As our readers know, this blog is dedicated to showcasing grid-wide Second Life hunts, with the occasional sim- or store-wide hunt thrown in for good measure. It is a labor of love for Tessira and Shadowed, and a growing addiction they used to snare Thanos, who is becoming quite the hunter in his own right. =) Plain and simple, we LOVE to hunt. We enjoy the hunting/exploring part as much as the plethora of goodies we get from the hunts. What we do not love is the increase in bad behavior we are seeing on the various hunts we do.
We know all about the various hunt "aids" out there - wireframe, area search, treasure huds, etc. Whatever floats your boat and makes the hunt pleasurable for you - go for it. The vendors all know about these things, and take varying steps to make the hunts more difficult/interesting regardless of how you hunt. But please keep in mind - NOT EVERYONE HUNTS THE SAME. There are still people who enjoy hunting with their eyes, who don't want to run into a store and find the item in the first 3 minutes before anything else has rezzed.
My biggest pet peeve, and the reason I am writing this non-hunt entry, is people who shout out locations. That is inexcusable in any circumstances.
Yes, hunt with your friends, share information, let them know in IM when you find something. Help out someone who is stuck and asking for help - again, in IM. Offer to help someone if you have seen them wandering lost for a long time - in IM. Do NOT shout out "hey, its over here and its really tiny under this table!" That is rude and it ruins the hunt experience for anyone else within earshot who wants to find things on their own. Doing so around shop owners, who spend a lot of time and effort setting up their shops and finding good hiding places and coming up with hints that are not total giveaways, is a good way to get yourself banned from their store, not to mention from other shops on the hunts.
Thanos and I were hunting last night, and had been in one shop for a while (very sneaky hiding place for the item) and just as we found it, so did someone else who had been in the shop for less than 5 minutes. This girl immediately shouted out exactly where it was, and when I commented to her about yelling out locations, she told me not to be so uptight, that there were a lot of people in the store looking for it. Sorry, wrong answer. Its called a "HUNT" for a reason, not a "Freebie Giveaway." If you indulge in a behavior that impinges on other peoples' enjoyment of something, expect to be called on it. This incident, unfortunately, was not an isolated instance. It is the 3rd time in the past 2 weeks that I have been out hunting or working in my own shop and had someone yell out locations across a store, each time relating to a different hunt and each time with the person doing the yelling getting bitchy over being called on it by myself or others {because yes, there are times I manage to keep my big mouth shut =) }.
Its not about being the hunt-police, its about extending common courtesy to your fellow hunters and respecting their hunt experience while you enjoy your own.
~Shadowed
/end rant =)
Yeah, that behaviour is just annoying. I see a hunt as an exchange. Storeowners put time in creating an hunt item. And the hunters give the storeowners something back for the item and this is a higher traffic. So cheatlists and shouting out locations is just unfair.
ReplyDeletecant agree with you more - it´s a hunt not a buffet - and then if people get all bitchy about it´s just unexeptable - don´t keep your mouth shut - I also let people know who shout out locations - over IM is fine to your friends or fellow hunters - but screaming it out is just a no go.
ReplyDeleteWhat I hate is when you form a hunting camaraderie bond with someone, and spend half an hour in a store looking with them, and they find it and leave and don't tell you (in IM) where they found it. That's just cruel.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait, wrong topic.
But yeah. It's unfortunate that hunt etiquette isn't known to everyone. I try to just politely tell people I run into with bad hunt etiquette what owners generally ask, and usually they go "Oooh!! I didn't know! I thought I was helping :( Crap I hope I don't get banned from the store!!"
But more and more hunts per month + harder hiding in general = more cheaters and bitches, so it's not a surprise they're on the rise. I consider myself a cheater, skipping stores on hunts I know I don't want/won't use. But without my form of cheating, I'd either not do the hunts at all, or I'd be ooooooooonee huge bitch. xD So thank god for Tessira, Shadowed and Thanos and their awesomeness in posting prize pics! You are my heroes! And in an effort to keep hurried bitches from ruining hunts, I'll be giving out this blog link to every hunter I find. ;)
*Applauds* AND I enjoy a good rant.
ReplyDeleteI understand using the cheats, and I use them myself if I get stuck, so I won't say "Oh, that's bad". I also will go help strangers find objects when I'm not busy creating things for my own shop.
ReplyDeleteAs a merchant, I get very annoyed when the object is called out in group chat or shouted in the store. When that happens, I will move the object, and it will be a hell of a lot harder to find as a result. Basically, the more you guys shout out the locations, the harder I'm going to make it for the rest of the crowd.
I don't ban from my shop, but I will move the item before you snag it as you stand there and shout the location. It's a *hunt*, not a freebie fest. If you want freebies that are easy to find, feel free to head out to Freebie Dungeon.
And please, don't bitch at the shop owners about how hard they make things to find. We do put in a lot of time and effort making these gifts and, while I do want you to find the gift, I expect you to earn it with a little bit of looking.
Oh, and please don't bitch to me about how esoteric my hunt hints are. They're actually pretty easy if you just let the store rez and use your eyes.
Hunts are there to showcase different merchants. The What's In It For You for the hunters is a gift they might really like.
One last thing: please don't get upset at merchants for attempting to make it a challenge to find things. In this year's Make Him Over Hunt, someone put out a notecard over a notice in the group telling people how to cheat, and how to hunt.
Hunts aren't something you have to get done in the first day you start it. They last a month, or longer in some cases. Take your time, look at what the merchants have to offer, maybe take the time to let the merchant know how much you like their stuff (if you do), and maybe spend a little money to help support them.
Thanks
I've been holding something in for the last couple months that finally has to be said, so I'm putting my two-cents in with your guys'. Sorry. xD
ReplyDeleteI want to preface it by saying I REALLY appreciate nice store owners and their beautiful items that I pay for with my time, blood, and tears. And the rant below in no way reflects the majority of store owners. Also, I have made items and had stores in many virtual communities, and I know how much it sucks when people complain about my hard work, or don't appreciate free items and events I put time and love into, etc.
So this rant does not apply to a lot of great, gracious, kind, patient, hard working, wonderful people.
But to the ones it does apply to...
While I've run into a couple bad hunters (and these ones were newbies who didn't realize, not doing it to be rude or defiant - though I know asshats are out there too), I have run into maybe as much as THIRTY - or more! - rude, malicious, whiny, or outright mean vendors with god-complexes.
No, the item is not free; but it should not cost 6000L in time and blood and sweat AND tears AND traffic AND advertisement. Store owners BARTER their item(s) to the hunt organization for advertisement (which, by the way, usually costs money) and hopes of traffic. If my time is worth 20$ an hour, and the vendor's item would retail for 500L, I should not spend more than 6 minutes looking for the item. Any time spent after that should be because I like the store and I want to be there, not because I'm being held hostage so the vendor feels vindicated for THEIR time spent.
What sucks is hunters tend to only think about it from their point of view (wah this is hard, wah its not enough), but vendors are usually just as guilty of thinking from only their point of view as well. Wah, they aren't grateful enough. Wah, they aren't spending more time in my store, I should hide it harder to force them to. Wah.
I'm sorry someone came in and shouted out a location. Don't punish the rest of the people coming in, that's just controlling and malicious. I'm sorry a group came in being led by their friend, and left in under a minute. But guess what? Those people might've not come at all otherwise, and now you have a walking advertisement for your store. I'm sorry two people complained about your product - but it's because they don't like *insertitemhere*. You can't please them all at once, so just focus on the happy grateful people saying they love your stuff! I'm sorry all the hunters are rushing through the hunt because there's fifty hunts that month and they can't spend 8 hours online a day to finish them. But if they like your stuff, they will come back. Trust me, as nice as it is of oldbie hunters to give a polite turn around your store, you'd rather have two people rush through but come back than have one person pretending to be interested.
It'll be ok. Just put your heart into your creations, and into your store atmosphere, and into your communication with your visitors and shoppers. If you don't have that, NO amount of traffic or tricks can help.
Newb hunters that don't know the (usually unspoken) rules should be forgiven. Rude hunters that have never had a store and can't appreciate how hard the work is should be spanked and then educated. But store owners really should know better not to have entitlement issues and treat people rudely. Even if a vendor don't have a conscience to tell them not to, their business sense should alert them that it's not good for sales and traffic. A vendor wants people to feel good in the store, to feel an affinity toward it, to feel ownership of it. (stores with cult followings, by the way, are much more successful than stores without personality and with no communication)
I dread opening up hunt group chats. I feel bad when I see griping hunters, but I see more griping owners. And since the hunter to owner ration is 100 or 1000+/1 (not a statistic person), that is not a good thing.
I think there should be a form of hunt etiquette for shop owners as well. I don't mean about hiding things easier and all, i mean shop owners should not assume that every person is a cheater based on their choice of viewers. I had too many issues with the sl viewer and being a Linux user i switched to phoenix. On a recent rather difficult hunt i was in a store that had a mini hunt as well and spent hours searching only to finally find what i assume was the hunt object but when i clicked it i got instead a note calling me a cheater and saying nice try but they moved it, then the shop owner was behind me accusing me of using area search. you know i had never heard of area search till they mentioned it and i was so not cheating, I am one of those that enjoys searching around for stuff...
ReplyDeleteand on the same hunt just a few stores later i had a shop owner IM me asking for naked pics of me!!! what kind of behavior is that. it is not only us hunters who should follow rules.
the store that called me a cheater was a nice store that i would enjoy but now i have no plans on going back there again, i feel unwelcome and i mentioned it to a few friends who also have no intention of going back there. its a shame really and kinda hurt cause i really was not cheating and really was using only my eyes to search for a rather cleverly hidden item. I was so caught off guard at being accused of cheating that i ended up logging off because the store owner was active in group hunt chat and i found myself afraid to even continue asking for hunt clues at later shops.
Hi Bela, thanks for posting. I dont think shop owners assume someone is cheating based solely on their viewer choice. If you want to cheat, there are huds and all kinds of things independent of the viewer you are using. I agree that some owners are unnecessarily rude, but being a shop owner myself, i can see both sides - you are dealing with 50-100 owners on a hunt, they are dealing with literally 100s of people who come through their stores. Maybe you caught the one accusing you of using area search on a bad day. I have been working in my shop, wearing owner tags, and had people shouting out locations, porting friends in to the exact spot, and one person who had something which was shooting blue beams EXACTLY to the various decoys and renamed prims for a hunt item he wanted - over 10 beams, specifically to those items only. I am not surprised there are instances of store owners/hunters clashing when one of them thinks the other is doing something.
ReplyDeleteAs for the naked pics person - you are going to find pigs no matter where you go. Sad fact of life. I've had hunters IM me when I wasnt even on the sim, ask for help, and then when I go to the shop, help with extra hints, tell me "nice tits" before they port out to the next store. Chalk it up to immature pig behavior, and let it go, its not worth getting stressed over.
As I said in my original post, its about respecting each other during the hunt - hunters and shop owners alike. A little mutual civilized behavior goes a long way. =)