawsuits without penalty? Should they hire lawyers to represent them? How much time would merchants spend defending themselves in court? The fact is that if you buy from people you do not know, you are taking a risk. There is no way to eliminate that risk. If you cannot handle the possibility of being ripped off then don't buy anything at all ever. LL is not the government, but LL is not staying out of resident to resident conflicts completely neither. When for example a neigbour builds a tree that sticks out on your land, you can AR, LL is coming to investigate and handle the situation. There is no need for a court and the whole circus around it.

sunshine Juneberry wrote: What really gets me though is LL's response is that this is between me and the seller. They said i can write a review of the product, but all the seller has to do is remove the listing and then relist it and there wont be any bad review. I've reopened my case like 3 times and i get the same response, LL does not get involved in L$ disputes between sellers and buyers and that i have to continue to try to contact seller. All the seller has to do is mute me and its problem solved...and i;m out 1000 L$ and not a thing I can do about it. It's ridiculous!! Someone can blatantly scam on MP. They dont need any real product, dont need to use their real name, they can scam away anonymously with no overhead, no oversight, no real product, and no consequences. I agree with you that it is ridiculous. Buyers have no rights at all and that is not a good situation, buyers should have more protection. Experiences like yours might end up in stopping to buy virtual goods at all, just because you don't want to be scammed any more. It is not solely a resident to resident dispute, LL is involved in it. They took 5% of the price you paid for the product. That makes them partly responsible.

My family is used to the idea that I prefer to spend time on things that they (and most people) do not consider as something normal. I have worked as an actrice and theatre director for quiet a while. Last ten years I have been working in an exhibition space where we show experimental contemporary art projects, none of my family members has ever visited the place. I never insisted to do so, because I know on forehand they would not enjoy what we are doing there. What I do in SL is something they understand better then the art projects, because it is much more concrete. And they have more interest in it as well, though the interest in mainly in how my shops are running in financial terms. What they absolute don't understand is that people are willing to pay for virtual goods. They think like: you spend money, but you get nothing back that you can hold in your hands, so you are just wasting money. I try to explain by comparing it with people who go to the movies or to a musical, they do exactly the same, they pay to watch and when they leave the building they have nothing left they can hold in their hands. But they don't get the parallel. My friends are mainly artists or are closely related to the artistic field. Though none of them is active in or attracted to SL, they are interested in what I do in SL, and don't consider it as a waist of time at all. Most of them find it interesting that I'm exploring 'the new media' as creative outlet and encourage me for this.

Ewan Loordes wrote: My issue is there are several costumes of the same names in shops and on marketplace. What gives? Why is it ok for some and not for others. My thoughts are that someone didn't like competition so reported me.... well fair game. Lets get them ALL off the market then. It is not okay for others. The only difference between you and others is, the others didn't get cought but you did. It is not so simply that you can just report someone because you don't like the competition. You cannot file a dmca when you are not the copyright owner. When LL tells you you infringe on Marvel copyrights, it is obvious that Marvel did claim and filed the dmca. When it is a competitor he is taking high risks to get your products out of the market. Cause in that case he is claiming that he is a copyright agent from Marvel.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: I looked at your logo Made and from the photo it looks like your Logo would be allowed to be nore effecient than the logo was was modeling since it appears you are using sharp corners and flat sides. This would allow for much better decimation than my logo which is made up of all analog curves. The surfaces of my logo has almost no flat runs on the surface. Also, my logo is a bit fatter and taller than your logo at the LI you mentioned. As such, the fact that I am now at about LI=9, I suspect I am getting pretty close to what would be expected to be a good LI for an analog shaped logo of similar size. Yes, you are rights. Your has more letters as well, so yours will lead to a higher prim count... but three times more seems very much to me. Toysoldier Thor wrote: Just further question on your suggestion... I sorta know what you are saying but that technique you mentioned... are you suggesting to create an extremely low flat surface LOD model? In Zbrush I think I could just uses a plane "tool" and decimate it to extremely low poly. BUT my quesiton again is, would this not be the same as me changing the value of the LOWER and LOWEST LOD metric proposed by the SL Upload utility to a poly count of 5 and 3? Yep, the lowest can be a plane with four points, if only the frontside must be visible from a long distance. When also the backside must be visible, you can copy this plane, reverse one the normals, and then link both planes. This would not be the same as changing the value of the poly count in the SL uploader, because the SL uploader cannot think. It cannot analyse the situation you put in front of it. Or it anlyses it only as 3 dimensional object, and won't come to the conclusion that 'flat' is the best option in this case for the lowest LOD. It will make the 'cheapest possible' 3D representation, with leads often to very heavy distortions on the mesh from a distance.

You can get you mesh much more efficient when you don't let SL generate the LOD 2, 3 and 4, but do it yourself. When you make your own models for these lower level of details and upload them, it going to safe you a lot of prims. Our logo, size about 5 x 0.6 x 0.2, land impact = 3. It was not even optimized for low prim count.