Polenth Yue

They're big signboard vendors. One with the HUD and one for the candy bowl.

I'm suddenly trying to decorate my Linden Home in time for the treat or treating event. Then I will be going out to get candy and earn at least one special bear (if you've not seen that announcement, worth checking the Linden Homes forum... you don't need to be premium to take part). I tend to like cute spooky stuff more than horror gore. I read horror, but it's not what I'm looking for in Hallowe'en.

I've never found that marketplace adverts do much and the last announcements group I was in didn't really have customers (just other merchants sending notices that nobody read). Take part in events. You make money and advertise at the same time.

The reality of the longer downtimes of past games was that people would hang out in chat rooms and forums complaining about not being able to play. They didn't go out into the world. "Ready Player One" is pretty typical of LitRPG stories in having a nostalgic view of the way old games operated. But those things were dumped because they didn't work, not for any other reason. Permadeath and letting people kill each other freely being two other mechanics that LitRPG loves and didn't really work. To be fair, it's a fiction genre, so they only really want to make a good story rather than a good game/virtual world. You should keep that firmly in mind before you start trying to use LitRPG books/movies as design blueprints.

Someone who likes the houseboat vibe, but wants the space of a house and garden, might want to live near houseboats. Different things for different people.

The online gambling sites are to blame for that and are the extreme examples. The church that needs a new roof is not to blame for that and is a trivial example. That's what I mean when I say that context matters. You don't show any signs of seeing that. Everything is binary. Good or bad. Right or wrong. But the world (and Second Life) really doesn't work like that.

The debate reminds me of people who'd get angry about churches having raffles at fundraisers for roof repairs. Gambling was always completely evil in all ways, so there was no room to see a difference between the roof repair raffle where you could win a box of chocolates and betting your life savings on the horses. Second Life's issue is that we have no way to split between the trivial random-pet-rock games and the more extreme examples. It was down to how the machines were used, so the ban ended up taking them all out. It may have unintended impacts on things like 7Seas in the future, despite the fish being token prizes. Basically, this is about banning gumball machines for having multiple flavours, because some other system took someone's life savings. It doesn't help to brand the gumballs as the problem, which is what happens if you take the stance that random prizes are totally evil in all ways and context never matters.

People are going to be hesitant about investing in something that might get banned in six months. Maybe these machines will take off once everything is stable and it doesn't look like they're going to be banned, but I don't see them suddenly being everywhere by next week. I haven't actually hit a shop with one on a hunt yet, whereas a lot of those shops had gachas. Complaints seem based on the theory that these will be as big as gacha, rather than it being a reality at the moment. I don't really have a moral view on them either way. If they contain little pets or the like where every prize is great, I might play one. If only the rare is worth something and the rest is junk, I won't. Much like I did with gachas.

Fill it with mushrooms.

That coast borders a big empty space on the map, so could be that they're building along to link it to a new theme area.

Other than a joke inactive gacha machine with smoke pouring out of it, I've not seen any gachas on hunts since the deadline. Events I'm signed up for have changed to comply with the new rules. I'm sure some people aren't bothering with the rules, but most realise it's happening whether they like it or not. It's better to work on dealing with it rather than hoping it'll all go away. Most people weren't out to get people with gachas and still won't be out to get people with any new things they try. There are always exceptions to that, but the idea that the majority of creators are trying to scam people is really not true.

I'd suggest widening your circle a bit. It sounds like you were very focused on that one group, so you aren't sure how to function without them. Go to other events. Visit other communities. Don't look for the perfect friend/group, but instead look for a variety of places where you can have fun with different people. If one goes bad, you'll still have the others.

I have a house now, though decorating will be a long term project. I don't intend to do the game of homes thing. Things I do most often are: -Wandering around -Watching the map for building/releases -Attempting to steal every vehicle I find -Floating around in floaty rings

Oddly enough, people had to pay to get him out rather than the other way around.

I watched him getting digested by stomach acid at an event!

I got some critters at Pixelancer! Though my last resale purchase was that cute bunny mushroom, because I saw the picture in this thread and went and found one.

Something to note with this, it does not apply to copying a private conversation to send as part of an abuse report. I say that because this was tried by someone who was trolling a group by IMing abuse to random people. When he realised I was filing an AR, he thought he could scare me out of it with that gem. Someone who was unsure of the rules might fall for it.

Ones to replace the current old themes are the sensible guesses, though there are other things that'd also work. I've seen people asking for small houses and cottages. An English-style cottage theme could be a second 512 option. A gothic horror theme could blend with the fantasy houses on the same continent, with a bit of a spooky forest between them. I'm not going to say the crab aliens theme couldn't happen though, because the giant mushroom forest happened. Crab aliens would also make it a sea theme, which have been popular so far.

A UFO abducting a crab? Crab alien science fiction theme confirmed!

You should be able to buy something for L$ inworld as long as you have enough. If it's not showing in the viewer, click on where the balance should be and it'll refresh.

Something that would work with the system is an always night community area. It wouldn't be a home region so would avoid that issue, but would give people constantly glowing decor if they want to see it, take photos and all of that.

A breedable is a breedable regardless of whether it's a cat, cow, plant or machine. It's the scripts for eating/breeding that make it a breedable, not the appearance of the pet. You can see those cows are breedables as they're displaying stats, breeding status and have food items rezzed.

There's still some of this anti-copybot weirdness around, though it used to be a lot worse. So many shops with things shouting !quit repeatedly and banning anyone who dared to pop away for a sandwich. Just set up rings of mushrooms around afkers like normal people.

In fantasy region stuff, Murmuring Pines has a grid over it (can be seen on the map, but you can't miss it when you get there). Access to Blackstar is still locked down, so clearly there's been a breakout of monsters. Most of the regions seem to be rolling out pretty smoothly though.

New themes aren't going to fill as fast as before, because they're getting closer to a realistic number of houses. It doesn't make it a good idea to put out less of the new themes, as they will fill up. They're just filling with people who don't pay attention to when things launch. They'll wander by in six months and be surprised there are new houses. On the bright side for water home people, there are a bunch of stilts regions to go and I bet the unfinished coast areas will have some more houseboats.