I paid a visit to the Sea Hawk sim this morning, investigating three small groups of dots on the map, and found a club in a castle with two live people in voice chat and a third I could pry away from watching motorcycle racing on TV to text chat, and two campers, another club in a skybox with five employees, one patron, and some club chat, a store with the owner arranging products and four bots in a skybox, and a lone avatar floating in a field. There was also another functioning but empty store and at least one other looking partially moved-in.
I wasn't sure how to classify this, it being so mixed and individually too small to report on, so I went back seven hours later to see if the same people were there (that'd make me suspect they were bots and campers), and found the first three still there, this time AFK but not (away), five bots now in the store's skybox and a visitor trying out poseballs on a sex bed, and two people in the other club.
Unfortunately there's an automated greeter at that second club that shouts all arrivals, so I couldn't just be an observer. After I was announced one of the employees moved to her station (on a pole) and a third arrived. A fourth briefly appeared. Listening in on the chat it appears that employees are paid to do two hour shifts, and they don't all know each other. Either that or the chat was scripted. I'm not sure which. Some nonsensical things were said, but some things were also said in a logical sequence.
I find it hard to believe someone would pay people to wait for hours for visitors, in a place where visitors typically don't spend much if anything, or that such a job would pay well enough to be worth the time, even if you can do other things at the same time. With camping you can leave your computer and go do other things. In this club you'd have to be on-call, or you might even have to spend two hours making club chat. Maybe in a busy club, though I still don't think the economics make sense, but how can this tiny club pay people to wait for visitors?
Anyway, I'm calling this one Club Chat, with an honorable mention for the bots and campers in the sim, and a nod to the first club for the three people mostly at the keyboard when I arrived the first time.
This visit happened at 7 am SLT, Sunday, July 20, 2008.
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