JoJo Aurelia

This is from 08, but it's worth a read about virtual goods and the law. If a player in a MMOG were to accumulate a large amount of in-game currency (or special items) and then lose it through another player’s fraudulent actions, was anything actually lost?

It goes back to a couple of lost cows on a Zynga game... Actually, in my OP I didn't get into specifics, but repeatedly I lost inventory on several of their games and the inventory was restored with an email to their CS along with additional money or gifts for the trouble. True, you can't cash their money out into PayPal, but during my three years as a merchant here, I never cashed out. I used all monies earned to keep my business going--to pay tiers and to purchase items to keep my store operating, either seasonally or things like mesh, etc--in other words to pump it back into the SL economy. I beat myself up too over this, thinking I shouldn't have been organizing my inventory, that I shouldn't have emptied the trash, I should have... I was emotionally invested in all the work. Linden's final message to me regarding I played this game with no guarantees, was my final reason for defeat. There is a guarantee they'll take your money...but none it's safe. Go figure. I appreciated all responses here because I really just posted mostly to the blog and slinked away rather depressed, alone in my depression, and saddened by it all.

Arwen Serpente wrote: Sometimes SL does things that just aren't really "explainable". Today, I uploaded a new outfit, put it on and saved. I then adjusted a belt, moved some prims, resized, took it off, put it back on just to make sure the edits had "stuck". Then I log out. When I log back in an hour later, I'm wearing the prior version of the outfit and the edited belt was back to pre-adjustment build. No idea why SL does these things. Obviously, this is all incredibly minor versus the inventory loss that Faye and Czari experienced (and nothing was lost, just not the way I left it when I logged out). This happened to me. The last time, and most recent, I had redecorated my store, made many changes inside and out. I'd bought new trees and things, do-dads, whatever. Okay, spent an hour moving things, in and out of inventory, this and that.... Logged out. A few hours later, logged on,, everything was back the way it was prior to my redecorating, and my new items were gone! I had to notify the designer for replacements!

Darrius Gothly wrote: What follows is conjecture .. pure and simple .. but I'll explain how I arrive at it. The clue that I springboard off is the fact that Faye was emptying the Trash at the time her viewer lagged and then crashed. As I understand the process, each item deleted as the Trash is emptied is indicated as being deleted by sending a message to the Asset Server (through the Sim Server connection). A response is then sent indicating the message was received. However I suspect that at the time she suffered her inventory loss, the communication method used to send those messages was a type called "UDP". That's a type of message packet that wonks call "Fire and Forget". Basically the message is sent but there is no error checking to ensure it arrives intact and correct. Considering that she was emptying a LOT of items, the back and forth conversation got rather extensive. Many ISP's and some home routers tend to get grumpy when they see a massive amount of UDP type packets flying back and forth. (This is especially true on WiFi connections .. a type of connection that also has a bad reputation for mucking up data packets anyway.) I suspect that as the ping-pong conversation got longer and longer, her viewer began suffering various problems, memory leaks and whatnot .. and eventually consumed so much memory that it just croaked. Once her viewer dropped offline there were probably still a lot of "delete this UUID" messages still queued up that hadn't reached the Asset Server yet. As the Sim Server tried to clean things up, no doubt a number of them got sent through anyway .. but possibly with corrupted UUID's or other details. Worst of all Worst Case Scenarios is if a munged UUID wound up corresponding to a Folder UUID instead of an Asset UUID. That would result in massive deletion of an entire folder's worth of assets. The bottom line is .. as her Viewer and the Sim/Asset Servers were doing their back-and-forth .. things got yucky. The hell that could (and apparently did) ensue would be both unrecoverable and potentially disastrous. Now as I said at the top, this is all based purely on conjecture on my part. I am no Viewer Whiz. I have seen some pretty amazing and destructive behaviors from program systems that use unverified and unstable protocols. The protocol used in the Viewer to communicate Inventory used to be just that .. horrific. (My understanding is that they've switched to a much more reliable HTTP protocol now .. but again that's only based on my loose understanding of things.) Faye .. I don't know if you use a WiFi connection or not. If you do, or if anyone does, it is best to go wired instead. When you combine WiFi with an unstable Viewer, an unverified protocol .. and Linden Lab code .. you take your life (and Inventory) in your hands. In this case, it appears the Digital Devil saw an unprotected throat .. and ripped it. WOW, the nuts and bolts! No I don't use Wifi, however, I have a router in my house for a lap top that I never designed with. But, what I'd done was delete items on Firestorm earlier in the day but then later, I had problems with FS sound, so relogged into Linden's Offical Viewer, and remembered "all the trash" and thought I'd empy it while I was thinking about it. Then I got stuck... I couldn't get unstuck. Then I crashed. Would that matter using two viewers to finish a job?

Toysoldier Thor wrote: @Faye, With regard to your current strategy in light of the mass destruction of your business with no recovery ability by LL, I am a bit puzzled why you would reduce your price on MP and plan to shut it down. If you have decided to end any plans to restore an active SL business, why not simply leave all your content on MP at its original price and simply leave it selling on MP indefinitely? Just let your products continue to sell until market demand & time slowly reduce your sales to zero. They would be stale content in that you will not be updating the content - so what? If a customer finds your product and wants to buy your product - even if its 3 years from now - let them buy it. Your avatar is still alive and you can still respond to any customer calls and help them if you are able to. If not, simply tell your customer "due to a major LL failure - I am unable to assist you on this request". If they dont like it... ohh well... you really dont have a business to maintain anyways. You might want to place a small comment on each of your items explaining the situation you were put in because LL lost your inworld content so "be warned". In fact, here is what also doesnt make sense, can you not regain your assets from the MP DD database? At least you have the full perm copy of the content you are selling on MP. But I surely would not take a strategy of actively closing your MP - let them all sit there and let them all collect as much revenue as you can from MP until they sell no more. Thank you for your responses. It's a two fold question. I decided to just be generous as a parting gift to the people who really don't have money and want nice clothes. Remember that my items, priced from 199L to 499L were not selling AT ALL on MP after LL made changes to their system, (unless I paid for ads)--I'm no teckie and I don't know what they were doing. I literally dropped off the radar after making regular sales on MP. Poof. I realize the market is glutted but, this was like I wasn't there at all. After my inventory loss, I just 10L or Free'd everything, thinking, what the hell, not selling anyways and I then thought I'd remove everything when I had time (MP is really really slow). I wasn't going to keep the items up at those prices but remove them eventually. I really wasn't coming back as a designer. I really didn't care anymore. Pamela from LaGallera was the only merchant who contacted me with concern. Tho I didn't post here on the forums, I did notify many in my groups and other designers. I had a huge free party sale for my customer groups, and told as many people as I could. I blogged and twittered it. I got a few kind responses. I knew someone would ask why I lowered the prices. But I'd just decided to give out some pretty clothes that might otherwise be buried in MP...and it was buried. The cheap prices gave me sales and people got nice shoes. LOL. I still offer customer service if they contact me. I do remember a merchant complaining about stores going out of business and having 10L sales, further glutting the market, and did feel a bit guilty about it...but I've given so much away anyways in hunts, amazing beautiful things, that I just felt like WTF did it matter? It might be wrong, I don't know, and I hope I don't get people hollering at me. It was all very tramatic for me and I just didn't want to have any more negative press. I have gone back and upped some prices again (about a month ago). I can't explain the emotional rollercoaster I went through over this... Ultimately, as I tried to explain in original OP, I just ran out of steam. I was burned out, depressed, and had put 3 years of my RL into something that wasn't really real in the end.

Arwen Serpente wrote: Faye, I'm so upset for you and wish there were a way to help you recover things. It sounds like you've tried everything. One thing that might help replace at least some of your building supplies would be to contact the creators of those supplies and ask if they would redeliver. If you kept all your SL transactions by month, you could sort by expediture, so you would have "proof" that you had purchased them. It takes time to contact the other creators, but I bet lots would help restore what you've lost. I've done it for my customers (I had one woman in tears in im's having lost all the dresses she had ever bought from me over the last 3 years - I just looked up her records and restored everything). Just a thought... I started doing that, first by going through MP purchases. It just became so depressingly slow. Some responded, others didn't... just how much time was involved to get them returned. Some things I bought inworld. I had no record of that stuff and it was really expensive--animations, for example, many many full perm objects, like furnitures, because I built many thing. At every turn, I'd find another thing GONE. As I mentioned in my original post, I just had to make a decision. Plus I lost the textures I'd paid to upload! Thousands of them!!!!! at 10L each! Again... I had to make a choice. ;-(

If she outed herself and she's running for postion, then dooh...but still... the spin was like it's the "same." Are we the avatars we play? Maybe a bit, yes! I never viewed SL as a game. I imagine that if I was running for office, they'd quote me saying that! LOL. I'm not from Mars, but Venus.

PS. On my blog there you'll find the actual ticket reponse from LL at the bottom of the post. http://www.kakiadesigns.com/2012/08/the-risks-of-virtual-business-in-second.html Note: my support ticket was back and forth because at first I wasn't aware of what all I lost. I thought I could replace it, and some of it I did get back, but as time went on, at every turn as I'd start a new project, that item or texture would be gone. At first, you can see on ticket, I thought, fine, I'm going to be ok, but then, bang, I'd find another thing gone...well, it was all a rather manic experience.

I did go to Aditit within a day or two. I am not sure of the time frame but it was shortly after. I went through all the known steps to recover inventory that SL and other members suggested. It was a series of things, including clean uninstalls, tried other computers that SL hadn't been used for. I can't even remember all that I did. Many sent me info on ideas, but, sadly nothing worked. I loved my life in SL, my land and store and I miss my butterflies the most. I was partnered. I had a life here. But it all became too much after that--I really invested thousands into SL, and I honestly shouldn't have done that. I don't have expendable income like that--but I loved SL and kept paying into it-- So all that money spent and the help I didn't get--well, it was a wake up call. Since leaving, I'm writing again and just taking out whatever money my Market Place items still generate (I slashed prices with the idea of closing that too, but the MP is SLOW....Eventually I'll remove everything). Thanks for all the thoughts. I didn't publish my store loss here at the forums when it happended because often this forum is contentious and I was depressed and didn't want confrontation. I felt very beat up and alone...anyways.

This link was referred to me to add my comment. I lost most of my inventory that I used in my business and left Second Life around the first of August. Here's my story so you can add it to this open forum: I copied this from my blog: I was going to close the blog without further notices, but I thought it might be relevant to post my support ticket and some thoughts about my inventory loss that ended my Second Life business. I worked 7 days a week, 8-10 hour days. I paid mainland tiers and I had premium account. Over the years I've lost items here and there with rolling restarts, or mysterious disappearances, but this wasn't one item, and as time went on, I realized it wasn't just my building folder (everything I make clothing with other than Photoshop imports), but a weeding out of every singe folder. It was as if I'd moved from my main avatar to some low inventory alt. At the time I was using Phoenix's Firestorm, and Linden's Official Viewer. I suspect this jumping between viewers caused the loss. That said, assetsservers should be able to restore inventory regardless of viewer used. To say I was freaked out, is very mildly put. And, my knee jerk response, pitted against the clear and concise reality that to regroup would be complex, time consuming, costly, really was a week of madness. Denial, grief...acceptance that my hard built boat was somewhat sunk. Could I reorganize, regroup and move on, the way I suppose many in Second Life have done after inventory loses. Yes, and no. First, irregardless of whether "I could do this," the fiduciary responsibility of my inventory was Linden Lab's alone, as they give us no ability to back up our inventory. Our inventory is 100% in their care. Regroup option: The truth of the matter was I wasn't making much Lindens in Second Life as a fashion designer, and the cost for me was far more than my earnings, in part by some mysterious change to Market Place. Pre mystery, I was selling regularly, after mystery, it was as if I didn't have "any" presence on Market Place. Unable to make a dent in tier costs on Market Place, I focused marketing inworld, and incurred expensive land fees. I joined one Hunt and Freebie group after another to bring in clients. Of course, they were non-paying clients, and I don't hold that against them, it's just a "take" mentality. Once I gave away a wedding gown for a hunt. I had literally hundreds of takers, and not one bought anything else in my store. Amazing really. I had this blog and a Twitter feed, a spot on Flickr and all the necessary social networks. I had bloggers blogging my items, and Penderest. Inworld, I was involved in fashion events, runway shows, and belonged to numerous fashion groups. But 90% of my creative energy began to be siphoned off by hunts. I found myself under one deadline after another for hunts expecting (sometimes demanding) exclusive or new items. Thus, just before the inventory loss, I was burning out, a slow sizzle of discouragement to stay afloat in a rapidly changing Second Life fashion environment, and (for me) a defunct Market Place. Reason not to regroup -- Changes: Then the introduction of Mesh changed the fashion landscape. If you don't know Blender, or some other mesh making platform, and rely on the mesh creators, what you have is an influx of same style different texture clothing. It takes away the uniqueness of hand drawn clothing that might set you apart. I became very adept at making ballroom gowns, but how many ballgowns does the average woman in SL need? Probably, one. I can't be objective about how good I was or wasn't at making clothing. I do know my seams matched, but it's a difficult industry to break into even if you're exceptional. Just like real life, there are fashion cliques that are bound so tight that to be invited into any event is significant. Many times I just invited myself, and this wasn't always well received. Once, I asked in a Second Life Forum how I could find out about fashion events, and someone responded, "You'll know if they want you to know." I don't want to flame out of Second Life with a grudge everyone has to hear about, and that's not the point here. I'm writing this to say its very hard to break into Second Life fashion even if you learn the skills. When you're barely in on the fashion radar, and then lose everything you've done for 3 years in one fell-swoop, you stand back and think, "huh, what the hell was I spending my money and time doing this for when it could all go up in a poof of virtual smoke?" I don't know. Maybe the pure seduction of Second Life. The most interesting, and terribly eye awakening for me the silence of the Second Life fashion community that a fellow designer could be put out of business by inventory loss. That begs why? Kakia Designs was a small insignificant designer? More business for us? That kind of thinking is folly. Silence is what Linden Labs banks on. Silence changes nothing. Now what?: I don't know. I miss Second Life. I miss my store. I miss my home and friends. Even if I never had made one Linden, I wouldn't have been discouraged enough to leave, lock stock and barrel. It was Linden Lab's arrogant attitude, and tough luck, "no warranties," stance. Can anyone tell me a business that operates in this manner? Who's the bigger fool, those of us who invest in this company, or Linden Labs? There are 100's of not millions of online "games" and virtual worlds to take our attentions and money. Most come with satisfying customer service. When I lost some inventory on Castelville, Zynga sent me new items within 24 hours without question. They didn't ask me to do anything. No clearing of cache. No install new viewers. They just sent me the cows, and extra Zynga bucks for the trouble of losing a cow. Linden Labs, had a paying customer who gave them $75 a month ($150 for awhile), and more through hundreds of uploads. Wouldn't they try to keep me sending that check? Their mentality is, "sorry." Sorry? Imagine if your cable TV went out and all the company said was, "sorry." Or your house burned down and your insurance said, "sorry." Is "sorry" a business model? I did thank this one rep, who "tried" to help. I don't blame him. Whatever the abilities of customer service, they seem limited. The divorce remains amazingly singular, as I've not heard from anyone within Second Life, or out, and even this blog has fizzled to nothing at all. Linden Labs will continue to reign power over our virtual goods until the residents rumble, strike, and demand safe controls of our virtual items, or the laws force them to get their act together. Until then, residents will live in denial it could happen to them, continue their building, selling, sexing, and false sense of securities, and Linden Lab will take their money. (the actual ticket is on my blog... I left SL in August. No more Mainland Tiers, No prem account. LL didn't miss me or my $$. )

No didn't add my voice. I should. I didn't know about that link. I think we all suffer in silence.

My point of the post wasn't what else she was doing as a candidate, but that they're showing her avi on the TV news tonight and talking about the *character* she plays being who she is in real life. They didn't dig as deep as you people have. I saw it on the news and found this article to link it as a reference. The spin was, virtual world, real world--is the same. So forget her blogs and crap and whatever else. Think about being an SL avatar and you're like King of some BDSM resort, or WHATEVER, fill in blanks, and you go for a job interview, and they got your leather and lace, tied and whipped avi in front of them on the screen---- ok, so they get this info about you. Or whoever gets it. We post on FB and Twitter Knowing it's out there, but we don't use SL to be OUT THERE. Do we? Are we all sharing our avatar experiences with our families and co workers? No. We're not. ALL I was saying and thought it would be more thought provoking (guess not) was, do people want this shared, who we are in SL? I'm not that hidden, my pic is on my blogs, etc., but plenty don't want things know. Like the school official I know who has interesting peccadillo in Second Life. When are they going to post their Internet history? That's what I want to see. Then we're in major league baseball!!! The day will come.

Please. Scary that two a person is being judged by being in a virtual world. Hell, I'd be in big trouble if people started researching my avatar. Ha!

Omg this is bad but... I lost half my inventory and was put out of business. Read my full report here:http://www.kakiadesigns.com/2012/08/the-risks-of-virtual-business-in-second.html I actually haven't been in SL since this happened. I cancelled my $75 mainland tier, and my prem service. I still have my items on MP but marked down or free. It was a big wake up call not to invest my time here. I still offer CS support. But after 3 years I threw in the towel. I just couldn't fight with LL anymore.

http://theweek.com/article/index/234446/when-politics-collides-with-world-of-warcraft-colleen-lachowicz-public-shaming Anyone see this? I hope it's not a double post. If so, just give me the link. I tried to search it in the forums. How scary is this? I mean... dang.

I don't know why but it resolved. Ha ha. Love the mystery of SL~

Since I upgraded with new FS version, when I stand on pose stand, I always sit now! Any ideas about that? (yes, AO is off)

It's all explained in my blog post that I linked earlier. They couldn't help me. I cancelled the premium account, and got rid of my Mainland I had for a long long time. I just left. It was too disheartening to try to start over. I didn't even post about here here because I was so depressed. Now it's been over 6 weeks so it's all gone I'm sure. Many people gave me so much advise and I tried it all. At some point we just have to admit we're over and out... it's just gone.

I believe Arwen answered it... What I was doing was just unlisting the old item, then doing an auto fill and the older item would appear, and auto fill it, add any other info, like V2, etc., and then list it, then delete the old one. I never have figured out the way Arwen explained but I think she has an easier method than me. I wasn't clear as to your question, but now I see you want to update something.

Thanks. I tried to save cache to other location, no luck for me. On top of removing every hidden file and all viewers. I dunno where things went but just gave up.

I lost so much inventory I closed my store. LL couldn't help me and I had premium account 3 years. I wrote about it here. Sorry for your loss. Linden Labs does not guarantee the saftely of your items regardless of what kind of account. The whole thing freaked me out. I've pretty much left SL other than visiting with a few friends from time to time.

As far as I know there isn't an outbox folder. You'll know what you have on MP by going to Merchants area in Market Place and manage listings. I have items on MP and no outbox folder, either. And yes, it will be empty once you send them to Market Place.

When we reach out in this world we become vulnerable. That's just a fact.

I had a crash last week while trying to get some kind of "order" to the 45,000 items in my inventory. I had deleted a ton of crap...freebie textures, things I'd picked up when I first started. SO... I'm on LL viewer, and hit "empty trash," HANG, CRASH. When I came back on, I realized I'd lost 1/2 my inventory. The nightmare was it was my building/clothing folder that I create all my designs from. Everything from meshes to flex skirts to sculpts to every building item I've ever bought or made. LL said I didn't lose it. But after everything advised to do...everything...and hours upon hours, I'm done trying to restore something that is forever gone. I was able to find many items in original boxes in my objects folder (thank God I never moved them), and I did contact a few creators whom I spent the most money and had replacements delivered (thank you if you're one of them) but everyday I find another thing I need that's gone. LL needs to have a way to restore our inventories. Color folders, fine, but protect what we have. This is the first time I've ever lost anything in my inventory. I've lost plenty inworld when there's a restart. The inventory system is horrible. With a large inventory, it's impossible to move items wtihout folders jumping. closing, opening...it's a nightmare. And my experience a uber nightmare. Thankfully, I am getting a handle on what I lost and rebuiliding or buying what I really need. I guess that's one way to clean out your inventory! LOL

I didn't understand what you were talking about until I read Amethyst Jetaime post. She's right.