StarShip Games

One of the things I love to do in SL is play games. Chess is a fun one if you can find an opponent. Greedy Greedy is popular and you do not even need an opponent. If you have high score displays near the table, you can compete for the highest ending score. Then there are games of chance.

The last time I read the Linden Labs Terms Of Service (TOS), gambling was not allowed. Linden Labs prefers to think of them as games of skill. I still do not know how some of these game creators get around that rule but they do, somehow. Trust me, spinning a wheel for a computer generated random number is not subject to skill by any means. Still, the gambling games are there. And quite honestly, I'm thankful for them. I enjoy winning money from those places.

In the past, I have won as much as L$600 (Linden dollars), but lost as much as L$500, all at one time. I think for the most part, I am breaking even over the past 4 years. That's pretty good in my book. I am entertained for the whole time I'm gambling and recreation is invaluable. It's why most people visit SL in the first place. Just as in your 1st life, you need to know when to stop. Either lose too much and stop or win big and stop. If you win big, then the odds are you will not win again until you have gambled away your winnings. And if you lose too much, then you need to come back another day to win it back. It's as simple as that.

But what about that guy who owns the gambling/gaming place? When I win, is he in the hole? Not likely. It's much like gambling in Las Vegas. The odds are always in the house's favor. For every win I make, I know someone lost to pay for it. I know it's not the owner of the gaming place. He/she will always come out on top. So why doesn't everyone own a gaming place? They are expensive! Many of those game "machines" cost around L$1000 (about $4 US). Many of those gaming places have dozens if not hundreds of these machines. That's a huge investment! Then, you need to get people who are searching to find your gaming place. If you cannot get gamers to go to your place, they will be spending their money somewhere else. And there are hundreds of gaming places out there to compete with. But what if you could erect a gaming place for a bare minimum of money out-of-pocket.

Enter my buddies JR and Dollar. JR came up with the idea. He is investing in half with me and only getting 10% of the profits for now. Dollar owns hundreds of gaming machines. He will place them in your gaming place for 50% of the profits. So he basically rezzes these machines in  your place, and you are responsible for bringing in players. He has invested in the purchase of these games and his return on investment (ROI) is half the profits. Some weeks, the profits are quite low. Other weeks, they are impressive. Not every week is a payday, but most are.

So JR and I purchased a parcel (which happens to be right next door to cat's, Neva's and my home parcel) and erected a gaming platform. Dollar rezzed out and placed most of his gaming machines. This place has only existed for three weeks now but we are already starting to show a profit. It's called StarShip Games and it's located at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cabria/195/76/3901

If you like gaming, then StarShip Games is the place to be. There is always at least one big winner there, it might as well be you. I cannot get away with playing there because I have a partner, JR. But if it were only mine, I would not be against winning from my own account. But there is one game there that I can play because I do not own it, nor does Dollar. The game is free to me and I get 10% of whatever is paid to it to play. The game is called Eclipse and you can set them for various amounts required to play. Amounts from L$10 to L$1000 are possible. I mostly ever play the L$10 and L$20 games but I have a friend who plays the L$250 version and does quite well at it.

Basically, a player pays X amount to play the game. I get 10% of that and the rest is doled out over the "ladder" of the game. There are rungs or tiers on this ladder. Each rung is achieved by getting a high score. The rungs are set at 15,000, 25,000, 35,000, 45,000, 55,000 and 75,000. If you should happen to score 100,000 then you win instantly and the amount will depend on the cost of playing that game. To have your name posted on a rung of the ladder, you have to get one of the high scores. The higher the score, the longer your name will be listed on the rungs of the ladder. Once your name is listed on one of the rungs, and someone pays to play the game, you get 10% of what that player paid to play. There are 6 names associated with 6 rungs. So the owner of the land the game is rezzed on gets 10%. Each player gets 10% and the creator of the game gets the remaining 30%.

StarShip Games

I play the L$10 often so that if I do lose, it's not much. That being said, if I win, it's not much either. So let's try an example. I pay to play the game. My payment goes to the land owner, Otto Turbo (myself). That's all most players see. But I see L$9 of my received L$10 going to the creator of the game. Each name displayed on the rungs of that games ladders will increase the L$ they have listed next to their names by 10%. Just so long as nobody beats that rung's high score, the names remain there. So if the game is played 100 times before anyone beats my high score, then I have made L$100. So as you can see, if the highest score/rung I can achieve is 15,000, I will be knocked off of that rung in very little time. But the highest rung of 75,000 could take hundreds of plays before someone beats it. That highest rung will pay out a great deal by the time someone knocks you off of it.

And the best part about these particular games? They are networked. Yes, they can be played all over the entire SL grid and are updated in real time. So I do not have to wait until hundreds of people come to my land to play the one game before I get my payout. Someone thousands of sims away could be playing it right now and I'm making 10% every time they play it, so long as my name is on one of the rungs. When my score is beat, then I am forced down the rungs of the "ladder". Once I'm forced off of the bottom rung, I get paid.

But if I am going to play that Eclipse game, or another networked game like it, I need to play it on my own land so that I get at least 10% of my payment back. This is just one of the ways that gaming room people make their money via SL gambling. If I'm feeling lucky, and want to play a non-networked game, then I will go out to someone else's gaming place an win their money. If you are feeling lucky, then you need to go to StarShip Games and try to win some of mine.

Moving Day(s)

In my opinion, it is wisest to pay tier only a little bit in advance and here's why. SL is fluid. Things are in a constant state of change. People in their 1st lives move or change ISPs or careers or lifestyles and sometimes do not have time for SL anymore. Or they have time but not the means for they simply change working shift times and are never online anymore when their friends are used to them being on. Any number of things can happen. So if for some reason, a land owning avatar has to leave, and his land tier is paid up a month in advance, he has lost the value of that tier. Tiers are non-refundable. If it's a small parcel of land, it's not too big of a deal, but it's still annoying.

Neva's Garage Area at Goetz Race Track

Awhile back I had a nasty SL breakup. We had a modest parcel of land separate from my primary sim at that time and the tier was charged by the month. So when we no longer had need for the parcel, the tier was paid up three weeks in advance. Such a waste. That money was wasted.

Having learned my lesson, I always shop for parcels that have a weekly payment option. Pay tier by the week and if something should occur, the most amount of tier money you can lose is one weeks worth. In the case of our half-sim Goetz, Neva, cat and I would pay one weeks worth in advance. So on one day, I paid two weeks worth of tier. Then the following Thursday, every Thursday, I would pay one weeks worth of tier. So basically, we were paid up for half of a month and would never let the tier get below one weeks worth, just in case something happened. Well, something did happen and you can see that in a previous post: Poker Face

Dylan, Razorbladesmile and bro Nugget at the new parcel.
As you can see, Dylan knocked Razor's socks off.

As it turned out, no service was interrupted and we had a whole week to move to a new parcel. What this move cam down to was the same amount of land as Goetz, only divided in two halves. This allowed my business partner JR and I to put up a gaming area without cat and Neva having to pay for the prims we'd use. But this is the part I like best about not paying a whole month ahead on the tier. We would still have a couple of weeks left on Goetz, yet we would not even be there.

The move to the new parcel went surprisingly well. To be honest, I was not looking forward to it. I contacted two property managers that I have done business with in the past, Mirian and Roving. I contacted Roving first because I remember the 1/4 sim parcel I had under him was very smooth running and virtually lag-free. Unfortunately, he was not responding to my requests even though he was online. He was probably busy doing something away from the computer. So I contacted Miriam, who was also the property manager of the parcel we were currently leasing. She had two parcels and as it turned out, they were next door to each other on the same sim. That was fortunate! So I purchased the one parcel by paying L$49 to her (which is unusual because it's normally a L$1 charge or no charge at all) then paid the tier for the first week. I can pay up to a month ahead but like I said, two weeks ahead is more than enough.

Neva's very cool beach home after some landscaping.

The really nice thing about this parcel was that right next door was the other free parcel. I knew that Neva and cat and I were moving soon, in a day or two, so that would be ideal. I would own the first parcel with JR and the neighboring parcel with Neva and cat. The best of both worlds. Well, the next day as it turns out, that parcel was leased by someone. Damn, I had my chance. I should have just bought it then because the very next day, I was out hunting for the home parcel. I got a hold of Miriam again and she did have a parcel available, but it was not adult rated and we sort of enjoy adult rated sims because then we do not have to carefully watch what we say or do. Not that we are nasty all the time by any means!! Just some of the time.

But as luck would have it, Miriam noticed that another parcel next to the one I purchased with JR was way behind in their tier payment so she reset the parcel and sent me a landmark. It was perfect! I could have not asked for more. I immediately bought it (that odd L$49 charge again) and paid up the tier for one week at this time. It was about an hour later that cat logged on. Before that time I was at our old parcel on Goetz, removing and returning every single prim. So when cat logged on, I was ready to show her the new place. She seemed to like it okay. Her share of the tier payment increased a bit and Neva's and mine went down, so it evened everything out. I figured cat and I would go house hunting and find a new beach home or tropical island hut. Then Neva would put up something too. But it was middle of the day for me so I had to go and work in RL. I left cat there with a kiss and a new home.

Both of our new homes. Cat had this one on the left in
her inventory since before she and I met.

As I logon later that night, I am pleasantly surprised to find that cat had already setup a home. It was beautiful!! It's most certainly tropical with a small loft and a couple of first floor rooms and a large living room with adjacent bar. It was perfect! Unfortunately, she was not around so I set out our new bed and put up a chair and RLV capture stand for her so that I may sit and watch her stripped for my pleasure. Once again I had to leave but when I returned a little later that night, she and Neva were there sitting next to the pool. It was such a pleasant surprise to find them both together. Neva had not setup her house yet but cat had done some decorating in the bedroom and lots of plants and seating/furniture out by the pool. Neva had to logoff after a bit of catching up and cat and I proceeded to christen the beach house properly. Since then, Neva has put up her house too and it's beautiful! She has such great tastes.

But the overlaying theme of the whole experience has to be what I was overly worried about in the first place and that was that "home" feeling. Both women commented to me separately, and without being asked that they felt the new place was more like a home to them than Goetz was. That was a very pleasant and welcome surprise.

Happy Birthday

And what a happy birthday it was! I should point out that SL avatars are pretty lucky in that they have basically two birthdays. One of course is their real life (RL or 1st Life) birthday and the other is their rez day, the date their avatar was created.

My Birthday Card and One of the Cakes

Neva, cat and myself were in the process of moving to another parcel. A downsized parcel so that I could invest in a business venture with JR. More on that in a later post. So the sim was pretty sparse and we had lots of room. I still had not located a new place. Apparently Neva got pretty busy on that day and decorated the house and the beach area with wonderful balloons and rotating pictures of fond memories and a flattering birthday card and a giant champagne bottle pouring bubbly into a glass that was large enough for kaz to bathe in. Who could ask for more? Well, there was also a beach cottage there that she fixed up and decorated. It was beautiful and greatly appreciated.

The Beach Cottage

I never did get to party with Neva there as our RL schedules often times do not allow us to be together, but I was able to bring kaz and then later cat logged on. We hung out and kaz got into the champagne glass and cat and I hugged, even though she was having some sort of odd connection problem. She was there and that's what mattered.

It was a wonderful evening and such a nice and thoughtful gift from my daughter Neva. Thank you Neva! Now you are going to have to share with me when your birthday is.

A Glass of Naked kaz

Poker Face

I gave everyone a false alarm last week. Last week I got into a battle with the corporate behemoth, Comcast. I have been with them for years but for years I have not liked what they charge me for TV. The charge for internet and VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) phone is reasonable, but not the TV.

One day recently they sent me a notice claiming I was behind in my payment to them and that service was going to be discontinued. I was certain I was not late and I have not liked the way this corporation has done business almost from day one. So I called them up and found out that I indeed was behind. So I setup a payment with them and tried to forget about it.

But the more I thought about it, the hotter I got. There are other ISPs out there and this cable company charges way too much for TV. So I called them up and basically told them to stop charging me and to disconnect the service. I'm through with it. I made that crystal clear with them. The only snag was that the person on the other end of the phone, representing the massive corporation Comcast, could not understand what I was saying. Understandable because I could not understand that person either. The accent was so heavy and the phone equipment so poor that I could not even tell you if it was a male or female.

What does this have to do with Second Life? Well, I cannot logon to SL without internet. Knowing my disconnection date was looming the next day, I got online and told everyone how much I was going to miss them but I would be gone for a while. Maybe a couple of weeks before I found another service provider? I could not be sure. One thing I was sure about though was my past reliability. With only two exceptions, I have showed up for every scheduled event in SL to DJ for the clubs. I only play at two clubs but there are two couples that operate each of them so I composed a notecard (SL text file) that I could pass to each of them so that I would not have to keep repeating myself.

All the club owners/operators involved were very polite and understanding. I was surprised because scheduling events can be a real pain when you are short DJs. I know this from past, first hand experience. But there really was not much more I could do. I was finally fed up with Comcast so I told them "goodbye" and there was really no turning back. I was really going to miss everyone and all that was going on in my SL and even miss the DJing. But it would only be for a couple of weeks so it was not the end of the world, or was it?

I have the land tier paid up two weeks in advance on every Thursday. So on Sunday, when I realized I would not be around for at least a couple of weeks, there was over a week-and-a-half of tier/lease left on the land. Knowing full well that cat and Neva's payments would not cover the whole tier, and it would not be fair of me to expect them to cover for my payment, I figured the half-sim's tier would run out before I got back online. So it then became a matter of picking up all the stuff I had rezzed on the land that I did not want returned automatically to my inventory. There was a lot of stuff! But the copy-enabled items were okay to leave out. When an item or group of items are returned to your inventory by a land owner or manager, they usually end up in your Lost and Found folder. They will not be in order and many times you will not recognize what it is called by its name. So allowing items to be returned to that folder is undesirable. So I went around most of Sunday, up and down and all around the parcel, picking up the stuff that might be returned to that folder, and placing them where they belong in sub-folders in my inventory. Between all that and saying goodbyes to friends online, I stayed very busy that entire Sunday.

By far, the most difficult part was telling cat and Neva. They both knew I was returning but not when because I had no idea at that time. So the next day, I turned on my computer and was not surprised to find that I still had internet. So I spent as much time online with cat as I could, both of us knowing full well that we could be disconnected at any minute. Well, the minutes turned into hours and the hours into the entire day. After dinner that night, I got on the phone. After 15 minutes of navigating Comcast's frustrating menu, I was talking to a human. Yes, heavy accent but at least I could understand this guy and even hear that he was male. After explaining to him that I needed my service disconnected because I was through with paying their over-priced TV fees, he put me on hold for about 5 minutes and returned to tell me that the fees for the month have been waived to give me more time to think about ending their service. Really? He then told me that was their policy under these conditions.

Yes, I'll take free any day over expensive. The last representative I spoke with apparently tried to tell me that too but I could not understand them. So now I'm back online and have a month to find another ISP. I'm so glad I don't have to do without my SL for the next couple/few weeks! Oh, but now what? "False alarm everyone!!" Just like Lucile Ball, I have some 'splainin' to do.

I figured I had been replaced at both clubs by another DJ but as it turned out, one schedule had not been written yet and the other left open spots where my events were normally scheduled. So I was able to slide right back in and that felt great! Unfortunately, cat and Neva had started taking most of their stuff back into inventory. The plan was to move to a smaller, less expensive parcel after the tier expired where we are at. And when I returned, I was to move back in with them on the smaller parcel and save money too. But we are paid up over a week-and-a-half in advance at our current location so now we are on a nearly empty parcel for all that time. I started placing my things back out again so that we have games to play and dances to enjoy along with some select furniture filled with fun animations.

What did I learn from this whole ordeal? Well, the main thing is that with careful planning, I will make certain that I am not without an internet service. I learned that Comcast charges so much that they can afford to give you one month for free. I learned that if I am ever going to leave SL even for a long period of time, it's not always best to contact everyone about it because nothing is engraved in stone. Neva, cat and my friends are all a major part of my SL experience and I need to ensure that I stay a part of theirs too.