Your Worth

I am going to bring up an ugly topic: Camping

I came to Second Life, cause I couldn’t run The Sims 2 any more without upgrading my RAM. I knew to check the blogs as I downloaded Second Life, for clothes, hair, and skin because just like in TS2, I wasn’t going to walk around looking like a townie. I had heard about camping on one of them. No details were provided, but I knew it was how to make money. While shopping at The Free Dove, I noticed what appeared to be a tipi outside. I went out to see if this was a campsite. Nothing.

After making my first friend in Second Life, he showed me where I could camp. It was at a club with a CampMaster. He should me how it worked, and I was pleased to finally have some money. It was the standard camping rate at the time $1 every 5 minutes, with a $100 daily limit. I will refer to these rates using this: $1/5; and $1/5/100.

I quickly accumulated a folder full of LM’s to campsites all offering the $1/5/100. All over the grid this rate was highly available, and seemed to be a basic rate. You could also find many $4/15, a few $5/15, and wow…the $10/15/200. All offered via my favorite camping system The CampMa$ter. There were tons of camping chairs, and dancepads around Second Life offering the same rates, some booted you after a set time, which was anywhere from 1 hour and 30 minutes, on up. It was hard to find one that gave you a pop up menu to click to continue camping, if at all it was pop up menu to put in a code that would allow you to move up in rate. If you were AFK, you continued to dance at the rate you started at.

My favorite campsites were Club Arsheba, a $1/5/100 CampMaster, where I would camp overnight with my friends. Perched on a sign, close to a money tree to pick lindens when I could. During the early evenings, I would camp at the camping chairs high up on a platform above the Goddess Mall, in the Spiral region. I loved these. I really don’t know why but I did. $3/15 for 1.5 hours. When your time was up the camping chair made you stand up. It then locked the chair for a maybe a minute where only you could reclick to sit. No one else could steal your chair during this short time. Sure lag, and a screw up view could slow you down to not be able to click in time, but this was still not so bad. It was nice and quiet. Hardly anyone talked. No one danced. No one played obnoxious sound files. No one wore particles. Nice and quiet. I would turn my sound on, and sit and listen to the quiet sound of Second Life at that altitude. Arsheba’s CampMaster is long gone, sad since I also grew accustomed to the sounds of the casino there. I miss hearing the repetitive sound of one of them in particular. I would hear it all night as I slept SL/RL Spiral/Goddess Mall is gone too, it’s still in my home sims, but now it’s the owners design studio and store and the region name has changed. I miss it. Funny enough I spent so much time there, and had such positive experiences there I moved into the Goddess of Love Apartments in the sim next door, and now live in a lovely home in another GOL sim nearby.

I have up until this late summer earned all my income by camping, with the occasional purchase of lindens. On my own, I could earn bottom line a minimum of $360L on a bad day. I did just fine, shopped as much as I liked, lived in nice places, and had nice things. Life was good. Sure I noticed the few places around that had $2/15 camping. LOL! We used to laugh at that rate and walk by! If I saw some poor soul who didn’t know better I would flood them with LM’s to campsites offering the basic rate: $1/5.

As I spent more time building and less time camping unless I was afk, I noticed more of these lower rates popping up. $1/10, $2/15. I continued to walk by and never camp there. But others did. I would find a new place, but it gave a pop up to continue camping, I left, others stayed. I alway knew I had another campsite in my landmark folder with a better rate or no pop up. Soon these “no bot” devices were everywhere. Silly thing is I know how the bot program works. I have it. I have never used it. I will never use it. People think that booting someone or giving a pop up will combat them. Nope, there is a setting for that. The program will handle a variety of tasks. Like logging in. Reclicking after a set time, etc. The person behind the av doesn’t have to be there, the program running along side Second Life will take care of what ever settings you choose to select.

Bots became a problem because you couldnt move faster then them as a computer was controling their click. They could be focused on a chair, pad or log in button set to auto click. Ever been to a campsite and heard the log in button of a campmaster being clicked? Ever heard it with 10 people there, and still 10 openings…click….click…..click….click. No soemone is not checking their time, it’s a bot already logged in and still running the program…click…click. Now I could care less if someone has an alt camping. Bot’s are alt too, their re-clicking and logging be set up via a program. An alt has the same chance as me at getting a spot. I don’t care if you are camping 5 alts. But seriously if you are camping that many alts, think about why–bots too. If you are doing this to earn Lindens to cash out to USD, you’re nuts. Go get a RL job.

With the end of casino’s, SLingo, etc on the grid campsites vanished overnight. I spent an entire day teleporting to my best sites and…gone nothing there but a patch of grass. What did SL lose? Well me..with up to $700 a day of disposable income. Nearly $4 USD lost a day by not shopping. Now think of others who left. Campsites became hard to find. The rates dropped. After awhile things picked up again. Lots of campsites around. Camping everywhere in fact. But! It’s crap rates with crappy low limits. Who is going to offer $1/5 camping when they can pack them in at $6/60 minutes.

People heads up here! What is your worth? Why are you flocking to these rates? Do you value yourself this cheaply in real life. If no one camps at these crap rates, the owners will be forced to take out half the chairs/pads, and offer a better rate. Spread the word. Start a Union even. DON’T DO IT! Get camping back in control. Owners will have to change the rate to a better one. QUIT the surveys! You are opening up yourself to having email spam, snailmail spam, and identity theft. Take a stand. Report a bot to a bot group. Don’t camp at bot friendly places-the owner are simply going to eliminate camping their eventually and put their alts on the property to get a traffic rating. Shop where you camp, start a business there, help them become successful in their mall or business.

Don’t camp for less then the equivalent of $1 every 5 minutes.