Author: xeriko

Xeriko enjoys exploring and landscaping in SL, and welcomes a nice chat anytime.

Opt out

There’s something troubling me about SL events lately, especially weekly events. Once upon a time there weren’t as many of them as there are now, and every participating designer was able to meet the deadline and have his/her item(s) ready in due time. Now, there seems to be a new trend –or that’s what it seems to me– in that this kind of activity has become a way to drive people to stores with no intention of offering anything at all. All weekly events I try to follow distribute a list of landmarks to participating stores, and week after week for months on end now, there’s always a shop or two that either fall into the above description or aren’t really interested in participating at all, and event organizers add them anyway to –perhaps– pretend these creators support their cause, when the truth might be they do not. At least this is what I’m starting to believe is happening, I’m not saying it is actually the absolute truth. But perceptions play a leading role when it comes to understanding the –virtual– world around us.

So I have a few questions to ask each side. Designers: If you are so busy in RL or working on something else that interests you more than a mundane event, why don’t you opt out? You have that option, or are you obliged to participate every time you’re asked in order to be considered for a later time? Isn’t it possible to skip that week when you’re not ready and come back the next, instead of misleading your clients? Do you think that’s a good marketing strategy? What do you believe customers think when they TP to your store just to find out you’re once again late or not participating at all? Do you think those deceived customers will keep buying from you or coming back? Event organizers: Is it your idea, to include stores that aren’t really participating just to give the impression they are supporting your event? And if creators aren’t meeting your timeline, why do you keep inviting them after failing you time after time? Aren’t there more creators waiting for a chance to participate and promote their stores? Why don’t you invite those less known creators? Or don’t you know anyone else? It could be that you only organize events to favor a closed group of people, usually a net of friends; that’s perfectly ok. But can’t your circle accept new entries that may be more responsible and willing to meet deadlines? Do you think that by constantly including fake participants every week people will still support you? For how long? If organizing weekly events takes a lot of time (and surely that’s the case because all of us have hundreds of things to do in our lives), wouldn’t it be better to slow it down, say make them biweekly perhaps?

I also have a few questions to some particular stores:  What do you think is the purpose of these events? To help you make some money of course. Then, why don’t you realize that and respond in due manner? Aren’t you interested in building a loyal customer base, people that are inspired by your creativity and want to come back and keep buying from you in the future? So, why are you offering the same old product for months on end? Don’t you think buyers notice that? If it’s too much for your RL or SL schedules, why don’t you lift that unnecessary weight up and move on to what you really need or want to take care of?

Only the laws of nature cannot be changed… unless it’s nature itself doing it, I guess.

In the picture, a few of the excellent products some of my favorite H&G shops have offered in recent events. Probably they’re no longer at 50L, 75L or 200L, but should be available in their respective stores in case you want them. From left to right:

Here’s the culprit

Hell-oh, hell-oh.Think of that as an expression of great relieve and triumph, because after five days, and making the Lindens bang their heads against every wall, I finally identified what’s causing the problem I tried to described yesterday (read the story here).

The most illogical of things (until tonight) was happening in my recently acquired plot: SL was returning any boat I tried to sail to the west of Lost Grounds and into Hamlen with a land impact higher than 54 prims back to my inventory because a parcel in the opposite side of the sim was full. The Linden Support team tried everything they could think of to identify what was going on, and even some extra maintenance performed this morning failed miserably. So after a couple of Nacra races in the North Sea, I returned to the sim tonight with one  goal in mind: to find a culprit, and find it I did.

This is it! Do you see that building and the water area to the lower right? That’s the mysterious parcel CASEnetwork Grunge City with Live Stage at coordinates Lost Grounds 254, 167. And do you see that sliver of land in front of it? Well, I discovered it’s actually part of my property. It’s 3/4 of a sim away from the rest of my parcel, but it belongs to me. Initially I thought the viewer was playing tricks on me, showing the wrong owner information, so I relogged twice to clear any software glitch. When it kept showing me as owner, I turn on the Show Land Owners in the World menu, and the green color confirmed my eyes weren’t deceiving me. As is evident, the original owner of this sim subdivided it a hundred times, leaving behind a few bizarre plots like the one that came into my possession a few weeks ago.

But how the hell does that affect my parcel’s performance? On an even closer inspection, I found this (see the next picture).

culprit02

Red color is the other guy’s property, green is mine. White line indicates the limit between both parcels, hence, where the gray object should have stopped and not encroach on my property. That seemingly insignificant intrusion is somehow transferring that parcel’s properties –such as its prim limit– to mine. Is that possible?

To confirm that conjecture, I subdivided my parcel, leaving out the portion where my accidental neighbor invades my land. I even gave the segregated slice a different name just to double-check. After that, I went back to the troubling spot, and set sail again on one of the renegade boats. Et voilà: I finally succeeded in heading west and swiftly crossing into Hamlen! Now it will be a matter of explaining all this situation to my neighbors and convincing them of moving that object completely into their land, and this case can be close once and for all.

Moral of the story? Firstly, the slightest of things could have a great impact on everything in this virtual world. Secondly, placing anything too close to your parcel’s limits could alter your neighbor’s land in unexpected (and in this case unwanted) ways. And thirdly, don’t leave everything in the hands of the Lindens; after 10+ years, they still don’t understand their own world that well.

Help me here

Ok, I need some help. For the last 4 days, I’ve been trying to solve the following dilemma, using Linden Lab’s Support department. They’ve been looking into it, but nothing of what they do is proving useful (is anyone surprised?).

This is a screenshot of the almighty minimap, showing the boundaries of the Lost Grounds sim, which is located on the western coast of the Satory continent, that curious landmass south of the very popular Nautilus and Nautilus City. The sim’s parcels are occupied by several private owners and a couple of rental services (you can’t escape them, can you?). I currently own a plot, which I have identified with an A in this picture. I “claimed” it three weeks ago (more or less), and have been trying to build something suitable for regular living and sailing activities, so I placed a self-made dock in the area shaded lilac. As you can see, the only way I can get out of this parcel by sea is sailing into the west (and no, I’m not looking for Frodo way beyond the realm of men), to the protected Hamlen region. The direction is marked with a white arrow, pointing at an empty coastal waterway.

Just in the opposite side of the sim, there is another parcel, identified as B in the picture above, which I’ve also shaded lilac. The plot is owned by a rental service, and is currently occupied by a club of some sort –a small venue; nothing that may trouble the neighborhood. Of course, that lot is on the eastern side of the sim, facing Razorwulf, which is the region to the east of Lost Grounds. Obviously, in no way it has any contact with Hamlen. Said parcel is almost full, with only 54 prims left unused.

Now, here is the ordeal: whenever I set sail from parcel A, heading west, on a boat with a land impact of more than 54 prims, I immediately get the ship back to my inventory at crossing… well actually when reaching the border with the Hamlen sim. The message states:

Your object ‘INSERT THE NAME OF THE BOAT HERE’ has been returned to your inventory Lost and Found folder from parcel ‘CASEnetwork Grunge City with Live Stage’ at Lost Grounds 254, 167 because the parcel is full.

Do you see the WTF thing? Parcel CASEnetwork Grunge City with Live Stage (at coordinates Lost Grounds 254, 167) is the one identified with a B: the one located on the eastern side of the sim, 256 points away from Hamlen. The parcel from which I’m trying to sail out of Lost Grounds is L’Ouest (stupid name, I know); it’s the one identified with an A, on the western side, at coordinates Lost Grounds 2, 167. So basically, we have a remarkable “discovery” here: the Lost Grounds sim is the first (or who knows) officially round sim in all the grid. Someone call Magellan, please!!!

This is annoying of course. I got a protected waterfront parcel that doesn’t act the part because according to Second Life, I’m departing from the west and, as it happens on a round world like Earth, arriving “back” to the east.

The Linden support staff has restarted the sim thrice, and as I’ve been told, it underwent updates during today’s rolling restart. According to the last message, the surrounding regions have also been synched, and apparently the region was “forced” to another host. Yet, the problem persists.

Does anyone has any idea of what’s going on? Please, let me know so I can tell the support staff how to deal with it once and for all.

I’m beginning to think that moving to the Mainland was a bad idea after all…