Gag Talk

You've heard it, quite a bit in many cases; that mess of letters that comes from gags thanks to the marvels of RLV and (LSL) scripting.

We, the subs at least, willingly submit ourselves to be gagged and forced to talk like a mouth full of.. well, rubber. But who wants to listen?

I'd made a post a while back in annoyance at the idea that people are making tools specifically to counter act restrictions in order to not be inconvenienced by them. HUDs that listen to channels to pick up the pre-garble chatter so that we don't have to actually try to understand gag talk.

But the worst thing I think is that; from what I've seen, people just tend to ignore gagged people. They'll walk on by as soon as they see a gag, they won't even attempt any kind of conversation because it's just to much hassle for them.

Why is that? What's so bad about having to decipher gag talk? Okay ya, because I wrote the method for my own gag I can read it just fine, and some gags out there are really hard to do. But isn't the reason we play in BDSM sims so that we can partake in BDSM? Why just avoid anyone taking part in it because they're hard to understand?

If all it gets people is ignored.. its no wonder people cheat all the time or avoid using gags. They still want to interact at least on some level but people just seem to lazy to want to put the effort in. They'd rather talk to someone who can speak clearly.

Oh well. Just another annoyed rant at the people.

Marketplace

Well, I've finally gotten around to jumping through another of LLs hoops and swapped over all my links from SLX to Marketplace. The links in the Products List should now work properly.

I still don't understand why they had to go and change it, there was nothing wrong with the way SLX worked before they acquired it.

The Shocking Truth

I just realized today just how bad at this I've been. November 9th, 2009, was when I released my Chastity Belt and then... nothing! Absolutely nothing. How has so much time passed so quickly and all I've done is make a new vendor system for my stores?

I don't know how fast I can get something new to the market, but I will try harder with this realization hitting home.

I am still around in world, albeit not as much the past while, and I've been trying to push myself to script but it's not working to well. Rest assured it is still on my mind and someday I'll finish something new for people to play with. I just don't know when that will be.

Name the Capitals

Raise your hand if you know what a capital letter is. The simple, effective, and proper way to start a sentence capital letter seems to have died out at some point. Why is it that the instant people leave school, if not sooner, and come online they suddenly can't find the shift key on any keyboard?

Personally I don't see what's so hard about using capitals, or other proper punctuation, while writing be it for a term paper or just something like this blog post. Yet there are those who, forgiving the lack of punctuation for such short blurbs of text, totally abandon the use of capital letters in lieu of some drab looking spiel.

Maybe I'm just overly picky or sensitive to such things being an author, programmer and OCD but I just can't fathom how it can be so hard to hit the shift key and be done with it. When I'm reading a notecard or an items menu why is it that so many people just do all lower case despite that, especially in the case of menus/dialogs, what they're writing is a label or prose. I can understand not wanting to use all the 'ticky' punctuation and stuff when you're trying to jot out a quick note or an IM to a friend. But this is business stuff, these are things you sell and yet you show yourself as such an amateur, or worse, a lazy developer, by having bad looking menus or notecards simply because you lack the ability to reach over a smidge and hit that shift key.

Oh well, guess it's not exactly something we can change. People who are lazy will be lazy and hardly see aesthetics or proper written language etiquette as a reason to make the extra effort to use the shift key.

Anthemion Vendor System

If you've traveled to Stonehaven recently you may have come across a new vendor system set up to sell my products. This vendor simply called the AVS (Anthemion Vendor System) is my attempt to consolidate functionality in a low lag frame.

For the most part it works like any other vendor, there's a few small details such as how the products swap places rather then overwrite each other in order to display five products using only four prims for side display panels.

Some products have the option of multiple views, if that is possible there will be an index of thumbnail images next to the main image that you can click to enlarge different images. Due to the nature of the vendor, designed to use modular textures, this won't cause everything to have to reload - instead you get a quick rezzing alternate view while every other aspect of the vendor remains unchanged.

The text field gives a short blurb about the active product and a limited list of it's features, clicking the text field will give you a notecard for the active product for full details. There are, however, a few exceptions - explained below.

Below main display there is a few buttons that hide or show themselves when the active product is compatible with them. For instance some products have a Demo available and this is shown by the Demo button being visible on the control panel. Most products have the Gift option enabled meaning you can buy that product for someone else.

In order to purchase something as a gift you need to click on the Gift button when the product you wish to buy is active (displayed on the central panel) and follow the vendors prompts by providing the name of the desired recipient. Once the vendor is ready, having retrieved the key to the name provided (the one instance where the vendor uses web access) it will prompt you to pay the vendor and, upon receiving payment, will then send the product to the person specified.

If the product displayed changes the name of recipient is cleared from the vendor.

Above the main display there is the View Categories button. Clicking on it will bring you to a menu of the available categories that you can navigate too. It allows for some basic filtering of the type of product you're looking for and gives access to the Gift Card and Freebie section.




Freebies are fairly self explanatory, by clicking on a category the vendor will load that page of products. Freebies do not come with information notecards, they are given out "as is" due to the fact that they're free and you don't really need to worry about making sure you like what it is before spending money on it. Freebies do not have demos and cannot be gifted to anyone, to receive the displayed freebie you simply click on the text field that would have otherwise given you the product notecard.

The Gift Card section is a bit more complex - you may want to pay attention.
Receiving a new (blank) gift card is as simple as clicking the text field when the gift card page is active. Once you have one you should probably load it, giving someone an empty gift card really isn't that much of a gift.

To Load - In order to load your card you must first be wearing it, it is by default assigned to a HUD slot but it will function anywhere you desire. When worn, and with the vendor still on the gift card page, click your gift card to begin communication with the vendor. If it connects it will prompt you to pay the vendor any amount you desire to load onto the card.

Cards can hold up to 9,999 L$ and can be refilled at any time - there is no need to go get a new card if one runs out of money.

The current value of the card is displayed on the surface of the card, and is spoken privately to you any time the value changes.

If for any reason the card failed to update after paying the vendor please contact me, Lylani Bellic.

To Buy - In order to purchase something with a gift card, that you loaded or were given with money on it, you must navigate to a product with a price (it will not work on freebies for obvious reasons). To begin the transaction wear the card and click on it when viewing the product you wish to buy. The card will prompt you with a dialog stating what you're attempting to buy, it's cost, and what your remaining funds will be after the transaction, should it occur. To complete the transaction simply acknowledge the card's prompt (click Yes).

Notes:
a) As redundant as it may seem you can use a Gift Card to buy as Gift, just use the Gift button on the vendor and then pay with a Gift card.

b) It is possible to make 'half and half' purchases. In the case that a card has insufficient funds to purchase the displayed product it will have a special notice of this to you. Should you wish to go forward it will 'lock' the vendor to you for two minutes. This means that nobody else can pay the vendor or alter the displayed product. You, however, can though doing such will unlock the vendor and cancel the in progress transaction refunding the partial payment to your card.

In order to complete a partial purchase you must pay the vendor the remaining price (the pay price will adjust to be the remainder of what you owe, hence why we need to lock the vendor). Upon doing so the vendor will unlock and it will all be back to normal.

If you fail to make final payment in two minutes it will unlock the vendor and refund your card the same as if you changed products.



And that is a rundown on the new Anthemion Vendor System. It's still new so if there's any issues please contact me, Lylani Bellic, so that I can see about fixing it.

New Looks

So I was a bit bored and google had this "new design" button highlighted and I figured hey.. why not check it out.

So I fiddled with it, and modified my header image and here we are; a crisper and lighter looking blog then I had previously.

What'ya think?