SL Website: Second life presented to the public as an FPS?

Disclaimer: I absolutely love Bedazzle's work and i am myself waiting eagerly for the grand opening of chinatown, my concerns have nothing to do with que quality of their products, I think they deserve any possible support other residents (me included) can give and i am quite confident when saying that Chinatown is as of now the best build around Second Life. Moreover i am quite sure that the choice of putting those pics as a first greeting when one enters the site is exclusively a LL webmaster's choice and has nothing to do with bedazzle.

Now to the story:
From a couple days when you enter the SL site, the first pictures you find are related to chinatown (IE people with guns), yes they are beautiful and appealing, but maybe they give someone a wrong "first impression" on what SL really is...
My very personal impression is that LL is trying to use that kind of pictures to attract the FPS crowds to second life and even if this can be commercially advantageous, it can be quite misleading.
I don't know if this is a direct or indirect (or maybe it's not even linked to it, who knows) effect of the change in the site, but for instance yesterday i had 2 newbies firing guns in my shop just out of the blue, another 2 who joined just the day before asking me "hey dude, where do you buy guns?" (not exactly with the same words, but roughly with the same meaning) and finally another telling me "hey, i tried to kill someone with the sword i bought from you, but it didnt work" (the sword is unscripted of course).
Now, i find myself quite concerned about this, when newbies come into the game and begin immediately looking for guns, (or trying to randomly hack people down with a sword) and i think that maybe LL should aim to give a differernt "first impression" about second life to potential newcomers (i am not even sayiung to remove chinatown pics from the site, just not to show them as first thing when you enter it). Having them believe that second life is a kind of Quake where you can build too is maybe not the best choice.

Just my two cents...

EDIT: just to specify the diclaimer more, i have absolutely nothing against the use of guns, it's the ABUSE of them that concerns me (my seburo is one of my most prized possessions), i totally love well scripted and modeled weapons, i just think they shouldnt be the first thing a newbie looks for when entering the game

Very well stated...and I agree totaly

It wouldn't matter what LL put on the site. We'll always have a percentage of those types of people coming into SL. We always have. They either get over the preconceived notions they brought with them from elsewhere, or they get bored and leave. The pictures on the front of the SL website don't magically implant those ideas in their heads. They brought them with them from CounterStrike.

Though I agree about giving the impression of a first person shooter, I have always seen newbies asking for guns.

I think there is so much to offer in SL that the Lindens have no idea how to advertise it.

Heck, I still have a hard time explaining it to friends!

I don't see any pages dedicated to the joy of wearing a box on your head, which seems to be popular.

In the spirt of collaboration, lets see some new ad ideas

(*opens pandora's box)

I beg to differ here Chip, it's not about what people think about fighting on the net, it's about what a newcomer can think when he first learns about second life.
One of the first rules of marketing is that the first impression is the one that counts the most. My concern is that a person that sees pictures of people with weapons as a very first thing when entering SL would probably think than the FPS aspect of SL is much bigger of what it actually is.

What interests me is that there is nothing in the slideshow to visually show that you can create objects and script. There used to be. That's surely the biggest thing about SL, isn't it? People may just think that the other things in the slideshow are provided content by the makers of SL. *shrug*

Actually Blueman thats a great Idea I mean who better to invoke Ideas than people that recently joined.

I mean seriously, think about it a new person has more misconceptions and things disproved or approved since they got here why not pick thier brains as to what made em try in the first place.

Just an Idea mind you.

Shadow

How is showing screenshots taken in SL of things that people are actually doing in SL giving people a false impression?

Because, chip, the actual fighting part of second life is (thankfully) just a very minimal part of what SL is, while having it as a first thing when someone visits the SL website is like slamming it on the front page of a newspaper, giving people a misleading idea of it's proportions in SL.

Its those tabs up top. "Create" "Personalize" "Own" "Play" etc... the chinatown (And spitoonie!) slides are just in the "New" catagory.

Some people will find anything to complain about. The whole idea behind SL is to create a world where there's something to appeal to everyone... that includes people who like to shoot things.

Doh! You're absolutely right. I'd forgotten they had slideshows on the other pages as well. *crawls back into hole*

LMAO I like to shoot things its just not as fun anymore when they dont end up 6 sims away..

Well, since SL is about CREATING a world, why not putting something about creating first thing? A website is not much different than a newspaper, and as in a newspaper what is on first page gets the most attention. Why not putting pics of chinatown without guns? Guns are for sure not the best thing of chinatown that is a wonderful build by itself (in fact the best pictures ive seen of CT so far don't include weapons, some very nice ones shot by Asri and the one with Francis Chung striding in the rain that appears in the gallery forums),

The front page rotates oics every few weeks. What exactly is wrong with showing guns....Francis makes the best ones in game so they shouldn't show what she created?

There are several shooter based games in world as well as several sims dedicated to it....these are all parts of SL....

Now had I not stated that where would we be in this thread...hmmm

Chaos gotta love it..

Shadow

Shooting gets you abuse reported 99% of the time. This is not a "violent" game, because most folks, even if you nudge them, are going to scream bloody murder and have you banned.

Combat has never been a focus, or even a wanted feature, for most of SL's residents. I'm not saying make it illegal, but encouraging it on the signup pages is just going to generate more abuse reports and suspensions and kiddies with guns.

LF

my point exactly LF, i just got another friendly newbie filling my shop floor with hundreds of expended ammo cases (badly scripted too since they didnt derez)...

<<<Sarcasm>>>

Shiryu I thought you said in another thread there are no bad scripters hmmm???

<<<end Sarcasm>>>

Sorry Shiryu I had to it was to blatent for me not to considering the Club owners post the other day...LOL

Theres never been any clear focus to this world....it is what you make it. There are those who are making game engines inside SL for combat....others enjoy just having at it now and then. I would suspect that there is more griefing done with prims than there is with guns....but there are a lot of people who enjoy playing with their guns that don't grief anyone.

Yup, and Like I said I still miss being able to shoot someone and them land 6 sims away.. and as big as the world is now OMG could you imagine a Catapult like Crimson used to have...I mean 5 sims would be nothing..hehe.

Shadow

I said that being a club owner doesnt mean being a bad scripter. There is quite a big difference i'd say.

I know thats why it was between sarcasm quotes..

Of course, and i am one of those, but slamming guns in first page can easily give the idea that fighting is the main focus of SL. Not a good idea in my eyes.

I will have to recuse myself from this debate as I never quite recovered emotionally from having my image removed from the front of the SL Webpage.