SLUniverse Forums - Blogs - Rema Quandry http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/ Second Life discussion forum and photo sharing en Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:51:59 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/images/styles/bingo/misc/rss.jpg SLUniverse Forums - Blogs - Rema Quandry http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/ The Adventure Stumbles http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/268-adventure-stumbles.html Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:25:10 GMT This week I had a really bad situation the really soured me on SL. Let me describe what happened in hopes that no one else has this happen to them.... This week I had a really bad situation the really soured me on SL. Let me describe what happened in hopes that no one else has this happen to them.

My present mainland landholding is about 29K sq m. I decided that a 1536 sq. m. didn't fit into the overall vision of what I was building toward. So I decided to break up this land into thre 512 m parcels and sell them.

I started by splitting the land. I had no problem setting up my first and second 512 plots for sale. However, within milliseconds of setting up the third one, something weird happened. It suddenly changed ownership. :wtf:

In a panic, newbee that I am, I filed a support ticket, thinking something was wrong with LL's land server.

Then I moved back into the 4096 sq m portion of land that these 3 parcels were taken from. My MystiTool HUD informed me that the parcel was now damage enabled. Again, I panicked. None of my land is damage enabled.

So I brought up the land information and, much to my dismay, discovered that I was no longer the owner of the larger parcel either. I really panicked at this point. My property had been stolen right from under me, and they now were asking for L$95,000+ for the 4605 sq. m. they'd grabbed. At that price, I thought, at least they wouldn't be selling it soon.

Immediately, I submitted a second support ticket, then--bothered as I was--I hit live chat support.

When support investigated the situation, the system seemed to suggest that I'd not separated the smaller portion from the larger portion (I remember it saying otherwise) . . . and that the land was actually purchased at the price I really wanted on just the 512 parcel.

LL support suggested I contact the land property group that had snatched it up and try to negotiate the situation.

I did . . . and was ignored.

Within hours of dropping them a notecard, a second land property group somehow had possession of the property and was asking L$11,520 for it . . . a significant reduction in asking price from the original L$95,000+ the other group had been asking.

I smelled a rat but could do nothing about it. I suspect that the first firm offloaded the property to some member of their group who set up the second group to cover situations like this. Now the first group could claim "we're sorry, but the matter is out of our hands" and not have to deal with me or LL.

I immmediately snatched back the parcel at the reduced price to save my overall concept (which required the 4096 sq.m. parcel to be part of a larger contiguous area making up the overall set of builds). 24 hours later or so, the first group's payment finally showed up into my account, so the cost of my apparent mistake at land splitting was as minimal as it was going to get.

After thinking about this for a while, I've come to realize that I may have been victimized by a landbot. I never saw anyone and I was never contacted by anyone for the "purchase". The land transfer happened in mere seconds. If I'd had a few more minutes, I would certainly have discovered the mistake I'd made (I monitor my land rather regularly, since I'm building all the time and keeping track of objects). I never had that chance.

I talked this over with LL support; but, and I can see why, they couldn't give me much in the way of satisfaction. At least they know who the groups were and what happened.

So I decided to go further. I contacted Jack Linden. I've sent him a notecard with proposal for instituting a procedure to prevent this sort of thing from happening to anyone else. My suggestions were:

--If the avatar has never made a land sale before, that no purchase of the land put up for sale would be allowed to occur for 48 hours. This gives the newbee time to talk to LL tech support and get a response.

--If the avatar has made land sales before, that no purchase of the land be allowed to occur for 1 hour. That gives the experience SL'er time to detect any error in setting up the sale.

No more swooping land bots if such a set of restrictions were instuted.

I've not received a reply back yet.

What do others think? Is this something I ought to go to JIRA with?

On other fronts, I've completed my seventh building so far . . . and am I learning. I went back and significantly improved my first build based on all the experience I'd been getting.

I am enjoying the creative aspects of SL. But, geez, it's hard not to be sour about SL given that my avatar's been attacked so many times and my land's been stolen out from under me. Where are the good people? Just on the forums?

--- Rema ]]> Rema Quandry http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/268-adventure-stumbles.html SL--The Adventure Continues IV http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/217-second-life-adventure-continues-iv.html Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:31:16 GMT I was attacked again on my property by yet another idiot. :Mad:
AR'd this joker too . . . on the spot.

I just checked and he's no longer in SL, so perhaps he got booted. :sun:

Anyway, my builds are progressing . . . and I continue to learn. I'm on my third building now.

Lately, I've been dabbling in fire and water objects and scripts. Great fun trying to get more realistic effects than what I've seen elsewhere in similar products.

I've also acquired more land (geez, the costs can mount up fast!) ; and I'm trying to create a place that's very pleasant to go to. So far, lots of trees, a fountain, a creek with waterfall and running water, and an old Roman shrine. And I'm getting lots of experience as a terraformer.

My biggest problem now is my lack of business experience in SL. For instance, I don't know enough yet about "vendors" and how financial transactions are handled in SL.

I just started monitoring the forums here and elsewhere for any and all business advice on how to set up a shop that attracts visitors; how to work with such places such as SLExchange and OnRez; and how to interact with web resources that tie in.

And I've been monitoring various builder and scripter groups to see what I can learn (anyone got any recommendations?)

Haven't done much socially on SL . . . yet. Perhaps after I create enough salable items to support my developing SL habit . . . then it'll be time to "network" more.

Later

--- Rema ]]> Rema Quandry http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/217-second-life-adventure-continues-iv.html SL--The Adventure Continues III http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/165-second-life-adventure-continues-iii.html Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:10:08 GMT This week I was attacked (again) by a griefer . . . and this time on my own property. :wtf:

I'm in the middle of building a rather complex building when out of nowhere some mentally unstable individual decides to try and cage me.

This time I have countermeasures. I fire up my U Bar defensive measures and manage to evade some six plus caging attempts. My building site is littered with cages showing clearly who the culprit is.

I'm ticked, needless to say. I determine who the griefer is . . . and fire off an abuse report to Linden immediately. I tell them I have tangible evidence of the attack.

Surprisingly, just a few minutes later a flying green angel creature rezzes in. It's Teardon Linden (ty Teardon) and Teardon gathers up all the physical evidence. I was quite impressed with Linden's response time on this. Just a titch sooner and they may have caught the culprit in the act.

Anyway, that's two attacks on me in less than two months on SL. Frustrating. :biting:

I'm building now. I'm putting together a structure that will be my first marketable major product, and it'll serve as my main store when I finally open it. Lots of fun.

And, as a result, I'm learning quite a bit every day. Especially helpful have been the classes at NCI (New Citizen's Inc.). Check them out if you haven't already. They offer an extensive free schedule of courses to help you get up and running fast in SL. So far I've taken four of these; I highly recommend them to all newbees.

At this point, I've also read two books which have turned out to be immense gold mines of information. Those books are:

[These links will take you to Amazon.com where you can read more about each book.]
I highly recommend these books to everyone. [ASIDE: Does anyone else have any other good book recommendations re SL?]

I'm intent on learning about Linden Scripting Language (LSL). It seems that to do anything really nifty in SL you have to know how to use LSL. I've attended one NCI class so far and I'll be going to more as soon as they're offered.

I'm also intent on becoming a first-class builder. We shall see. It took me about three days to erect my main store's basic structure. To give you an idea of the magnitude of this structure, it sits on a 2048 m^2 plot of land and fills up the plot.

This week I'll be texturing and working on getting control scripts for windows, doors, security and lighting working the way I want them to.

I have no interest in creating clothes; there are way too many people doing this already. I also have no interest in doing skins or shapes. Flexi and Sculpty forms intrigue me, so I'll be playing with them for the next few days too.

Anyway, that's enough for now. Back to tinkering.

TTYL,

--- Rema ]]> Rema Quandry http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/165-second-life-adventure-continues-iii.html SL--A New World Adventure II http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/158-second-life-new-world-adventure.html Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:14:04 GMT 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. :confusedcat:

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. :3d:

--- Rema ]]> Rema Quandry http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/158-second-life-new-world-adventure.html SL: A New World Adventure- Part 1 http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/143-second-life-new-world-adventure.html Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:34:44 GMT Hi!

I'm a RL acquaintance of "The Sojourner" who died about a month ago. She'd been trying to get me to try SL for the last year or so. I'd promised her that I'd do so . . . and, up until now, I hadn't. I wish I had while she was still alive to see me here. Anyway, here I am, both out of curiosity . . . and in tribute to the person I knew. (Check out the Dreams Region, in SL, to learn about who she was and what she did)

And, surprise, surprise, today's my avatar's one month birthday . . . and what an adventure this month has been.

Sometime during the first week I was logged into SL, I ran into a griefer. Every time I tried to walk or fly away, he did something to me that prevented me from moving. All the while, his talk was wheadling, cajoling, trying to get me to come on to him. :anger:

If we'd been in RL, I'd have decked him then and there. As it was, I teleported away . . . and that did the trick.

I wish I'd been a little more knowledgeable. I'd have filed an abuse report. Oh well. Next time for sure. Anyway, I found a very useful HUD that should offer me some protection from harrassment in the future.

For the most part, the SL experience has been fun and interesting. Over the last few weeks I've visited myriad clothing, jewelry, skin, and gadget stores. Quite a variety of quality out there. Some is very, very nice . . . especially the jewelry. (WARNING: I noticed very quickly that all too many free items were being offerred by people charging for them. Geez, scam artists are here in SL too!)

I visited the Botanical Gardens, which was my "home" until I became a property owner--very nice there. Go see it.

Lately, I've been searching out gadget, script, and architecturally-oriented stores to see what's being produced.

Meanwhile, I've been frantically trying to learn how to create things . . . and exploring the ins and outs of the scripting language. My intention is to produce homes, skyboxes, scripts and gadgets. I also intend to create t-shirts, ball caps, etc. based on designs I've already created in RL (check out The Pithy Python : CafePress.com)

I'm a property owner now. That's been a trip. I bought property for too much . . . at least that's what I discovered after the fact. (Advice to other newbees: don't buy land right away; learn and shop the market). Anyway, I own 2560 m^2, mostly in Euttum and Juree in the mainland.

On this land, I dropped a very nice starter home and then created a Skybox. I experimented with terraforming, and I retrofitted a "basement" under the starter home. Great fun.

The neighbors have been interesting. My next door neighbors have gunfights periodically. Doesn't bother me much, since only noise I can't identify ever bugs me. Sometimes I park on the roof of my house and watch 'em--looks like they're playing a poor man's Counterstrike. One door down, my neighbor is erecting some sort of X-rated entertainment facility (this is a mature area). So far, they've been no problem for me.

The big irritation in the area is one of the "realtors" who drops all sorts of eyesore crap on his/her properties that are up for sale. I get the impression,he or she's hoping to bug me and other residents into shutting them down by buying their land at horrendous prices. Screw that. :shakefist: I just erect walls and shrubbery screens to block them out.

Haven't met too many people here so far, although I have one good friend who's here. Over the next few weeks, I hope to be less reclusive and more sociable. We shall see.

Anyway, who'd have guessed I'd actually enjoy it here. I'm a budding digital artist, an experienced programmer, and a writer . . . and SL's potentially creativity heaven for the likes of me.

I'm glad The Sojourner bugged me to come on board. We'll see how I feel in a few more weeks.

--- Rema ]]> Rema Quandry http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/blogs/rema+quandry/143-second-life-new-world-adventure.html