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Hmm, well, providing people convenience, providing food, letting people skill at your place, chatting, socializing...
Did I leave anything out?
Quit complaining that your helping people without a award. That's just silly.
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Well, actually, you could have left that out all together.
It's because of crappy "you should be happy to wait on me" attitudes that many of us don't host guests in our houses.
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Sorry Dutch, I have to disagree here.
I think MORE hosts should host BECAUSE they want to provide a service, and ARE happy to wait on guests, even if they do get miffed at the particularly greedy ones, they are still should be happy for guests. IMHO, if they are not hosting for that reason at least primarily if not solely, with the rest being a 'bonus' like it's supposed to be than a necessity, then I think not hosting, as you say you won't do, is the right course of action to take.
Hosting has become too much like trying to run a business and the 'art of hosting' has gotten completely lost, IMHO. I think making money is for stores and money houses, the rest of the categories are about providing services to other people, not 'what's in it for me'. Like I said, that doesn't mean you can't get pissed off when someone is particularly rude...but when you let that resentment get to you too much instead of ultimately realizing that you can't control other people's attitude and you're in it for the good apples as well as the bad, then IMHO, it's time to make a money house or non-AFK store.
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I disagree completely. Providing a service is a business and hosts should be able to charge for those services. Especially in a skill house that is needed by anyone that wishes to make money. Limiting entrepeneurs to money and stores is just wrong. For that matter, I make very little money at my store and rely on my sim jobs for the money that I really need for things I do. My store is a service business too. I only have it to provide the service of supplying the community with objects from catalog.
For those only interested in being a good host, they can open an entertainment lot and host parties all they want. Host friendship orgies in a residence lot where you don't have to cater to needs at all. That is hosting. Skill lots should be a business.
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I'd agree with that, if the only way sims earned skill was when other people taught them and there was no way that they could skill independently, but when the only service they provide is putting food out and calling the repairman when needed (read the boards, many pancake about even doing serenades) then I see that as providing a service, but not one that is worthy of the sim making a 'profit' for their efforts. Breaking even, perhaps, but not a profit for sure. Look at the world around you.....there are many organizations and services that are non-profit or rely on donations/grants to stay in operation. Many of them don't see one dime of profit, and many have to close down because they are so far in the red.
Maybe I'm just being obtuse, but I don't see how simply opening your doors and then being semi-afk or totally afk, only coming back to fill buffets or make HC every hour or so or whatever (hell I've seen roomies and owners go afk so long that people literally have to go home to green and then come back to skill, and the only reason they come back is because that house is the only house open for that particular skill, otherwise we'd surely have taken our VH to someone more deserving of it) is worth a sim making enough money that they never have to visit a money house to pizza or make a few jams or whatever to stay in operation.
I was just sitting here trying to think of how owners might be able to get 'grants' within the sim world like a real life entrepreneur could, but I can't think of a way unless it was a thing that was run by EA, where the applicant would have to PROVE to EA that they were dedicated to running an extraordinary sim house, and the only thing stopping them was poverty. Whether EA is open to an idea like this I dunno, but seeing as how they are about to make money off those that are too busy/lazy to earn money themselves by selling them simoleans for RL currency, I somehow doubt it. I really think this is just a weeding out process of those who are truly dedicated, and those who just want to turn a sim-buck, which would be an especially bad thing now that we will be able to sell money back to EA. In order for something like that to work, skill house owners and roomies would have to somehow have a special fund account set aside with money in it that could only be used for refilling the refridgerators/buffet tables and somehow could NOT be sold back to EA, thus stopping another exploit situation on a RL level, but I can't see the devs going through the time to make something like that happen.....who knows though, I've been known to be wrong before
