I was talking to someone today about this blog, and they said they loved it, and that Aeon and I are doing a wonderful job, but then they asked me from out of left field “How do you afford all the outfits?” After getting over my surprise, I told them that most of the outfits you see here are all FREE (or very nearly so).
Of course, both Aeon and I have mesh bodies, feet, hands, and other pieces that cost us actual Linden Dollars, but a lot of the clothing, shoes, hair, and accessories are hunt gifts, Midnight Mania boards, Lucky Letter Boards, and group gifts. It’s amazing just how much quality clothing you can get for a little bit of time investment plus a little bit of know-how about finding them.
So, I thought I’d do a post on just what to look for.
Hunts
This is a great way to spend some time and practice your camming skills 🙂 Someone will organize a hunt where you search for a specific item. The organizer may be a single store and the hunt items are hidden about their store; or the organizer may be a professional organization, like Flair For Events, and the hunt items are hidden in a region, or even grid wide!
A lot of hunts are no cost (you buy the hunt item for L$0) and while there are some expensive hunts (where “expensive” may be L$15 an item), it’s rare to see hunts over L$5.
There are a few good websites that track ongoing and upcoming hunts. Try these two for a start:
Here’s an example of a hunt that’s running now. You will generally see a poster like this in participating stores:
And also, they will generally show you the item that you are looking for. In this case, it’s a coconut!
Some hunts (including the one above) require that you go and get a HUD and wear it while hunting. The HUD will give you hints and landmarks to all the hunt locations. Others will give you a notecard containing landmarks, and others will even have the next landmark included in the hunt item you just found!
Midnight Mania
You’ve all probably seen these boards. They are also known as “Night Prizes” or “Midnight Madness”. The basic concept is the store owner will set a target, say 100. If 100 avatars register for the prize in the 24 hours between one midnight and the next, all 100 avatars receive the prize.
Some boards require that you have the store’s group tag active, but a lot are “no group required”.
I watch the group chat for the “Second Life Frees & Offers” group where there are dozens of these announced every day. If you don’t belong to this group, join now!
There is also a variation of MM boards called “Mini Mania”. These boards generally have a low target, and when the target is reached (as opposed to at midnight) one avatar wins the prize.
Lucky Letter Boards
These boards usually have older clothing, and the idea here is that if the board shows the first letter of your avatar name (not your display name), you click the board to win the prize. The letters change on a regular basis, set by the owner of the board, and the times can range from as little as a couple of minutes to hours.
Getting a group together for lucky letter boards is a good idea, because each time a prize is claimed, the letter changes. With a group of people, you can all usually score some prizes for no cash outlay in a very short time.
Again, some boards require you have the store’s tag active.
Group Gifts
A lot of stores reward their group members with free group gifts. There are a number of stores that are very regular about this and will have one every month (oh my, some people are wonderfully generous, and creative too).
The trick here is to find stores you like the items from, and join the group. Some of the high quality clothing outfits (such as Ghee) require a one time payment to join the group, but the value here is that usually you can get all the past group gifts once you join. Joining a quality group for L$250 and getting ten group gifts where the average price for an outfit at the store is L$250 is worth it, let me tell you!
Here’s a screen shot in the Firestorm viewer of a group profile, showing you exactly how to join up to a group. You can usually find a group join terminal in the store, and clicking it will give you the link to open the group profile.
Clicking on the “Join now!” button will join you up for no cost in this case.
Conclusion
That’s it really! There are of course other ways to find free items (try going to the SL Marketplace and searching for “dress NOT demo NOT Demo NOT DEMO” and sorting by price low to high). Use your imagination. Keep your eyes open. And most of all, have fun!