Vending Machine Stats – Second Life - Blog

Stats are working far better now. Emails seem to be fixed and arrive on a regular basis. With that working I can start removing the debug code and move on to testing the chat reporting features.

The stats now will print the number of times the vendor has been clicked, the number information cards given the product name the given card is about, the number of sales and what was sold and the customer name. That is three separate reports; clicks, sales and Customer Names. When one is at the vendor using the back control panel the reports print separately. One can also list the top and worst selling items. When information is emailed they are all combined and there is no choice to sort for worst selling. But the items sold have a count of the numbers sold. For now an item that does not sell is not included in the report.

See the Mono 1 Prim Vending Machine in my store or on XStreetSL.

LM: SLURL – Mono 1 Prim Vending Machine

XS: Mono 1 Prim Vendor - Beta

After the stats, the next step is completing the 'server based' vending machine.

Myst Online - Uru

I came to Second Life when GameTap closed Myst Online: Uru Live (MO:UL). Since then the developers of Uru Live, a neat adventure MMO game, have mode it open source and turned it over to the fans. Well… the licensing is still in process and we have yet to see any computer code. But, that is supposed to happen this spring (we think 2009). So, with any luck the original MO:UL as seen on GameTap in 2007 will be coming to a server near you.

 When GameTap gave up producing MO:UL many of us moved to Second Life and THERE. A good portion of us in SL call ourselves D'ni Refugees (D'ni is the name of the civilization that build the world the game takes place in). We even have an SL Group by that name. Others are playing EVE, WoW, Guild Wars and other games. Those in THERE and SL are building parts of the game in their respective worlds. I am exploring getting actual parts of the Uru world into SL or a similar virtual world. Maybe the open source licensing will allow that, maybe not.

 There are several forums that fans hang out on. Every so often some fan wonders through with the idea they can get some venture capital for the game. Some see venture capitalists like Santa Clause, I guess. I don't. I know they want a return on their money. If the risk is significant then the possible return must also be significant. Otherwise why make the bet?

 I've been looking for ways to improve the prospects of a return on investment, which means make the game more desirable to players. Of course the fans have to decide that any changes are a good idea. There is lots of discussion on those ideas in the fan forums. It is too early to know what will be possible and decide anything. Questions about the women getting better hair in Myst Online are dear to my heart and some others.

 SL and IBM are trying to create an Internet protocol for virtual worlds that will let AV's and their stuff travel from virtual world to virtual world. Being part of that experiment does not seem to interest many in the Myst/Uru fandom. I am hoping to find others that think moving the Uru world to new media is a good idea. So… if you see any Uruites that want to modernize the game, send them my way.

Vendor's Stats Module

This script is to be an add-on to my 1 Prim vendor. Drop it and its support scripts into one of my vendors and it keeps a list of the customers. One can click a control to have the info dumped to chat or include an email address in a note card and have the stats email to you daily, weekly or monthly. Great idea, IMO.

 

The advantage over using the LL provided transaction history is that sales info is seperated by vending machine. Give each vendor a unique name and sales tracking by location and machine is easy.

 

For a month I have been trying to get the email part working. The stupid thing just does not send... grrr!

 

Today it starts working... yippeee! All I had to do was delete the test vendor in world and re-rez it. So, it seems it is more SL than my code… and I’m sticking to that story. Now if it will just continue to work I can take out all the debugging stuff and put it on the market.

See my stuff here: Mono 1 Prim Vending Machine

This is my first blog... web sites, MySpace and forums yes... never did a blog until now...

I post on several Myst/Uru forums. I run a fan web site, Guild of Cartographers Technical Data web site (Uru Maps). It was created when we were figuring out how to map Uru.

I regularly check the Guild of Maintainers forum and post in a section of the Forum for Uru Explorers in SL. I have some Tutorials there. SL Tutorial Begining LSL Programming This starts out at the very beginning for a never programmed type.

Now I'm working toward being a builder and making a fortune in SL, you do know that is Second Life? Right? 

For now I'm making a new vending machine for use in SL. I have the beta model for sale on XStreetSL. It is novel because it has lots of working buttons but is made from just one prim (if your in SL you know what I mean, otherwise just know it is a big deal). You can find them here: SL Vending Machines.

I hang out in the Land of NoR in SL. You will often find me in Remembrance or the Rage Bar. This a fun shoot 'em up and Dark RP. I am part of the Fire of Blood Clan... I think it gets its name from the Italians that formed the clan... well... may be not. There are some hunks in the family... no blood relation so don't go kinky on me.

Eventually I'll figure out what I want to do with this blog... for now it is a blog for the sake of blogging...