Procyon Games

Website transfer fixed

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Fri, 20 May 2011 02:27:00 +0000

There was a bug in the transfer code; it wasn't working if the person you were transferring to wasn't already a customer. It now works even if the avatar you're transferring to has never bought anything at Procyon; however, they still have to be in the Procyon database (which means they have to have played at least one complete game of anything).

Website Transfer

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:03:00 +0000

You can now transfer your Procyon game licenses yourself, on the web.

I've always claimed that my licensing system gives you "the best of copy-ok and transfer-ok." It's not possible with the current permission system to sell an item that is actually copy- and transfer-ok, because people would just make their own copies and sell them. But it's nice to have a copy-ok object, just in case it ever breaks or doesn't rez properly. And it's also nice to have a transfer-ok object, so you can give it to someone else. Second Life merchants generally have to choose which way to go.

But with licensing, you can have both. You can redeliver your game to yourself at any time, and keep multiple copies in your inventory, so you don't have to worry about rez errors, like a copy-ok object. And you can transfer your license to an alt, or give it as a gift, like a transfer-ok object. So you get the best of both worlds.

Except, in order to transfer your license, you had to send me a message and ask me to do it. I have to register the change in the Procyon Games database. People don't transfer their licenses very often, so it wasn't a huge deal.

But I've now implemented self-service transfers. Any Procyon game owner can visit the Customer section of the web site, click the Transfer link, and send their license to anyone else. You don't have to wait for me; it happens instantly. It will even deliver a new copy of the game to the recipient.

Be careful! Transferring your license is permanent. The other person becomes the new owner of the game. Your own games will stop working, and if you regret your transfer the only way to get it back is if the new owner decides to transfer it back to you.

If you own multiple licenses, you can transfer some or all of them to the new owner.

Give it a try, let me know what you think.

Names are back online

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sat, 14 May 2011 02:22:00 +0000

Some people may have noticed blank spaces where the names usually go on the scoreboards.

If you don't know, I have a texture-based system for name display. Everyone who plays gets their own texture. It's automatically generated on my website and uploaded to Second Life. The benefits of this are, it uses fewer prims (just one prim for a name!) and it looks a lot nicer, too.

The downside is, I have to pay for every new texture I upload. So I took the system down a couple days ago and reconfigured it. It is now a little more selective in who it generates names for. If you just play one game and never return, it won't make a name for you.

For anyone else who wants to see their name, just keep playing. It may take a day or two for your name to get through the system.

If you've been playing for a couple days and you still don't see your name on the scoreboard, send me a message and I'll look into it.

Website Redelivery

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:47:00 +0000

I've added a redelivery option to the Procyon Games website. If you are a Procyon game owner, you can get a new copy of the game redelivered to you any time from the website. You don't even have to be logged in to Second Life.

All the previous methods of redelivery are still there. You can get a new copy of the game by touching any vendor in-world, or by using the remote control that came with your game ("/8 deliver game"). The website function is just another convenience.

To access it, go to the main Customer page. In your License section you should see Redeliver links for each game license you own. If you don't see the links, hover your mouse over the game you want to redeliver.

Display Names and You

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:31:00 +0000

Linden Lab is rolling out its Display Names feature, which, if you haven't heard by now, allows anyone to change the name that appears in their tag and chat.

The scoreboards I use for my games display players' names as textures, and it's too expensive to change them to match people's Display Names. Plus, it would make tracking high scores difficult. So here is how it's going to work.

The scoreboards will track your Full Name, not your Display Name. For existing players ("oldbies"), your Full Name is the same Avatar name you're used to. For new accounts, their Full Name is their account name, plus "Resident." However, the scoreboards won't show the "Resident" surname, so they will effectively show the Account Name.

So, if you are an existing player, nothing will change. Your name as it is displayed on scoreboards will not change.

If you are a new resident, then the scoreboards will show your Account name.

For all avatars, if you change your Display Name, it will have no effect on the name that is displayed on the scoreboards. That might be a little confusing, if your name shows as one thing in chat and another on the score display. So a little heads-up for everyone.

See who's playing your games

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 02:32:00 +0000

Game owners can now view a list of recent (past 2 weeks) games played on the games they have rezzed in-world. Click on the "Local Games" link in the Customer section of the web site.

Take it Easy Head-to-Head v2.14

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 02:26:00 +0000

I've posted an update to the Take it Easy Head-to-Head edition.

Tile textures are pre-loaded, so you won't have to wait for textures to rez in the middle of a game.
The selection ring which marked the current tile is gone. Instead, the current tile will blink and pulse.
The game is mod-ok

To upgrade, visit my store and touch the Take it Easy vendor. It will give you a new copy of the game.

Team Captains Listing

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 20:20:00 +0000

The Team Captain names are now listed in the team rankings for En Garde and Can't Stop.

Remember, if you are a team Captain and you don't want your name listed, you can set yourself anonymous in the customer Account Settings page.

Customers can now set Anonymous

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 03:48:00 +0000

In preparation for the Team Leader display, I have added an Anonymous setting for Procyon game owner accounts. If you own a game, you can go to the Customer section and tick the check box for "Anonymous Leader". If you don't do that, then your name will appear as Team Captain in the Team Ranking listings.

Nobody's name is appearing yet. I haven't enabled the Team Captain display. I'll give everyone a few days to set themselves anonymous if they want before doing so.

Team Captains and Privacy

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 18:27:00 +0000

There have been some requests to add the Team Captain names on the Team Rank display page. Next to each team, you would see the name of the person who owns that team, the team captain.

Obviously, some people would not want their names displayed there. So I'll need to add another privacy option, one that would let you remain anonymous.

The question is, should the name display be opt-out or opt-in?

If it's opt-out, then all team captains' names would be displayed by default. You would have to check the box in your account options to enable privacy.

If it's opt-in, then nobody's name would show up by default. You would have to uncheck the "anonymous" option in your account settings.

What do you think should be the default? Post a comment to this blog entry to let me know (or email me).

Personally, I would prefer to make it opt-out. I'm afraid if it's opt-in then most people won't enable it. There's a lot of owners who don't even know this website exists. So the names would all be blank, and it wouldn't be much different from not having the name display at all.

Linden Dollar Strengthening

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 19:40:00 +0000

For the first time in over three months, the Linden Dollar showed signs of strength, as the current offer price for sell orders ticked down one notch, from 266 to 265. This is the first real good news I've seen on the Second Life economy.

Ram Linden has posted an "Economic Spotlight" on June's Lindex meltdown. The official explanation is that when they merged people's XStreet and Second Life accounts, the extra Linden Dollars swamped the economy. Nobody seems to be especially convinced by that. I have my own suspicions, which I hope to be able to write up soon.

One other thing I'd like to comment on. In his blog post, Ram writes: "...we are committed to allowing the economy to fluctuate based on its own market forces." I'm sorry, but that's an outright lie. For almost four years, Linden Lab kept the price of the Linden Dollar artificially low, by selling massive quantities of their own currency on the Lindex through the Supply Linden account. The value never increased beyond L$259/US$. If the economy had truly been allowed to "fluctuate based on its own market forces," the L$ would be worth much more today, and content creators would have been compensated much more for their efforts. Instead, by artificially clamping down on the Second Life economy, Linden Lab was able to pad their income by millions of dollars a month.

License Info

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:07:00 +0000

The Customer Support page now lists all the licenses you own.

Every Premiere Line game is licensed to your avatar. This allows you to redeliver new copies any time you want, and makes upgrades easier. Occasionally people forget how many licenses they have. If you click on a vendor, it will tell you, but now you can also see all your licenses in one place.

Customer section rearranged

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:10:00 +0000

I've moved a couple items on the website. The Team Roster and Local Scores pages which used to be in the Players section, have been moved to the Customers section.

Privacy mode

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:51:00 +0000

One of the features of Procyon Games is the Recent Games listing. Every Premiere Line game like En Garde and Can't Stop shows a list of recent games on its web page. This is a great feature for new players, who often don't know anyone else who plays the game, and lets them find other players. It's also good for people like club owners, who use the games as a source of traffic. It can direct people straight to their land.

But some people don't want their location advertised and have asked for a privacy mode. So now I've added that. There is a new Customer section on the Procyon web site, which can be accessed if you own a Premier Line game. In that section you can enable Privacy Mode, which will hide your games from the Recent Games list. This hides games played on your set. Any game played on any game you own won't appear in the Recent Games. But if you play a game on someone else's set, that will show up (as long as they aren't set private too).

Lindex Statistics are back online

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:52:00 +0000

It's taken me two months, but I've finally got the Lindex Statistics back online. What happened? Linden Lab doesn't publish the Sell Offer volume numbers, at least not in an easy-to-download format like they do for some of the other economic statistics. The only way to get it is to scrape it off the website. A couple months ago they changed the way their website login works, and it took me a while to figure out how to deal with it. But it seems to be working now, so the graphs should all be up to date.

In the meantime, the Lindex dollar managed to stabilize itself. The sell orders that had piled up between the old value of 259 and the new 266 gradually filled, as people repositioned them at the new level. The total volume of orders shrank from an unsustainable 200M to a more manageable 100M. And that's where we are today.

It's still worth watching the total volume. If it starts to creep up again, that's a sign that we're in for more trouble.

I do have another post half-written, on some theories on what's driving the Linden dollar up and down, that I hope to get out at some point.

Name Textures are back

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:35:00 +0000

Thanks to some wonderful help from the amazingly patient Latif Khalifa, I was able to get the texture bot working again. If you are a new player and you haven't seen your name appear on the score boards, it should appear if you play another game.

I want to hold off on HTML-on-a-prim, because I think most people can't see it, and it seems overkill for what I need, which is just HTTP textures. Linden Lab says those should come soon, but then again, they've been saying that for literally years.

Name textures are down

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:03:00 +0000

Linden Lab has done something in their latest server release, and it's broken the bot I use to upload name textures. This means that new players will not see their names on game scoreboards.

I don't know how long this is going to take to fix, or even if I can fix it.

One alternative would be to use the new HTML-on-a-prim capability. I had been holding off on that, since it requires Viewer 2 in order to see. Anyone not running Viewer 2 would see a static texture, not their name.

Do people care about this one way or the other?

Lindex Continues to Fall

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 03:24:00 +0000

The Lindex has stabilized enough that my graph is working again. But the picture that it paints is not very pretty.

The graph shows the total number of L$ for sale, within 10 Lindens of the best price. There's two key features to note. First, the total number of Lindens for sale has remained fairly constant—around 210 million. Second, there are visible bands sloping slowly downward.

What this means is that the people who have posted L$ for sale at 261-265 have gotten impatient, cancelled their sell orders, and reposted them at the higher (devalued) rate, 267L$/USD. There's still far too many L$ for sale. At the current size of the Second Life economy (and it's been this size for some time), the Lindex can only maintain a balance of half that size, around 100M L$ in outstanding sell orders. If it gets much more than that, it takes too long for a sell order to be filled, and people start to move their orders to cheaper prices so they can convert their L$ to USD.

So how long will the L$ continue to fall? In the best-case scenario, it will eventually reach an equilibrium where it becomes cheap enough that it entices more buyers to enter the market. If and when that happens, we will start to see the total volume of outstanding sell orders begin to drop. So far, though, I don't see any sign of that happening.

The Secret Plan to Stabilize the Lindex

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:00:00 +0000

I've been thinking about what options Linden Lab has to stabilize the Lindex. It doesn't seem like they have a lot of options. In the past, when the Second Life economy was stronger, they could stabilize the LLD simply by selling through Supply Linden. But they don't have that option any more.

And then I thought of a plan so diabolical, so secretive, that it seemed perfect for Linden Lab's style of management.

To review, Linden Lab needs to balance the Lindex, either by increasing the number of buyers, or decreasing the number of sellers. How might that be achieved?

Buy LDD on the Lindex

Linden Lab could use Supply Linden to buy LDD, just as he has been selling before. Most people agree this is a non-starter. Linden Lab has been losing money, as evidenced by the recent layoffs. They can't afford to spend large sums shoring up the Lindex.

Increase LDD Sinks

If they can add more ways to vaporize LDD, it would mean less of them for people to sell. It's clear that they've started along this road, with offerings such as the Voice Morpher. But any sinks created in this way will be pitifully small compared to the number of LDD they need to soak up. This can be a component of a stabilization plan, but not the primary means.

Let landowners pay tier in LDD

This has been mentioned in the past as a possibility. But it's a huge and unwieldy hammer. Most of the LDD for sale on the Lindex are there because of landowners trying to buy USD to pay for their tier. Letting everyone pay for their tier in LDD could possibly unbalance the Lindex the other way.

Also, Linden Lab would lose out on the 3.5% fee they charge people to sell LDD. Again, not something they can afford.

But... what if Linden Lab allowed a select few landowners to pay their tier in LDD? If they controlled who paid in LDD and who paid in USD, then they could manage more exactly how many LDD were on the market to sell. They couldn't make this public, of course, because they can't afford to have everyone pay their tier in LDD. They would have to contact the few landowners they wanted to privilege with this gift.

Linden Lab already has a semi-secret program in place to allow a select few landowners to purchase land at a discount price. They could simply expand this program to include LDD tier-selling capability. It would be a perfect way for Linden Lab to stabilize the Lindex in a controlled fashion, without causing any panic or and more lurid Lindex news stories.

Lindex Meltdown

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:10:00 +0000

On Wednesday, the Lindex collapsed, with the value of the Linden dollar plunging from 260/US$, at one point going as low as 300/US$, before stabilizing around 275/US$. It fell so fast that it broke my Lindex statistics graph, shown above.

It's not too hard to figure out what happened. In my previous post, I noticed with concern the glut of sell orders on the Lindex, and wondered what Linden Labs would do about it. T Linden, in his quarterly report, stated that the drop in sales from Supply Linden was a result of more people signing up for premium accounts -- in other words, they couldn't sell Linden dollars because they were giving them away. But the numbers don't add up. The number of Linden dollars given to premium accounts, per month, is far less than what Supply Linden was selling.

The real explanation is that the value of the Linden dollar is the strongest indicator of the strength of the Second Life economy in general. If the Second Life economy is strong, people want to buy Linden dollars, and the Linden dollar gains value. If the Second Life economy is weak, there are fewer buyers, and the Linden dollar falls in value. No matter how many press releases Linden Lab puts out saying that the economy is great, they can't deny that the Linden dollar is falling.

By the way, T Linden no longer works for Linden Lab.

The Second Life economy has been in decline for many months. At first, this meant that Supply Linden could no longer sell Linden dollars. That cut out a big chunk of Linden Lab's income. Perhaps that wasn't the only reason for the recent layoffs, but it had to be a part of it.

Next, sell orders started stacking up on the Lindex. The usual balance of 50-100M L$ in sell orders ballooned to 200-250M.

This meant that it too longer for sell orders to execute. with only 50M in sell orders, if you placed your order it would be executed in a couple days. But if you put your order in a line of 250M, it could be a week or longer before your order was filled.

That's too long for some people. So the situation moved to the next stage, where people started placing orders at higher levels. The ask price moved from 259 to 260 to 261. And then we hit the final stage of the crisis.

When the Second Life economy was strong, Linden Lab could stabilize the Lindex using only sell orders. But now they've lost that tool. So the Lindex market is vulnerable to manipulation by speculators and griefers. People realized that once again they could move the market by placing orders at ridiculous prices. So we saw orders jumping to 270, 280, and eventually 300. The market was broken.

What will happen next? Linden Lab has few options. One remedy that has been mentioned in the past would be to allow land owners to pay their tier in Linden Dollars. That would relieve the market of the huge sell pressure from land owners selling Linden Dollars to pay their tier in US$. Land owners are predictably salivating over this possibility, because it would be a huge boon for them. It would also be a huge loss for Linden Lab, because they would lose the 3.5% fee they charge people who sell Linden dollars (the fee that land owners would no longer have to pay).

Or, Linden Lab can simply cross their fingers, wait, and hope that the Lindex stabilizes at a new level. It's not certain that that will happen, though. They key point is that it has to stabilize without the sell orders stacking up again. If it finds a new price level, but the sell orders start to pile up, then people will once again become impatient and move the value lower, and the whole cycle will rerun. They point is, for the size of the Second Life economy where it is now, the Lindex can only process about 70M of Linden dollar sales/day. If the sell orders start to exceed that level, then the market can't stabilize.

Play Frootcake, win L$100,000

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:08:00 +0000

For the next few weeks, you have a chance to win L$100,000, just by playing one game of Frootcake!

Here's how it works. Right now, Linden Lab is running a contest to promote the Destination Guide, aka "Showcase." It's a list of nice places to visit in Second Life. The Frootcake Diner is one of those locations. You can visit it here, in the Sports/Games section.

Between now and June 2, one person who visits a Destination Guide location will win L$50,000 from Linden Lab. But if that person has played a game of Frootcake at the Frootcake Diner in the past month, Procyon Games will double your prize, for a total of L$100,000!

Here are the complete rules from Linden Lab. To play Frootcake, go to the Sports & Games section of the Destination Guide, and click "Visit This Location" next to the description of the Frootcake Diner. Play at least one game there (on any table), and it will be logged. If the Lindens pick you as their winner, you'll get double the prize!

Is the Second Life economy faltering?

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:46:00 +0000

Merchants have been complaining about slow sales in Second Life ever since... well, ever since there have been sales. But I think for the first time we are seeing visible effects in the economic statistics.

Check out Tyche Shepherd's graph of Linden$ sales on the Lindex. This shows that Supply Linden has had a harder time selling L$ to people in Second Life who want to buy things.

The overall economy of Second Life is one of the money pumps Linden Lab uses to make money. In general, it works like this:

Merchants sell items → L$ accumulate in merchant accounts → Merchants and Supply Linden sell L$ on Lindex (with Linden Lab taking 3.5%) → Customers buy L$ on Lindex → Customers use L$ to buy items from merchants → Merchants sell items

As the L$ cycle through this loop, Linden Lab skims 3.5% off the top each time. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it's a perfectly legitimate way to make money off a virtual world.

Also note that's it's not a perfectly closed loop. Linden$ can leak out, when people spend them on things like classified ads and group fees, and also when people stop playing Second Life and leave with money still in their account. These sinks are balanced by Supply Linden, who manufactures Linden$ out of thin air and sells them on the Lindex, just like merchants do (except Supply Linden doesn't have to pay the 3.5% fee).

If any one part of this economic cycle breaks down, the whole loop falls apart. And then we get a situation like this.

This is from the Lindex Statistics on the Procyon Games site. It shows the amount of Linden$ that people are trying to sell. In a normally functioning market, the numbers of buyers and sellers are roughly equal. But recently, the sellers have swamped the buyers. Here we have over 200 million Linden$ asking to be sold at 250 L$/US$ or above. That's huge. It's normally between 50-70 million. It's never been this high, and it's been like this for days.

Supply Linden can only sell Linden$ if there are people willing to buy them. Without a steady stream of customers, that magical profit stream of Linden Lab just dries up.

It's possible there could be some other explanation for this glut of Linden$, and Supply Linden's withdrawal from the market. A couple years ago some big land baron left Second Life, and sold all their Linden$ on the market at once, creating a temporary glut. Supply Linden's sales dipped then, but they quickly recovered. This looks to be a sustained drop, so if there's another explanation I'd be happy to hear it. I hope T Linden's upcoming economic report sheds some light on this issue.

Can't Stop v1.05

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 14:32:00 +0000

I've released version 1.05 of Can't Stop. This is a free upgrade to all registered owners. You can use your remote to deliver a copy of the new version to yourself ("/8 deliver game"), but this update also includes a new scoreboard and team signup prim, so I recommend you visit my shop and touch the Can't Stop vendor there to get a complete package.

What's new in this version:

NEW Mod-ok scoreboard. You can resize and retexture it.
NEW Team signup prim. Rez this near your game, and players can touch it to join your team. Team rankings are shown on the Procyon Games website.
NEW The Start, Settings, Help buttons hilite briefly when players sit down to play.
FIXED A security issue was fixed.
FIXED The game adjusts its position when you rez it. For some reason it liked to rez off the ground. It now moves down a smidge after it rezzes, which should set it flush with the ground.
FIXED It was really easy for the dice to get lost, since they're a separate piece. The game now rezzes the dice each time you play, and deletes them when the game is done. So if you move or take your table you don't have to worry about picking up the invisible dice any more.
FIXED To help players who have trouble distinguishing the different colors of the playing pieces, little symbols have been added (squares, circles, etc)
FIXED Often if you tried to rotate or adjust the game after you rezzed it, it would get confused and the board wouldn't line up properly. It now should adjust itself better, so you can rotate your game after you rez it if you want.
NEW You can enable an optional game rule (under "Settings"), called "No stacks" or "Can't Stop Can't Stop." When the rule is in play, players are not allowed to end their turn if any of their pieces are on top of someone else's. If you do move temporarily on top of someone, you must continue to roll until you move off (or zonk). This changes the game a bit, and some players prefer this rule.

Can't Stop Team Rankings

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 03:04:00 +0000

I've added a Team Ranking page to the Can't Stop section of the Procyon Games web site: Can't Stop Team Rankings. Since the in-world boards don't have a Team Ranking setting, this is the only way to see how your team is doing, as far as Can't Stop goes. Note that players can only be on one team -- so, if you're in a particular team for En Garde, you're on the same team for Can't Stop, and your Can't Stop ranking is applied automatically. And vice-versa.

Maitenance and upgrades, part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Rifkin Habsburg) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:21:00 +0000

The Procyon Games website is now down for the final part of its overhaul. I hope to bring it back up in an hour or so.

UPDATE 10:15PM: That was rather harrowing, but I think I got it working. Procyon Games is now up and running on a brand-new database. All the previous data was migrated over.

There's probably going to be a few glitches, so if you spot anything unusual don't hesitate to point it out to me.