Polenth Yue

That isn't how it works. If you don't report a problem with a region, it'll just stay broken. They need people to help out and let them know when there are problems or things that will become problems. They wouldn't have created the rules if these things were not becoming problems. I'm not a fan of trying to shame people for caring about their stuff in Second Life. It's okay to care about things that are not life-threatening. That includes wanting a region where we have a virtual house to run smoothly, to not get randomly teleported home, and other things like that. I hit an instant ban/teleport orb during the hunt and it messed up my viewer to the point of needing a clean install. Which won't kill me, but I'd rather not.

You have to use one of the provided houses, but the land impact for those houses isn't taken from your parcel allowance. So it makes no difference to what you have available to use. EDIT: I didn't see Abnor's reply when I posted and can't delete, but if one answer is good, twenty are better!

Treehouses are the new fantasy house style! So cozy cottages, only up high and giving maximum garden space. That confirms one of the things they were working on. There's still the suspiciously theme-sized covered area and a few other random working regions that might be something.

They'd been working on a new Victorian island, but that seems to have halted whilst the other stuff goes on. It's just south of Merrymount.

When people talk about the group, it is almost always Bellisseria Citizens (founded by Gingir Ghoststar) unless otherwise stated.

The issue they're always going to have is they don't have time to create and maintain a series of very complex rules, so they set a simpler rule that'll cover it and be usable. That means they won't test every breedable to see how many can be placed without any issues and set numbers for that specific type. They aren't going to enforce rules that say selling is okay as long as there isn't more than one customer at a time for a total duration of ten minutes per day. Or that it's fine if the business doesn't turn a profit. Or if profits are below a certain threshold. These things would be terrible to assess and maintain. It's not terrible to have different areas for different things. I decorate in the home, have a shop on mainland, and keep the breedables to a friend's region. It's not bad to live on the mainland or a private region. It's the best option if someone wants more freedom. Anyway, someone was complaining in chat that a friend's breedables got returned, so it is being enforced.

In visiting all the released houses, I didn't see many items that were genuinely moving as far as the server is concerned. Most use movement that is handled by the client (phantom rotation, texture animation, real animations for animesh, particles), stuff that needs a simple script (faces are made visible/invisible to give the impression of movement) or only move on touch/sit. When people do put out ones that really roam, they keep the numbers down, because they're decor and it'd be weird to have a hundred of them. For roaming animesh, it's also because there's not enough land impact for many of them. This isn't a big area causing server lag. Not that all breedables cause it either, but the horse houses were a problem, so the rules changed. It'd also be hard to argue that a bare house with only breedables isn't commercial (and if looks aren't an issue, mainland would be better for that anyway... they could set up the shop on the same parcel).

Here are the stats as promised. I did this by wandering rather than lists. I visited every released region. I did the ranch theme twice at the beginning and end. Other themes once, with some spot visits to prime areas (like coastal locations) when I was getting the last few. So areas I searched earlier probably have more out now. Ranch: 155 Houseboat: 136 Stilt: 105 Traditional: 90 Log: 89 Victorian: 87 Fantasy: 36 Camper: 33 Newbrooke: 30 Sakura: 22 Chalet: 16 Specials: 2 (BBB and Auction) Total: 801 The order they were visited in was ranch, fantasy, victorian, sakura, traditional, log, stilt, houseboat, newbrooke, camper, chalet, ranch (second sweep). Mostly, the list is as expected. Areas with more residents had more candy. The current hot new thing (ranches) had the best haul. The one that stands out as different to last year is newbrooke didn't have a lot, especially as I visited near the end when the most buckets would be out.

I hit 800. I took some stats about where I found them, but it's sleep time first. The batcat is mine though!

They're KittyCats, which are breedables. The ones with the cardboard back are kittens in boxes, so they're not active breedables and not covered by the rules (as I understand it... they're just in storage in that state). The ones with the hovertext and an age are active and way more than is allowed. The flat version is just a low prim model for people who don't want the full cats roaming about. Which almost always means it's a breedable farm, as people with pets want to see their cats.

It's usual for objects that don't rez until you're close, which is how the buckets have been designed. For the big numbers, there's no getting around needing to search. Even if you use area search or a finder hud, you're still going to have to move around each region and visit most regions. You also can't move too quickly, because things need to load. Last year, I saw various people shoot above me at full fly speed and then complain in chat that there were no more buckets and they'd searched everywhere three times. I was still on my first round of searching and found all the buckets they'd missed. This is a tortoise and hare game in that respect. Things that make you go fast might seem like a good idea, but you miss too much and don't get the numbers, so it's the tortoise who gets the bat cats.

The point isn't thinking the new theme will be fantasy. The glimpses we've seen don't look fantastical in any way. It's that they've also got copies of the current fantasy regions online to work on them. Which implies there might be an update to fantasy. My guess would be new house styles as the most likely addition.

People are talking about it less on the forums, but that doesn't reflect inworld. People are chatting in groups and I know they're visiting my house (I see the "sales" on the gift and I get IMs). Keep in mind a lot of the extra chat on the forums was due to issues in the previous years, which have mainly been removed by going over to tier prizes. That means people can get on and enjoy it. I'm competitive in the sense that I want to get all the candy and the last prize, but I don't miss the whole top ten thing. It's meant I could take time off at the start to get my gift ready. I've also done more other Hallowe'en rides, walks and hunts. This is a much nicer setup this year.

No official confirmation, but I hit 400+ from searching regions and have about half the themes left to go. 800+ is a reasonable estimate.

In addition to the things mentioned, you need a good tree structure for your inventory. Folders in folders. Anytime a folder gets loads of items, it's time to split it up more. It will eventually stop loading probably if it's too flat and can stop you from logging in.

On the buckets that had been saying they were busy, I checked all the ones I found today and every single one had been fixed... even the one I found late last night. Could be that everyone is really quick on fixing them or the rolling restarts might have reset them. So now might be the time to check the ones you know were down.

Not for the whole house... but nothing stopping someone adding security to furniture to only allow group. If someone is really concerned that random people might sit on sex furniture with them when they're afk, this is the solution. Not an extreme ban list causing issues for everyone out exploring who clip the corner of the parcel. You could also consider having some furniture that is single person and PG for when you want to afk, like a nice armchair or something.

People wandering will find most buckets (that aren't hidden under a bush in the back garden or in your toilet) but it takes time. In previous years, I've only finished my first sweep of all the regions close to the end. There are also fewer people aiming for the top prize, so you won't get the hundreds of clicks. But it'd be a surprise if nobody found them before the end.

Starting to see some hoot boopies out at houses (the 400+ prize). No bat cats yet!

It could be a speed thing. I'm walking/flying, so I always move off the parcel before going anywhere else.

Mine has updated when I step off the parcel with no scripts. I've not had any fail to register. I have found one dead bucket and a few decoys, so not everything that's bucket-shaped is an active bucket.

The prizes are the little toy critters. The notecards that came with the HUD and bucket should explain it in more detail.

The lists didn't have enough to get the top numbers in previous years. People had to wander to get in the top ten. But there was also pressure to use the lists because of buckets that got removed quickly, as the competition was almost certainly using the lists and would have got those ones. Every bucket counts when it's based on who finds the most. So this change means it's more feasible to get the numbers by only wandering, rather than less. That pressure to use lists is gone, at least for people aiming for the top. Even if the list did hit 800 buckets for the first time, it's irrelevant to wanderers, because it doesn't matter what other people do this year. I will teleport to houses that have something extra though, like they're decorated open houses. So it's worth mentioning that in the comments.

I added mine because the house is set up to explore and there will be a gift (not there yet, but will be placed ready for opening). But there's no real need to add houses that don't have other stuff, as people who want the top prizes will be wandering. As you have multiple houses, you could always add one for the yay of seeing the numbers go up and leave the rest for people searching.

There's one that was posted in the Bellisseria Citizens group notices. It has a separate form to enter details, to avoid the issues last year with the open editing. I've no idea who is running it. I'm going to prod people now and see if I can get some more info. Edit: I prodded and here's the spreadsheet link for visiting the buckets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zv_0_90O-HHijCHAj42hfdMSoCIvM5jGtcyiKbedi0c/edit#gid=420519985 The form to add locations is best not posted here because of spam bots, but if you're not in the group, you can IM me and I'll send the link. If you are in the group, check the notices. Note it isn't my spreadsheet. I think it's Dreamer's. But I asked if I could pass on the links.