Epistems Experiment end of Week 1

The pay what you like experiment at my Epistems store has been running for a week now and here's the results:

I posted links to the event on twitter/flickr/koinup/sl forums/in world events and linked to a flickr pic with the slurl to the store.

I got 62 views on the Flickr pic and my in world land traffic went from the mid forties up to just over 200.

12 people bought items 40 items from the store over the week (normally valued at around 4000 lindens) and 2 of them payed towards the plants a total of 110 lindens, so I made 2.75 lindens on average per item.

It was just an experiment and so nothing to cry over but it was a little disheartening to see people come in and take every item they could get their hands on for free and then just leave, no thanks, not even a token payment, nothing.

It might also be worth noting that the two payments I did receive were when I was on the land myself or just above working.

Lessons learnt:

1. Get it right, first time. I'm the first to admit the whole thing was a bit of a rush job, I layed out the land as quick as I could just to get it up and running, a better flow and some more developed items could have helped.

2. The system needs changing. As visitors arrived they were handed a notecard explaining the offer and as we all know one of the first things people do when arriving somewhere is decline any offered items. Perhaps a script on each object so that someone would have to pay something before receiving the item could have helped.

3. Size matters. thinking back, my store is way too small for this type of experiment, would be interesting to see what would happen if some of the larger clothes stores did this for example.

4. Where am I going with this? I guess it's made me think about why i'm doing this in the first place, I make just enough to pay the rent each month and realize it's just a hobby, but is it fun? When it comes down to it I think I would still be just as happy to give my works away for free if I had rent free land to build on. Also all this selling and store building really detracts from what I love to do..CREATE.

Epistems Halloween Experiment

Thought i’d have a bit of an experiment on Epistems this Halloween, i’ve re made up the land with some new Tree’s/plant and some older halloween bits but made everything absolutely free, the deal being that people can pay the Gremlin on the land what they feel the items were worth or how much they liked them, if it all goes well I might open the whole store up to the same pricing.

 

When I grow up.....

.....I want to be an Astronaut.

I asked a friend recently what they expect to be doing in SL in a few years time?

Their response was: No idea really, guess i'll be still going to gigs, maybe running a store, who knows?

I asked the question because I was wondering what happens when you reach middle age in SL, a few years on, you've seen the sights and know your way around, got a healthy contacts list, learnt a bit of scripting/building?

Stepping back and looking at paths in SL the list is fairly open:

Artist

Scripter

Land Owner

Object Creator

Musician

Manager

Co Ordinator

Comedian

Shopaholic

Mentor

Machinima creator

Blogger

Podcaster

Part goer

Hobo

the list goes on.......

The great thing is many of these vocations are interchangable and it's fairly easy to jump in and out of each one as you go along but how many of us really sit back and wonder where their really going in SL, in three years time where will you be?

While some of the ages in SL are fairly easy to map, the newbie freebie frenzy, the finally settling in with a bit of land etc, the later phases seem to be a bit blurred. With a set of skills under their belts many older SL AV's become the swiss army knives of virtual worlds able to cross over and apply them to whatever they need to.

My friend also asked me, what did I expect to be doing in 3 years time? I'm not sure, I guess i'd like to further realise a transcendental and philisophic relationship between RL and SL, both helping and attributing to the other (it's made a lot of progress so far), i'd also like to really feel like i'm involved in a wider community than now.

Quick Textures for SL Part 2: Organics in Gimp

This is another process I use sometimes for creating some really nice random Organic textures, it works especially well with flesh tones but can also create some really psychdelic effects.

1. Open up the Gimp: File->New and set the image size to 512x512 Pixels.

2. Select the Gradient Tool and select two different colours for the foreground and the background (two similar tones for a more natural effect, or in this case purple and green for a texture that stands out).

Draw any gradient on the image:

3. Right Click on your image and elect -> Filters -> Render -> Clouds -> Difference Clouds

On the Tool screen that opens select the Turbulent option, this helps create a more organic finish, but apart from that just experiment with the other settings to create different results.

4. Make the Texture seamless by right clicking on the image and selecting Filters->Map->Make Seamless.

5. You can leave the texture there but sometime I like to add a little more depth to the final result by Right Clicking on the image and selecting Filters->Map->Bump Map, from within this screen play around with the settings to create the look you want.

There you go, quick easy and painless Organic textures in Gimp. :)

Quick and Dirty ways for Making Textures in SL Part 1

I use this method probably more than I should at the moment because of Time constraints but it works pretty well for the organic builds I create and it's good way to create a number of textures quickly and get them loaded onto your prims.

1. Grab your camera and get outside, take close up pics of any interesting textures/colours and shapes that catch your eye - for me I usually grab shots of leaves and tree barks as they change over the seasons.

2. Download Gimp install and load up your photo's: (ideally you want you pics to be in focus better than this example :\).

3. Right Click on the image, select Filters->Map->Make Seamless:

4. Next select Image->Scale Image and change the size to 512x512 Pixels (good size for speed/quality in SL) and Voila a ready made texture!

Load your textures into SL/other grid and away you go! Simples. :)

EpisTEMS month 3 - Tenants rights in Virtual worlds

Well, after another month of working hard trying to get episTEMS going and actually making enough Lindens to pay the rent, the following arrived in my mail box:

"Hi Snowy due to the unviabillity of sims in SL will be shutting down ********* in 24 hours, and leaving SL permanently. I ask the you removed your possessions. Thanks"

Well that was a kick in the ass! It was also the first time i'd heard from the landlord since moving in, I still had a couple of weeks rent left on the land so after talking to several other tenants I IM'd the sim owner asking for a reimbursement of rental still outstanding (I neglected to ask for extra cover for the loss of business during this period, maybe pushing it too far)..........no replies and no lindens returned....the land was duly wiped after 24 hours and the sim has now gone.

This is also the third time this has happened to me in 2 years, which leads me to ask Who is governing tenants rights in SL?

James Grimmelmann wrote an article in the Yale Law Journal on Virtual World Feudalism that discusses the reluctance of the Lindens to get involved in disputes between Sim owners and Tenants but that having the Lindens as a direct Lord/Land owner would have it's benefits.

While it may be easier for me to sign up as a full paid SL account and buy a patch of mainland that would be governed by myself and would allow me to go straight to Linden Labs if I have any issues, i'm not convinced that the monthly fee would cover a theoretical tenants insurance.

The fact that tenants have to agree to a covenant written by Sim owners to try and keep a Sim running smoothly and aesthetically pleasing is all well and good but how many Sim covenants include a statement of the Sim owners responsibilites towards paying tenants? Many sim owners gather together in groups/business's to offer a singular covenant across a number of sims and a management company to run these sims, but as a tenant am I now able to follow the matter up with a management company who's reputation has been tarnished by a sim owner no longer on their books?

In RL many of these disputes are dealt with an independant management agency that deals with communications and issues between Tenants/Landlords while also ensuring that lease statements and rules are adhered to on both sides, by protecting the rights of both Tenants and Landlords a management agency can provide peace of mind and security to both sides, at a cost.

But SL is certainly not RL in this case, Sim owners are not all serious money investors and many run Sims as a hobby and sideline to other work, also they can relinquish ownership and responsibility for their sim within hours. But the cost of Sim's is high (far too high for myself or indeed a group of RL friends to take ownership of) and those who decide to embark on becoming a Landlord to a large group of tenants should perhaps think twice about the level of responsibilty and time they are willing to invest, when real money is changing hands between a group of people it is almost inevitible that disputes will arise.

What solutions are on offer?

Perhaps the formation of a SecondLife citizens advice bureau to advise both Landlords and Tenants on their virtual rights and to offer a number of set processes that followed to ensure the least number of issues when renting land, also to act as a third party mediator between disputes.

A Tenants rights covenant could be written up and offered to Sim owners to agree upon and then followed among their sims, if this was widely used then anyone looking for land rentals in SL could then expect at least a basic level of insurance and responsibility among sims, this would also go both ways (many covenants on sims do appear to include the same outlines).

Lastly there are some very large business's in SL that run many Sims and run them well under their own management companies and who take land ownership and rentals very seriously. Do they not feel that these more feudal sim's cause damage to the reputation of their business? Perhaps if a number of these banded together themselves and used their financial weight they could perhaps bend the ear of Linden Labs or help produce a greater level of control throughout SL.

Lastly, I hold no malice towards my former Landlord, as a former RL landlord I more than understand the strains the current climate has put upon those that invest in property and land inworld and out, yet I can't help thinking that with a little more effort from both sides things could well have ended more amicably and less abrupt.

Opensims and epiSTEMS month 2

Well epiSTEMS has made it to month 2 and so.......

...the whole gardens changed, all the plants/flowers/tree's and what nots have all been replaced with a new set, I realised with how much I build I can probably keep up with a schedule of twelve gardens a year, maybe, ish. It has made me wonder if I really do need the land though, the mojority of my SL income (say 85%) has come through Xstreet and although i'm only talking pocket money amounts, enough to cover the land rental costs and upload fees it might be worth using the lindens dollars in a more constructive way?

Anyway, most of the plants here were not built in SL but locally offline on my PC, after looking at the Meerkat viewer that allows you to upload and backup your rezzed objects my whole building experience just exploded! It really does what it says on the tin and works, ok, sometimes I need to try a few times to upload an object and that can cost when loading into SL and it crashes for a pastime doing anything else inworld but it's FREE and is exactly what I wanted to broaden my horizons...

....so my next step was to download and install opensim locally, it's a lot easier than I thought it would be (install/setup and logging in for the first time took 30 mins top) and the freedom of having my own sim to do how I want is great! It's also worth mentioning how fast it is when not connected to a grid, I was really put off last year when I tried openlife and the Rezzable PGA grid because of building/attachments/avatars/moving/talking issues but this runns pretty smoothly and i've had no problems with the builds.

After playing with the opensim for a bit I happened to add a quick twitter post about how much fun I was having, afterwards I was contacted by the Reaction grid team who run a PG grid with an educational slant that's built up to a fair old size, I checked out the grid and it's great! everyone there is really friendly and after spending a few days there and seeing all the old linden tree's I asked I approached them about offering some gardening services and hey presto i've been given a plot on one of the sims to produce nature objects just for the Reaction Grid and they're all free to grab and copy away!

Also worth checking out the saturday b movie nights with the group which have been pretty entertaining! but it really has made me think about the SL grid and the size it's become, with so many people complaining how the Lindens have lost touch with the users it's a refreshing experience to meet a smaller team who really do appear to be doing everything right.