Second Inventory: Back Up Your Inventory To Your Hard Drive

I commented over there, and I'll say the same here.

It looks promising, and it's a great idea. The problem is in the cost. It's a bit pricey for software that only works with, and is designed for Second Life. A place where mansions cost real life pennies. But here is a huge, massive investment for SL as compared to 'normal' SL investments.

I've been in SL a long time, too. If I were to calculate the RL cost of my inventory, it would easily run into $600.00 or $700.00 or more, mostly due to specific scripts and things like builder tools I've licensed.

However, for the average user, I doubt their entire inventories cost as much as this software alone in RL dollars.

The problem I have with it is that there is not, to my knowledge, any kind of demo version (time-limited or otherwise) and I'm just not willing to risk so much RL money on something sight-unseen. And something that I don't know whether it actually works or not, and just what the limitations are (because there *will* be limitations in functionality.)

So, if you do take the plunge, a highly detailed review of all the good, bad and ugly would be greatly appreciated. So as for this tool, the real question becomes how valuable is it really? The inventory missing issues have mostly disappeared and LL has even restored as much as possible. I'm fortunate that I have never been affected.

So this software is really just 'insurance'. To me, there are too many other variables with SL to wonder if this is insurance that is highly overpriced, as compared to it's perceived value. The risk (of needing the software to restore inventory) just isn't high enough to warrant the cost on obtaining the 'insurance'.

So, it's a gamble: You're betting you'll lose some or all of your inventory (buying the software) - or you're not (don't buy the software).

The real question becomes - what if your account goes dead (for any reason, you've switched to an alt, you get banned, whatever) - will your 'back-up' be able to be restored to your 'new' alt account? I understand no. Otherwise, it's too easy to steal inventory (no transfer items) and make as many copies as you want and resell them. So, to be an ethical solution to inventory backup, it will be locked to a specific account and/or not be anywhere near as functional as it would need to be to justify the purchase price.

Lots of questions, and certainly controversy in it.

Ari Blackthorne