Rya Nitely

And who ends up having to teach these new customers but the merchants. For example, I was just asked these questions: 'why does my texture break up when I stretch it?' and another customer 'Why do I only get the white boxes when I try to stretch an item, and not the blue, red green?' And this is just today. Yes please, increase our fees for the privilege of teaching newbies.

I always felt that it was due to Ebbe. In Sansar he does participate in chat very often (often one on one), and he even has Jen employed just to talk to people and socialise with them.

I'm not saying they don't do it. I'm saying don't expect the tenants to be happy about it. If they can't afford a rent increase it means moving or living on less. If that's what it takes they'd prefer things to stay as is.

It's like the landlord coming into your house and saying 'We're going to make improvements and increase your rent - good times, happy anniversary'. Are the tenants really going to be saying 'yes please, let's have a family huddle and see if we can come up with some improvements ' ? It's more likely they'll be thinking 'Take your improvements and your rent increase and shove it'. Is it really so surprising that the pollyanna theme of the first few pages got quashed? When I first started reading the thread I was surprised that nobody was mentioning the fees, until Grumpity said something. It was meant as a reality check.

As some may know, I gave up my rl job because I was fortunate enough to have an SL income I could live on - a small income but enough for my needs. However, the constant fee increases is making it too unreliable. So I went back my boring job that I don't like, but it pays $65/hour, and every year I get a small pay increase. I compared it to SL where I love the work, which pays me on average around $8/hour. I did the sensible thing and asked for my rl job back. No more stress about how much less I'm going to have to survive on. It was a nice dream, living on my SL income. It just means that now I spend a lot less time creating, and so that's one less person putting in almost all their time and effort for a small income. This is the danger , there may be many more like me, who just stop feeling that it's worth it.

My group owns a parcel that borders three sides of an abandoned parcel, and I (as a group) want to buy just one part of this abandoned land. I put in a ticket but because my group own the land, and not me, I don't know if I will have that strong claim for direct sale.

You won't have a landlord because you will own the land. All you need to do is buy the land (cheap) and it will be yours for as long as you want it, then put a house on it, and even more furniture than a Linden home allows (in LI), and a bigger yard to put a nice garden.

My only concern is that the next step in this plan may be to decrease the weekly stipend. I now save $8 a month in tier. It sounds great, but I find it hard to trust edit: fixed calculations

It's what a developer does, Rya: document the work they intend to sell or give away to others to include in their projects. When you purchase a full perms script, the least you expect is that it contains fully commented code, so that you know what is done and where to modify it, don't you? It's how development material has always been. And you can certainly add a few lines to a notecard explaining why and how to do so. Perhaps this might be one of the reasons for some creators to keep their stuff no mod. Adding a few lines to explain how to find the hidden triangle(s) and change the dummy texture to represent your newly textured model is the easy part, and I have done this in the few cases where I did use this method to keep LI low. But I really don't want to make it too complicated for my customers. I think I have a fair idea of what most of them are capable of, and having to teach individuals who become very confused, and I would end up offering to do it for them, and I may even risk low ratings because of it. Too many people change textures on full perm items, and it's a teaching process that I don't want to take on. It would justify no mod on items to an extent. But here a notecard would help by just saying don't change the texture. Even with copy mod I don't like having to set such restrictions.

It really does depend on the model and the LI you are aiming for. For me, trees are not so easy to get a decent representation that doesn't change shape too much going from high to med to low. I don't do lowest on trees, and sometimes I skip low. Would love to see the LODs on your tree

I wonder how many people use or know about this trick. I stumbled on it by accident, and said 'ooh, that's useful'. I sometimes get the uploader to generate my LOD models and then after I upload the item I save the 3 highest LOD models back to inventory, and then improve them. It gives a good starting point. You could do this even before the latest firestorm feature by zooming out and save what you see. Maybe most people here know this, but for those like me who didn't until a few months ago when I stumbled on it by accident when saving a collada and I was zoomed out too far, this is very useful, or to get back an LOD model you lost or deleted by accident. The lowest LOD model is the most critical and has the biggest impact on LI, and so that still takes the most work as the uploader hardly ever will give you a decent one.

Hidden triangles work very well, but I hesitate to use them. If customers want to change the texture on an item (which will happen with full perm items that I sell) then you need to explain to them about that hidden triangle(s) and why the item is now looking weird from a distance because they didn't apply the new texture to the hidden triangle(s). And many people don't understand the explanation. They are not as savvy as we are. The way I handle low and lowest is to almost entirely rebuild the model, and for the lowest LOD this is often very time consuming making a fake decent representation and uploading and testing and fixing can take a whole day just on the lowest. And customers want low LI and high LOD and low price. I try to meet this demand, but it isn't easy. I must say that most of my earlier work was done without the experience I have now, and I am going back and fixing the lods, but customers have been buying those 'bad quality' items without complaint and rating them highly, and so I don't know. I'm going back to fix those LODs slowly over time, not because many people have complained but because I want to, and if something can be improved then it should be. And so who really is demanding this - creators or consumers is my question?

Thank you. So, I'll need two versions since I use Opensim for inworldz.

TIL that TIL means today I learnt TIL I'm not a competent Second Life mesh maker . And I do try to keep up with forum posts. Maybe not enough. TIL to spend less time building and more time reading I use firestorm and I don't see the solid surface thingy

So, by your standards, comments like this are respectful, and nobody should be offended by it? I assume 'that other' who keeps 'whining' is Viadetta? It could be almost anyone in this thread. You don't know the meaning of the word rude. I won't be responding to you anymore.

I hope you come back and read what I said because you can't just tell me off and then walk away

@Chic Aeon I agreed with Viadetta that Alwin was being rude to her. This is when it started getting nasty. It was going very well before his post. No nastiness until then. I would never react to anyone in a nasty way unless I felt they were being rude. As for the rest of your post I'm aware that other people besides merchants cash out. But this being the merchants forum, anyway that wasn't my main point. My point here is that Alwin was being rude to Viadetta, and it annoyed me. Just as it may have annoyed you that I was being rude to him, and you felt you had to say something. If people want to talk about their concerns about the fee increases, then I say let them, don't try to shut them up with rude abrupt put down condescending ( I can think of many more words to describe his comments).

There's no cap. '.....will be 2.5% per transaction, with a $3 (USD) minimum, and no maximum.'

Those are the creators who have put in the investment of their time and effort, and have therefore created the best products. It doesn't come easy. They're probably also paying for the software required to produce whatever they produce. And let's not forget tax. The thing that drives such productivity is the money that can be made. It's a very sensitive thing to keep increasing fees, and still maintain trust. I understand that LL need the money, and probably should get a bigger portion. I'm not arguing against that. But 3 increases, and the last one being such a huge one, it would leave people nervous. Take away too much and it may no longer be worth it. I know how many hours I put in. I think I'm probably working for about $8 an hour. So, no - LL is definitely not a charity. I think I am, though.

Well usually with people the greater the increase in fee the greater the pain. So, someone going from $25 to $250 a month will feel more pain than someone with an increase of say $5 a month. and the people who earn more are usually living on that income, a huge decrease in income of $250 will be felt more than the $5 a month. And since you acknowledge the pain why are you arguing with people who are feeling it? Is it just to make them feel worse?

You are not a merchant and so the increase in the process credit fee has no impact on you, and that is relevant, because it allows you to have no empathy. It doesn't affect you at all, and it's very easy to argue when you are not affected. You couldn't care less how much merchants are being impacted by the increase in fees, because you are not a merchant. And because of that the topic should be of no real concern or interest to you, except to tell others to stop complaining. The process credit fee is what is being discussed here, and not the other very small fee increases (which isn't worth talking about). This is a major increase for some merchants. For me it will be $50 a month increase, but I do feel for the merchants who face $200/month increase or more. Even though my increase is a lot less and easily absorbed, I can still have empathy for others who will feel a much greater impact.. I think creators/ merchants know very well that LL is not a charity. We work hard for every cent we make, staying up all night to get something done ( as I did last night). Viadetta, I thank you for your post.

I looked at your listings. Your babies are quite cute but also they're quite new. You need to give it time. I see your purple playhouse has had 6 reviews within the past 2 days, and all 5 stars, so that should be encouraging. Some more cynical people would say suspicious, but don't pay attention. It means that people are buying your things and recognising your ability. Keep going! It does take patience. I usually list an item and then forget it, because I know it will take a bit of time before it takes off, if it takes off at all. And sometimes you just can't tell because a creation that I love might not take off, yet one I am not quite satisfied with will become very popular. Another way, if you are prepared to take some risk, is to sell full perm. There's a huge demand for full perm.

Warning: You have entered private property and will be ejected in 10 seconds

Because Ebbe stated at one time that merchants make a very impressive amount of money, and he thought they should be paying their way a bit more.

I made sure I cashed out a heap in late November, and only because I thought this would happen.