Got into the game -- but I'm invisible

I got into the game by disabling the firewall. Not sure yet if that was necessary or if perhaps I just wasn't waiting long enough for the game to finish loading (it was so slow loading I felt it was stuck, and I think usually it was, but today it did finally load).

I got into the world, but the textures just are not loading -- not just textures but anything under appearance. And I'm invisible. I gave it about 10, 15 minutes to appear then I gave up.

Will try again when I have more time to sit & wait... Is this normal though ? Does it usually take a long time to load appearance files ? Is the avatar invisible until that time ?

Does it happen each time the game loads, or only when you join ?

Also -- does the camera move when your avatar moves ? I moved mine around but the camera didn't move with me (I, or at least my circle, looked to be far away).

Also, how to get back out of Mouseview or whatever ? It seemed to time out but is there a way to get in & out of that faster ?

Maybe these are mostly speed issues. I am used to things being almost instant but this is a streaming game. Still, are they normally so slow as to appear not to work at all ? Thanks for any insight.

(At least I'm in -- Woohoo !)