Strokerz Second Life SexToys Broken
by Alphaville Herald on 29/05/09 at 8:16 am
Frustrated cheerleader shoots Data Linden — Lab blacklist blamed as thousands seek repairs for nerfed sexbeds
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
In mid-april, thousands of residents of Second Life discovered the avatar animations in their virtual sex beds were non-functional – a disaster of epic proportions for players interested in working through the Kama Sutra of Second Life with a close friend or two.
The cause of the cartoon world coitus interruptus appears to have been a Linden Lab blacklist and deletion of a key script in Stroker Serpentine’s toys. While shooting victim Data Linden and the broken beds are expected to make a full recovery, the episode raises troubling questions about the Lab's control over user generated content and the uncertainties of business in the virtual realm.
Stroker Serpentine prepares for more customer service work
According to Mr. Serpentine, on April 14th Linden Lab blacklisted a data loader script that caused thousands of his Strokerz Toyz products to stop working – a customer support nightmare for Mr. Serpentine. The nightmare was shared by Cheergirl Allen who retails a line of Bimbo Cheerleader branded sex bed that use Mr. Serpentine’s scripts.
The worldwide script deletion incident apparently had nothing to do with upcoming adult content controls from Linden Lab – but it is puzzling how Stroker's scripts could have been deleted at all. According to a reliable source, blacklisting and expunging of scripts or objects from Second Life requires sign off from a Lab supervisor so that over-eager first tier support does not accidentally remove important features of the world.
Whatever the cause, the magnitude of the problem is frightening to contemplate – each nerfed bed must be repaired by hand, and the initial crush of repair requests swamped Mr. Serpentine's operation. Former business partner turned competitor Corsi Mousehold caught some of the overflow of Strokers customers and helped as best she could – and picked up some new customers of her own in the process.
Cheer Power and Data's pride leads to Linden orbital free-fall
Once the cause of the problem was identified, Mr Serpentine and Ms. Allen worked with Linden Lab staff to recreate the missing scripts and a repair kit was created for the borked beds.
Some suspect that Data Linden was enlisted to help restore the missing sex scripts based a page in Cheergirl's facebook posted April 19th. Or perhaps Data Linden, Cheergirl Allen, and Stroker Serpentine always get together to inspect plywood cubes. In any case, Data's shield was no match for Cheergirls second shot.
[10:26] Data Linden: Oh ?
[10:26] CheerGirl Allen: may I orbit you,
[10:26] Data Linden: lol you can try
[10:27] Titan Industries E-11: Switched to orbit bullets.
[10:27] CheerGirl Allen: Hooo!
[10:27] CheerGirl Allen: damn
[10:27] Data Linden: Hahahaha
[10:27] CheerGirl Allen: well at least I shot a Linden
[10:27] Data Linden: Try pushing me
[10:28] CheerGirl Allen: cool, your a ghost
[10:28] Data Linden: Linden powah !!!
[10:28] SOCOM M4A2/M203/MasterKey v2.1.1 (slingable): PRDefeat Bullet loaded
[10:28] CheerGirl Allen: i got you
[10:28] CheerGirl Allen: Cheer Power
Stroker Serpentine's note to his customers:
We immediately found out about this and contacted them ASAP. They (LL)have since restored the script and it's functionality. However, it leftus with 1000's of broken beds.
We currently have over 1 million toys/beds on the SL grid. Fortunatelyonly those that were rezzed / taken out of inventory during the two dayperiod are being affected. Products inside your inventory are fine andcan be used at any time.
What we have to do is replace them one by one as they crop up. We areupgrading them wherever possible to compensate you for THEIR mistake.
Thank you for remaining a loyal Strokerz Toyz Customer as we work through this tedious process.
You can contact Stroker Serpentine or Andrea Faulkner for areplacement. Please do not send without first IM'g one of us, so we canhave your Profile/IM open and also to make sure we are not in "BusyMode".
Again, we apologize for this inconveinence, but we will continue to strive to earn your support.
Stroker Serpentine
Obvious Schism
May 29th, 2009
How come the Herald has only just picked up on this story?
Pappy Enoch
May 29th, 2009
Whut a tarribul disaster. Reckon ya’ll will have to do it the old-fashun way: talkin’ durty.
Sho y’all didn’t bust them beds by bouncin’ on ‘em hard?
They am a strappin’ lover-boy in Enoch Holler, Roland N. Hay, who dun busted half the beds in the county. He even busted the water-filled one in the “Hole-in-One Cat-House & Miniature Golf Paradise” run by Miss Clotilda “Oingo-Boingo” Taliaferro (kin tu Miss Petunia Amaryllis Courtney Taliaferro, sum say…that damn prude).
That dun caused a flood an’ ruined the golf course.
Sacha Kessel
May 29th, 2009
I guess I understand why Strokerz has become such a popular brand, but as far as quality I’m just going to have to dump it in the old recycle bin. Sex beds not working? Gee, what a fucking tragedy.
Is anyone else struck by the fact that the proprietor looks like a hold over from bad 80′s porn, mullet and all?
Darien Caldwell
May 29th, 2009
That’s what he looks like in RL too. ;p
Ari Blackthorne
May 29th, 2009
Hahaha….
Good thing I buy *quality* over “popularity”.
Strokerz stuff is way over-priced for the crappy-looking prim work.
moses
May 29th, 2009
i want to see scripted venereal diseases that attatch there self to scripted sex toys and makes them do funny things. it will be a laugh when you are walking around and your electric willy is doing a dance like a helicopter blade.
imho
May 29th, 2009
Then buy Neolove beds from Corsi Mousehold,they’re guarranteed not to break.
Jumpman Lane
May 29th, 2009
eveyone cant look like Jumnpman Lane
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj224/jumpmanlane/darklingvale_005.png
Bamika Easterman
May 29th, 2009
Look, you buy a sex bed you expect it to do sex, right? You pay the money and you want to get a good service – that’s the bottom line. Linden Labs need to do better if they want to run their own porn continent!
to Bamika Easterman
May 29th, 2009
It’s Linden Lab,not Linden Labs. Get it right.
Pie Psaltery
May 30th, 2009
It’s not necessarily that sex-beds aren’t working but the ham-fisted way Linden Lab runs it’s platform.
Scenerio:
1. You have run a sucessful business within the SL platform for years.
2. Linden Lab fucks something up, completely beyound your control.
3. Your business suffers but the Lab still takes your money for tier/advertising.
4. You wonder why you are doing business on the SL platform.
In SL, nothing is guarenteed not to break. Not even the platform itself, squeaking and straining under you much louder then your sex-bed.
The funniest thing about this article is that anyone still does business on the SL platform when a bunch of idiots run it.
Vylixan Fallon
May 30th, 2009
Its the fact that they just can rip a script out of an object and by that affecting a lot of people , who might found out after a long time . It can happen with every scripted object that is in place.
Now they did it with Strokerz , the question who is the next one to suffer from it !
Btw. The items are nicely replaced with working ones, the customer service is perfect.
CS
May 30th, 2009
Oh, so that is how the missing scripts happened? I sent very polite IMs to the Strokerz representative Andrea Faulkner on two occasions about the problem, and was simply ignored. Cheergirl Allen also ignored me when I then visited Eros and said hello. They certainly were not too shy to accepot my money before then.
Happily, Briggi Bard, the real creator of the Sexgen scripts, made it very easy to get my furniture repaired.
Chav
May 30th, 2009
“Is anyone else struck by the fact that the proprietor looks like a hold over from bad 80′s porn, mullet and all?”
True, his pic made me LOL IRLs.
Shanna McCullough
May 30th, 2009
It is trully unfortunate when things go wrong, no matter whose fault it is. Personally I dont care why its broken, I just want it fixed. I’ve know several builders whose products have stopped working … some shrug, point at linden and offer to sell you a new version that has been corrected, others choose to make you whole and do not seek to place blame. I admire Stroker for treating his customers well even when he, himself, is not afforded the same from Linden. Bravo Stroker.
Stroker Serpentine
May 30th, 2009
Thanks to all the kind words and support we have gotten from our inworld friends and customers we’re slowly getting through this. If you aren’t sure if your SexGen product is broken, try it and if the menu does not actuate the item, it’s most likely broken. If it has been in inventory it should be unaffected, but double check just to be sure. We’re offering free upgrades and/or a free gift for the trouble this has caused. If you do not get a reply within a day for a support request, please send a notecard. IM’s do not always make it to email. PLEASE do NOT send the object without contacting us first. There is no way to distinguish it within inventory.
The question that really needs to be asked is why a SINGLE Linden has blanket authority to do grid-wide damage. Remember this debaucle?
https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2008/06/17/responding-to-questions-about-the-dmca-process;jsessionid=A6BC61235E9524E09CC4A0D5D6E7A4D1
We did receive personal apologies from the Lab, but they would not comment on how this could happen. As stated above, YOUR product or service could be next.
Again, Our sincere apologies for any difficulty this may have caused you. We’ll make it right if we can.
General Drama
May 30th, 2009
And people are starting to wonder why Jack Linden is getting fired, its for allowing shit like this to happen.
Clueless Littleboots
May 30th, 2009
Oh please this isn’t a tragedy for Stoker! This is more word of mouth and free advertising with him being painted the victim again once more. Just like rl any news is good news.
Sputzie
May 31st, 2009
“Strokerz stuff is way over-priced for the crappy-looking prim work.”
You got that right.
OMG!! I MET STROKER IN RL AND HE IS DA BEST GUY EVAR!!! HOW DARE YOU SAY SOMETHING NON-INGRATIATING ABOUT HIM!!!
Ajax
Jun 1st, 2009
As for the “real” creator of the sexgen scripts, it says right in the top of the script “created by Miffy Fluffy”. Whats the difference between MLPv1 and Sexgen? Smoke and mirrors — they are one and the same.
At0m0 Beerbaum
Jun 2nd, 2009
AHAHAHAHAHA.
Ranma Tardis
Jun 2nd, 2009
*giggles* Thinks about it for a bit and giggles some more. Wonders if it came from the same Linden that was associated with the curse of the not removable underwear?
Not concerned
Jun 3rd, 2009
Well Sad as it is I dont have any SS stuff as there are pleanty of options in world. Raced off to check them and all safe. Perhaps you may wish to ” update” your prim stuff to something a tad modern and swap out those animations as they suck (or dont). SL has developed , in scripts as well as builds,short of name there is really nothing going for ST ( and for that matter unxcite). Old tech for an old world. Spend some R&D L$. !
Stroker Serpentne
Jun 3rd, 2009
@ Not Concerned: Since you contradicted yourself by saying saying first “…I don’t have any SS stuff” and then followed with “Raced off to check them”, It’s worth pointing out that obviously you are not familiar with any of our products. We continualy release new designs and animations, as well as enlisting other designers to partner with us. I visit (and are friends with most) our competitors regularly. We intentionally shy away from the “Ikea-esque” designs that so many creators seem fond of. In a world where individual imagination is so easily expressed, it saddens me that so many want to look just like everyone else. Combine that with the fact that a good majority do not support their products (many whom use a freebie system with stolen anims anyways) and log on once a week just to cash out, without any regard towards customer support or constant SL borkage. I have always maintained that we are not the best, but, one of the best. I personally own and use products from Akaesha, Luna, DevPose and Naughty Neva. Their offerings and imaginations are amazing and compelling. They also support their products. Troll fed.
Prof. Archie Lukas
Jun 4th, 2009
……….and they said there was no need to be paranoid.
nuff said