Kick from Mature areas option

I'm 27, but I don't think there's anything "mature" about mature areas. It is disgusting to me, and I am really tired of stumbling into Mature areas and being reminded that I'm there by the boobies in front of me (or the actual animated virtual orgy in front of me) long before I look up and see "Mature" at the top.

Why can't you (Linden) simply add an Edit menu preferences option of "Disable access to mature areas", that

1. refuses to teleport you to mature areas (gives you a dialogue box), and

2. refuses to let you pass (by walking / flying) into a Mature area (like the access zones on some lands)

Seems like an easy implementation. However, there is a mere 50% I will stick with this game, depending entirely on whether this feature is added.

I wanted to host another virtual church in 2nd life, but I am uninterested if "being open minded about pornography and virtual sex" [gag] is a mandatory imposition for all players.

I agree with this. I'll add Gambling to this as well.

It's not that I'm morally against either of them particularly, but it's embarrassing demonstrating the game to other people in RL, and they accidentally fly into a porn area.

It's enough of a problem that I will no longer send links to SL to people with whom I have professional contact in RL, not to anyone except very close friends in fact.

Azelda

Hrm, I'm all for more options, however...

The debate comes up wether to have the option defaultly turned on, or defaultly turned off.

Defaultly on, and you get everyone who has a business/house/whatever, in a mature region pissed off because they are being descrimated against (think of what happened with the Search feature x 10).

Defaultly off, and you get everyone whose conservative pissed off that it should be on by default (once again same thing with the Search feature).

Its the great Mature debate again, not everyone goes or lives in mature areas to see porn or sex, some like the freedom that being in a mature region gives you.

So descriminating against a club thats in a mature reason just because they want the patrons to be able to swear and such, cuts out business for that club. And even more so raises business for any club in a PG sim. Replace club with, church/shop/house/hangout. (if the option is defaultly on)

Also having the option on, if it didn't show the mature areas the world would look alot smaller.

Also if you have it defaultly on people may get confused as to why they can't get to the other part of the continent where others are (because they'd have to fly through an M sim to get there and they have the option off which blocks them from entering).

So, I'm all for giving people more options as to what they do and don't want to see or be part of, but having the option in raises alot of other issues also.

You could always script or have someone script up an object that warns you somehow when you enter a Mature sim, shouldn't be too hard to do.

Well, all I can say is, I've been here some time, but I have yet to stumble upon animated orgies!

*reminds self to buy a pair of binoculars*

That situation is just stupid. WinAmp's video streaming feature already shows how to resolve this ... pop up a message box with the checkboxes ...

Show:
[X] G
[X] PG
[ ] R
[ ] NR/AO

[ ] Never show me this dialog again.


Second Life should do the same thing when newbies first arrive in the Mainland, only just show it once. Internet Explorer does the same thing for various browser functions.

Now before you start complaining about the checkbox default when THAT pops up, let me remind you that my avatar defaulted to a woman. I changed it to a man. I survived.

You could also default to nothing ...

Do you want to be free to access Mature areas (where pornography abounds)?

( ) Yes ( ) No

Jon

They already have the technology to do this. Many months ago, you could sign up for a free trial with no credit card and go anywhere in the world - except for mature areas, which simply didn't exist to trials.

Why didn't they continue to do that Huns? (just for curosity)

And the thing about having it pop-up when you first start SL, this was also a suggestion for the Search feature and its disabling of Mature areas on default. The answer as to why not make it pop up on first start is because LL doesn't want SL to have 20 things poping up when you first start SL.

I don't recall having anything pop up on my first start... but who knows, thats the answer they gave.

Side note, pornography isn't allowed to be visible outside buildings even in a Mature area, porn and any other explicit material must be in-doors behind-closed-doors. So if you ran across some porn on the side of a building outside or something, abuse report it. If its inside a building, its allowed, and you can only avoid that building on future visits.

I hear you. This hurts the word-of-mouth publicity of SL because no one wants to reccommend the game to someone at the risk that- as a newbie- they'll accidentally wander into a Mature area and get freaked out.*

Not that I think Mature areas should be banned- live and let live I say, but it would be helpful if there were more newbie-friendly controlls over what kind of sims they wanted to visit. That way, someone looking for racy stuff can get it, and someone who wants to aviod it can do so.

*Well, I can think of a few RL aquaintances that wouldn't mind wandering into an x-rated sim, but had I blundered into one on my first day I'd have probably mistakenly thought "Whoops, it's a porno game. Not for me." and stopped playing.

I think this goes back to the 'clash of continents' idea... which is apparently impossible at this point. The Mature sims need all be clustered and in its own region. Then, in the tutorial world or wherever, a basic explanation of the term 'sim' need be made. At that point, it'd just be a matter of avoiding the group of sims that you know are Mature.

Default off would not raise ire. It's how things are now, just with more options.

Picture frames often render long before walls render... In fact, this is the exact reason why I'm seeing so much smut in the game, because picture frames are indoors but it takes like 30 seconds for the walls to appear and block the view, whereas the pictures load up right away and are immediately visible for some reason.

It really is easier said than done. Event locations are usually not marked as "Mature" till you get there. People's locations are not marked as "Mature" till you go out of way to find out. That kind of thing.

AT LEAST they can give you the Preferences option to pop up a message box warning you that you're in a so-called "Mature" area.

Look at the top of the screen, you know, the part that tells you where in the world you are.

That little note at the top of the screen ALWAYS says either PG or Mature.

Not true, Oz is right.

If you do this, 4 months from now some ultra-conservative (does the name Regnar ring a bell?) will open a new account, enter a mature area, come to the forums to rant (just like Jon), then when you tell him about the option, he'll start ranting that the option is off by default.

You're forgetting the newbies never remember "The good old days."

You mean it has nothing to do with:
- whether they change the avatar bodies to suit you
- they allow you to import custom meshes
- negative shapes (subtraction prims)
- multi-jointed objects

It seems to me like you're using the "Feature Suggestions" forum to make demands.

Nope, those were feature suggestions. The only demand is to be cut off from Mature areas. Maybe there should be a Demands forum?

Eh. Pardon my language, but if a newbie 18+er has a problem with 18+ material being available by default, they can go do 18+ things to themselves.

I'll add you to the ban list for my area, ok? It's in a PG sim, and there's nothing of a pornographic or sexual nature there, but if you don't want to be able to access areas for mature people, I'll be happy to oblige you.

Huns, this wasn't a Mature area blockage, this was a blockage of anything not Ahern, Dore, Morris, Bonifacio, or Rizal.

I assume that whatever system they had could be adapted to block mature sims, but, that wasn't the issue. And I am not sure if it actually didn't show the sims on the grid, or just blocked you from flying into them (but you could still zoom in on something happening)

And the reason they stopped doing it was because those sims are only interesting for so long, and represent barely anything of what SL has to offer. But it was safe and PG so they didn't need the 18+ CC check.

But enough newbies complained about nothing to see and enough veterans complained about their creations not being seen that it was changed.

The suggested system reminds me of Activeworlds... it was a lot easier to block worlds in there because you couldn't see the world next to you.

When I started, it was a Mature sims block. That was back in August last year. I could get to any PG sim, but no M sim.

Of course, it just makes one curious as to what's in the M sims. While in Da Boom in September and October, the biggest custom that Club Vogue had was newbies who'd just got out of the trial ind into 'real' payment, heading straight for the clubs in M sims to see what they'd missed in the trial.

It's like telling a child they can't go somewhere. The minute you turn your back, you know where you'll find them.

"And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything." - Douglas Adams

That's fine and dandy, but I just want the option to have myself blocked. All the maps and things are helpful, but not enough... still to easy to cross over into Mature territory by accident.

I think all this is just a case of being new. Once you explore a little bit, you will learn what sims you dont want to visit. SL is a really big place, it takes some time to get a feel for it.

It just takes a second to see "offensive material" and only another second to look away. We are all adults, we dont need to have our hands held crossing the street.

Same as in the town you live in RL. There are probably places you know you dont want to be. Sometimes, you have to pass through these areas to get somewhere else, just look straight ahead, lock the doors, and go a little faster.

If you block access to M areas, you will also block access to many PG areas due to telehub placement and routine flight paths.

The map does a good job of pointing out the sim rating, just use the tools we have and learn from experience along the way.

Yes, it is easy.

But let me give you a real world counterpoint. If you visit a foreign country, or, since the US is so big, maybe even in another state... but a city you don't know. It's evening, twilight, and you've just arrived, and are looking for instance, for your hotel.

You turn down the wrong street... suddenly you're in a red-light district. There were no signs to warn you, nothing... but suddenly there are women (and men) walking the street, kerb crawlers and people hanging out od seedy clubs trying to entice you in.

What do you do, you keep driving, get out as soon as possible.

If you later complain to city authorities, they'll tell you to look at a map and be more careful next time.

In SL, at least it's behind closed doors (or should be), even if sometimes those doors don't rez as quick as the other stuff sometimes - a problem which is being addressed.

So, to be blunt, and I'm sorry for having to be so. Act like the responsible adult you claim to be. Check the map before launching yourself into unknown space, and if the only route to your destination is through somewhere you don't want to see, get someone already there to offer you a teleport.

Jon, you can easily do this in scripting.
Gather a list of mature sim names, and wear an attachment that will llGetRegionName() on a timer, and push you back if llGetRegionName() matches one of the names in the list.

Thanks Eggy I'll work on this in the mean time.

However, I'll still hold to my suggestion. It's a shame that newbies MUST get a taste of Mature content before they learn not to go exploring there. I consider that highly offensive. But I'd be happy to settle for a checkbox, defaulting to access ENABLED, if it were up to me... just so long as the option was there.