So I've gradually been moving up in the tier I pay to Linden Lab. And this weekend I moved up to the full-sim price, $195.
I was first attracted by the prospect of being able to create things in a 3D environment. And that remains very compelling for me.
But to create some of the things I wanted-buildings and waterfalls-with-stream-and-pond, for instance---I needed more space than the 512m parcel I'd originally bought.
So I went up in tier (eliminating other monthly recreational expenses to finance the expansion).
Then I decided I might as will try to finance my expenses with the sale of land, as that's a faster return than I could expect by selling objects I'd made. Not that I've given up on making objects-I continue with that, as well as with the construction of my shop. Eventually, when I've purchased classified ads, started promoting this blog (which takes time and effort), created a website to promote the shop, etc.----then I might start to actually sell objects.
But in the meantime: land.
The title of this blog post is not facetious: I think that the story outlined in this post COULD be typical of thousands of prospective new Second Life residents, IF SL would deign to advertise so as to attract people who (like me) would find the whole SL experience compelling in a way that translates into the--you know--transfer of Lots of Money to LL. As has been the case for me.
More anon.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Treacherous Cylinders
Well, not in a 'consciousness' sense. But in a 'when you reverse them you can't go by the numbers' sense.
I've taken to heart the advice that when you build items containing several prims, and you want them to fit together nicely, you need to look at the Position numbers to make them sync, and the Size and Rotation numbers to make things symmetrical.
And that's worked pretty well, so far.
But in the process of making a Cyliner, hollowing it, and Path Cutting it to make a nice little scoop shape.....and then Hold-Shifting to copy it, and then turning the new one around so that they make a symmetrical facing pair---the numbers fall apart to some extent. Because the Center of the rotated piece doesn't match the Center of the original piece.
So in making a nice bench, with these facing Cylinder-parts as the sides/legs, I've had to rely on my eyesight. Which is fine. But, as is notorious, perspective doesn't work identically in Second Life as in First Life.
Oh well. It's frustrating....but also fun to futz around with it all....
I've taken to heart the advice that when you build items containing several prims, and you want them to fit together nicely, you need to look at the Position numbers to make them sync, and the Size and Rotation numbers to make things symmetrical.
And that's worked pretty well, so far.
But in the process of making a Cyliner, hollowing it, and Path Cutting it to make a nice little scoop shape.....and then Hold-Shifting to copy it, and then turning the new one around so that they make a symmetrical facing pair---the numbers fall apart to some extent. Because the Center of the rotated piece doesn't match the Center of the original piece.
So in making a nice bench, with these facing Cylinder-parts as the sides/legs, I've had to rely on my eyesight. Which is fine. But, as is notorious, perspective doesn't work identically in Second Life as in First Life.
Oh well. It's frustrating....but also fun to futz around with it all....
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
The Attention Required of Vendors
I tried to buy a tree last night from an interesting-looking shop. At first there was no response at all; I walked around and looked at other items. When I came back and tried to buy another tree, I got one message from the new attempt that I didn't have enough Lindens (and believe me, I had plenty), and another message, evidently from the first attempt, that my purchase attempt had gone "stale".
So I left, and bought the trees from someone else's shop.
Now, it may sound as though I'm in a snit. Actually, I'm just busy. I didn't have the spare time to figure out who to IM and write and IM to that person and wait for an answer.
So there was really no emotion involved here. And that's what people who want to sell things need to understand: if your shop isn't set up correctly, or if something goes wrong and you don't check on it and fix it, you will lose sales.
Practically speaking, I probably won't go back to that shop again. And again, that's not because I'm in a snit....it's because my time inworld is short. So I'm much more likely to go back to places in which I've successfully transacted the business I came in to conduct.
All pretty basic Business 101 stuff. But what I'm curious about is, how much do problems such as the ones I describe depend on the vaguaries of Second Life? To what extent can these problems be attributed to factors over which shop owners have no control?
(My interest isn't just academic: I do hope to get a shop of my own up and running, as soon as I've created more items to sell. I'm making great strides in creating the shop itself....oooooo, it's great-looking! All false modesty aside..... ^_^)
So I left, and bought the trees from someone else's shop.
Now, it may sound as though I'm in a snit. Actually, I'm just busy. I didn't have the spare time to figure out who to IM and write and IM to that person and wait for an answer.
So there was really no emotion involved here. And that's what people who want to sell things need to understand: if your shop isn't set up correctly, or if something goes wrong and you don't check on it and fix it, you will lose sales.
Practically speaking, I probably won't go back to that shop again. And again, that's not because I'm in a snit....it's because my time inworld is short. So I'm much more likely to go back to places in which I've successfully transacted the business I came in to conduct.
All pretty basic Business 101 stuff. But what I'm curious about is, how much do problems such as the ones I describe depend on the vaguaries of Second Life? To what extent can these problems be attributed to factors over which shop owners have no control?
(My interest isn't just academic: I do hope to get a shop of my own up and running, as soon as I've created more items to sell. I'm making great strides in creating the shop itself....oooooo, it's great-looking! All false modesty aside..... ^_^)
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Being a Ghostly Cloud
When I first decided to look into Second Life, my computer was close to 4 years old---and I hadn't bought it with a sterling graphics card in mind, as my main interests at the time were being able to make decent Word and Excel documents and Power Points, and to be able to enjoy my message boards. Any games I played were undemanding of graphics power.
So when I did look into SL and saw how compelling it could be for me, I took advantage of five years of acquired credit card Rewards points, and got a new computer. Because it was clear that if I tried to enjoy Second Life with my current computer, I'd spend most of my time with a frozen avatar.
And having a quite recent computer, I haven't had to deal with the performance problems with Second Life that I read about all the time in the Forums and various blogs.
Of course I've sympathized with the people experiencing these problems (especially having run into the problems myself). And I could see that the prevailing philosophy of the Lindens---to concentrate on serving those with brand-new computers---would bite me in the arse eventually, as I'm certainly not in a position to buy the latest computer every 6 months.
So I figured I'd have those 6 months of excellent performance, and then have to deal with the frustrations, later. And so it has gone for 3 months or so. No lag, no freezing. A few crashes here and there, but, it would seem, not due to my own hardware.
So, last night: the night of several thousand Ghostly Clouds.
For anyone who didn't try to log in last night, or who was unaffected: at log in there was a message about 'downloading your clothes'. Then you appeared as a white cloud---a single mass when standing, a series of cloudy globes when flying. And you couldn't teleport.
Well, correction: you COULD teleport to certain water sims. But not to all.
I had a pressing reason to want to teleport to one of my properties, as there was another property I wanted to bid on in the next morning's (today's) auction, and I wanted to lower the prices of the parcels. But I couldn't do it. I persisted for quite a while, though I was three continents away from the location. I found I could get from Continent 1 to Continent 2 by teleporting to a water sim. But then I couldn't manage to get to Continent 3, not by any water sim (and I tried all those I could see from the World Map). And everytime I tried to either fly or walk out of the sim I was in, I got snapped back.
So I finally gave up.
Now, I don't think this was a case of my computer being Just That Bit Too Old. I could be wrong, though----maybe it WAS a case of precisely that.
But this was a pretty widespread phenomenon. So the odds are that my computer's age was irrelevant.
It really does bring home the pertinence of the calls for the Lindens to pay more attention to Stability, though. It was an extremely frustrating night. I would think that many people who weren't yet invested in Second Life, would certainly have made the decision to never attempt to return.
So when I did look into SL and saw how compelling it could be for me, I took advantage of five years of acquired credit card Rewards points, and got a new computer. Because it was clear that if I tried to enjoy Second Life with my current computer, I'd spend most of my time with a frozen avatar.
And having a quite recent computer, I haven't had to deal with the performance problems with Second Life that I read about all the time in the Forums and various blogs.
Of course I've sympathized with the people experiencing these problems (especially having run into the problems myself). And I could see that the prevailing philosophy of the Lindens---to concentrate on serving those with brand-new computers---would bite me in the arse eventually, as I'm certainly not in a position to buy the latest computer every 6 months.
So I figured I'd have those 6 months of excellent performance, and then have to deal with the frustrations, later. And so it has gone for 3 months or so. No lag, no freezing. A few crashes here and there, but, it would seem, not due to my own hardware.
So, last night: the night of several thousand Ghostly Clouds.
For anyone who didn't try to log in last night, or who was unaffected: at log in there was a message about 'downloading your clothes'. Then you appeared as a white cloud---a single mass when standing, a series of cloudy globes when flying. And you couldn't teleport.
Well, correction: you COULD teleport to certain water sims. But not to all.
I had a pressing reason to want to teleport to one of my properties, as there was another property I wanted to bid on in the next morning's (today's) auction, and I wanted to lower the prices of the parcels. But I couldn't do it. I persisted for quite a while, though I was three continents away from the location. I found I could get from Continent 1 to Continent 2 by teleporting to a water sim. But then I couldn't manage to get to Continent 3, not by any water sim (and I tried all those I could see from the World Map). And everytime I tried to either fly or walk out of the sim I was in, I got snapped back.
So I finally gave up.
Now, I don't think this was a case of my computer being Just That Bit Too Old. I could be wrong, though----maybe it WAS a case of precisely that.
But this was a pretty widespread phenomenon. So the odds are that my computer's age was irrelevant.
It really does bring home the pertinence of the calls for the Lindens to pay more attention to Stability, though. It was an extremely frustrating night. I would think that many people who weren't yet invested in Second Life, would certainly have made the decision to never attempt to return.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Shopping, and Progress in Products
I need some of two kinds of plants I haven't been able to find in freebie boxes (and they're not in the Library part of my Inventory, of course). To finish off my semi-Ancient-Egyptian shop installation on the east side of the Linden road, I need some papyrus and some Italian (or Mediterranean) cypress trees.
The papyrus I got last night, at one of the Tin Teddy islands. Looks pretty good, and is copyable, so I can fill it in all along my little Nile.
The cypress, I'm still searching for. There are a lot more Search hits for 'cypress' of the Southeastern United States variety, then of the tall narrow Mediterranean variety. One with a good appearance and good price (again, at Tin Teddy) is darker than I prefer, and is un-modifiable. So I'll keep looking.
In my searches I happened on an Old Continent plant-and-tree shop that really brought home how much progress has been made in building, since Second Life began. At least, I'm assuming that this shop and its products were created some years back. Anyway, the trees and plants were all of the two-flat-prims-crossed variety, and the photo-textures that had been put on each of the two crossed prims were out-of-scale or out-of-focus or both. Foolishly, I think, the owner had put a Linden Library dogwood in the middle of all this. It really pointed up how bad the merchandise for sale looked, in comparison with the quality of work in plants-and-trees that's now the standard.
Onward and upward!
The papyrus I got last night, at one of the Tin Teddy islands. Looks pretty good, and is copyable, so I can fill it in all along my little Nile.
The cypress, I'm still searching for. There are a lot more Search hits for 'cypress' of the Southeastern United States variety, then of the tall narrow Mediterranean variety. One with a good appearance and good price (again, at Tin Teddy) is darker than I prefer, and is un-modifiable. So I'll keep looking.
In my searches I happened on an Old Continent plant-and-tree shop that really brought home how much progress has been made in building, since Second Life began. At least, I'm assuming that this shop and its products were created some years back. Anyway, the trees and plants were all of the two-flat-prims-crossed variety, and the photo-textures that had been put on each of the two crossed prims were out-of-scale or out-of-focus or both. Foolishly, I think, the owner had put a Linden Library dogwood in the middle of all this. It really pointed up how bad the merchandise for sale looked, in comparison with the quality of work in plants-and-trees that's now the standard.
Onward and upward!
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Particles and Feuds
Logging in, today, I was possessed by an imperative to put some particles in my waterfall.
I looked at all the stuff I'd picked up as freebies. There was a package from 'Andrew Linden' which looks very valuable, but the problem I ran into today is that I couldn't see how to make it loop. I thought about trying to mash up the Linden script with the script I'd cobble together for my fountain sounds (which is still not satisfactory, but it DOES loop).
But I ended up going with one of three other freebie scripts that were already set up to loop. One was giant red spheres floating off, one was medium yellow spheres going 'pop', and one was medium gray spheres floating off. I messed with the last one to turn the medium spheres into teensy particles, and the result wasn't too bad. It kinda works for the waterfall, but it doesn't work at all for my fountains. So I need to keep working on it. (As well as on the fountain sound loop.)
So after an hour or so of particle experiments, I decided to go look at some of the properties to be auctioned tomorrow and the next day. Some, I would suspect, won't sell even at L$3 per square meter (which seems to be the Linden minimum---and that's only for the US dollar auctions).
(I wonder if at some point, if the backlog of failed-auction parcels get too large, will they back off to L$2 per square meter?)
There was one large parcel I liked, but buying it would mean moving up that last tier notch. And that doesn't feel smart, at the moment.
Anyway, the whole process is fun for me. I like flying over Second Life sims in general---it's always interesting to see what choices people have made for their land. And I like watching for trends in sales.
One anomalous auction today has me wondering---was the unusually high price (over L$30 per square meter) the result of Neighbor-desperate-to-block-Neighbor? I've no way of knowing, but the land (though fairly nice) didn't, alone, justify that price.
I looked at all the stuff I'd picked up as freebies. There was a package from 'Andrew Linden' which looks very valuable, but the problem I ran into today is that I couldn't see how to make it loop. I thought about trying to mash up the Linden script with the script I'd cobble together for my fountain sounds (which is still not satisfactory, but it DOES loop).
But I ended up going with one of three other freebie scripts that were already set up to loop. One was giant red spheres floating off, one was medium yellow spheres going 'pop', and one was medium gray spheres floating off. I messed with the last one to turn the medium spheres into teensy particles, and the result wasn't too bad. It kinda works for the waterfall, but it doesn't work at all for my fountains. So I need to keep working on it. (As well as on the fountain sound loop.)
So after an hour or so of particle experiments, I decided to go look at some of the properties to be auctioned tomorrow and the next day. Some, I would suspect, won't sell even at L$3 per square meter (which seems to be the Linden minimum---and that's only for the US dollar auctions).
(I wonder if at some point, if the backlog of failed-auction parcels get too large, will they back off to L$2 per square meter?)
There was one large parcel I liked, but buying it would mean moving up that last tier notch. And that doesn't feel smart, at the moment.
Anyway, the whole process is fun for me. I like flying over Second Life sims in general---it's always interesting to see what choices people have made for their land. And I like watching for trends in sales.
One anomalous auction today has me wondering---was the unusually high price (over L$30 per square meter) the result of Neighbor-desperate-to-block-Neighbor? I've no way of knowing, but the land (though fairly nice) didn't, alone, justify that price.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Yippee!!! Sales of Land!!!
Two parcels sold while I was out of town...a great feeling. I'm cautiously optimistic that I might Make Tier this month. (The parcels I still have up for sale are nice genuine-land-and-genuine-Linden-water ones.)
When I saw my Linden account amount, I was trying to figure out what particular parcels had sold from the amount...I teleported to the first of the sims, and materialized inside someone's new house! Luckily it was just a house up for rent--a speculator had bought the parcel. Could have been embarrassing, though! (Needless to say, I changed my teleport-to Landmark to another place. I don't like relying on the Teleport to Sim option, as too often I end up inside a shop that I can't easily get out of....I still want to learn whether this is something people pay for [it's often NOT the geographic center of the sim]).
I noticed that one of the Auction parcels for tomorrow was up to over L$30 per square meter, already, this afternoon...who knows how high it may go. I'm going to go see what all the fuss is about when I log in tonight. (Surely it's not just a question of being a beach-with-ocean parcel....there must be some other compelling features for the price to go so high....)
When I saw my Linden account amount, I was trying to figure out what particular parcels had sold from the amount...I teleported to the first of the sims, and materialized inside someone's new house! Luckily it was just a house up for rent--a speculator had bought the parcel. Could have been embarrassing, though! (Needless to say, I changed my teleport-to Landmark to another place. I don't like relying on the Teleport to Sim option, as too often I end up inside a shop that I can't easily get out of....I still want to learn whether this is something people pay for [it's often NOT the geographic center of the sim]).
I noticed that one of the Auction parcels for tomorrow was up to over L$30 per square meter, already, this afternoon...who knows how high it may go. I'm going to go see what all the fuss is about when I log in tonight. (Surely it's not just a question of being a beach-with-ocean parcel....there must be some other compelling features for the price to go so high....)
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