I don’t know, if you know, how contest work in SL. I didn’t until a good friend of mine recently participated (and still participates) in such a contest.

It’s a sham right from the beginning!

This is how it works:
You put your picture somewhere on a plate at the place of the contest. The contest organizer puts a script in this plate to “count” the people <touching> or <paying> it. This script prevents that the contestant himself or another avatar touches the plate many times thus giving multiple votes. Usually, you are only allowed to “vote” once a week or once a day. So far the rules seemed quite fair to me, but …

My friend, a beautiful and lovely girl named Shandariel Zenovka, seemed to stand a good chances to get to one of the top positions since the contest is one of beauty and themed “formal”. She is wearing a very erotic dress on the picture, that still somehow could be called “formal” at least in Second Life. I told her so, but she said “No, I stand no chance at all”. “Why?” was my question and she told me that all contests she knows of in Second Life are always about how many friends one has that vote for her. There are even girls staying hours in front of their pictures begging strangers to vote for them. This contest is especially perfidiously, since the voters are asked to vote by paying the picture. The amount even has an influence on the ranking!

Here comes the part where I try to bribe you to vote for my friend.

Let’s cheat the cheaters, at least I want to try it with your help. <Click here> for a SLUrl to the place of the contest. <Pay> 1 L$ to the plate with Shandariel Zenovka’s picture on it. It is the same picture you see here on the blog. Don’t pay more then one L$, since we don’t want to make the contest organizer a rich man.

Get three FREE sand-writings for helping beat the cheaters

After voting for Shandariel <Click here> for a SLUrl to our sand-writing area at the “Love me tender Park” in sim Rockje (195, 95, 25). There you will find a vendor for the three sand-writings “Cheating isn’t nice”, “Don’t cheat on me” and “Beat the cheat”.

DON’T pay the sandwriting-vendor, <Touch> Shandariel’s picture next to the vendor instead to receive your sand-writings for FREE.

I trust that you don’t cheat me – just don’t.
These sand-writings normally cost 150 L$ at our shop. Three sand-writings seem a true bargain to me for the one L$ you are investing. This offer ends at the end of august 2008. Meanwhile, “Help me beat the cheaters”.

What do we learn:

• Votes are a sham in Second Life
• Don’t participate in contests that are decided by vote and not by a jury
• Especially don’t participate in contests where the voters are invited to influence the vote by paying higher amounts. This is a swindle to enrich the organizers oft the contest.

Now that I convinced you never to participate in such a contest, except by voting for Shandarie Zenovka , what should you do with the time you won by this decision?

My friend Cupid has a good advice: ♥ Spread the Love ♥

Villain Baroque

This isn’t such a romantic posting, but since it affects a lot of us in Second Life, I thought to post it here anyway. Anshe Chung’s virtual Real Estate Imperium Dreamland seems to be dwindling.

No wonder – when Linden Labs lowered it’s prices (not the tier) for land, everyone owning land found himself in a situation where the value of his land had diminshed dramatically over night. The more one had, the more one lost. And I guess, Anshe Chung and her company Dreamland had a lot of parcels that were not worth the money anymore, she herself had paid for.

I own 8’096 sqm on one of her residental sims, but since I didn’t plan to sell my parcel, I just didnt care at that time until …

… until I got the following notecard on July, 25th:

Hello,

As part of our commitment to continuously improve Dreamland, we have decided to begin converting some full prim sims to low prim sims. Your land in:

Pirassa
Kokomo Island
Opium Island
Bloodstone Island

is on one of the sims that is going to be converted.

Conversion will happen between August 8th and August 15th (depending on Lindens).

All land owners have the choice to move/trade to any other available sim in Dreamland.  Please contact Talon DeCuir, Carcinia Polano, Lexi Lock or TC Hastings – and we will assist you in the move.   If you decide to stay and wait for the conversion you should know that during the conversion any objects in the sim will be lost, so you should make sure to have them in your inventory.

Everyone who moves before August 8th will be credited half a month worth of free tier as bonus.

We look forward to assisting you in the very near future.

Talon DeCuir

So, I cleaned up my parcel, lost some stuff, ruined a few things, wasted a lot of time in SL, not on having fun but on packing – almost like a relocation in RL. Now I am waiting for an adaequate new parcel and have to go on paying tier for a parcel, I can’t use for a week now.

SELL YOUR LAND FAST
We buy any land anywhere anytime!

I tried to sell my parcel to Dreamland after reading the claim on their website ” SELL YOUR LAND FAST – We buy any land anywhere anytime!” so I could take all the necessary time to check for a new home myself without paying tier for a parcel I can’t use.

Here is the answer I got from Dreamland:

Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 04:28:41 +0800
From: support.anshechung@gmail.com
To: villain.baroque@hotmail.de
Subject: Re: LAND SALES REQUEST: Villain Baroque

Hello

Thank you for your message. We are sorry to inform you that we are not buying lands on Dreamland now. We have to reduce our selling prices and to discontinue buying more lands after Linden Lab has lowered land prices and flooded the market. We only buy lands on Mainland and a whole Sim somewhere else. Sorry for the inconvenience. For further information please feel free to contact our dreamland angels: Carcinia Polano,  Lexi Lock, Talon DeCuir, TC Hastings.

Best regards.
Tracy
Support ACS

I asked them to change the misleading information on their homepage (to tell the truth, I called it “a barefaced lie”), but until now August, 11th 2008, it hasn’t changed as you can see on the following screenshot:

They still use the misleading information and I still don’t know, how to avoid paying tier for a  parcel I can’t use at the moment. I even consider just giving up the parcel since paying tier for two more months seems to be almost the same amount as anything I may get for my parcel, if I get a parcel again and if I can sell that one to anyone.

As I see it, Linden labs ruined half of my investment and Dreamland the other half with their ” …. commitment to continuously improve Dreamland.”. LOL – Much improvement for me.

Meanwhile Dreamland seems to be in a true crisis. They lost a lot of money and right now they are loosing the trust of a lot of their customers, too. That seems to be a dangerous path they are going, but I guess they are trying everything to reduce the monthly tier they have to pay to Linden Labs. Maybe we just see the beginning of a former success story comming to a sorry end.

What are your experience with that (Un-)Real estate crisis? Comments please. Unlike Jack Linden on the “Official Second Life Blog”, I appreciate comments.

(Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting)

♥ Greetings, seekers of romance ♥

I live up to my promise. Our “Love me tender” Park at sim Rockje has opened and once again I find the time to offer you a FREEBIE, not only one but two this time! That’s my way to compensate my avid readers for the long time that went by since the last freebie.

Inspired by the lovely song All for love, I created …

… a sandwriting and a writing in the gras with these words on it for you.

Ready to go? Here is how you get the current freebies and don’t forget to write down the passphrase.

The passphrase is: “Rockje“

How to get your Freebie:

1. Go to our brand new Love me tender Park on sim Rockje.
2. For the sand-writing, teleport to Rockje (170, 130, 25).
   For the gras-writing teleport to Rockje (180, 220, 25).
3. Position your avatar in front of the billboard “Current Freebie”
4. Touch the red button <Get FREEBIE>
5. Say the passphrase in chat
6. Accept the inventory offer

… and as my friend Cupid says: ♥ Spread the Love ♥

Villain Baroque

As time goes by, Second Live changes and we who live there with it. While our sandwritings were still the most lovely ones and the most real looking ones, Windlight demanded for more. As Second Life becomes more realistic (and I hope not more real), it was time do redesign our sandwritings and make them even more real looking.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I proudly present to you Sandwritings – 2nd Edition.

All our sand-writings were completely redesigned. But we did not only redesign the old ones, but made a lot of new writings in the sand, too, bringing even more variation and beauty to your beach. We offer a lot of new themes and some in the major languages that are spoken (or written) in our virtual world.

As before, each sand-writing is meticulously and lovingly painted by hand in Photoshop. We use no fonts for our writings, but paint each letter by hand. That’s one reason why our beautifully crafted sandwritings look so realistic and are so popular among SL’s coast dwellers.

Another reason why we are so “en vogue” ist that our writings look great on every type of sand. We use an almost transparent prim, that overlays the texture of your beach thus combining both textures to a new composition. A lot of our competitors just put some text with a computer font on a standard sand texture – done this way, it looks ugly on every sand. Look out for quality, don’t buy the poorly done for good money!

We have reserved a large areal on our sim for our sandwritings. Teleport to Rockje (200, 120, 25) and look for yourself and don’t forget to take your copy of the FREEBIE sandwritings we offer there. 

… and as my friend Cupid says: ♥ Spread the Love ♥

Villain Baroque

♥ Greetings, seekers of romance ♥

After three month of work, we opened our new sim today. We are quite proud of our quantum leap since we went into business in autumn 2007.

Last week I was interviewed by a major SL magazine, how we accomplished this success. Here is what I told them:

• From the start, we concentrated on quality, that’s why we only sell stuff that is created by ourselves.
• We never sold and never will sell “business-out-of-the-box” products at our stores.
• We sell the genuine stuff, filled with our everyday love for you, for Second Life and for each other (meaning Rockje and me).
• We create products we like ourselves and that we use in our private home, too.

What are you going to find at our new sim and how do you get there?

Click <here> to get a teleport via SLurl to our park or search for “Rockje” on your map in-world.

We have a lot of new products for you at this sim.

First of all: Our famous sand-writings have been redesigned and look now even more realistic than the first edition did. But we did not only redesign the old ones, but made a lot of new writings in the sand, too.

We added a new series called shells in the sand. These are little shells that spell a love message on your beach. Like our sand-writings, they look good on every beach.

Do you know Curtains of Love? No? You have to see this new product. It’s a curtain you put in front of your door. When walking through this curtain, it showers you with hearts, doves or clovers, depending on the version you use. You can adjust it to greeting only a certain avatar in this way (wouldn’t this be a nice surprise for your SL love) or to greeting all avatars.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

If you are interested in romance in Second Life, if you want to pep up your love life, if you need to say “Sorry” or if you just want to say “I love you” – come to our sim.

I got some mails asking, if there won’t be any more new FREEBIES here. Yes, there will be a new FREEBIE soon. I am planning of offering a FREE gras-writing to the readers of this blog. Wait a few more days until our new sim has opened, because that occupies most of my time at the moment.

I haven’t forgotten the FREEBIES – promise!

Spread the love

Villain

(CIBELLE)

♥ Greetings, seekers of romance ♥

Not all of you out there have beaches. Some of you prefer lakes or in-land places to the tropical beaches so popular in SL. Our famous sand-writings are lovely, but I understand that they don’t go well with such a neighbourhood. But – salvation is near.

Our new product line of grass-writings is especially for you lovers of a green ambiance. There are even two FREEBIES available.  For a Nice Price of 600 L$ you get all of the grass-writings. A saving of 300 L$ compared to the price of 150 L$ you normally pay for each one. The two FREEBIES are included too, but without the ads they normally pass to visitors.

Like our sand-writings, these grass-writings use an almost transparent prims that overlays the texture of your lawn. That’s why they look good on every grass.

You can buy the writings from a vendor at our flagship-store in Eris (108, 238, 511).

Of course we do custom grass-writings too. To order one, contact Villain Baroque in-world. You get COPY and TRANS rights on your grass-writing. Such a personalized item costs 1000 L$ and can even include a small logo.

Sorry for the few posts during last month, but we are preparing our own Sim at the moment. Yes, that’s right, soon you will be able to vist our “Love me tender” park at sim Rockje. That keeps Rockje and me very occupied at the moment and doesn’t leave a lot of time for this blog. But it will be worth it – promised. Meanwhile have a look at the following sneak-preview, I prepared for you:

What are you going to find at the “Love me tender” park?

Cupid’s palace
A store dedicated to presents for your loved one: Loveletters, Love-tokens, beating hearts, love messages. In two words: Hearts and Love wherever you look. We have put some boxes with “Romatic Freebies” here too.

Stainless Steam
If you like steampunk, you’ll love Stainless Steam. We specialize in working meters. Have a look at our functioning and resizable clocks, solar-meter, sun-dials etc.

The Millionaire’s shop
A store for the lucky few among us that sells very expensive things with a lot of gold. You won’t find any freebies here.

“Love me tender” Beach Area
A large part of the sim is dedicated to our beach related stuff like sand-writings, magical coconuts with love messages carved into the tree and the coconut it drops, the new shell-writings and many more things to enhance the beauty of your beach.

The “Love me tender” park opens
to the public on August, 4th.

We have become used to the daily crimes in Second Life, texture theft and the copying of skins and clothes. There are a lot of people out there that lack creativity but don’t lack criminal impertinence. But who would have thought that sand-writings are next on the list of the digital Ali Babas? Not me.

Since december 2007 we produce our high-quality sand-writings, but guess what? Now a thief with no creativity of her own took snapshots of our sand-writings, placed these snapshots on a prim and started selling them as her own sand-writings. Shame on you, Dany Salubrius. Of course, these copies don’t reach our hand-painted quality by far. Our sand-writings look good on every beach, because they are a mostly transparent overlay on the texture of your beach. This way, it looks good on every kind of sand. Dany’s Copy Shack isn’t proficient in this technique, therefore you get a prim that already brings a sand texture of it’s own. This way, it looks bad on every sand.

Well, we could say Good Luck with your lack of creativity, Dany Salubrius and ill-gotten goods never prosper, but bad quality in a new kind of product is bad publicity for everyone who is selling sand-writings. Trying to reach her via IM was no success, since she didn’t answer my IMs. Instead she banned me from her shop. She probably didn’t loose a customer in me.

If you, valued seeker of  romance, want to see cheap quality on your own, visit her robber’s den at Banyaga (100, 166, 45). Bring her some traffic and if you meet her, tell her what you think of stealing. She even charges the same price (50 L$ per sand-writing) for her bootleg products – what cheek!

It seems as if I am not her only victim as you can see at the following discussion at SL Exchange (Click here).

Since I absolutly despise to write an entry that only shows bitter feelings, here are a few positive thoughts about Second Life that crossed my mind while writing this post:

• I have wonderful customers and get to know people that are an enrichment to meet. Thank you for your business and the positive feedback you give.It’s a joy creating for you.
• One wrotten apple doesn’t spoil the bunch. I love SL and the people I meet here
• Last but not least: I met my wonderful girlfriend and muse Rockje ♥♥♥