Pixel Scoop

Ok, so it is something of a rhetorical question since I will renew my quarterly premium at the end of November (simply because I like the Live Chat support and the 512sqm mainland). But I did consider before deciding this time, which is unusual. I considered whether or not, given some of the questionable business decisions LL has made recently, whether this was a company I felt particularly confident enough in to throw money (however little) at?

But I’ll renew anyway and follow the Premium sheep who complain but pay anyway

However, if ever I do cancel, I may just email billing with this:-

My name is Josue and I’m a….. well…. I just… I…I can’t say it. Ok, deep breath. Let’s try this again. My name is Josue Habana and I’m a 7Seas-oholic. The truth is that I like to stand around pixel places, dipping my fictional rod into Linden waters and catching virtual fish. So special are these fish that they don’t even need water. They float around my head, surviving perfectly well breathing nothing but pixel air.

I first realised I had a problem when I looked into my inventory and realised that a good twenty percent of my 4000 strong inventory started with the prefix (7S). It was then that I realised just how consumed my life had become by fishing. Was it the competitive element? Was it the fact that I wanted to catch the best virtual fishies before Jenee? Was it the fact that I just liked to have a big (colour customisable) rod?

I don’t know.

But anyway, that’s enough of that! How frikkin awesome is 7Seas? For anyone who has not got a clue what I’m going on about you can find their website here. It’s an in game fishing game that seems to have taken off spectacularly well, with lots of people getting involved and many of them creating their own custom catches and holding their own tournaments.

For the best (in my opinion) custom catches, get your butts over to Screwball’s 7Seas Area! What could be cooler than fishing for Smurfs afterall?

Go on…. you know want to!

It’s long been accepted that people wear floaty text above their heads for all sorts of things. There’s the mushy “Such-and-such-a-body’s Snuggle Muffin Loviddy Doviddy,” ones that make you want to firstly vomit and secondly hit the offender over the head with a large object. Then there’s the combat style ones… more recently the Bloodlines ones which are growing in popularity, you know the ones that tell you how many souls someone has gathered. Side note - never once did I see Dracula wear a frikkin sign over his head with a number declaring how many souls he’d taken! But lately I am seeing more and more people wandering around wearing nothing more than their name above their head in floaty text. Now, some of them do add little symbols at the end. But how is ‘Bob Smith’ any different to ‘~~~**^Bob Smith^**~~~’ apart from the fact that I find ~~~**^Bob Smith^**~~~ instantly far more annoying? There’s no need! And there’s plenty of people who just don’t even bother their arses to add the symbols and just wear their names! Someone really ought to inform them that we all get name tags free of charge and effort just for signing up to Second Life™. And you know what…even if people decide to switch name tags off for a while (as I do when I’m videoing) then the world won’t end just because they can’t see your name tag. The fact is if someone chooses to either not display or to not read your name tag, they don’t give a shit what your name is. Having it floating above your head with symbols or without is a complete waste of the tiny amount of resources my graphics card spends on showing me the damn thing!

In response, however, I made two irritating tags of my own:-

Don’t throw things at me…. it’s for display purposes only!

And honestly, if I saw someone in real life with a big sign above their head with their name written on it even once, let alone twice, I would hand them another one to wear saying, ‘Me, me, me, me, me…everyone pay attention to me.’

I’ll start with a disclaimer:- In no way do I condone the use of copybot. It’s evil and for evil people. Oh and another disclaimer:- My Grandmother was not really raped by one. She was murdered by one though. No she wasn’t. Ok, let’s try this again. Copybot in no way harmed my Grandmother. There we go.

Ok, so with the disclaimers out of the way what I want to rant about today is the complete paranoia surrounding copybot and the hysteria about it. For educational purposes, CopyBot requires the use of a different sort of client, so copybot is NOT a script, it isn’t an object, it isn’t a big sign that says, ‘I am going to steal all your content.’ It would look just like an ordinary avatar, because that’s what it is. An avatar logged in under a client that is able to basically steal prims and textures…. as yet not scripts.

Yet because the word has been banded around so much and the second someone sees something that looks remotely like something they might have once upon a time thought of making they scream ‘copybot’ there seems to be a real panic setting in. The first point I would like to make is that people do tend to create similar things in game. Just because you once made a wooden table does not mean that you created the entire concept of wooden tables. Because your prims look like chairs does not mean you invented the chair. Just because you built a skybox, does not mean you own the copyright to every single skybox ever made in the history of foreverness.

People see something and scream “omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg copybot did it! Copybot! Help me!” without even really thinking about it. I’m not saying everyone’s copybot claims are stupid and wrong, just that so many people are panic screamers. And it leads to all sorts of trolling and flaming. People hitting forums with messages about ‘copybotted’ content and destroying the reputation of other creators without even going through the correct channels to have their claim investigated. But what is most annoying (and it HAS happened) is when people see you pointing at things in their locations or looking at things and immediately accuse of trying to copy their stuff. If I go to buy something just from a prim on a wall, I like to know what I’m getting. Does the hoodie have a prim hood? That sort of thing. It is something that often a simple right click, edit and a look at the contents list can answer. Hence doing it that way. But so many store owners are so paranoid now that they jump on the cases of people doing this. It’s ludicrous. When I was walking through some place (that I will not name lol) with Jenee, all hell broke loose when I… shock horror….rezzed a prim. Incidentally the prim was something I had just bought from SLX and was unpacking. But the next thing I knew we had some random guy in front of us accusing us of trying to copybot his builds. He came over all high and mighty talking to use as if we had just walked into his home, spat in his face and pissed all over his brand new carpets. He then proceeded to tell us that he “knows” we are there to copy his content. Needless to say he got a mouthful from me and a certain assurance that I wouldn’t be back! LOL.

Anyway, for the hysterical copybot panic patrol out there, allow me to make the following clear:
CopyBot cannot:-
- Kidnap your children
- Rape your Grandmother (keep an eye on your Grandad though, it rapes Grandads).
- Hit you, beat you or inflict any physical pain on you
- Set off nuclear weapons
- Run for President.

Hope that’s all clear now.

Ok, I have blogged before on my confusion over pixel police and their inability to understand that they have no more rights or tools than us mere virtual civilians. But now I’m even more confused. Pixel Firemen? What?

I saw someone dressed as a fireman earlier with some title that indicated he was chief of his ‘fire department’ so I took a look at some groups. And it seems there are plenty of people around in game who believe it’s their mission to put out all the pixel fires. Now I don’t know about you, but if my little pretendy campfire miraculously got out of hand, I would just pick it up and tuck it away in my inventory again. Nice and safe. And completely doable without the assistance of some wannabe superhero.

So then I began to ask myself what else firemen do and came to rescuiing pets! If my pixel pet ever gets stuck in a tree, am I likely to call the Second Life™ fire department or am I more likely, once again, to just pick it up? Even if the little creature gets out of my sight, there are plenty of tools to help me locate it or even return it to myself from the estate tools. And I think that pretty much sums up the only two things they’d be required to do, right?

Perhaps they should all get jobs dancing in some club? I hear the women like those uniforms…

So glow is another tool that enables those whose graphics cards permit to create objects with a little more ambience or prominence than light might allow.

However, like everything, it tends to be a little overused…abused even.

Now I can understand when people are messing with glow settings and they do not have the hardware or the settings to see it, that they might think the glow is a tiny little bit and just end up leaving it on full. This often stays on until someone who can see it screeches out in agony at their temporary loss of eyesight and the aforementioned non-glow enabled individual rectifies the matter. But what is with people trying to deliberately blind the population of Second Life™? Ok, so by all means a little glow around your store entrance, or in the frames of special offer items and so on can be a great effect. But when it gets to ludicrous extremes it can be incredibly annoying.

Just a hint for store owners who think they need to have ALL the light from the sun flickering at their store entrance just to get people in: If we cannot see the entrance, we are unlikely to go there. Would you like an example? You’re getting one anyway!

When I saw this outside a store I was actually a little afraid to go in. Once my retinas recovered from the short term damage and my eyes stopped bleeding, I walked a little closer. At one stage I was half tempted to drop down onto my knees and beg for forgiveness for 27 years of sinning, but then I realised it was not God. An alien being coming down to kidnap me, maybe? No, it wasn’t that either. Some bizarre effect of a solar eclipse somewhere? Again no. Just excessive glow.

I have adopted a “don’t stare directly at it” approach with glow now. But honestly, if you went shopping in real life, walked into a clothing store and the sales assistant said, ‘Ok, before you can shop here I have to blind you? Would you mind if I stuck this fork in your eyes?’ would you hang around? I wouldn’t. And I won’t buy from places who insist on blinding me before I’m even allowed to look at the products.

For all the people out there who do this, let me ask one thing…

If I get one more stupid request from someone wanting to bite me, I am going to…well… I can’t think of exactly what I will do right now, but still. I will do something. Maybe I will scream. Perhaps I will curse. I may stamp my feet and send a torrent of abuse in the direction of my monitor. Or perhaps I will do none of the above and instead do what I usually do, which is say, “If I get one more stupid request from someone wanting to bite me….”

But anyway. It’s annoying. Why on Earth would someone IM a complete stranger and say, “Can I bite you please?” In real life, I’d have them done for common assault if they tried to bite me. How many times do I have to reiterate to these people that I am not a bloody pizza, I’m not a juicy steak, I will NEVER be a tasty bowl of pasta and despite what their HUD tells them I do not taste incredible and I am certainly not prime frikkin Vampire food. And not only do these ‘Vampires’ want to bite me. They want to bite me and then have me go purchase some daft bloody game in order that they can claim the credit for my soul?

Under the irritating circumstances of this becoming more and more frequent, I thought I would take a little look at the Bloodlines website.

It’s all about collecting ’souls’ which, in my humble opinion translates to go around pissing people off with stupid ‘Can I bite you?’ IMs. And how very unvampire-like. In all the Vampire movies I have seen, there isn’t a single one in which the vampire stops before biting in order that he can send a courteous IM to check that it’s ok! Dracula definitely did NOT do that.

The FAQs on the Bloodlines website make for some interesting reading. One of them, for example, asks, ‘My fangs are attached, but the bite still isn’t working. What should I do?’ My personal answer would be to go see a dentist. Their suggestion is to rezz a new set, but whatever. Another question on their FAQ page is, and I quote, ‘My gender isn’t set correctly, how do I change it?’ According to Bloodlines, changing gender is a click of the mouse. And there was me thinking it was all about hormone supplements and extensive surgery…

But of my pick of their FAQs, I save the best for last. Allow me to share my favourite of their questions and its answer:

“I joined bloodlines, and my soul went to the first person who bit me, and I don’t know them. I wanted to give it to my husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend, and my husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend is upset that someone else has my soul. Can you fix this?
Unfortunately, we can’t undo a bite. Once you’re bitten by someone, it’s permanent. If you were attacked by a vampire in real life, there would be no way to undo it. However, just because someone else has your soul doesn’t mean that you’re linked to them, you can still pledge allegiance to anyone or join any clan.”

Erm, did I read that right? “If you were attacked by a Vampire in real life there would be no way to undo it?” Seriously, if I was attacked by a vampire in real life I would be admitting myself to the nearest psychiatric ward and asking them to stop the hallucinations!

Anyway, I’m done ranting now. I feel much better.

Money makes the world go round, right? Or is that love? Well whatever. The point is we all kinda like it. There’s nothing better than feeling a bit flush after payday (real life) and being able to treat yourself to something you don’t need but just happen to want. It’s long been accepted that some will do anything in real life to get their hands on cash. And Second Life™ is no different. What continues to astound me in Second Life though, is how much people will do for an absolutely minimal amount of money.

Take camping for example, L$2 every ten minutes or so. That’s one cent per ten minutes, or six cents an hour. I’m pretty sure that breaks minimum wage laws in every single country! Ok, so there are those who camp while they sit around and talk to friends. Why not? If you’re only going to be sitting around talking to friends anyway, then you might as well get paid. But it always amazes me when people talk of leaving their computers on twenty four hours a day to camp for six cents an hour. Call me cynical, but would it not make more sense just to turn the computer off and save on the electricity bill? What with energy prices on the rise and all! It’s like paying ten dollars to travel to see someone who owes you a dollar. Forget about it!

And it isn’t just the electricity costs. It’s the undignified extremes some will go to with their camping. People will sit on ANY poseball no matter what it makes your avatar do just to get those couple of Lindens!!

Looks painful

Take these people for example. In their two hours of hanging around, staked of course, they’d earned L$ 13 each. However, much to my entertainment you could click on the little cones behind them to ‘jab the stakes harder’ and make them make all sorts of noises. Now there’s a job advertisement you would never see in real life:-

“We are looking to recruit men and women who would allow us to force a stake through their entire body for the entertainment of others, who will then be invited to come and jab that through a little harder. Qualifications and experience unimportant. Salary will be around 6 cents an hour, maybe 7 if you’re really good. Must be patient and have a high pain threshold. Please submit your resume.”

Hmm, I wonder if I’d get any takers for a role like that!

Ok, so I do not know the actual name of them. And the name I choose to give them is appallingly foul mouthed of me and I therefore won’t share. But let me explain what I mean. There are gadgets out there now that enable people to invite everyone they basically once had on their buddies list to any of their groups. I believe it does based on calling cards in their inventory, though I could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The point is, if someone is no longer on your buddies list, whether you still happen to have their calling card or not, the chances are they don’t want to be in your stupid group. If they didn’t like you enough to be your friend, they probably don’t like you enough to tolerate your spammy group.

This is at its most irritating when it happens to business accounts. There is an avatar, for example, I am required to use for certain land maintenance tasks. The offlines to this avatar, which is only ever used when certain tasks need to be carried out, go to email. And I am getting a little sick of the “Such-and-such-a-body has invited you to join their group, ‘DJ Who-the-Hell’s Fanclub’.” By ‘fanclub’ of course he means the three newbies he paid L$100 each to to be in it and everyone else he spammed from his contact list. None of them are really his fans. They are all either his alts or the people who feel inclined to accept and stay in his group because they are overly polite. And of course by being in the group you open yourselves up for IM after IM from the guy. “Come watch my avatar stand at pixel decks while I stream crappy music in through a free trial of Sam. It’s best in [insert a meaningless and boring adjective here] and your hostess is an automatic group inviter bot! Woot! Come on down.”

Anyway, I’m done bitching now. The moral of the story: Don’t be a prick.

Ok, well not me personally. But you know the sort! It seems that there is no shortage of people around threatening to commit aviecide every single week. Ok, so I understand that a number of people are leaving game disillusioned with everything from techincal troubles and Linden Labs right through to the fact that the avatar they were dating is now dating that chick that called them horrible names in that laggy club that one time.

Anyway, it isn’t those who actually up and leave I want to complain about. It’s the attention whores who declare every single week that they’re leaving for, well, pretty much anything. “Oh my God. Someone said they didn’t like the texture on my new house. That’s it. I’M LEAVING.” Or, “That bastard I was supposed to go dancing with didn’t log in. I’M LEAVING GAME.” Then there’s the type who have a petty argument with someone and of course declare they they’re never coming back. Ever. For good.

What amazes me is how these people interpret ‘for good,’ or ‘forever’. Allow me to clarify the following:-

1. Logging out for ten minutes and logging back in does not count as leaving for good.
2. Nor does logging out for three days.
3. Nope, not even a week. These are all just short breaks.
4. Setting up an alt and playing on that doesn’t count as having left for good either. In case you hadn’t noticed, even your alt is on the Second Life grid. You therefore haven’t left Second Life, have you?
5. Writing, ‘I’ve left game,’ on your profile when you’re blatantly standing in the middle of a store somewhere and very much in game just makes you look like a prat. You still haven’t left.
6. Even if you uninstall the client and then reinstall it, you still didn’t leave for good.

Ok, I just wanted to make that clear. I’m done ranting now.