Bartholomew Gallacher

Massive griefer attack at the garden

Right now we had a massive griefer attack at the garden. First some avatar named Mxxx Ax came to me and asked me what I am looking for. I askes him: „why?“ He told me on an instant message, that he is a pimp and wants to sell me the services of his whores for about 10 L$. I told hime: „Fine, thank you, but my girlfriend would mind.“ Then this moron said something like „Well, than I must cage you“ and began caging all people in the entrance of the garden. Another friend of his, named C.H. came in, too, and helped him.

Here is some transcript of it, anyway:

Mxxx Ax: barth
You: hi mxxx.
Mxxx Ax: what do u play this game for sex?
You: Why do you ask?

[15:33] Mxxx Ax: cause im a pimp and im selling hoe’s if u want sex i can sell u a gurl for 10L$
[15:33] Bartholomew Gallacher: no, thanks, my girlfriend would really min.
[15:33] Bartholomew Gallacher: +d

Mxxx Ax: fine then ill just cage u

Caging is quite difficult, since when you are in such a cage it is normally not possible anymore to get out of it on your own – besides logging off and logging on.

It went even more worse, they had some bigger cages, too, and plastered them all around the garden and threw some kind of napalm on it. At least some time you could not see anything in the garden because of the smoke and it got laggy, too.

The whole attack lasted for about 10 minutes, then it was over. The griefers got banned on all parcels of the garden and all griefing objects were deleted by the owners.

So, what’s the moral behind this story? If you want to do business in SL, better count on if you are having success or behind your store is a big real life company, that sooner or later some griefers are going to show up for sure to make your life hard as hell.

And of course in the moment where you cannot handle them at all, like a press conference going on.

So – better invest some money in good security and security precautions! It can save you from many potential headaches. SL is like the Wild West, sometimes!

Some business stuff

I’ve stumbled across some interesting blog posts and magazine entries about doing business in Second Life. Here they are:

  • Going pro in SL. Aimee Weber discusses the topic of turning your passion into your profession, what to expect and how to do it. Very interesting read. Also some comments are very interesting, but some advises are just sooo obvious. For example, write an invoice. If someone wants to become a pro and does not think about that – ouch. Or „put your pants on“ – double ouch. You can sum up all advises under a single rule – be on good behaviour and if you want to be a pro in SL, than SL == RL. And, of course, you are not going to have much time after this step to play at all nor is it a fast way to become rich or a guaranteed source for a steady income. So better be sure!
  • Another big content builder, doing custom builds: Millions of us. They have links to some interesting articles, an own blug and other stuff, worth a read.
  • „Second Life Lessons“ from the Business Week. It’s basically about how a real life company could enter the universe of SL and what they should consider if they have no experience and knowledge about SL at all and about some possibilites only SL offers to the customers.
  • „Hot to Get a Second Life“, also from the Business Week. Some rules and advises what you should do before you setup a shop in SL. Also a very interesting read.

1st Life

In the infamous Heise Forums there is a humorous post about the advantages (and disadvantages) of 1st Life! The author praises the perfect framerate, that dates feel much more realistic and so on. A very funny read, it is available here, in German only. For a rough translation in English just try this.

Happy New Year! or so…

I wish you a Happy New Year and that your wishes for 2007 do come true!

Personally, my own start in 2007 was very sad. A very good friend and neighbor of mine, 86 years old, died at 0:30 am in hospital today. He was there for a little bit more than one week, he went into hospital before christmas and the last time I saw him was at Thursday. He was sleeping and not well, so I just took a look into his room and went away quietly.

He would have had his 60th marriage anniversary in about one more month. If you take a look at this, most emotions and stuff in SL seem so hollow compared to that.

How many Linden Lab employees does it take to change a light bulb?

A funny joke found in the profile of Top Tank:

How many Linden Lab employees does it take to change a light bulb?

[scroll down]
Answer: Please, everyone, be patient, we’re doing the best we can, it’s not fun for us either, check the blog for updates, and in the mean time, here’s our Torley with „10 Super Fun Things To Do in the Dark!“

Sadly there’s much truth in it.

RL and SL

Many people think that a game like Second Life is better than real life. They are wrong and right at the same time.

They are right, because you just can go away if someone bothers you.

But they are also wrong, because people are people and ever the same. And in SL many people are on a even more rude behaviour than in RL because of the (false) anonymity  an avatar gives you. Many are trying to do things in SL, which they would never do in RL. This is part of the charms of the game and of course not bad, but there always some people who cross the line, then. And this is bad.

Food for thought

Well, since SL was down over half the day (or even more…) and there was no possibility to login, what’s the addicts second best choice? Right: reading some posts in the blogosphere about Second Life and thinking about it.

So I here now present in no particular order my todays choice of articles about SL and stuff:

  • SL History Wiki entry about Aimee Weber. Very interesting read about one of the leading content builders in here.
  • Amy Weebler’s 2007 Second Life Predictions. A very fun read, for example:

    Linden Lab will be sold to Google, who will ALSO be unable to get search to work properly.

  • Wall o’Residents. Jeska Linden’s photo stream on Flickr with some very interesting photos of LL employees.
  • Aimee Weber and the AvaStar: „Corporate Love“. An interview with Aimee Weber, who was one of the chief builders of the AvaStar island in Sl. It was a very interesting read for me in the Metaverse Messenger. The AvaStar is a tabloid, made by the German Axel Springer Verlag, who also publishs the famous Bild-Zeitung in Germany, Europe’s biggest yellow press paper. Aimee Weber gives us some piece of her mind and thinks that the Second Life Herald only always mocks on SL and celebrates griefers. Well, I guess not all people are going to be with her opinion on this point.
  • Prokofy Neva’s blog with an article named „The REAL Awful Stuff“. It is a very important read for anybody, mainly because it shows how leaving and saying too much stuff in SL can ruin your privacy in RL. Prokofy Neva writes about how a well known griefer named Plastic Duck aka Gene Replacement (here’s an interview with him) was able to pinpoint the real life persona of Prokofy Neva and how the avatar Prokofy Neva is being harassed in SL on and on. If these accusations are not false, we talk about some heavy stuff here, including identity theft and cyberstalking. I guess if Prokofy Neva is able to pinpoint Plastic Duck down in RL he for sure is going to sue him. This is also a very important read for everybody to understand that you cannot care too much about your own privacy! Sooner or later it can for sure backfire on you, you never know who’s out there.

And of course the obligatory link of the day about the downtime of SL: „Second Life vorübergehend geschlossen“, courtesy of Heise Newsticker (German). Second Life is called a „internet playground“ in the article – well, this for sure fits!

About

About the experiences of the Second Life avatar named Bartholomew Gallacher.

All views and opinions are strictly on my own, I am not affiliated in any way with companies I may mention until noted otherwise.

And here’s a picture of my avatar:
Profile Pic

Another unplanned downtime… again.

Well, another downtime of the server, again. What should have been only a small downtime turns out to be a major downtime – again. They are updating the central storage hardware – oh well. Since more and more business keeps getting into SL and is made in SL it is for sure time that LL thinks about some efforts to achieve a better availibility, since these downtimes lately simply said tend to piss off many residents.