Monday, November 2, 2009

Trapped!

So, logically, I understand why some SL groups are pay groups. It keeps out most of the spammers, because no everyday spammer is going to pay $250L to yell "U COME TO BIGFANCYASS MALL - ALL ITEM $50L!" And sometimes the designers feel better if they charge because it means the people who are in the group actually WANT to be there, and they can give gifts to reward.

HOWEVER...

I only have 25 group slots. You only have 25 groups slots. Everyone in SL only has - say it with me - TWENTY FIVE GROUP SLOTS.

I kind of feel trapped when I'm in a group that suddenly becomes a pay group [or invite only]. I group juggle quite a bit, but the more pay groups I get in, the more I feel like I can't leave. I don't want to leave a group that's been quiet for months only to miss out on a gift the next day.

My thought is this. If you're going to have a pay group, give me a reason to stay in. Yeah, the gifts are nice, but I can get gifts almost anywhere. Give me OTHER reasons. Fun chats, secret sales, group only sim outings, fun contests that don't require me to pay for something else.

I'm currently in 24 groups. 11 of them, I can't leave because of land, personal, or business reasons. 9 groups are pay groups. Two are invite only... Wow, you know what? Out of all my groups, I have ONE that I can leave if I need to. Just one. And you can bet that if I left it, the next day there would be a group access only sale. lol

Look, if we can't get more group slots, can we at least not have so many pay or invite only groups that do nothing? That would be lovely, thanks.

Ali's [2nd] thanks of the day: I'm thankful for group owners who don't trap me in. LOL Or that at least make their groups worth staying in. :)

7 comments:

Phoenix Chapman said...

I so agree. I was trying to juggle my groups this evening, in fact. But I don't want to pay to be in a group more than once :\

Peter Stindberg said...

People who use Subscribe-o-Matic can IM the owner Mso Lambert and ask for a set of LSL scripts in which regular vendors (or infogivers/giftgivers/younameit) can be modified in a way that they only operate if you are in a certain S-o-M group. This will reduce the necessity for regular SL groups further.

On a sidenote: there's a few priviliged people who have 26 groups - those people who had all their groupslots full when LL tried to invite them into a LL-run group. In fact in this case you do not even get a "join group" blue box, but you find yourself IN the group. The bad news is it is not a persistent 26-group limit. Once you drop <= 25 due to leaving a group, you are stuck with 25 again.

Shattered said...

Agreed 100% on this. A notice went out recently through a Subscribe-o-Matic group I'm in that the regular SL group was going paid a couple days later, and to join quick for free while you still could.

I skipped it.

Of course I'm a little bummed that I might miss some fabulous gifts and such, but I don't like feeling trapped in like that. Most of my groups are mandatory groups for me, related to either the RPG sims I help admin, or my lovely little slice of iSLand. If a SoM is available, I will take the SoM and I definately won't bother with both.

Gabby McCullough said...

we seriously need to organize a protest for Linden Lab. Why the arbitrary number?? Why can't they raise it to 50 or 100? I mean, is there something wrong with the programming? This seems so simple. I want an explanation of WHY, if they absolutely can't raise the group limit.

Someone...get on that. :P

Peter Stindberg said...

Sign here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2833

Isabeau Reinard said...

There is an online petition that's been open forEVER. I remember signing it a year and a half ago when I was DJing at 4 different clubs, and had to be in 1 or more groups for each club. It only has 1,500 names on it, and LL is ignoring it, just like they're ignoring the JIRA.
http://www.petitiononline.com/25_to_50/petition.html

As I said on Plurk, there was an article a while back that explained why they would not go from 25 to 50. It basically explained grid operations and said that 25 groups was already too taxing to the grid. It talked about chat lag and how stressful it was to the grid to have groups with thousands of members participating in a single chat session. I don't know why I didn't bookmark it, and it pisses me off that I can't find it now.

If they DO raise the limits, I think I'd heave a huge sigh of relief at the freedom it would afford. Like you, all of my non-work groups are closed enrollment or pay-to-enter. It annoys me too but I don't think it's going to change any time soon.

Good luck with the JIRA though. I think I signed that a year and a half ago too.

Heather said...

Interesting #3. The sim I live on has Linden water on 2 sides. I see your point, if we can see it, why can't we touch it? I wonder if a server/sim is actually even there.