Asking a favor of my fellow Kitelians...

[Antonio Valenti]

Originally coming from SL back in its hayday, I've never gotten use to the lack of visitors to my sims. It gets pretty lonely sometimes.

Now that "we have the technology" to create NPC's, I thought it would be worth the effort to create a region of islands that "appeared" populated when people visited, and maybe (just maybe) would be a perk to get people to visit often.

I'm working on a 4x4 Caribbean-style region to both showcase my building styles AND provide a spot that Kitely and Hypergrid folks might drop in now and then.

So, what's my favor?

I set up about 50 pose balls at the entry spot for the islands that will copy your avatar and eventually animate them as NPCs around the islands, filling out that "population" I mentioned. My plan is to assign an animation (sitting, lounging, talking, etc.), change the NPC's name to something generic, and place them throughout the 4x4 region. If I could get 50-100 volunteers, this would quickly populate the islands.

Please consider visiting "Kokomo Islands" and claiming a pose ball. If I actually get more than the 50 that are already in place, I'll add more.

While your there, please take a look at what's been done already, and feel free to suggest what would bring you back to visit often.

Thank you for your time,
Antonio Valenti

PS: Oh, and does anyone know how to get our regions listed on the "Places to visit" area of the signon splash-screen?

[Selby Evans]

Originally coming from SL back in its hayday, I've never gotten use to the lack of visitors to my sims. It gets pretty lonely sometimes.

Now that "we have the technology" to create NPC's, I thought it would be worth the effort to create a region of islands that "appeared" populated when people visited, and maybe (just maybe) would be a perk to get people to visit often.

I'm working on a 4x4 Caribbean-style region to both showcase my building styles AND provide a spot that Kitely and Hypergrid folks might drop in now and then.

So, what's my favor?

I set up about 50 pose balls at the entry spot for the islands that will copy your avatar and eventually animate them as NPCs around the islands, filling out that "population" I mentioned. My plan is to assign an animation (sitting, lounging, talking, etc.), change the NPC's name to something generic, and place them throughout the 4x4 region. If I could get 50-100 volunteers, this would quickly populate the islands.

Please consider visiting "Kokomo Islands" and claiming a pose ball. If I actually get more than the 50 that are already in place, I'll add more.

While your there, please take a look at what's been done already, and feel free to suggest what would bring you back to visit often.

Thank you for your time,
Antonio Valenti

PS: Oh, and does anyone know how to get our regions listed on the "Places to visit" area of the signon splash-screen?

Interesting idea. You might get more interest if you pose the NPCs to make stories. You can amplify the stories with notecards placed in nearby objects.

[Selby Evans]

I visited there but the poseballs said I did not have permission to use them.

I think the destinations on the entry page are there because someone recently went there, causing them to rez. If you pick one as your destination, you will usually not have to wait for it to rez.

[Antonio Valenti]

I visited there but the poseballs said I did not have permission to use them.

I think the destinations on the entry page are there because someone recently went there, causing them to rez. If you pick one as your destination, you will usually not have to wait for it to rez.

I think i've fixed the poseballs so they can be used - thanks for letting me know. Please try again.

[Antonio Valenti]

Interesting idea. You might get more interest if you pose the NPCs to make stories. You can amplify the stories with notecards placed in nearby objects.

I like that idea - maybe set up a few mysteries or treasure hunts

[Frank SquirrelHerder]

I'll be sure to check out your sim!

The lack of traffic is a common issue throughout Kitely and the wider OS hypergrid, I've found. I think it's not so much that there are a lack of people as it is an abundance of "land". In SL, land is supremely expensive, so the ~50,000 or so concurrent users are concentrated in a smaller area.

Throughout the hypergrid, on the other hand, there are probably nearly as many users, but they're spread out among something like 400+ grids. And a grid like Kitely has 18,021 regions! So that's a lot of land with very few visitors.

I compare it to the wild west of America compared to more urbanized Europe. We really don't appreciate just how much different in population density there is. It creates a different culture as a result.

So our objective is to attract visitors and to give them something worth sticking around for. NPCs might create an illusion, but be careful about over-using them. I've been to sims with 50 NPCs and the lag was so god-awful I couldn't move without rubber-banding around. That's not the sort of place social people want to hang out with. NPCs are novel and neat but sometimes get overused.

Be sure to get your sim listed on https://opensimworld.com/dir -- it's easy to do, and once you're on there you can expect a steady trickle of visitors, I think, assuming your sim has content that will bring explorers returning. I've seen a lot of sim owners offer free parcels of land, which helps encourage repeat visitors (which in turn gets your sim kicked further up the charts both for Kitely and OpensimWorld). Even 2-3 concurrent visitors is often enough to get you on the front page, so it's not an insurmountable hurdle.

Sims like Caribou (an adult dance club) host daily and weekly events to draw in casual visitors, while others like Seanchai Library and the Naboo Star Wars sim host short story readings to attract their respective audiences.

Just taking a "if you build it, they will come" approach doesn't work. You'll have to be proactive and involved to attract tourists!

I'll log in now and check out your world. Wishing you the very best of luck! A rising tide lifts all boats, so your success is the success of each of us in Kitely.

[Frank SquirrelHerder]

Antonio, I also see you've not taken the time to write a description for your world page:

https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/An ... mo-Islands

This is a really easy step you can take to draw in visitors. My own world is in the very early stages of construction and I've done nothing to promote it, but by having a reasonably compelling page, I've met a trickle of curious explorers over the past couple weeks. You can embed hotlinked images from your website, too, to set yourself apart from others. And the words you use will be included in search engines--both internal (Kitely) and external (Google). https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Fr ... al-Aedynar

I hope this is received as it's intended: as enthusiastic encouragement, not as know-it-all criticism.

Visiting your world, I noticed you have scripts disabled. I personally would enable that, as people who use HUD AOs will have difficulty otherwise (and social people love their AOs).

As to the poseballs, I didn't test them out, as I noticed that you made a notice that you intended on using them to clone visitors' avatars. Personally, I've spent a lot of time customizing my avatar, so I'm reluctant to hand that over to a stranger.

It's a beautiful sim you've created. I like the wave effects and the beaches with appropriate vegetation throughout. What do you intend for your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) to lure in tourists? Is it to be a residential sim, a club, roleplay? You'll probably wish to consider that as well as you write up your description and fashion your landing area.

Nice work, and I'll be sure to visit again to see how your build-out progresses.

[Antonio Valenti]

Thank you Frank for your visit and your suggestions.

I completed a description of the islands, and turned on scripts as you suggested.

As far as the NPC's, I think I'm going to use "mostly" static ones, and will probably have to re-create myself a number of times to get the required dynamic folks. I'll keep the pose balls out, however, since I might be able to pick one up now and then.

Thanks again for your comments, and come back soon.

Antonio

[Frank SquirrelHerder]

Great description, Antonio! Nicely done.

And regarding the NPC cloning--I'm not saying "don't do it" I'm just saying I personally wouldn't clone myself to be a NPC. There are others who may delight in seeing their avatars cloned though.

Best of luck with your build-out!

[Kim McCabe]

Originally coming from SL back in its hayday, I've never gotten use to the lack of visitors to my sims. It gets pretty lonely sometimes.

Now that "we have the technology" to create NPC's, I thought it would be worth the effort to create a region of islands that "appeared" populated when people visited, and maybe (just maybe) would be a perk to get people to visit often.

I'm working on a 4x4 Caribbean-style region to both showcase my building styles AND provide a spot that Kitely and Hypergrid folks might drop in now and then.

So, what's my favor?

I set up about 50 pose balls at the entry spot for the islands that will copy your avatar and eventually animate them as NPCs around the islands, filling out that "population" I mentioned. My plan is to assign an animation (sitting, lounging, talking, etc.), change the NPC's name to something generic, and place them throughout the 4x4 region. If I could get 50-100 volunteers, this would quickly populate the islands.

Please consider visiting "Kokomo Islands" and claiming a pose ball. If I actually get more than the 50 that are already in place, I'll add more.

While your there, please take a look at what's been done already, and feel free to suggest what would bring you back to visit often.

Thank you for your time,
Antonio Valenti

PS: Oh, and does anyone know how to get our regions listed on the "Places to visit" area of the signon splash-screen?

I was an SL kid too. The beginnings of virtual reality drew swarms of people, but only the really creative ones actually stayed. Like someone here in the thread said, it's not that there aren't a lot of people out here, I just think they're busy in their own worlds. When I was in SL, I couldn't and wouldn't spend that kind of money for a sim. I would rent the occasional 1/4 sim through the years to enable some creativity, as I like building and am an artist in RL. But mostly, I checked other peoples sims out. I found Opensim and Kitely a year and half ago and was thrilled with the idea of owning not only a sim but multiple sims at an affordable price. I have been building my 4 sims up as a hobby since. I even bought another 4 sim lot since the quarantine started and have been in here like a lunatic till all hours of the night, cocktails in hand, building an American Horror Story sim. Hey, there are no rules inside of quarantine! I think the one thing that SL does that we don't and probably should, is take more advantage of the search feature. While I see you can search out people and places that have been made public, there isn't a built in ad board or events page. I always checked those out over there. Maybe it's something that can be done in the future. In the meantime, announcing stuff in the forum is good, also you can add your world to opensimworld.com. People from other grids can then find you as well. As for the topic of NPC's, I freaking love them and cant believe people don't take more advantage of them. Flash forward/////////// I just got back from your sim, I left my likeness for one of your crowd members. Question though, why aren't you animating them? You can tell cool little stories and make creative vignette's all over your island.