Is Camping Dead ? 1 / 500 !

I spent some time today in SecondLife, and wanted to confirm what had been said in comments about camping going down because of the new search feature.

The cause is not so easy to define, but I must say that when I went thourgh campsites I had in my inventory, I was quite surprised. Many of them just vanished, or lowered their rates. Some CampMasters were still at the same rate, but not accepting any campers.

Many dancepads changed from 2L$ per 10 minutes to 1L$ per ten minutes. This seems to be the new "standard"... weeks ago my minimum was 2 L$ / 10 minutes, but this seems to be hard to find nowadays.

One of my favorite campsite even changed its rate to a ridiculously low rate... It's in fact so low that I made a snapshot, to be sure you'll beleive me... have a look.


Beleive me, this snapshot did not went through Photoshop. This bench is truely paying 1 L$ per 500 minutes, which is 8 hours and 20 minutes ! And as you see... it's full of campers ! Either camping is dead, or they did not read the rate before sitting here.

Cannabis Makes JohnLight Happy

Cannabis also makes JohnLight rich !

I did not started to deal nor smoke cannabis, keep cool, man... I just found a new campsite, themed on cannabis. The big weeds plant on this screenshot is paying 2L$ / 5 minutes... which is the double of my standard rate ! So yes, cannabis makes me happy, man !

By the way, did I say that the location of this plant has been shared in the "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker" group, man ?

Post number 201 - Looking back

This blog was born on the 1st of June 2007, 4 months and 26 days ago, and this is post number 201... a good time to look at all what I've done in SecondLife since.

I started with the goal of making money easily, using camping and banks. Simple plan, just a matter of how long I could camp and how much I could get out of the bank. I quickly learnt how find good camping spots, and how to re-configure the Second Life client to avoid being disconnected after 30 minutes of idle time.

While camping, I met people who are now good friends and who teach me a lot. I particularly think of Josephina Bonetto, who is now running Club Josephina. Jo also suggested to create a group to share ideas and good camping spots with other campers. I made it, and we are now 82 members in "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker". Campsite sharing continues to go on, I regularly post good adresses to the group, and some other active members do it as well. It even happend that I used the group to find new campsites for myself ! I also decided that when I will get the 1'000'000L$, I will give it to one of the members of the group.

Jo also suggested to create an alt, a second avatar so as to be able to camp more, using my spare computer. I knew later than some SL players are running up to 8 avatars simultaneously ! When I met Jo, she was envisaging to buy a small piece of land to be able to change clothing in a quiet place... Not only she made it, but she is now running a night club and renting appartments !

As my wealth was increasing, I lost nearly all of it (10'000L$ by that time) when Ginko bank collapsed. This has been hard period, and I one lesson I learnt was to keep a separate reserve in a safe place. Since then I keep 10% of my total earnings apart. At this point an other important people comes in the story: Stroh Bing. He was kind enough to put me back on track, with a gift to compensate for what I lost in Ginko collapse !

Another problem hit the camping community at the same period: LindenLab made gambling illegal in Second Life. As gambling was a main source of income for camping operators, the number of campsites was strongly reduced, as well as the payrates and maximal earnings.

Another important people in my story is Arbitrage Wise, CEO of JT Financials, and SL Capital exchange. Apart from giving me very interesting inside views of a SL bank, he gave me 5'000L$ to invest on SL Capital Exchange ! Until now my results as a day trader are not exactly good, these 5'000L$ are now worth... 3'800 L$. Ooops. I'm still looking for better investment strategy.

More recently, I organized two contests to animate the little commuinity that is forming arount me and this blog. This was a good opportunity to reward friends I met through the group. They are way too numerous now to be all mentionned here, and I don't want to make any jealous... I won't cite bad people either, I'm in a positive mood right now.

To close this mini restrospective, I can say that what started as a purely economical quest turned into a passionating human adventure. It had up and downs, I met all kind of people, we exchanged views and ideas. I want to warmly thank all of you, who made SecondLife part of my Real Life...

And now, turn towards future, and see how to get this million Linden Dollars !

PS: Genie, you're the sweetest person I met in SL, I could not finish this post without talking of you.

GUEST POST from Stroh Bing - New type of campsite directory

Here is a post from Stroh Bing (thanks again) about a place located in Ratmaw (183, 33, 451)...
This should help you (and me...) to find good campsites easily.

"Hey Campers!!

Stroh Bing here with a new way for us to make sure
no campsite sits empty....

The Freemoney Group has it's very own camp bench..

Not just any campbench, we got the biggest one
in SecondLife.. AND It has links to camping benches
all over SL.

If you need a place to camp, drop by and check out
the globes on the wall..

If you find a new place with camping sites sitting
empty, you can make a land mark and drop it on
any globe that is labeled "drop camping landmark
here"

Coming soon are free avatars to get rid of noob
skins that many campsites operators do not like..
Camping gear.. etc..

Don't let good camp sites sit empty!!!
Don't let Free Lindens go to waste..

Camp On!!"

Triple Lucky Day in Second Life - We need more Genies

I've been lucky three times today in Second Life. First, I could get a 4L$ / 15 minutes camping spot in Rumpus. Secondly, the region has been restarted. You might think that this is no luck, but it was... I came back as soon as it restarted, and because of a bug, some of the benches were still displayed some amounts earned, with no one on sitting. By sitting I could get that money, so I made 12L$ within seconds. It is the second time I see such issues with camping benches and regions restarts.

But my bigger luck today was to camp beside Genie Demina, as you can see on this snapshot.

Genie is an awsome suntanned blondie with deep blue eyes which I could look at for hours, but moreover she's a true angel. She helped me several time with SL, gave me tons of stuff, and she's very generous with all her friends. Genie is never short of time for others, and is always available. I met her months ago, and I can say she's a person I can rely on, and a trustable good friend.

To be brief, Second Life would be much better if there were more Genies there... Thanks for being You, Genie.

Camping together again - Bye bye JTFinancials contest

Busy, busy, busy ! This has been the keyword for today. Busy at job, busy at home, so not a lot of time to camp. Hopefully I had a short slot of time to start camping, and to make it more profitable, I started camping with JaneLight and JohnLight simultanously again.

The new SL client seems much more stable on my old computer than before, so I got quite good result. May be I should look for free old computers, but strong enough to run more SL clients...

Anyway, twin camping has been good, and I will report more about it later on. By the way, I did not decided yet if Jane and John are twins or lovers...

Sadly, I must report that I did not won the JTFinancials affiliate contest. During the contest period, I had 6 more new affiliates, and the winner had not less than 35 new affiliates ! Congratulations to him... May be next time... Bye bye 10'000 L$ prize :-(

I'm camping for YOU !

As the end of the voting phase of the Camping Photo Contest comes close, I'm now camping to earn the 100L$ prize I'll have to give to the winner. I could obviously take it from the bank, but I prefer accumulate it right now, so as not withdraw too much.

You can still vote for your favorite camping snapshot, all the photos are available here. I don't have a lot to report, as I was off for three days. Three days away from Second Life were just good, and I'm happy to say that I did not missed it. No guilty feeling or anything like that. I'm probably not that much addicted...

A new tren makes me a bit worrying... it seems that even 2L$ / 10 minutes campsites become harder to find these days. It's certainly time for me to start a new search phase, I'll keep you informed. Any tip welcome.

Second Life vs. Real Life - 10 Questions for the weekend

Before leaving for a three days week-end (lucky me !), I wanted to post some questions for you ! They might seem slightly off topic at first sight, but they somehow relate to Second Life economics...

1) Do you behave the same in Second Life and real life, or do you feel different in SL ?

2) What is your avatar ? A copy of you ? Your ideal view of yourself ? A puppy ? A fantasy ?

3) Do you have control over the quantity of time you spend in Second Life ?

4) Do you consider Linden Dollars as real money ?

5) Is there something equivalent to camping in your real life ?

6) Do you consider what you say in Second Life as binding as what you say in real life ?

7) Can Second Life be a viable source of income ?

8) Is Second Life different from any other internet based chat ?

9) What if Linden Lab decided to shut Second Life down tomorrow ?

10) Do you have true friends in Second Life ?

I will give you my own answers in a later post, and I'm really interested in yours. Feel free to answer one, several or all of these questions in your comments...

Shields up! There are monsters in Second Life (by Clyde Otsuka)

This is a guest post from Clyde Otsuka, about some attacks he underwent recently while camping. I personally never knew why the clients where sometimes crashing during camping sessions, and this could be part of the answer... Thank you Clyde for sharing the info.

"Recently, I have noticed that I get knocked off some very good camping spots. One time I was floating in gray space, other times, I would just be standing there, next to a cute girl. I asked some friends, and a very nice girl - Angelsky Shepard gave me two shields. She said to wear them when I camp. So, what the heck, I tried them.

Yesterday, while doing work on another computer, I noticed that my avatar had gone berserk! There were boxes flying around in a crazy pattern in a big circle.
The computer is new and high end, I wondered if the object was trying to crash the machine or the graphics card? When I checked it out, there was a huge octopus/squid creature hooked onto my shield. It was black, and pretty evil looking.

Taking a quick look around, I found a cute girl standing there, so I imed her.
She was from Italy, but spoke English. Evidently she had been given this object to knock people off camping spots that she wanted. I im-ed a few folks and they tped in and we had a long talk with her. She promised not to do it any more. I have her name. If anyone else runs into her doing this, we should probably report her?

A little more research, and I now have 4 shields. If anyone needs a set, please let me know, we seem able to give away copies.

Clyde"

A bad day in Second Life

After earning nearly 1'000 L$ over the last seven days, two bad news hit me today. Both the unlimited dancecage in Newt and the 8L$ / 10 minutes benches in Multiply disappeared ! On the plus side, the three lucky chairs in Terra Nexus are giving quite high ammounts, sometimes over 25L$ !

I also discovered a new kind of dancepad, combined with a jackpot. For each period of ten minutes:

• the camper get 2, 1, or 0 L$, depending the amount of the jackpot
• the jackpot is increased by 1 L$
• the camper has a chance to get the jackpot

One of the pads had a jackpot 0f 730L$ but a rate of 0L$ per 10 minutes. Camping there gives the camper a chance to get the jackpot each 10 minutes... but could also lead to a very long fruitless camping ! Personally, I don't like it...

The 200L$ camping day !

As I wanted to know the limit of the dancecage in Newt, I left JohnLight there yesterday evening. This morning, he was off the cage, with 100L$ more ! Given this good result, I decided to make something I had stopped for long, a daylong camping.

When I came back, JohnLight had been disconnected because of a planned maintenance. Apparently there is still a strong causality link between my long un-supervised camping session and SL going down !

Anyway, it's not that bad, as at maintenance time JohnLight already earned 98L$. I just had to camp for 5 minutes to get 2 more L$ and reach 200 ! So in one day I get enough money to pay the camping photo contest prize, plus the equivalent of three days of camping.

The contest is starting well, I've already received some good camping pictures. You can still take part and try to earn the 100L$ !

Earn 100L$ in Camping Photo Contest !

Do you want to earn 100L$ easily ? Take part in my Camping Photo Contest !

The rules are really simple. Make a snapshot on the theme of camping, mail it to me, and readers will vote for the best one. One picture per contestant, one vote per reader. Only camping related pictures will be accepted !

You can make picture of yourself, of other avatars, in SL, RL, a hand drawing, a scrap-book, a patchwork... There is no other topic than camping, so you can do something sexy, funny, artistic, symbolic, poetic, ... anything you like ! Be creative !

You can send your pictures at johnlight.contest@gmail.com until 12:AM SLT next Tuesday, 25th of September ! Don't forget to include your avatar name in your mail !

Lot of camping - Losses on SLCapex

I have had some delays in reporting recently, as I was incorporating the results of the poll and your feed-back in my most recent posts. I also try to maintain the pace of my posts slow enough to let you time to read them !

Most of my camping time over the last week-end has been spent in the "Italian Sexy Club" in "Newt (107, 69, 53)". They have quite various rates, 2 / 10 (no limitation known yet), 5 / 20 limited to 80, and one 2 / 5 but limited to one cycle ! Some of their pads also require to be member of "Italian Sexy Club of Newt" group. I made over 300 L$ there over 4 days.

My investments on the SLCapex are not exactly doing well. The market is oriented downwards, so only long-term investments have luck to produce benefits. Day trading is really hard. For the first time today, the balance is below 4'000L$, representing a 20% loss ! Nevertheless, I still beleive that this will improve.

Reverse use of the group

Until now, I always used the "Free Money from JohnLight" group to post good camping adresses to the fellow members. Sharing such adresses has always been encouraged in the group, and frequently members do send some.

Today however I used it a different way... As I did not made a lot of campsites search recently (I'll explain a bit later how I do this...) it happend today that all my usual spots were busy or switched off. Instead of starting a search, I just asked on the group if someone had some free pad in sight, and ... Bang... Angle Binder gave me the best tip, and I could start camping immediately. Thanks you Angle... you're really sweet !

Here we camp again

Since I got my computer back from the maintenance workshop, I restarted camping as much as I can, and I'm reaching daily amounts of about 5o L$ on week days and 100 L$ on week-ends. At this rythm, I will need 35 years to reach the million.

Hopefully, interests and other activities will help to make it shorter ! I can't imagine me still camping in 35 years. I can't even imagine what computers will look like by this time, and the current SL version would probably seem as old as pacman games do today.

There have been some changes in camping since I started this quest. The unlimited campsite are not so frequent, and many include human vs. robots checks. This can be in the form of a question when starting camping, or a warning while camping to which you have to respond, otherwise you get ejected.

Another new thing I found out recently are campchairs that can be used by members of a certain group members only. And obviously one has to pay to join the group ! As you can imagine, I don't exactly like that, especially as the chairs are not paying super rates.

There have been discussions today in the "Free Money from JohnLight" group about a camp master that is not always paying. Some members were there for as long as 23 hours, and got nothing in the end. It is not confirmed yet, and apparently the owner is temporarily short of cash...

Please continue to give me feed-back via the polling in the right hand column, or by clicking on the "help improving this blog" link on top of the page. I plan some changes soon, so it's right time to tell me what you would like !

Improving this blog ?- Express yourself !

To get a better idea of what you like, I opened a poll in the right hand column of this page. Please take 30 seconds to vote, so that I can improve the content of this blog.

If you have other wishes / tips / remarks, they're all welcome via comments on this post, or per e-mail if you want more privacy.

Now, the floor is yours !

Week-end post - Family camping - New type of pad

It's saturday, let's have some fun and personal information. I found today a new very quiet campsite, offering many 3L$ / 15 minutes, the limit is not known yet, but they allow at least 18 L$.

This picture has been taken there, after fellow campers and readers Genie Denima and Stroh Bing joined me.

Stroh is the insect. We had some good contact with the campsite owners, who were still putting things in place.

There is also a new kind of camping device there. They look like standard camping mats, but while camping, the avatar is kneeling, like praying. Will religion get into camping ?

JohnLight's landmarks book XIII - Lucky chairs paradise

This landmark is dedicated to all readers who like lucky chairs. You know, the chairs that give you a prize when you seat on it if your name starts with the indicated letter.

In Hairy Canary, you will find some of them.... not 10... not 20... not even 50... but not less than 84 lucky chairs ! There is also a Dance Dance with quite good rates, and limited to 400 (very good), but it's always full.

Oh, I was about to forget it... this place has been indicated this week-end by one of the members of "Free Money from JohnLight" group. Join it if you want such tips quicker.

JohnLight's landmarks book XII - The submarine camping

One more thime, I got this camping spot via a member of "Free Money from JohnLight" group, so thank you for that ! Many group members already profited from this place, so after a few days it's time to publish it here for the non members... but remind you can still join for 15 L$, and have all the best camping tips as soon as they are known to one of us.

This one is located in Adobe (146, 155, 11). There is a green-ish object there you have to touch to start camping. Touch it again to get your money. It is paying 1 L$ / 5 minutes, and when reaching 24 L$, you'll have to restart. Don't sit on it, it's not needed, and while camping you can still more around.

Not fixed yet

This is what the guy in the shop supposed to repair my main computer told me today. The new due date is mid of next week, so until then I will have to continue working on the older one, which is not so good at running the SL client for long times.

It's so slow that it makes any shop development or search for new campsites really painful. Nevertheless, I won't let this small problem stop me, and I will may be inspect the new bank that Anonymous mentioned in its comments, and camp as much as I can.

Sorry not having more to post about.