Showing posts with label griefing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label griefing. Show all posts

White Mouse Power

At one party a friend was hosting, someone’s AO muttered something so crude, it shocked everyone into silence. What did we do in response? Find a way to diffuse it with humor.

For the story, go to Extra Extra.

Sion Chickens Part 3: The Risks and Rewards of Raising Poultry in Second Life

I was recently contacted by two ladies in Second Life, whom run the “Dragonfly and Rose Hatchery, a coop for Sion Chickens. The newspaper has already run two articles on these popular virtual pets that have been popping up all over Second Life, but they felt there was more to say about them. They in particular wanted to mention the hazards as a griefer had killed two of their birds earlier.

Arriving at the coop, I was asked to wait a minute before entering, so they could turn off the security system off so I could enter without trouble. The chickens were quiet and still at first, but it wasn’t long after two ladies and a fox were in the coop when they started moving and clucking.

I was first shown a “ghost chicken,” one that was white but I was transparent. “At night he is white,” I was told, “During daylight, he is see-through. He is an Astral breed, one of the rarest I mentioned.” There were also a couple chickens that glowed, “Night-lights anyone? ... They are first-generation ancients, another rare.” She explained that the odds of just any egg laid being an ancient were about one in 3000, “Those two were born the same day, less than an hour apart. So we have special chickens.” She went on to explain that there isn’t much glow in 2nd-generation ancients, and 3rd-generation ones have just a little shimmer, “with each generation removed from the parents, the glow fades.”

So how much do these chickens cost? Often, eggs can be bought for 75L or less. But rarity and demand can make some very expensive. One coop owner told me she saw an Astral egg on sale for 3,000 Lindens. They then showed me a black chicken egg, “It’s a perfect black. That thing is worth about 8,000 right now, since it is a perfect Spectrum reading.” They then showed an egg that was one color on the upper half, and another on the bottom, “There’s an example of a New Wave. Eggs that are two colors are called New Wave. Wings will be one color, and the tail of the bird another color.” New Waves are not normally too expensive, “but again, it depends on the colorings. If you get a perfect egg of two perfect colors, you got one heck of an expensive egg.” White was described as being in great demand.

They then took me to the bachelor coop, where there were six roosters alone in their pens, “We had a hen here, but she was a killer. She killed every mate we tried to put with her. So I got rid of her.” Asking about their aggressiveness, I was told, “The males have anger readings. They get angry and in the mood, daily. That’s why you have their toys for them.” The pens had some round objects that at first I thought were eggs, but were actually toys for the chickens, “They keep them happy and gives them a way to vent anger if they can’t breed.” Going on, one explained, “By age 3%, yo u need to separate them ... just like real-life, you have to separate the roosters, or you will have a fight and dead chickens.” She heard of one guy whom staged cock fights between roosters. Normally, the chickens can live about a year.

It was explained Sion chickens learn to recognize their owners, and respond to people being around, “They will actually push your av around. ... If I get into that first pen in the other coop with my three breeders, they will all three shove me around the pen.”

“If you wish, we have a hen about to lay,” I was told at one point, “You can see the next generation being born.” So we went near one pen, with the hen resting on a nest and one of the owners staying at the edge of the pen, “This is as close as we can get right now, or her hen freaks out at being watched and she won’t lay. ... They can lay 2 eggs a day, though I’ve seen more than that. ... In her younger days, one of *******’s hens laid four a day or more. Which reminds me, I need to get more egg protectors after this (laugh).” When I asked about them, “The stands to put the eggs into. They protect them so you can take then into inventory and pack them for sale. If you try to take just the egg, you kill it.” She explained that the programing of Sion chickens and eggs make them react to common objects in your inventory as sharp objects, “it kills them to be taken back into (inventory) without being in an egg protector or transport box. That’s why when Linden Labs returned chickens to people, they got massive complaints. That killed every single chicken they returned.”

I was told the first of them to raise chickens had built the coop herself to house them, “We needed more room, so she added a second story to it. The original design is the bachelor pen. ... this is a combination of her stock and my own. But together we have about 40 chickens.” We continued to wait for the egg, “Waiting for them to lay can be tedious, but I’ve watched ever single hen of mine have their eggs.” “It can take, on average, 30 minutes for a hen to lay.” Eventually, the egg announced itself: sionChicken egg: “I'm a new egg! To change my name, touch me and type: name ... Please DO NOT put me into your inventory. You can do that with the sionChicken proteggtor.” They then stored the egg in a protector. They explained with earlier versions of Sion chickens, eggs could be stored indefinitely, but with Version 12 they could only be kept 60 days before it “decayed” and could no longer hatch. If two different Versions of Sion Chicken had an egg, it would always be of the later version. Over a couple pens, I noticed blue rings. I was told they were “static ring, it prevents eggs from hatching.”

“Breeding has it’s ups and downs. You get attached, and there are the griefers. And the fact is, these chickens are very close to the real thing ... they have their own unique personalities, they have their needs and can be killed or get sick, etc.” Asking about their getting sick, “they can stop eating for some reason, and starve. They can get killed by another chicken, but most of the time can be revived ... if another chicken kills them. Sometimes they simply die from ‘old age.’ “ Chickens killed by weapons or return to inventory cannot be revived.

Unfortunately, Sion Chicken owners have found themselves the targets of griefers. There have been cases of people killing the chickens off because of supposed lag. Most however are simple cases of malicious mischief. It had gotten to the point where chicken killers were infiltrating Sion Chicken groups to find their next targets, “I got word yesterday that a group has to stop sending ads because people are using those ads to find places to kill livestock. ... It makes it very tough because you don’t know whether to advertise and take your chances or to be silent.”

“Sadly, we had two murdered by an unknown griefer,” they told me, “before they were able to safely be brought here under constant guard.” The coup was protected by a security system that booted out unauthorized entries. Not far from the coops was a small memorial to the two roosters killed, “I made that when she told me they had been killed and erected it here.” They then took me to another place, following their adding me to the access list, where a small mound had a couple toys over it, with a couple black roses laid over them, “This is the exact location of the coop. Where the mound is, and leavings is where their pens sat side by side.”

They had taken down the coop when one found something next to the property line, “It looked like an egg, until it peeped at me. That’s how I found Blessing, Cooper’s last son. The eggs can’t hatch with the (static) rim around. Well, Blessing went against that entirely. I found him hatched right there. First thing he did was try to shove me, then he came over here.” “A rebel from birth (laughter).”

“When Sion made (the chickens), he did a wonderful thing for a lot of people. Not only does it help people to learn about agriculture, it shows people the responsibilities of being a owner/breeder, and animal husbandry. And just how much these things do become like family. And when something like that is taken away, it really does hurt because we grow attached. ... there are others just like me that have been grieved. Sadly, it’s all too common.” “It is becoming a favorite pastime of troublemakers it seems. I hear daily of people leaving chicken raising, due to such actions.”

Because of the griefer trouble, the two women asked me to withhold their names and the locations of the coop & memorial.

I had forgotten to ask about the price of feed. As it turned out, it’s a bit costly. Checking on Xstreet, the cost was 240L for 4 bowls of chicken feed, which will keep a single bird fed for a month. If one plans to raise a bunch, it can become very pricey.

“They become part of your family, literally.”

Bixyl Shuftan

New Griefing Method on SL

7am SL time, March 23rd, as I'm happily roleplaying on a Star Wars sim wearing the sexy little Twi'Lek avatar I made as seen in my recently posted comic strip, I and many of those around me were suddenly rendered completely unable to move or speak, as our main maps kept opening of their own volition, against our wills, no matter how many times we tried closing it.
While this attack didn't affect everyone on the sim, it affected enough of us as to derail several rp's going on, and forcing several of us to relog at least once, twice in my own case.
The attack lasted 5 minutes, and for now seems to have subsided.
No group is claiming responsibility for the griefing as yet, but as with all griefing, all it succeeded in doing was causing irritation and annoyance that will quickly be forgotten by the players here, and the ego boost given to the culprits by the lulz this irritation gave them will dissipate soon enough, leaving them once again feeling like the empty-lifed losers they clearly are.
From Little Mos Eisley in Skyler, this is Penny Sautereau Reporting.


Wiped out

I was writing a column about my old hangout, the STA, which vanished a year ago, when I got word about something happening in my current SL home Woodlin. So I logged in to my apartment’s location in Dreamer’s Cove ...

And it was gone.

Nothing left but the green landscape.

Talking with others, it seems someone hacked the account of the owner, Dax Loon. One witness to the chat told me it was obvious from the pornographic insults that it wasn’t her, “whoever did this ... that’s one sick individual.” At least one resident was banned from Dreamers. Everyone was ejected from the sim group and her friend list. We still have no idea who would do this and why, some griefers in SL wrecking destruction simply because they can. Details are still coming in.

People are still logging in, wondering what happened, and those who know, explaining. Dax Loon still has yet to log on.

So what happens next?

Time will tell.

Bixyl Shuftan

SL5B griefer attack?

It's not that long ago that I personally learned from a Linden (at his office hours) that griefing has been dramatically reduced in the past months. Well, SL5B (the Second Life 5th birthday celebration mini-continent) seems like a perfect target.

Enus Linden, who has a nice dock in the SL5B Prim region, has become victim of this. His little place really has been set aflame with colored particles.


However, what's strange about this, is that a certain person who is in all the right groups for the SL5B events and sims and even Burning Life, seems to be the owner of these rezzing objects. So is this just a joke, or a real griefer attack?

Both Enus Linden and the owner of the particle rezzers were unavailable for comments.

Who works for sl-newspaper?

There have been a few instances recently of avatars passing themselves off as sl-newspaper.com employees and then causing trouble or griefing.
This has caused us some concern as of course we cannot be held responsible for what people say.
With the SL5B in full swing this happened last night and of course we were informed and asked to explain our employees behaviour.
We state here for all how to tell a genuine employee:
1, They will be in the 'sl-newspaper employees' group
if they are NOT in this group then they DO NOT work for us.
2, We do not hire ALTs; if someone says they work for us under another name and are not in the sl-newspaper employee group then they DO NOT work for us. Even alts are added to the employee group.
3, The slnewspaper group is a public group, ie ANYONE can join even those previously ejected, we do not take responsibility for the actions of anyone in a public group. The employee group is by INVITATION only and this is revoked once an employee leaves.
4, Check the employee group - members names are visible so people can confirm that someone is an employee.
5, The only action we can take when this happens is this: Teeg Palmer has been ejected from 'SL Newspaper' by dana Vanmoer. Which is not permanent until LL brings in permanent bans within groups. Abuse reports have been sent and will continue to be sent.
Please do not hesitate to AR anyone griefing or causing trouble even if they are an employee, if that is the case then we would also take action as required.

Cartoon of the day


Click for full size

Photo by JamesT Juno

Text from Chat Logs

Griefing at Woodbury

'The particle spam you see is from objects owned by Furnation owner Corsi Mousehold
she has been attacking these sims for the past three days
crashing them
lagging them up with particle spam
Harry Linden, head of the g-team has been ignoring abuse reports filed against her'
So our informant told us as we TP'd in to the loudest noise you ever wish to hear honestly I had to remove my headset!
We asked about to try to find out what was happening :
[14:39] zomg Babii: its a mario moshpit, a old PN particle spammer [14:40] JamesT Juno: who - why - what
[14:40] zomg Babii: corsi mousehold, i spoke with her 2 days ago and he threatened the sim
then i found this stash of modules
[14:40] JamesT Juno: and what was going on
[14:41] zomg Babii: it seems that a troll attacked the ark a few days ago, this appears to be a retaliation, pointed in the wrong direction, yes you can quote me
[14:42] zomg Babii: a number of furnation members and furries have also been caught griefing the woodbury sims
[14:42] JamesT Juno: okay - anything you want to add to this ?
[14:43] zomg Babii: the animosity between our two groups is unwanted by woodbury univeristy, as said by our leader
[14:43] zomg Babii: but it seems the furries wish to start fights
[14:44] JamesT Juno: thankyou
_______________________________
[14:34] **** (anonymous): Harry Linden of the g-team wants a grid war and the furries miss the attention
[14:44] JamesT Juno: proof ?
[14:44] ****: Harry Linden and Plexus linden falsely accused me of copybotting a megaprim owned by michael linden
[14:44] ****: michael has never used a megaprim in his life, is opposed to them, harry has been banning the accounts of reformed former griefers trying to harass them into rejoining the PN
Harry needs to impress the new CEO of LL showing his dept needs resources with griefing dying out, his job is less necessary he may have to do real work for a change
______________________________
[14:46] Madelena Rossini: Basically the first I heard of all this was when I got back from dinner in San Francisco on Saturday to be told that the sims had been attacked and that the folks from Furnation were responsible.
Never being one to jump to conclusions I contacted the leader of Furnation, Corsi Mousehold to try and peacefully resolve it.
What I got in response was a torrent of abuse and a promise that our sims would be taken down permanently. He also made death threats against others. I have just come online now to this, so am not fully in the loop.
Madelena Rossini: He also told me to kill myself
__________________________________
Not long after this Corsi Mousehold showed up and and deleted the spamming objects (a huge relief to my ears)
Unfortunately she refused to answer any questions directed towards her and seemed surprised the objects had her name on them as owner :
Corsi Mousehold: I'll be damned. It is listing me as the owner.
[2008/06/16 15:11] Corsi Mousehold: Scout ... Madelena ... I will speak with you alone. Everyone else in this area is now muted.
_______________________________

UPDATE
I just recieved this in my IM:
[15:35] Corsi Mousehold: I Did not build thoise. I did not rez them.
[15:35] Corsi Mousehold: I have been shit on all weekend from Woodbury.
[15:35] Corsi Mousehold: My stress level is through the roof and my blood pressure is likely to put me in the F****** HOSPITAL at this point.
[15:36] Corsi Mousehold: Woodbury is known .. WELLL known to harbor the B-tards ... Where the Patriotic Nigras got their founding in Second Life.
[15:37] Corsi Mousehold: All a Patriotic Nigra is, is a B-Tard that wants to take shit personally.
[15:38] Corsi Mousehold: Did you get all that?[15:38] Corsi Mousehold:
[15:35] Corsi Mousehold: I Did not build thoise. I did not rez them.
[15:35] Corsi Mousehold: I have been shit on all weekend from Woodbury.
[15:35] Corsi Mousehold: My stress level is through the roof and my blood pressure is likely to put me in the FUCKING HOSPITAL at this point.
[15:36] Corsi Mousehold: Woodbury is known .. WELLL known to harbor the B-tards ... Where the Patriotic Nigras got their founding in Second Life.
[15:37] Corsi Mousehold: All a Patriotic Nigra is, is a B-Tard that wants to take shit personally.
[15:38] Corsi Mousehold: Repost just in case.

Good Grief again!!!?????

On a photo shoot for our sponsors Bacchus club and mall today I got a little puzzled, I took a wonderful picture then zoomed in for a close up when suddenly these boxes started appearing, confused i flew in. They were everywhere in minutes and the chase was on........
Someone managed to cage the griefer Akis Woller until help could arrive to eject and ban him. By that time the beautiful club was littered with shapes so much so that those enjoying the dancing were actually dancing on them.

I was impressed not only with the way the staff were quick to sort it out but also with the attitude of those there, I guess it takes all sorts but rarely have I seen such laid back attitudes as the dance continued with everyone having a good laugh and joke about dancing on shapes.

Griefers are an ever growing problem and estate owners now need to make sure someone is available at all times to deal with the threat. But a well done for Channce Petrov's great handling of the situation and quick clean up operation which allowed his guests to continue having fun - which after all is what SL is all about (at least for most)!

Griefer attack at Linden village

At approx 12.20 I received a warning to keep away from Help island and the Linden village as there was a major griefing incident going on and the only way out again was to log.
I took little notice as I hear these things often, but when I'd finished what I was doing some 40 minutes later I thought I'd pop along and see if there was any truth in it.
Well what a sight, it was impossible to move as these pictures were also scripted to ask permission to animate your avatar and there were thousands of them!
I crashed almost immediately but at least i managed to print screen first and get the name of the griefer 'Senojrraf Farrjones'! (whose account has already gone)
Apparently the attack was dealt with very quickly on help island but spread to linden village.
How safe are our lands if the Lindens cannot even protect their own? 40 minutes warning I had - how much did they? and, why did it take so long to stop?
By time i managed to fight my way back into SL the attack was over and no-one to be seen but the question still remains - HOW?