SL--A New World Adventure II

Well. since my last post, I've been exploring and learning . . . and even trying to earn money in SL.

Just for the heck of it, I've tried camping, Zyngo, Money Trees, and other sources to see how much L$ I could get. Here's the results for the period from 6-3-08 until yesterday:

Camping --- L$ 90
Endorsements --- L$ 175
Money Trees --- L$ 82
NCI --- L$ 10
Zyngo --- L$ 120
Magic Buttons --- L$ 3

TOTAL SO FAR: L$ 480

Endorsements were situations where certain businesses were will to pay to have their businesses listed in my picklist. NCI was a dispenser at Kuula that provided L$10 to newbees as seed money.

What I learned from these experiences was:

• camping pays least for the most amount of time spent; but, if you're sitting idle anyway as far as SL is concerned, this is not a big deal. I'd camp when I was doing other work on the computer. Anyway, all camping sites are NOT created equal. Some offered a mere L$1/hr rate. Others offered better. Some of those offering better had upper limits on what you could earn in 24 hours. One of the better camping places I found pays L$10 for roughly 82 minutes camping; but has a L$15 cap for 24 hours.
• places that had camping opportunities were generally NOT the sort of places to buy anything of any quality. Such camping locations are the tourist traps of SL . . . at best.
• endorsements were a good source of some income; but I had to really look around for these opportunities, they're not as easy to find.
• Zyngo was a really good option for me. I'm a gambler of some talent and experience, and there are strategies for Zyngo that will optimize your chances to make money. I scoped out all the freeplay sites I could find and played at the ones that had larger payouts for high score (most are around L$25-L$30; but one site had a L$100 payout . Out of six attempts, I had top score five times at three different sites. Much more fun than camping and I spent significantly less time earning my money that way than with camping.
• Magic buttons are cheezy, cheap ways for certain "businesses" to seemingly prop up their businesses and keep your attention. At L$1/day, typically, there was not much motivation for me to really bother with them.
• Money Trees. Nice idea. However, various groups apparently are "farming" them using various kinds of software, thus cheating newbees out of the free subsidy these trees are meant to provide. Despite this, I initially explored SL going from one Money Tree site to another . . . and saw some very nifty places. Over my first 30 days I managed to get L$82 this way. Not bad for exploration.
• In short, I learned you have to work pretty hard to make any real "easy" money in SL.

One other thing I did quite a bit in my first few weeks in SL: I watched and took advantage of lucky chairs. My conclusion, most of the goods I "won" this way were quite inferior to the quality items I've since bought. However, in the beginning, they were a great way to get "up and running" with something other than the standard issue, newbee clothed avatar.

I'm now a landowner. I opted for a premium account and now own a few parcels. That's been an experience.

I made the mistake of buying a 512 sq.m. parcel and then a second adjacent one of similar size. The problem: I didn't realize one was in one region and the second was in an adjacent region.

Result: the prims from the two don't add up . . . and teleporting from one location on one property to another on the other property is no longer a simple thing. In fact, I had to shop around for a teleporter that would do this.

I chose to buy land in a mature region figuring people there would be more tolerant and less judgmental. . . . and more respectful of my privacy I looked for a place that seemed quiet and had no nightspots or huge commercial spots nearby. And I found a good location, where, so far, I've been quite satisfied.

That's enough for now. I'm off to learn, to explore and to build. L8r, 'til next time.

--- Rema