A one-of-a-kind game, Crystal Craze brings traffic, fun, interaction, crafting, and creativity for both landowners and hunters. While I was trying out the system, I found it beneficial to boost traffic in a small-owned parcel with my limited funds. While hunting, I made friends and discovered that some people are playing the game to raise money for Relay for Life of Second Life, which benefits the American Cancer Society as well. It's their way of volunteering for a cause.
As a land owner if you would like to build up traffic at your venue, the simplest way is to buy the Land Owner Crystal Spawner or the Land Owner Clusters Spawner for just 1L$. Place these spawners on your land and pay them the amount you would like to distribute. Alternatively, you can also pay the kiosk at the HQ Landmark. You can deposit or withdraw funds including changing password from this kiosk. The crystal hunters would land at your venue and boost the traffic. These are unlike afk camping chairs, the hunters need to be active. The best thing about it is one cannot use alternative accounts. So, you know you get unique traffic visitors everytime. To be a Crystal Craze affiliate and supporter, one has to talk to the support team.
While I was visiting HQ, I met Nikina Kodawari (kodawari), who explained to be the difference between crystals and clusters. “Crystals are the most common game form, crystal craze uses. You can rez the crystal spawner and then pay it and it will use the funds to periodically spawn crystals that people will come to your sim and pick them up. When the spawner runs out of funds the spawner will deactivate itself. While, Clusters on the other hand offer a different kind of collection where the people will click it to activate a timer before they can claim their reward. After a few minutes, the cluster will be able to be claimed and they will need to return to the cluster to pick it up. It's kind of like those old traffic games like Coin Hunt.”
Gia (giablossom): How much traffic is expected? Can the sim crash, has it ever happened?
Nikina Kodawari (kodawari): I'm sure it probably happened before but I've never seen it. Normally traffic isn't quite that crazy unless you spawn a huge amount of rezzers in the same area and then prompt some x10 events and everyone tries to come in at the same time. But even then I doubt the sim would outright crash, instead some people just can't come in.
Sometimes, as a hunter one can witness few people running at abormal speeds. Moving faster than normal speed is against the rules of the game. In case of an issues, its best to record and CC the support team to investigate. Nikina Kodawari (kodawari) also adds, “But most of the time people aren't moving too fast, they just have an AO that animates differently, like people using roller skates It doesn't give them an advantage, it just looks like they move faster when they don't. The crystal craze basket has a system that can usually detect when people have a faster sustained movement than normal and it will lock itself. But it isn't perfect and sometimes people find ways to get around it.”
Gia (giablossom): Could you explain the hunter side of this game?
Nikina Kodawari (kodawari): Sure! The idea of a hunter is to pick up a crystal craze basket and explore hosted sims to collect crystals, and clusters. Each crystal provides a small bit of XP that over time will allow the hunter to level up and increases the capacity of the basket. The crystals have to be brought back here to HQ and turned in for $L rewards So it creates a constant cycle of people going into sponsored sims and collecting crystals, then returing to turn in at HQ and empty the basket, then returning to different sims to continue hunting more crystals and clusters.
Gia (giablossom): What does the levels do? Why will someone want to level up?
Nikina Kodawari (kodawari): When you start, the Crystal basket can only hold a few hundred crystals. At level 100 the crystal craze basket can hold 1 million crystals. The more crystals you can collect at a time means you can hold more capacity to make more L$ quicker without returning to HQ. Also there are other rewards for leveling up like different textures for the Crystal Craze Basket, as well as various group titles like Crystal Craze Hunter, Adept, Master & Legend.
Gia (giablossom): What is the crafting station about?
Nikina Kodawari (kodawari): Different things can be created by crafting such as limit break potions and skins for the crystal craze basket. There is a limit of how many crystals can be collected at one sim without a hunter needing to find another place to hunt. The limit break potion will increase that limit and allow people to stay in one place longer. You gain crafting ingredients by simply collecting crystals and also interacting with the Vote beacon. There are other potions like Purple Love Juice Potion that makes purple hearts come out every time you collect a purple crystal. But the limit break potion is the one thing that most people craft and want to resell. You can check the prices by clicking on the media board right next to the crafting station. The potions generally range between 15L to 20L per potion.
At the HQ, one can see different contest boards. The Weekly XP Contest is who gained the most XP this week by collecting crystals and clusters. The winner be rewarded with the L bonus on the kiosk. The Top Donations isn't actually a contest, it just shows the names of people who have donated in Crystal Craze's lifecycle. Nikina Kodawari (kodawari) further adds, “The weekly social contest is an experimental contest that is just here for now. It's still being worked on but at the moment it just keeps track of group chat and gives people points for saying thank you to event coordinators and sponsors.” All visiting individuals can increase the prize money on these boards by donating in the prize pool.
When asked, how long she has been playing this game and what keeps her going, Nikina Kodawari (kodawari) answers, “I enjoy Crystal Craze as a concept. What I mean is that it provides a unique thing in SL that makes it feel more alive. Most traffic games involved people just afking (like a camping chair). Crystal Craze is an incentive for people to get out and explore new places, meet new people, and seeing people moving around and doing stuff makes SL feel more dynamic and involved. It helps SL as a whole feel healthy in my eyes. When new people can join the game and be lead to Crystal Craze as a way to generate their first Ls they can come here and make friends and see more of the SL world rather then just stumbling around by themselves and thinking they can never have anything without paying RL money. So for that reason I feel like Crystal Craze is a great thing for SL as a whole and I enjoy volunteering some time and energy to the team here. The more people are enjoying Crystal Craze, the more they are playing SL and in the long term that keeps SL going which is the ultimate goal. At least that is what I feel like is most important. The more people being here and enjoying their time in this world the better off we all are.”
Gia (giablossom) - Did you meet people while hunting too, and did you make friends?
Nikina Kodawari (kodawari): Absolutely. I learned about Crystal Craze by accident because I was on a nearby parcel visiting a friend on the mainland and suddenly one of the neighbors' parcels exploded in traffic. And I had to know what was going on and why there was suddenly so many people over there. Turns out it was a crystal craze event. So I followed it back here to the HQ and found out that I can use CC to find new places to explore so I would occasionally come here and click on their board just to find cool new lands to look at and see what other people are building. Eventually, after about a few months I decided to join CC because I was coming here so much. I had started to see the same people over and over again and naturally you eventually just start to make friends and chat and get to know people. And that's how it all started for me.
Gia (giablossom): Would you like to share a ballpark figure on how many Lindens you made since you joined?
Nikina Kodawari (kodawari): Me? Honestly, I have never withdrawn funds from CC and never used it to gain L$. Hahaha, I'm an exceptional case that I've never needed this for the L$ benefits. I'm mostly here enjoying my time as a sponsor and mentor.
When one is up for exploring, or just bored to the bones lazing around, I would definitely recommend this game. It is fun, active and above all we get to meet many others. A good way to make friends.
Visit Crystal Craze HQ: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Eduisland%202/64/7/1000
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