Darrius Gothly

Theresa Tennyson wrote: ... looked like a museum exhibit. *blows the dust off his shoulders* HEY! What's wrong with this stuff? It fit me 5 years ago and by golly it STILL fits. LOL (which btw is when I last changed clothes)

Theresa Tennyson wrote: Darrius Gothly wrote: If Linden Lab wants Sansar to be the expressive, emotive, imaginative star of the next wave in VR ... they need to start by throwing open the gates and letting ALL forms of imagination in. To do otherwise will mean a uniform, vanilla puree blah landscape with all the interest quotient of another stretch of asphalt reaching into infinity. How wide can the gates be opened if they have to be compatible with things that are over a decade old? Hmm .. last I checked, I can still buy shoes that fit my feet and the feet of many others. Seems to me they're a pretty old concept too. I can still open TXT files in Windows 10 or Ubuntu or on a smartphone. Does it take some extra thought and some extra work? Absolutely Yes. But it also yields a much larger audience that is comfortable moving to the next "New Thing" than what can be achieved by allowing only "New Stuff" and expressly disincluding everything "Old". IMO: The rush to New all too often results in throwing away the lessons of the past in favor of re-inventing everything. It is quite possible, though not always easy, to bring the customer base with you. I believe rather strongly that discarding the past will always yield a subset of the possible base and never outgrow the predeccesor's boundaries.

Rhonda Huntress wrote: Darrius Gothly wrote: If Linden Lab wants Sansar to be the expressive, emotive, imaginative star of the next wave in VR ... they need to start by throwing open the gates and letting ALL forms of imagination in. To do otherwise will mean a uniform, vanilla puree blah landscape with all the interest quotient of another stretch of asphalt reaching into infinity. I hate to be the devil's advocate but apply that same thinking to music. While the depth you get from being expressive, emotive and imaginative yields better music, bubblegum pop sells more records.. No argument from me there. It also becomes the "thing" for about 10 seconds .. then vanishes. It's the age-old long vs. short term view of business (and life in general). If a business is designed and built around the short-term lifetime expectancy then it should be no surprise to investors when they don't get any return on their investment. It should also be no surprise to users when they spend money, time and effort only to watch it vanish in a week or two as the company uses up its full allotment of 10 seconds then disappears. SL is a living .. STILL living thing. It doesn't have the Zam-POW of some phenom startups, nor does it spend a lot of its blood staying barely ahead of the Grim Reaper either. It's a steady income vehicle, and as Ebbe was quoted in the article cited in the OP .. it is still profitable. It just seems counterproductive to throw away one of the fundamental assets of a decade-plus old venture to chase an income stream guaranteed to vanish in less than a year. When I think about any sort of business venture, I look for ways to include the Zam-POW without sacrificing the "doing it for 20 years straight" reliability. PS: Anyone know the current sales of .. for example .. The Beatles White Album? Elvis Presley's estate worth .. or even Michael Jackson's?

Qie Niangao wrote: wherorangi wrote: like tie it to Avatar Complexity. If over some limit then can pay X amount to enter the rest of the sim. Or change outfit to under the free limit. Or go home I quite like this. It would be even better if the script could say something like: "To stay on this parcel for one hour, please pay L$63, and here's the breakdown of what each item you're wearing contributes to that cost...." Okay .. but first we need an "I LIKE THIS" button on forum posts. I'd start by using it with ^^^this^^^ and the thoughts leading into it.

Based on what I've seen and read so far .. it seems the population of those "invited" into creating for Sansar has been limited to a very specific subset of Creators that meet certain quality standards. As someone who is very artistically challenged (the stuff I make looks like .. umm ... ugly stuff) this smacks of artificially filtering out those that don't match the personal likes and dislikes of an unknown and invisible Elite. I've seen some absolutely horrid builds. And I've seen some absolutely horrible looking scenes that were designed with the ultimate in artistry and skill. I can look beneath that outside layer and, even though it may not appeal to my tastes, appreciate the effort and heart poured into the work. What I might call trash, others may find the most beautiful work ever seen. To my way of thinking, that's where SL gets one of its most resilient appeals: catering to every like and every dislike all at once. Like a giant bowl of stew. Some may push aside the peas and carrots and eat only the meat. Others may eschew the meat and potatoes and gorge on the veggies. But if you take any of those ingredients out to cater to one taste or another, it stops being a hearty stew and starts being something else. Something that caters to a subset of the whole and can never garner the interest or devotion of the whole.

(psst .. I routnely put up a dev platform at 4090m and build "short" .. cuz there's only about 6m room up there for me to move. But I can build higher if I keep the centerpoint below the 4096m mark.)

And THERE it is ... what I was waiting for. The Elitism that so typifies Project Sansar. "If we can just get rid of the riff-raff, this would be such a better place..." What's odd about this sentiment is it's always the "other guy" (or gal or furry or dragon or mutant or .. whathaveyou) that is the problem. Completely ignoring the fact that it is the sheer depth of diversity that makes the world of Second Life an exciting interesting place. When I go to the forest and stare off into the thickest copse of trees, I don't marvel at the uniformity of the leaves, wonder how they managed to grow all the trunks in such perfectly aligned rows, or even contemplate the delightful arrangement of the same shade of green everywhere. I stand aghast and in awe at the range of colors, the random scattering of Nature's most imaginative artistry and how it absolutely pins my eyes and my mind to the edges of reality. Sure, a uniform brick wall has its points of interest .. for about 10 seconds. But then I'm off to the rolling hills of green grass, the way the clouds punctuate the sky with never-ending shapes of all kinds .. and the beauty of imagination as realized by every single soul that has wandered that way. If Linden Lab wants Sansar to be the expressive, emotive, imaginative star of the next wave in VR ... they need to start by throwing open the gates and letting ALL forms of imagination in. To do otherwise will mean a uniform, vanilla puree blah landscape with all the interest quotient of another stretch of asphalt reaching into infinity.

(Sorry .. this is actually to Phil Deakins...) Hey Phil? Time to do an update to your Orb? "Pay or Go Home" option maybe? On first blush it sounds rather odd but .. after thinking on it a bit .. kinda makes sense. Don't it?

Theresa Tennyson wrote: When Apple introduced the iPhone, did they say it was the next generation of the Newton? No. Nor did they say "everything you know and love about Apple products is gone. This is a fresh start and nothing we've done in the past applies." But that's what LL has done. BTW: If you're comparing the iPhone from Newton transition to the Sansar from SL transition, that's a really poor analogy to make. Sansar so far has touted one additional feature .. Oculus Rift (or similar VR headset). What the iPhone brought to the party was a Newton, plus a Mac, plus an iPod plus a mobile phone plus plus plus. The defining features of Sansar are .. ummm .. oh yeah, nothing you have in SL will apply. With that in mind, let me ask you this: Did Apple say "The iPhone 6 is so revolutionary that nothing you know about iPhone 5 will be useful"?

Mainland is for Premium members. They get a specific size parcel with their membership fee. Thus it is included in their SL costs. Private Sims are open to anyone but they also require you to spend extra beyond your costs to use SL. I would agree that Mainland is more "private" than so-called Private Sims. TBH I don't know of anyone that has a large tract of mainland just for the purposes of building exploration areas. But they do build them on Private Sims. "Exploring" mainland is more like "exploring" a gated community .. generally not a good idea.

What you report is one of the primary reasons I "walk" around on mainland. I stick to the roads where Security Orbs aren't allowed to attack you. (Public roads are owned by LL's Department of Public Works and are open to every one.) Unfortunately the makers of Security Orbs are only responding to the demands of their customers. There are some folks that are so adamant about having total privacy that they consider 1 second as "ample time to react". Clearly it isn't. But still .. it's their land and they are empowered to manage it in any way they want. It's unpleasant, it's annoying .. and it can be avoided by sticking to the roads. It's also one of those "user to user" conflicts that LL stays away from with a passion.

I loved this phrase in the very first sentence: "Second Life, the community-building online fantasy whose popularity spiked a decade ago" That's probably the best outsider description of SL that I've seen in a long time. One thing that keeps slapping me in the face though is the impenetrable firewall that LL has built in the public perception between Second Life and Sansar. In the article the author points out that VR with a 3D twist is the real target of Sansar as well as the business ventures of many other top-flight companies. It just strikes me as counter-productive to keep insisting "Sansar is nothing like SL" all while hoping to be a leader in the upcoming "hot niche" of 3DVR. Sure, SL's peak may have been a decade ago. But I challenge anyone to find a VR-based product anywhere that still holds on to customers like SL does. It just makes more sense to me to start off with something like "Folks, the world of VR is getting ready to make a giant leap forward and we're the vanguard force to make it happen. Please jump in the boat with us and help us take our successes into the future." (or some similar rally the troops rhetoric) I dunno what happens in the backrooms and boardrooms at LL. Maybe the investors are so disenchanted with the way SL has turned out that they forbade whispering the name anywhere near Sansar. But if so, I'm not so sure I'd trust the "investment sense" of those investors much. Just my thoughts ...

Tamara Artis wrote: ... I honestly believe that doing SL customer service can make the person go mad. Oh trust me, I know exactly what you mean. I've had one or two conversations with ex-customers that verged on the border between "Twilight Zone" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". It's fairly easy to spot people (Merchants and Customers both) that are on the edge of suffering burn-out as they start sniping at people for little to no reason. But there's another type of "go mad" that some merchants suffer .. the "totally drunk on power" type. This type somehow manages to obtain pretty much a monopoly in a market niche, surrounds themselves with sycophants and "Yes" people .. then starts treating customers with massive disrespect and disdain. I think they call it 'Rock Star Syndrome'. That's what is going on here. I've "touched the face of madness" a few times in my life as well. Fortunately I have a good wife that kicks my backside and reminds me I'm only human. AND I have good circles of friends around me that also helped me keep focused on the fact that I'm only human and no better than the next person I meet. Keeping perspective of one's own failings and imperfections is IMO absolutely crucial to staying on top. Otherwise? It's a long long fall from the top ....

Darrius Gothly wrote: .. it's time you came off your pedestal. I've had the chance to speak with several other customers of this merchant and come to a decision. In light of the fact that this merchant holds complete control over the livelihoods of so many people, and can at a whim cut off their sole income ... I have decided not to post my blog article. I won't put their incomes and businesses at risk. Even though I am quite sure this merchant would in a heartbeat destroy their lives, I won't. 'nuff said.

Sassy Romano wrote: 1) Don't know, don't care, didn't really track it. Hardly get reviews anyway 2) Don't shop anymore so don't leave reviews. Problem solved! I don't recall getting IM's back, usually because i'd be the one starting the fight in the first place Yes, apathy is one approach. Maybe it works for you, but in this case I personally feel the Merchant's response is both overly dramatic and emotionally immature. I can't "out" the merchant here, but I can on my blog. And I will do so as well. When you have as widespread a customer base as this person does, and you dive into childish histrionics over a simple issue such as this .. you NEED to be called out and made to face the light of public scorn. We Merchants live and survive on our reputations, our products and our customer service. But when you stop providing quality products, turn your "Customer Service" into personal attacks, and engage in profanity instead of courtesy .. it's time you came off your pedestal.

A friend of mine recently purchased a new product from a well-known merchant. Upon purchase, after carefully reading the included instructions and Wiki pages, they found a few things objectionable about the product. As a result, they wrote a review on SLM pointing out the failures and objections as well as the pluses and benefits. Balanced honest review with an honest 3-star rating. Nuff said, right? Wrong. Soon afterward the Merchant sent a profanity laced IM to my friend and then added a snarky "up yours" comment on their review. The Merchant then later added a whiny "now that you've destroyed my product" comment after my friend tried to explain even further the issues and discrepancies. Pardon me but .. "destroyed my product"? For a 3-star review? There are two other reviews, both 5-stars, that seem more like sycophantic blurbs ... but still they offset the rating my friend gave, bringing it up to 4+ stars. I've got a few products on SLM that have garnered 1-star reviews. It's usually because the buyer was upset that I didn't make the script inside full-perm so they could steal it and use it in their own products. But still the reviews stand. I've also had reviews posted less than 5-stars that made me realize my description was insufficient or needed tweaking to help make the obvious moreso. So now my question(s): 1) Merchants: When you get a less-than 5-star review, how has it affected your product sales or behavior? and.. 2) Buyers: When you post an honest review and get an offline IM cussing you out, how does it make you feel?

Well that's the curious part. I can log in to SL, can wander around, build stuff .. even spend money. But I can't find the web pages that In-world Search uses to determine ranking, nor can I find the Parcels in In-World Search. So for all intents and purposes .. the Parcels have gone invisible to anyone trying to find them using Search. If they know where we are .. it's good. But if they're trying to find us .. Oops! Outta luck! For me it's not such a bad problem as most of my sales are SLM and word of mouth. But my Landlord, who's Rental Office and showroom are "gone"? It's a killer! BTW: Finally about 3pm SLT I was able to restart the Sim once more and the Parcels did return. But for those hours they were gone. If I wasn't someone that watches Search like a vulture, I would never know we'd vanished. Well .. except for the massive drop in Traffic ...:matte-motes-frown:

The past 3-4 weeks there has been an error occurring after the Server is restarted for the weekly rolling restart. The error causes various Parcel web pages to return an HTTP Error 500 when attempting to retrieve the page. In weeks past it required up to 4 manual restarts and several hours before the error finally clears. This week it is being even more obnoxious. The Sim in question is on the Main Channel. The parcels affected htis week are: http://world.secondlife.com/place/9bfb9f5d-058e-4054-6758-e5ff24b426bchttp://world.secondlife.com/place/d1806df6-ac76-b306-fde0-e92b8c5b5735It is now more than six hours after the Sim was restarted for the weekly restart. I have manually restarted the Sim 3 times now. Still no success. Is anyone else having this sort of problem? BTW: There is a freebie on SLM that you can obtain to report your Parcel's web page URL and its Boost value.



The quickest method of ekeing more money from the LindeX is to bump the average sell price gently upward. This depends on the lag time between when those Linden Dollars were purchased and when they are sold. By keeping the price slowly inching up, they benefit from the lag time and thus retain more US Dollars. This is a game roughly equivalent to the game banks play with the "Float". By accepting depostis instantly but delaying withdrawals for a few days, they gain the benefits of holding more money at any one time. With the LindeX, by pushing up the price, LL effectively gets to hold on to a larger chunk of money for a longer period of time. BUT ... it's a "dog chasing tail" game when it comes to the LindeX. As new L$ are purchased at the higher exchange rate, the advantages of the lag trail off and disappear. Thus they have to bump the average sell price a little bit more to recoup that extra cash. It worries me greatly that they've landed on manipulating the LindeX as a means of sucking more income from Second Life. Because it is a dynamic market and any changes eventually settle out, they are in effect messing with a finely balanced system .. knocking it way off kilter .. all for the sake of a tiny bit more cash. That's akin to a company selling off their inventory, inventory needed to build new product for sale, just to cover a short-term shortfall. When you start seeing that sort of behavior, it's time to head for the door.

500

Iren Tinkel wrote: <snip> ... But what is reason of low demand? Technical problems or people dontvwant to buy lindens anymore or they dont use lindex to buy lindens? The change seen in the LindeX has been much more rapid than can be explained by changes in customer behavior or attitude. We are seeing large blocks of Linden Dollars placed for sale in such a way that legitimate sellers must keep inching up the L$ per US$ price just to complete the sale within a decent time. Those that have some patience have always been able to place their L$ for sale at the same price as the "Block" current at that time. In other words, if there was a giant Block of L$ for sale at L$249/US$ then patient sellers could Limit Sell at that price. That is still true today, it hasn't really changed. What has changed though is the price point of that Block. From L$249 just a few weeks ago to L$257 at this moment. I simply will not believe the Block is the result of Customer Limit Sell orders; the amount is just too high to support that theory. Right this instant there are L$19,702,002 for sale at L$257/US$. That amounts to more than $76,660.00! What Merchant in SL has that sort of money tied up in "worthless game coupons"? The blocks at L$251/US$ (L$83,345,025) and L$250/US$ (L$125,769,708) are even more suspicious. They amount to over $835,000.00! That's an amount completely unthinkable for even a good sized pool of Merchants to put on hold. Remember ... those amounts placed for sale are essentially "sunk" funds. With the market price at L$257/US$, any L$ placed for sale at a lower price are .. effectively .. out of circulation and useless to the owner of those Sales Orders. Do you know anyone in SL that is willing to let even $1000.00 sit idle for weeks and weeks, let alone $10,000.00 or even $100,000.00?!? This fact alone convinces me that the real "Market Driver" of the drastic changes in the Exchange Rate is Linden Lab itself. Adding in their obvious need for more capital, their increased expenses in regards Project Sansar, and the ever-present pressure from the BoD and Investors to suck more out of SL .. I believe strongly that we are seeing yet another example of the Second Life customer being used as an unwitting and unwilling blood bank. The real victims though are the stable, long-term business people that have spent years building and maintaining real life enterprises that stand on the Second Life platform. Their sheer momentum forces them to absorb the losses and expenses created by the blatant manipulation of Linden Lab. And this comes at a time when Linden Lab is trying to convince "Creators" that their NEXT venture .. Project Sansar .. will be ever-so friendly and easy to use to create additional income. (yeah ... riiiiiight!)

.. plus the cost of not having access to the money that was left sitting in your L$ account for the full year. I have to admit, I'm really torn on this. I do appreciate having the money faster. But at what cost? I mean, there is value to receiving the money more quickly, but I just can't say that the value is worth the extra fees paid. Because the fees seem out of balance with the value, and because we have no other choices, it tends to rub one the wrong way ... making you feel like the Godfather made you an offer etc. etc. /me takes off his tinfoil hat ... ... this time.

entity0x wrote: The point of this topic is to discuss how we can better organize these things, minimize visual spam and confusion, and add filters and categories to the MP to handle emerging marketing 'schemes'. From where I sit and based on my own personal perception, the "point of this topic" really appears to be you attempting to assert your personal preference on the entirety of the Marketplace. As has been stated by many, including a member of the Linden Family, the issues you find intolerable are in fact of no concern to most everyone else. There are many MANY more issues that need addressing. Issues that affect Merchant income, Product delivery, Sales and Accounting statistics .. things that REALLY matter to a majority of people. Whether or not the same image "seems" to be used in a few listings is ... way down the list of "issues" to be found in need of attention. To put it bluntly, it seems to bother you intensely. But it also seems to bug only you. There is a simple work-around so it will stop bugging you. Lacking a consensus among the larger population, I recommend you control your own side of the wire and let this windmill spin.

(Beware of flying pigs .. I'm kind of taking LL's side on this .. kind of .. ) Speaking from a purely technical data-integrity perspective, it makes sense that the Third-Party service Linden Lab has chosen would limit their "Trust Database" to only their own self-collected information. By restricting their decisions to only those transactions they have processed, they can guarantee the veracity of the data and the outcome of their algorithms. To accept transaction data from outside sources would be to forfeit the 100% accuracy required to represent themselves as being accurate and reliable. Now, with that said, I do agree that there should be some sort of option available. Even better would be a "pay for performance" option wherein you get charged the new fees if they can get the money to your PayPal account within 1-2 business days. Anything more than that would revert to the old fee structure since .. as has been rightly pointed out .. no benefit was had and thus no extra charges should be levied. After all, FedEx, UPS and other "overnight" delivery services will either credit back the full charge or at least discount it to basic rates if they fail to meet the promised delivery time. It's a basic tenet of business: If you fail to provide good service, you don't get paid. But then again, when has Linden Lab ever held themselves to that standard?