The Rules for Merchants

Why have rules? Because without them, we have headaches. That’s the collective “we” again (hunters, merchants, admins) – everyone’s life is easier if the merchants know what to do, and the hunters know what to expect. Trust us, we’ve been through this. ;) And with that said – here we go.

1. You can’t rename your hunt box. Yeah, we know some people cheat and use finder huds, and if they know the name then they can find your item without having to hunt. We’re going to let them. Let them come and go, and think of them as jackass cousin Bob who comes to your family reunion, eats all the potato salad and leaves again, to the tune of ‘good riddance’. Most people hunt – and keeping the hunt boxes properly named helps them keep their inventory intact and lets them keep track of where they are on the hunt that way. No point in punishing the whole fam because cousin Bob is wanker.
2. If you’re going to include a LM to your own store, it needs to be IN the box with your items. The only LM a hunter should see inside the folder they get from you is the one to the next store. It may sound like a small thing, but these poor people are suffering some massive lag. The easier we can make it for them to keep moving, the less likely they are to be a cranky SoB on the hunt. And no worries. They already have your LM – they got it from the store ahead of you. ;)
3. You must sell the contents of the item for L$0. This seems to be a tough one for people. Some want to charge L$1. Some want to sell a copy rather than contents. Some want to use a scripted ‘give’ instead of selling. Some want to use a ‘give only once’ script. No, no, no, and no. More and bigger problems are caused by this than we can describe. If you sell a copy and not contents – then they have to find somewhere to rez to get the next LM. (And seriously, not everyone knows you can wear the box and pull the LM out.) And using a scripted ‘give’ is nightmarish for hunters. Scripts are also some of the first things to start failing when the lag begins – and you end up with a pile up of frustrated hunters in your store being cranky, and no one has any fun. So – selling, contents, L$0.
4. You need to box up your hunt gift, and put YOUR box inside the ‘hunt box’. Here’s what the inside of your hunt box should look like: the LM to the next location, and a box containing your items. If you have male and female gifts, you might have two boxes and the LM to the next store. The point is – don’t just toss the LM in there with your stuff and make people sift. No, it’s not that hard – when you’re not lagged out because there’s a hunt going on. But when you’re waiting for inventory to load and suffering little freezes (which is just life on a hunt), it can make a big difference if you don’t have to hunt for the next LM too.
5. You can’t resize, retexture, recolor, or otherwise change the external appearance of the box. People need to know exactly what they’re looking for when they get there. Trust me – even if you think it’s easy, they don’t know your store like you do. So they need to understand the kinds of places it might fit (size) and what they’re looking at when they’re looking at the egg (texture, color). Otherwise, the hunt is just no fun for them.
6. You must place the hunt box within 30 meters of the place hunters land. Note the language here: wether its because it’s the LM you gave us or because you have teleport routing forced to a certain point, the egg must stay within 30 meters of that landing point. Let’s face it – 30m to the left, 30m to the right, back, forward, up, down – that’s a whole lot of space to search for something so small (and our hunt boxes are SMALL). If they had to search a whole sim for something that small, they’d cry, tear their hair out, and give up – or complain until none of us could stand it. We know some of you love torturing the hunters a little – and you’ll still have plenty of room to do that in 30m any direction. So – keep it within 30 meters.
   Yes, it was 20 meters last time, and it’s 30 this time. We decided to make it a little more difficult this year, and live up to our reputation as the hardest hunt in SL. More on that later. ;)
7. If you’re going to hide the hunt box, you must hide it fairly. You don’t HAVE to hide your hunt box, and some prefer not to (which is just fine). But if you do hide it – you need to hide it in such a way that a reasonable hunter can find it. So no stashing it in the wall completely, or with only a tiny corner showing. No sinking it into the ground, or totally concealing it in another prim. We can appreciate if people have to cam for it – but total concealment is out.

So, them’s the rules. If you apply/register, you’re agreeing to them. And we’ll hold you to them. Of note – we’re going to make every SLurl of every participating store, in order, available to hunters from day 1. if you frustrate them – they’ll have the ability to move on to the next location without your gift. And that may seem just fine – but really, it’s better if they get it – because they might love your stuff and want to shop with you. But they’ll never find that out if they get so frustrated hunting for your prize that they give up and skip you.

And if you’ve made it this far, might as well roll on to the suggestions!