Episode: 4522 Title: Lee interviews Elsbeth about SL Shop and Hop event Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4522/hpr4522.mp3 Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:13:12 (official HPR transcript) --- This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4522, for 2025-12-02 Today's show is entitled, "Lee interviews Elsbeth about SL Shop and Hop event" The host is Elsbeth and the duration is 00:45:44 The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA The summary is "In this episode, Lee asks me questions about a shopping event I was accepted into to sell my product" Emily and I'm here with Elsworth and today we're going to talk about an aspect of the three-dimensional world second life which is an event that is called the 2025 holiday stop and hop and it is a shopping event in world in second life where creators can submit an application and it's kind of random on whether you get accepted or not this will be my second shopping hub. To outline the context for this in second life there's a virtual currency called Linden and people trade in that currency for all sorts of goods and services that can be consumed mainly within the second life world. So in that virtual 3D world many of the people who use it or some proportions of people use it are actually creators who are creating products, be they objects, be they scripts or all sorts of things that they can sell within that virtual world and if you are a creator you have to look for ways to market your products. Is that about summarizing? Yeah there's numerous ways to market your products in second life events like the shop and hop are big ones because well there's there's better known events and then there's lesser known events. Shop and hop is the one that everybody wants to get into because it's if you get selected they don't charge you to be a part of the event. There are event organizers who will have different events where they will charge the creators of the to be able to have their store displayed in their event. Do you attend these events yourself like when you as a as a user as a shopper? Oh yeah all the time that's how you find out what the newest creations in the newest skill set is developed in creations currently when I started second life like 20 years ago everything was user made with blocks so you had to shape the blocks to create objects and everything was some derivative of a block. Now it's meshed. Right so what we took about is something that they call prims which are the most basic sort of object in second life and by blocks you're meaning like very simple geometric shapes and the mesh is more like a sculpted shy person like something that has a very natural like look to it. Yeah so I need to delineate that there is a difference especially if somebody that is a second life user and has been a person time. So there's the primitives so the the primitives can come in different shapes but the the the base one is just a cube. Yeah and you can shape that cube or turn it into a circle or a donut or a any real shape. There's several me and shapes that you can select to build from. Yeah. That was the original building blocks. Then the next iteration over time became something called sculpties. Right which was using different sorts of computer programs to be able to shape those blocks into something that would look a little more natural. Now when you're sculpting something now you're using mesh like blender or kinkercad or you know something like that to create a mesh and then you have to have textures to texturize the mesh to make it look realistic. It's like this the outer skin of it is that for the textures. Yes. I'm all right in thinking that with more modern ways of displaying graphics textures is not just about the color and the pattern it's also about how it reflects light, how it seems to have bumps and so on. Right. Yes. So before PBR. Yeah. And I'm going to be honest I would have to look up what PBR is exactly the same thing. I've heard it so many times. Yeah. PBR materials is a form of a physically based rendering. Yes. So basically with the PBR materials light can reflect off of it to the point where in game you can have an actual mirror that reflects what's going on around it including the avatar. Right. That was impossible until recently. So now there's a difference between mesh and PBR mesh. So if it's been textured with PBR it's going to have the light reflections and when you move the lights going to change. So the material has to be that is put on at the texture that's put on it has to be developed in a way that light can refract over that. Because I think we're talking the other day about or you're demonstrating that in the second life viewer you can have your standard viewing mode or a legacy viewing mode. But you can also have a viewing mode which is the PBR viewing mode. And when you've got that switched on suddenly you see a whole new world of visual effects like you see shadows shining for a window or shining for tree branches and just it just looks so realistic. Yeah. Compared to I mean it's not necessarily easier to see. I mean you then have troubles like something some places to shadowy or sometimes your dazzled kind of thing. Oh yeah the visual story telling that can come from PBR is phenomenal. But it takes a lot of graphic like you have to have a really really good graphic card to be able to see everything properly. Yeah. But it's amazing. Yeah. Now you have to have that legacy mode though for people that have computers that the graphic cards well enough. How is this affected like the products that you sell on shop and how many of them detail of the PBR and how many of them or do you make sure it will work with both? All of my current products your PBR because that is the future of second life. Just to somehow label them as such so that someone coming along and buys it and then thinks how this looks actually. To be honest I didn't think about it until recently because I have been dabbling with PBR since it came out and I know a lot of people put PBR in their descriptions. I didn't even think about doing it in my naming description on the market place and then the vendors I didn't even consider like you know this is PBR. For as you use this PBR materials. Yeah. So this shop and hop will actually be my very first where I have like officially labeled PBR materials. SL Read is actually all textured with PBR material. Right. That's the book. It's like a physical book that you buy but then it would appear on your screen as a book that you can read or it can read to you. So that's the product you may have worked on. So as I'll read the the mesh for it is textured in PBR materials and you can attach it as a HUD or you can res it in world. I think it works better attached as a head. So it comes pre-configured so it'll just show up on your screen. That's pretty standard. What you planning to put on this particular shop and hop and as it compared to what you've done in the past for saying stuff. Actually so I'm going to be putting out a new collection of SL Read a holiday collection. Currently what we're able to release on SL Read is all public domain books. Yeah. So I'm going to try and have a diversified holiday collection of books that is more than just standard Christianity based aspects of Christmas. I'm not bashing Christianity at all. It's just I believe that everybody has the right to have a little bit of diversity. There's a lot that can be learned from learning other people's other cultures, celebrations and what what the root of them are and all that is. So there's going to be a collection of public domain books that are released both as audiobooks and readable books on the SL Read which is kind of like it's an e-book. Like it looks like an e-book. It scrolls like an e-book. It fills like the physical tangible e-book you'd hold in your hand. It's just on your screen in the computer. That's going to be the SL Read holiday collection. Okay. Then I'm going to be releasing that shop in hop. But I'm also making a very fun new form of reading in the world. Yeah, especially people that are peeing and there's a lot of family RP and second life and other sorts of RP and our peace stands for role play. Yes, role play. We're not just talking dungeons, the dragons role play here. We're just talking people who act out a normal life, but just within the second life. Yeah, because they absolutely do that. Basically, it's like using second life to have a much more beautifully rendered version of the Sims. Yeah. I never played the Sims. I mean, I've played Sim City. I've played that theme hospital and the same park, but maybe we could go on a little deep dive into what the Sims is because you seem to know something about that. Well, it's a simulation. It's your simulating developing a character and having them go to work and have a family and have kids and build a house. It's a real life simulation as what it is. Is it maxis still who the same company that did Sim City? Who do the Sims? No, I believe Sims is EA. All right. It was kind of a way to get. Like, I think the Sims was a way to get like acknowledge women in gaming because females don't necessarily like to always do the whole hack and flash, then. And guys, very much like to play it, too. I know a lot of guys that play it. It's a multiple type game. Like you can go crazy buildings. Yeah, didn't create it. Did you choose the first, the virtual current? Did they have the virtual currency thing as part of it? So as part of the simulians? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And um, did that effort? Did that ever branch out in the same way that second life did to it having some money to do? No. No. No. Second life is a metaverse. It is a virtual world. You live. It's just like real life. You know, you create something you either establish a business or, you know, there's even churches in the world. You know, there's, and not just Christian churches. There's all sorts of community. There's like the, the community that you tell me about, which is called the commune, I think. And the area of land that you kind of occupies, you've made links between that area of land and the, uh, the community place and this, kind of, oh, we haven't, yeah. Yeah. We have a teleportation where you can just walk through our land into their land. Yeah. Which if you look at the virtual map of the world is way, way far away from each other. And you, you had to, you like forge those links kind of thing. It didn't just happen overnight. It's like you've got into discussions with people. You said, like, you have this to offer your following and, you know, that they can contribute to our sort of part of the world as well. And I think you've had like varying roles with that. And I think what you're telling me is, at the moment, you're kind of concentrating on reimagining the land that you, that you and your immediate associates have controlled over kind of, they are very much my family. I have, I have developed real world relationships with my second life family. Yeah. And that has happened over the course of 11 years. Yeah. I think I think that's the longest standing regular interactions that I've had with people in second life. But I, there are people that I've known superficially longer. But yes, you have to develop those relationships to be able to make those connections. Yeah. As she is, I've got an interesting question actually. What percentage would you say is just hanging out what percentage is active role playing, what percentage is like crafting and what percentage is like playing very specific games like, I don't know, just hand in foot. I know we've played in the past where you just engage with a very specific game not rather than just a general role playing game. I don't know that I can give you like consistent percentages. Yeah. I'd say 90% of it. No, I'd say 100% of it is social. Maybe 95. Yeah. There are times that I get on like I'm in world right now where there's people that I know that are on but I don't like actually interact with like on discord and voice and stuff like that regularly. The commune people are on and I can like interact with them, you know, as I want to. But I'm up on my build platform working on these items at build platform is sort of a private space where you're not going to get interrupted while you're crafting stuff. Yes. Yeah. It's just an area that I have set up that I can work on my items. You know, just stand there and be separated. So I'm not actually down in the land area where people might actually interact with or try and interact with me because our region is open to the public. And since we are connected through that experience where you can just teleport through a tunnel and arrive into the commune, people can kind of over that way as well. There's my two sisters, the in-second life. We co-own this island and then we have boo another one of our second life family who has her island that she owns. There's a sub island of your island. Really? No, it's her island. It's just connected to ours. Yeah. Because when you're showing me the other day, it was like it was seamless. It was no teleportation to get from one to the other. Well, that's because it is in fact, it is in fact on the map just north of the island. It's adjacent. It's a Jason. Yeah. You have to get permission from the because this is a private region. You have to get permission from. So boo had to get permission from a kasha who officially owns our region. But nami and i kasha all split the cost and we have developed this region together. We have chosen to break it into quadrants. So we have like a commercial area where because nami and kasha and i all have our own individual stores that we have things that we sell in world. So kasha has her store little adventures and it's kind of a tour system for kids and second life because now for the record, everyone that plays second life is 18 or older. So they're all legal because that's really important to distinguish when families role play in second life. Some people choose to role play as children. They are adults controlling the avi and we do not allow and there's very, very strict guidelines for no inappropriate behavior. So i want to clarify that real quick right up front. But a kasha's store is a children's store. Basically a toy store where parents can or the kids can come and get chores and a chore chart and a sticker book and do chores through interacting with an object and then either sitting on it or clicking and holding or there's different ways you can interact with objects but each of these chores has some sort of animation or something where if you complete the chore completely then you get a star that is calculated on a HUD that's on your screen. It's a whole system but basically they can come in and they can do chores or even adults can buy them because i use my doll avi to do the chores too and to collect the stickers. And anyway so kids earn a certain amount of stickers and they can come in and trade 35 stars for a sticker and then there's collections of stickers that they can collect that go into a sticker book. It's it's a lot of fun. I mean what range of skills is involved to create something as a lot for us that and how do you get the stage of having those skills? You have to want to learn or pay for somebody to assist you. So S.L. Read you and I developed this together and I came up with the idea and I curate the stories and you've written the scripting and the code that goes into it and then I set up the HUD so that it can go through and I also set up each collection and package it and whatnot. So every single thing that is sold in second life you either have to have all the totality of the skills to either create the mesh, create the texture or you have to collaborate with people and this is where it comes down to. This is a social game. You have to collaborate with people to get just like if you want to crochet something you have to go to the store and you have to get the yarn and the needles and the the crochet hooks and the needles to thread and all that stuff and then you have to have a pattern for the project or know what you're doing. There is a process to creating everything. So like this. Unlike many game I mean there are role playing type games and I'll play the Witcher as one where they have a crafting element but really that's it's a very kind of pre-determined way of what you can craft and it's decided by the designers of the game. This seems very different in that you can almost craft anything or you know have a service for anything and it's really limited more by the imagination of the people doing it and they're drive to get it done and they're able to collaborate, they're resources to have currency that they can expend on these things to have time and energy and it's not limited in the way that you would imagine crafting in a role playing like a massive role playing game where there is a specific tech tree of you need these materials and it crafts this object. This is very very of a whole order level order of magnitude different to that. Absolutely. It's a virtual world and I keep emphasizing that because the only limitation is your ability to create and collaborate. You can do anything in second life that you want to do. The only restrictions that you have are essentially the terms of service so you're not doing anything that's illegal and also they're really strict on you know not cheating people you know you don't steal other people's creations in that you know there can be real life legal repercussions to stealing people's material that they've created there is something called full permit people create measures and you can use those under certain terms of service yet you have to do specific things to alter it enough to be able to sell it. Yeah so convers if that is some objects you've just got they've given you the object that's it you've got it and you cannot use it only as that object of objects you could modify it you could change the colors you could actually add bits to it you could add scripts to it you couldn't do more things with it you could even give it to us but I think often they will specify their terms if you're going to give it to someone else you can't just resell it you have to have actually quite a lot of creative input into the new thing that you're creating with it because I've always used everything the guy off. Yeah that's what I'm saying there has to be a noticeable change that's unique like in my case a lot of my changes if I'm using full perm items is scripting I'm using the mesh as a visual to allow someone to interact in a way that they couldn't do with just a mesh itself yeah if that makes sense. So what I was curious about asking was could you explain kind of give an overview and some of your experiences of what like the economics of the whole thing is buying and selling the cost of goods the cost you know in the LinkedIn currency what sort of figures are we talking about what kind of income might you be getting and what you have to bear in mind with that. Well there isn't any real regulations on how to price things and second life you kind of have to go to the marketplace and look at what it is that you're selling. What is something a similar not the exact same obviously because you don't want to you know give the exact same item as somebody else that would you know be silly but you have a similar product how much does it cost in world what's the range you know and there is a pretty disparate range in market place because there is no you know some people will sell stuff for real cheap and they're undercutting themselves some people sell it for way way way too much which means that if it's not a really high quality current product nobody's actually going to buy it or people who have and I've experienced this people that have all sorts of money that they just don't care what they do with it they'll buy products just because they want to when it comes to like say shop and hop these events they will have you have to have an item that is a free gift so that anyone that comes to the event can actually collect items from different vendors and different stores and incentivizes people to come along in the first place kind of right but shop and hop itself is kind of a a linden expo if you will the linden's are the people that run second life and create make make certain it's maintained and let you know they created it and they get the real profits from it as well from the people who subscribe to well the linden's okay so there's the the linden's that created the game and then there's the linden's actually work for linden labs right okay and then they have volunteers who are people that actually work for the public horse like they keep the day to day land maintenance stuff they keep an eye on stuff and they have events for the linden you know they're called the malls that's the linden public's works department or l kdw i think is the acronym that they is but the malls will maintain that so the there are the people that actually run the back end of things or keep the the world livable and functioning kind of thinking right right and they're with the technical aspects of it as well and running the service and all that sort of thing physically the computers that they're making this so happen well there are also the ones that will investigate issues so if there is a report of somebody doing something that is against the terms of service they're the ones that will go investigate that they'll also you know people there are things especially back in the day there used to be a really really large amount of trolls but linden labs has done a lot to kind of diminish that but trolls would come in and just harass people they were just there to annoy people and they wouldn't make or buy items that would just crash people's computers because it was throwing so many particles out you know too fast cause people to lag whatnot they're just there to do harm well the bowls will go investigate you know is this person putting stuff up that's garrish and just it's they're doing it on you know some people don't do it because they're trying to some people will do it because they bought something off of the marketplace it just wasn't really good quality and they threw it up really big and on linden land on the mainland which is that's a whole different conversation yeah in a way people who are paying for a subscription they might feel entitled I can do whatever I like but I mean the terms of service say no you can't do whatever you like is certainly it's to that because we have to be nice to each other kind of thing and keep it a functioning society of sorts right when I first started second life there was a period of time where I just while I love the idea of it I walked away from it because if you are playing a female character back then you would just get harassed constantly because second life and then the labs have tried to let this be a user created world back early on there was and there are still adult areas in second life but they have since changed that where adult type activities are restricted to a different continent that is cut off it from people that don't want to be there like you you don't have to be a part of the adult stuff in second life but everybody knows it's there that being said they've they've done a good job of minimizing that harassment over time but it took a while and I think you sometimes had the kind of content moderation rolling that and it like very volunteering work youth take every community that I've been a part of I've usually wound up stepping in and are stepping up to the plate and just being one of the people that would you know help people figure out how to interact in the social community and in the communities that we're in and you you haven't specifically been paid to do that but no you you you you have to actually have a successful business to make real world money in in second life yeah I mean you are not paid work yeah so when you were doing that community these community roles even then you weren't really been paid in the linden currency either no it's all volunteer yeah so just do you feel that you've reached some of the rewards of the effort you've put in or it's uh it's kind of I have spent in a learning experience or just a living experience I treat this as if it's my hobby I don't some people will you know play golf and they'll buy golf clubs and you know golf balls and you know a membership to a golf you know a country club or something like that to play golf you know or if they're gamers they'll invest in games or you know whatnot in this case I invest in my hobby a lot of my fair funds go to this game because I love playing it and I love creating and decorating and while like maybe could have eventually chosen to go down the path of my campusness making decorating yeah okay um and because I'm more creative I've chosen to go through some you know do something that I love and it's taking longer to be profitable yeah um in second life but I think you're using you're kind of you're taking a full part is a part of role in lots of different aspects of of what the world has to offer of what the simulation however running a business running a you know being part of a community um and that's like creating crafting and doing social playing games and so I was saying before I know I'm aware that you've had you've been inspired recently to start really imagining and you and the and the people you work with there have to kind of reimagine the area that you're that you inhabit kind of as a different role play setting to what it was originally I think this is something that's been like in the works for some time it's just been a matter of all all of us being able to be on the same page at the same time and have the same you know willingness to invest in time because role play is a you know it's a it's a time investment but we found a way that we think is going to work pretty well that will allow role play to take place both in world and out of world so we're going to use a combination of it so we have the visual aspect where we've we've been redoing our area to create the environment that we want but you've also been in this story telling behind that yeah we've been yeah definitely so I know sort of a world back you have seemed to very heavily invested in like a farming system and is that now taking a back burner that has taken a back burner just because the amount of money it costs to do it like that if you're going to do a farming system in second life you're going to spend real world money regularly on it and we have chosen to prioritize working on our businesses in the land that we're in so it's fun though yeah should I guess come back to the shop and how is there anything else about the shop and the hope that you can think that we haven't talked about the thing about shop and hop and this is for anyone who might actually play second life and be curious about it shop and hop itself is really really great to get into because it's free but to enter but it takes several times of getting in and you'd not guarantee getting in every single time so the last I've applied for the last three including the one coming up the last three shopping hops I got the first one I applied to I actually did get into which surprised me the next one I did not get into but my sister did she got her story into the shopping hop and that was pretty cool let's see so I was just thinking actually you've had some experience and she's had some experience too so what was the outcome of the shop I mean what was the benefit to you or at least how did it go basically so the first time it didn't really go real well I wound up being on a region where there was one I think I missed categorized my store for one and to the other aspect of it was is I was in a region so there's multiple regions and shop and hop there's a lot of them so it's a huge huge shopping event you if you don't get around to all the regions you're not gonna get around to all the stores so most people will look for the big name stores that they know about and go there because they guaranteed to get a high quality item or free because in this event you there's a free get so is there a bit of potlock who you're next to that was exactly what I encountered where I was in a region that not a lot of people got around to because there was no recognition of names so basically you just really have to keep trying to get in and keep getting your name out there now I did have some sales not near as many as I could have hoped for but it was my very first event so I felt like I did pretty well now last shop and hop a kasha got into it and her store is a little more well known it has had a bit more success so she had some sales there and part of her store she has me put children's collections books out for S.L. Read so she had me put out a an S.L. Read collection there and I did actually get one sale on S.L. Read for that in her store for the shop and hop the one that you weren't attending the one that she was yeah her store has a specific collection of children's books that S.L. Read puts out this makes me wonder is there and it's just me wondering like is there a sort of business business market the products that you have like you would sell to other businesses and they would then sell it on and they would maybe brand it and they put their own content or you would specifically give it to other businesses and I might have better connections for selling the stuff but you're there on producer there are people that market in second life that way I do not do that a whole lot unless I actually know the person so like in this case it's kind of a we had like a collaboration where it's it's S.L. Read it's mine but it's for little adventures right I can't make sense it is also available in my store as well the children's collections are so you wouldn't really want a generic middle man sort of selling on your stuff just because they happen to have a better reach to the market but then you'll look kind of the control of how it's been distributed really exactly and that's yeah yeah that's why I don't do it that way there are people that do I do not because I want the autonomy of my store being my brand actually makes me wonder if there are other like real world business models that exist in second life like other franchises for example yeah there are franchises you could sell store based on someone someone else's brand and you just pay them like for the brand and then you stop the store but because people know that brand they would but I mean does it does the fact that physical locality is not as important kind of hinder that geographical spreading out of businesses because obviously someone can in it in effect they can just teleport from anywhere to anywhere I mean like would you have like a hundred McDonald's so you know spread about in different parts of second life or is that pointless because you could just go to the one there are businesses like that it's all about how you want to make your money in second life and I want to be known for my stuff not selling someone else's stuff if that makes sense like I may buy the rights to use a mesh yeah but then what comes out that is your own product right exactly because I'm doing something to change it I'm doing something to you know it's it's kind of like upcycling if you will you know it's it's taking something that was used for one purpose but is now used for another you know I see where you're going with the concept but that's definitely not the way I want to do business in second life sure because I want to be you know I'm branding if that makes sense yeah so I guess I guess my other thing that I was kind of that I referred to there was the physical locality so in general can you think about what difference does it make between second life and the real world that you can just teleport anywhere instantly how does it make it a materially different existence or the way that the society is structured the fact you can just that there is no form of transport as it were other than just a role play that you're driving a car role play that you're in an airplane so well actually on mainland you can drive all sorts of places you can drive somewhere and then take a ship to another continent or fly a plane to another continent like all of the basic concepts of transport the only restriction you have as far as travel and second life is if you're on private regions having the teleport experience that we have that allows us to just walk through a tunnel into the commune teleportation is is just a way of life and second life just like flying is yeah yeah of course your your avatar can just type anyone's avatar can just type off jump 100 feet in the air and just take an overview of what's going on fly back down and that's just taken for granted there's just one of the mechanics of the world so when you're talking about there is a shopping hop and it's on certain regions it doesn't matter what region you're in in the world you can immediately get to the shopping hop you just need to know an address for it well it's advertised it's advertised all over second life it's going to be on the main page of your your viewer it'll be on the website you know it's one of those things it's it's very widely advertised and everybody knows about it yeah and if you don't know about it you haven't been in second life very long or you don't pay attention you know because you I guess you could choose not to know stuff on second life but it's very well again I guess geography in second life is a bit more dominated by reputation than it is by proximity I guess is it is would that be a fact yes if I think that's very earnest yeah the more place is now and the more accessible it is to get there yeah well there's also a marketing system and you know you can advertise your land you can pay to advertise your land to get your land more known yeah it more business there how much more profit like selling a shopping hop type of thing compared to just having a store in your little region that people generally have to come to people that don't know about falls haven yeah we'll learn about falls haven right because the store is located so when you're at shopping hop we'll have a group joiners so people can learn about the new stuff and then there's also going to be a landmark where people can teleport to the main store because I'm not going to have every single one of my products in the shopping hop yeah and of course when you sell up product you often include a no card with it that says you know if you want to visit our store here's the here's the link to get there so it's a bit like internet it's better I'm selling on the internet really it's just it's a has that quality to it yeah absolutely well website it does the internet yeah yeah exactly so a website it doesn't necessarily matter where you're living you can order something from that website and get it to you whether it's 100 miles away or a thousand miles away within reason yeah that's been very informative and I think we've covered not just stuff about this particular event but so a more insight into the the world second line of matters into the metaverse yeah be it be it is a kebugs metaverse or or this particular in the labs metaverse just just to throw you a big loop here not only do they have shopping experience there's actually universities real life universities yeah okay you have classes and stuff in world you can get qualifications from it's more like a certification type thing it's basically it's basically advertising for you know they're university but there's there's all sorts of real world businesses are actually in world okay they've chosen to just have this as another avenue for reaching they're using for the people you have to participate in their things yeah okay anyway thank you very much else with and thanks for asking me the questions that lets me get the little squirrels out of my brain okay all right so goodbye from me and bye from hell's death thanks for listening You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. 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