A review of our Luau

A review of our Luau

Today is a different day. Not only here in the blog. Contrary to my other habit of simply rewriting the blog about an upcoming event afterwards and making a report about it out of the invitation, I will write a new post today. The blog post "Hawaiian Luau" will keep unchanged. I don't want to destroy this anticipation, this tension that the previous blog still expresses, with a factual report. Well, you could say that is usually the case. But events at the Sunshine Realm are something very special. And the joy in the preparation is also a very important part. Something that makes SecondLife special for some of us, especially if you do it together with friends. But it's also very time-consuming, and you don't always have everything you need in your inventory. And this weekend was a lot different, so some more words about the Sunshine Realm itself. And I just don't want to write about the sunny side of this event, I want to show the shady side.

Maybe it was a premonition. But this picture shows me rather thoughtful and sad. And not laughing as you should expect it for a luau in the sun on the beach of Hawaii. That's why I have chosen it now, although it comes from the preparation. 


From a distance the event wasn't bad at all. We had over 65 visitors, because of the coming and going 54 were together in the Sunshine Realm at the end. Only with our "Hearts on Fire" Event to the Valantine's Day and "Back to the Winter" at the frozen Pond of our winterland were more guests in the Sunshine Realm this year. And DJ Valantine spinned a wonderful set and entertained us well tonight.

Of course there were some troublemakers, some at the event itself and there were some problems with voting later. We had some new guests, of which at least 2 behaved very suspiciously. Furthermore, someone in our guest group disparaged the Sunshine Realm and its visitors. At least that was quick to fix, I banished this person and threw him out of the group. 

But she can come back quickly, with a new ALT. Because even though that person was disparaging about the Sunshine Realm as a fake place and a place for ALTS, it was certainly one of those ALTs itself. And how fast can you create a new ALT? I don't use one myself, I'm too much in my avatar itself to split me. But it's probably just a few mouse clicks and a new name. And some of them are not very creative with the name. And if I build my SecondLife on ALTs to be in more places at the same time, or to get more L$ in Contests, or to deceive and lie to guests and friends, then you always have some in reserve. This is really the curse of SecondLife. And unfortunately we also know some people in our closer environment who are very active with ALTS. And I know it myself that someone uses ALTs to insult and discredit others. And since nothing in this world is really accidental, and other what happened on this very day, it also seems to be a possible conclusion.

Well, it's no secret that there are often ALTs on events, and our Sim with the contests in splitmode will attract them, too. Nevertheless, the contests are fairer than others, because not one ALT farmer will earning everything. But why do we allow ALTs among our guests at all? For one thing, we can't really know who is an ALT and who isn't. We would condemn someone on suspicion. SecondLife doesn't allow the IP address to be checked, privacy is a high priority in our countries. And that's a good thing. And there are enough good reasons to use ALTs. If you get flooded with IMs when you log in, the temptation to get incognito is very big. Others use ALTs as bankers or to try things out. Only the way in which an ALT is handled, the intention to lie to friends or persons from whom one wants to receive L$, or the use to insult, denounce or discredit others, makes an ALT to this plague. So as long as our visitors come with ALTs, but invest more time and creativity for the outfits as than some of our Sunshine Girls, they help create an event. Aren't they much different than extras in a movie. Ok, some of them aren't really handsome, come with blinking jewelry and shoes, but in the end the Sunshine Realm is an open world, a beautiful world. Built by friends for friends.

Unfortunately, not all friends are always really friends. Some have only one thing in mind. And since the Sunshine Realm is also a place where many people get L$ without much effort, we will always have problems with it. And where Linden is earned here, problems follow. Guests with ALTs in the contests are a small problem at all. On the one hand, the dancers don't behave properly, write directly and aggressively to guests, beg and become abusive. But they don't use the local to entertain and tease, don't want write emotes. We already had the topic ALTs. Dancer trying too to come with ALTs to earn double, and special without to write emotes and entertain in local its easy. And there is the freelancer problem, guests are written to, but to pay directly, and especially guests who are perceived as "rich" quickly lose the desire.  Others come with escort tags from other clubs, and also write guests directly to follow them to the other place. The dancers or managers of the current club are often badmouthed.  Or you want to attract attention with inappropriate behaviour. All this is SL and belongs to such places.  It is often called Griefing. Many look for the abbreviation, and not the hard way. They want the fast success, and not invest. It is just like real life. 

I believed, or lived my SecondLife in the Illussion, that Misty and I had also built up with the Sunshine Realm a home for friends. I often refer to it as my family. And many good stories and developments have also confirmed me in it. I was proud of many of those who belong to us and have participated so wonderfully every week and proud of many things we have achieved together. And I really believe that you can make a difference and change your life with SecondLife. We develop us, and that continues in real life. We can try things that we don't dare do in real life or that don't work. There was a lot of praise, and I'm really sure that the abundance of so many beautiful and unique events, which were all elaborately prepared and decorated accordingly, don't really exist very often in SecondLife. And so the events became more and more challenges, for the participants, but also for us. It is not always easy to motivate yourself again and again or to develop new ideas for events. This weekend seems a mental deep point for me. There a some different reasons for this.

Although we had invested a lot of time in the preparation and it became a wonderful place, the atmosphere on this evening was not really appreciated by everyone. So I got a lot of questions, which is not right, what is happen. And we had some who apparently came to disturb us. We don't want to seal off our world, it should remain an open place. Many don't see the time that we put into the preparation. And that it also makes work to run such an event that it is more than welcoming people. Even less people can see that. And we had a lot of delays with the contest board, although afterwards the lag in the region wasn't as high as we had to expect. On the contrary, the value was surprisingly good with the large number of visitors. Everything should have worked. 

So can only the reckless behaviour of some lead to the crash of the contest board? Or was there another influence? It's difficult to say, but possible. I explained that evening that the resources for the running LSL scripts in a region are really very limited, and the Unvote windows are a real burden. When someone clicks 5 times to vote he also gets 4 unvote windows. Basically, the board processes every click, sometimes delayed, and sometimes too late, so that the wrong person gets the vote. And then you have to click again on the board and wait, again this blue Unvote window comes, and you can try it again. We ourselves had already started the contest with 1,250 L$. Then first Bic donated 250 L$ for the contest and we increased to 1,500 L$, then Phil supported and with a donation, and we could gradually increase the winning amount to 2,250 L$. Eight pages were full of registrations.

Then it went into voting, and I noticed at the beginning that the board was slower. But it should be possible. I asked everyone again to be considerate and just click once. I also made it very clear that I would take anyone who I could clearly see clicks more than once out of the contest. And if I don't know the person in question, also the person who is voted for. It is very likely that people with several ALTs will behave in this way. The worse thing is that they will click several times in a row to make sure that they have really voted, but then switch to the next ALT. This also leaves the following unvote windows unanswered. But it is precisely these that cause the extreme delays. Unfortunately some of those present didn't listen, so I threw 8 people out of the contest in the first attempt. Unfortunately the others couldn't vote correctly anymore and asked me what to do. The ones I took out complained in the local chat and didn't understand why they suddenly couldn't vote anymore, or kept trying. The board was irreparable, with 56 votes counted we had more votes than participants. Unfortunately this happens when the board crashes, and I even think these event tourists with lots of ALTs know that, too.

So I broke it off and got the 2nd board. Fortunately we have enough possibilities to react in the Sunshine Realm. Quickly the 2,250 L$ paid, and again a registration phase. Again the 8 pages were reached quickly. And because I believe that people should be given a new chance, and I believed that everyone also learns, everyone was allowed to participate again. I was speechless when I noticed that some people clicked on the board every time the name of one of their ALTs was on the board, even though we were still in the registration phase, and the voting wasn't open yet. And not just once. So they already hindered all the others in the registration phase. Now it's a bit tedious, the Eject dialog is like most in SecondLife difficult to see through, you have to distinguish between display and login names, sometimes a name does not appear either. But in the end there were many exclusions again. Somehow we could finish the voting, 45 votes were counted. And also the following payout worked well.

So this event will probably remain in bad memory. Although the event location was very elaborately prepared, the spark was still not ignited. We had a lot of guests, but somehow it felt emptier in the end. Thanks to our friends and supporters we again had a large winning amount, but the behaviour of some of them made it very difficult for everyone, there was a lot of unrest, my IMs overflowed. But we solved it in the end and everyone could vote. I can only thank everyone who tried to support me, or who just kept me calm. In the end there is only one thing left, we should use this very beautiful venue quickly with new events to make the memories of these fade. I am looking forward to the next, already planned events here.

Like usual you will find a Google Images Album with more pictures.