Welcome!

Hi there and welcome to Freebie Hunters! One of our favorite pastimes in Second Life is scouting the grid for fantastic hunts, sales, events and gifts from all the wonderful creators. We thought we'd share the wealth and showcase some of our finds in this blog, with an emphasis on the goodies available in various SL events and hunts. We do our best to show ALL items from a hunt/event and in the manner the creator intended, but this is not always possible.

***UPDATE August, 2018- We are still finding freebie/nearly free items to share with you, but due to RL time constraints, a lot of what we find is being posted solely on Flickr. If you would like to follow the events being posted there, here is a link to the album page for our account: Flickr Albums. These are not blog posts, but simply pictures of the gifts available. Thank you!

Thank You to all of the creators!

Thursday, March 13

Random Bloggables

Periodically,  designers send us blogger packs of new releases or will drop a note asking if we are interested in blogging some of their stuff.  In the past, we have always declined, but its a bold new day, so consider this an experiment - we're going to be adding the occasional "Random Bloggables" post amid the SL events and hunts posts we normally do.  Stuff that caught our eye.  Stuff that we thought was good enough to share.  Stuff that is a real quality for a decent price.

The first store we have stuff from is Khargo.  We've got their Aphrodite living room sets in contemporary tweed, casual union jack and modern leather. The sets include a couch, loveseat, chair, table and rug.  These are gorgeous! The textures look amazing and the clean lines of the design would work with just about any decor.

Khargo's in-world store: here

We've also got a bunch of neat stuff from RVi Design.  The guitarcase tip jar caught our eye first - this is perfect for anyone who performs in SL.  The lucky leprechaun tip jar is just in time for St. Patrick's Day.  Following the Irish theme, there are two styles of all mesh pub signs.  The squared sign comes with 13 different design options and the arched sign comes with 3 design options.  Finally, there is the mounted dragon head sconce, with working candlelight.  This would be a perfect finishing touch for any castle or fantasy dwelling.

RVI Design's in-world store:  here

Cheers,
Shadow



Khargo Khargo - Aphrodite Set contemporary tweed, 199L
KhargoKhargo - Aphrodite Set casual union jack, 199L
KhargoKhargo - Aphrodite Set modern leather, 199L

FATPACK all 3 sets, 399L

RViRVi Designs - guitarcase and lucky leprechaun tip jars, 200L each RViRVi Designs - mounted dragon head sconce, 350L RViRVi Designs - squared pub sign, 250L RViRVi Designs - arched pub sign, 250L

Monday, March 10

Twisted Hunt: Magic, pt. 5


The Twisted Hunt will continue its run until March 31st, so you still have plenty of time to work through all 104 amazing shops and indulge in all the side games and extras you cube-loving little hearts could desire.   The merchants have done an absolutely outstanding job, both with keeping to theme and providing gorgeous store settings and specials for this round of Twisted, so take your time and enjoy everything there is to see and do before it all vanishes at the end of the month.

In addition to the 5 posts-worth of goodies we shared here, there are tons of gachas, side hunts and other special events we haven't blogged, so be sure to give yourself time for those things as well when you are out hunting.

Official Blog:  Twisted Hunt

Cheers,
Shadowed

MENstuff Hunt, S'14

I've been sitting on this post for a couple of days now, A) debating whether I wanted to put it up or not and B) getting the Twisted Hunt completely blogged.

The blog has taken a step back from covering most hunts, mainly because I was/am burned out on hunting. I've been focused more on SL sales events, simply because in blogging terms, its easier to get what is needed from the designers directly for the events and it doesn't require that every waking minute of my free time be spent store-hopping and fighting lag in SL or that I shell out lindens to do a hunt for stuff I only want to show on the blog rather than stuff I actually want for my own avatar.

Traditionally, I have always enjoyed covering the male hunts because I think the guys in SL get shafted most of the time when it comes to freebies. In that spirit, I decided to do the current MENstuff portion of the Stuff Hunt going on in SL this month (the hunt has separate paths for men, women and home). The hunt both reminded me of what I love about hunting and the things that got me burned out and fed up with hunting.

PROS:
*I love the challenge and often time myself on how long it takes to get through certain stores where I know the owners are awesome item hiders.

*I love taking the hints and trying to figure out just where things are hidden.

*I love finding new-to-me shops and designers and getting to take a look at what's out there in SL.

*I love seeing the social aspect of hunts, getting out and meeting new people/making new hunt friends.

CONS:

*I hate vague hints that have no relation to the actual hiding place in a store the size of a half sim. I get that you want hunters to have a look around your place, but a hint should at least point them in the right direction.

*I hate incorrect LMs in a gift folder. Yes, I understand there is a blog with correct SLurls, but its a pain in the ass to have to keep switching back and forth between SL and an open browser in order to get to the right places. Seriously. It takes 2 seconds for a store owner to swap out a bad LM for a good one if a problem is found. Other hunts do it all the time and no one has died from it yet.

*I hate stores that think its cute or a way to deter area search users by renaming the hunt items so you get randomly named folders in your inventory. If you have to stop hunting for the evening, or crash - goodbye folders as they vanish into inventory without a searchable hunt name and goodbye to knowing what number you left off on in the hunt, especially if you have to refer to a secondary source for the correct stores and LMs. Don't even let me get started on the annoyance of having to rename every freaking folder so that you can have some kind of logic in your inventory. Granted, to the average hunter, it may not seem like a huge issue, but when you do the hunt volume I was doing when the blog was covering as many hunts a month as it could, this kind of annoyance adds up.

*Give folders, not objects. Old hands in SL know about wearing an object to pull the LM from it, but newcomers might not and having to find a place to rez and unpack each object to get the next LM can be offputting to them. Hunts should attract people to your store and give you a chance to show off what you create, rather than repel the hunters.

/minirant

Which brings us full circle to the MENstuff hunt. I haven't done one in a while, so I was a little excited to do it again this time around. There are 100 stores on the hunt path - it was nice to see some familiar faces and there was a decent mix of new places included. Use the website for SLurls. Some of the stores are free and some are 1L for the items (don't ask me why, I don't know and I don't want to get involved in that particular discussion). I completed all 100 stores, and am fairly sure I got all of them here, but there were renamed folders and crashes, so - no guarantees. What did stick out in my mind this time around was that the hunt felt deserted. Maybe it was the times of day/night I was hunting, but I can remember in the past encountering groups of hunters frequently while being out working the hunt path and this time I ran into 2 other hunters on the entire hunt. It took me 2 days to do all the stores, so maybe it was pure chance I didn't run into other hunters since I went fairly quickly.

In any event, there were some great gifts out there and even with the 1L stops on the hunt, this is a pretty inexpensive way to expand your male wardrobe and try out some great designers.

MENstuff Blog: here 
Hunt item: MENstuff shirt

Cheers,
Shadowed