Not sure what to make of this

My husband (Handles Hermit) and I aren't really gamers, he used to be a decade or more ago but lost interest as our kids got older and we got busier. They are grown and all but one moved out so after hearing about this game for a while first he then a day or two later I decided to check it out and see what the fuss was about. Like buying a car or anything else we tried before we bought and at the moment I'm glad we did. Apparently it doesn't take much effort at all to get banned from places here and I honestly don't even know why, neither of us really talked to anyone other than to say thanks or something and nobody said anything to us to offer any idea.

No foul language, running around nude, no stupidity or aggression that I can think of. When we worked on body shape we found an adult area and a private place offshore and under water to work on it, I'm not sure how much harder we could have tried. So far we'd just been exploring and trying to figure out what the point or goals of the place was and it was interesting enough, might have learned to like it if the hostility hadn't come up. When teleporting the game sometimes locks up so flying seemed a decent way to stay online but pretty quickly "banned parcels" started to pop up so it became difficult to do even that much.

Maybe I offended someone by not being chatty, or maybe he did when he grew a few inches and forgot to adjust his pants to make up for the difference (shirt covered everything anyway), I don't know, but this whole dress-up thing is kinda new and it's not all automatic for some of us.

We deleted our accounts today. I'm not sure if we'll ever create new ones or not, don't need whatever baggage we seemed to have picked up here though if we ever do. Right now we're a bit annoyed, me more than him I'd guess since I cared to write this, but it just bugs me that people can be so antisocial toward people who are obviously new and just trying to adjust and figure out what the point of the place is and what to do there.

In any case I'm running on here too much and I just wanted people to think about things for a bit. Here you call them "griefers", in other places they are trolls, or whatever else, but sometimes they are just NEW and just because you assume something of people that doesn't make it so. If "as a group" you're quick to judge rather than this just being a case of real bad luck the cliquishness is going to hurt the place. It did look like it might be fun for a few days there. Not so much today though.

Later.

Hi Saturn. I'm sorry you've started off with a bad experience. SL is a unique place, and it does take awhile to get the hang of what's going on and how things work. Also, while the overwhelming majority of people I've met here have been kind, wonderful people, there are some who are unkind, or addicted to drama.

I'm not sure what happened to you. You said you were banned, seemingly for no reason. Banned from where? People in SL don't need a reason to ban people from their "private" property. In many cases, they aren't doing it to be rude. Their land is like their own home or back yard, and they don't want strangers there at all. I would say most don't view their land this way, but many do, and just being there could get you banned, but that is a tiny fraction of the land in SL. There is a lot more to see to see in SL and plenty to do.

If this isn't a hobby you and your husband will enjoy, then don't give it a second thought and move on. If, however, you feel like giving it another go, there is great stuff to see and do here and this forum would be a great resource for some helpful advice and tips along the way.

Ignorance is its own reward. Why didn't you ask here before you deleted your accounts?

Pep (On the other hand, perhaps you had the right idea)

Almost certainly the banlines you have run into are not directed at you personally. Many people feel strongly about "privacy" in SL and don't want anybody over their land at all. There is an access control option that allows them to restrict access to their land to only named residents or those belonging to a group. That means everyone else is excluded. The resulting banlines are so prevalent that it is more or less impossible to fly around freely in most regions of the mainland. Furthermore, there is a small minority of people who may abuse this facility for deliberate harrassment, and the constraining effects are not restricted to their specific targets. The compromise betwen privacy and freedom of movement is currently a matter of active consideration by LL. One of the problems is that people don't see their own banlines and conseqeuntly tend not to be fully aware of the effect they have on other residents.

SL can be a fun and interesting place to be, unfortunatly it can take a bit to find the right places to be and people to be around that suit you.

ALOT of jerks around, jus like RL, but in SL they can express their bad attitudes more freely.
Was pretty ruff for my ex and I when we started, but we both kinda enjoyed annoying the annoying people at first

I f SL does interest you, I would say keep exploring til you find a place and some people your comforatble with.

Quite a few decent people on the forums, and I`m sure many would offer ideas of places to check out and some will even give advice on figuring out the controls and whatnot.

Gettin banned for seemingly nothing happens all the time, unfortunate but happens,some ban people jus because they think it`s funny..
'
Jus keep lookin round, I ran into many many people I would like to have smacked at first but then met a few good people and learned alot from them.

Don`t let it get you down, theres somethin for almost everybody in SL, just takes a bit of time finding it

It sounds like you ran into general banlines, they are a system whereby they can be set to ban everyone but selected individuals or a group.

So for example if your husband and yourself had a plot, everyone else would be automatically banned from entering the parcel.

They aren't picking on you individually, they're just a feature of the system. Many people object to them, especially those in vehicles but people also want privacy.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience Saturn. I agree with what Drongle said, like as not, you were running into banlines that people set up under the impression it allows them privacy. They are nothing personal, but are certainly a shock to run into when first in game. I hope you and your husband reconsider and try some new accounts. A great new way to go would be to join a community when you are first registering your account. That way you can be put into a set of sims that are expecting new folks to be entering, and are much more likely to be accomodating.

Based on your response then I'd say you've been well and truly blessed in that respect, Pserendipity. I'll leave it at that.

Thanks to the others who responded politely. The idea of asking in the forums never occurred to me, to be honest the idea that forums were an option at all didn't until I saw the forum link on the bottom of the account page when I deleted. Never asked my husband about it, he might have thought about it but he's had years on computers and I'm still figuring them out.

Web search for 'secondlife banned parcel' made it look directed rather than random but based on the answers I got here maybe that was a mistaken impression, just that more people are talking about one way of getting the ban notice than they are the other. I'll think about it a bit.

Oh dear. Another one that doesn't know what words actually mean and just gets emotional. Ignorance means not knowing, NOT being rude. I don't suffer from it.

Pep (You obviously do)

Ignore him. He's just the resident troll. Sadly, he's also representative of many people in SL. They are free to say and do as they like, and we are thankfully free to mute them. I'm sorry you may have run across some of these folks so early on.

SL is not a "game". It is merely a digital environment for your use. There are no goals here except the ones you set for yourselves. If you want to be a businessperson, artist, bum, socialite, race driver or sex fiend - let alone furry, Gorean, vampire, child or housepet - you can find the place to accomplish it here.

And, admittedly, it has quite a learning curve. If you happen to be online and IM me, I'll be happy to take you so some wonderful places just to show you what can be done. Also, most of the folks here in the forums are fantastic people with much to offer.

Welcome to SL, Saturn!
Please just create new character and come back to give things another try. This place is too much fun to give up so early.

This forum is extremely helpful when you encounter things that don't seem right . So is the search feature - a lot of how-tos and answers to potential problems can be dug up that way. Just ignore the trolls along the way. They slink back under their bridges eventually.

BTW, banlines can be interesting. I once flew over a sim and suddenly lost the ability to fly over a no-fly zone. When I crashed I found myself BEHIND the banlines and then had to explain what happened to someone who didn't speak English. We had fun with that

Hi, Saturn

I played EQ for 7 years and thought I had a good handle in online gaming, but SL is different in many respects.

One of the biggest is that SL is a "community" more than a "game." There are no goals other than ones you set for yourself (perhaps you would like to learn to build or open a shop, etc.) and there are no "levels" or "endgame." Think if it as an online virtual community. And most anything you can find offline or "real life" (RL) has been re-created here in SL. One of the things that makes SL fascinating is that all the content you see has been created by its residents.

Some may disagree with me on this, but there *is* a bit of a learning curve to SL. A friend I made when I first arrived said "Give yourself about 8 weeks to feel truly comfortable in SL."

As others have said, it sounds like you ran into banlines rather than were "banned" (say like being thrown out of a social place).

You don't mention if you and your husband went through the tutorials in Orientation Island when you were first rezzed nor if you then spent time looking around Help Island before you came into the "main grid" of SL. If not, I HIGHLY recommend you doing that. Although a bit hokey in some respects, they are a good way to become comfortable with some of the SL tools. On Help Island there are mentors (they will have a mentor "tag" over their heads). These are volunteers who are present to help new residents to SL and answer questions, etc. One of our forum regulars, Trout Recreant, is one such person.

If you do decide to come back, please feel free to send a private message to me here on the forums or IM in game. I will be more than happy to help in any way.

SL truly is a rich environment and we'd love to have you join us

Saturn, there some rude and obnoxious people in Second Life as you probably have briefly discovered.
People like myself pay often a whole lot for our land here which basically virtual canvas to create anything we desire but sometimes because way mainland is when we want to warn people to not cross without asking or invite we put up banlines.
Banlines are warnings for rude people who think they can go any where uninvited or can act anyway they can anywhere that if you figure out to access this area I don't want you there and I will do what I can to prevent this.
Mainland the control access system is flawed but its one of few warnings we have unless we afford private islands, and not everyone can.
When I am in world I am selectively social to few people, not everyone here wants to deal with whomever decides to drop by any more then you would want a stranger dropping by in the middle of your living room drunk, taking dump on your carpets in your offline life.
Trust me there are people who would do that here and in real life and I don't want them apart of my Second Life if I can avoid them.

Do not sweat the small stuff.

Some people are just ban happy.

I have been banned for being 5'3" and the reason was that i was short enough to be a child. I was also banned from 8 sims for saying "i cant trust you with 6 months in advance tier" to a real estate guy here.

Big whoop. There are like 22,000+ private sims and over 5,000 main land sims.


These are not walls you are running into Saturn, just speed bumps that only slow you down if you let them.

Keep on rolling, reinstate your account, buy/rent some land, and let our business, N&B Exports, furnish your living room for free with some heavily scripted menu driven furniture.

Have some questions inworld? Just send me a hello

Hi Saturn

Sorry you had a nasty, confusing experience. SL really does have quite the highest learning curve for new residents and unfortunately, the Orientation and Help Island introduction seems not as useful as it ought to be.

You raise a serious issue IMO - how best to get new users started.

What would have helped you? What do you think should be done to help new people? If you (and others) can post your experiences and opinions here, maybe some good could come from this.

If you are not giving up completely, feel free to IM me in world and I will be pleased to help you all I can.

I did not know you could still use the forums even after deleting the account

as for the ban stuff, as many have already said, a lot of folks have no access on their land and when you run into it, it will say you are banned, when in fact it is more of a everyone is banned

Geez, Pep. Someone new had a bad experience and you can't cut them a break?

MUTED!

Oh and neener, neener

Hello Saturn

I hope you'll give it a second try... I'm so convinced of the worth of SL that I will let you and your husband have free use of one of my rental houses for a couple of weeks while you decide whether or not to stay. There's no strings, you're free to stay or leave as you wish. I hope it will give you space to decide whether or not you want to stay long-term.

And I don't allow banlines lol

IM me in-world and I'll sort something out for you if you wish.

Inc

It takes severals day to take effect. Your page will say "Account set to Cancel on xxxxx"

Oh, and you can fly around and avoid banlines by flying higher than they extend. I forget what height they go up to, but it is not all that high. If you fly above that level you'll cruise right over them.

Of course, people also use security orbs for the same reason as banlines, so you may get a message stating that you are not allowed to be on a parcel, and will be ejected in X seconds if you do not leave.

Again, this is nothing personally directed at you, just a resident restricting access to a certian part of their parcel. (When you buy land here, you get the rights to it in the vertical direction too. Many people have their private space in a "skybox" that floats somewhere above their actual parcel.)

If you and your husband decide to come back into SL, put me on the list of people who you can IM for help.

I really do hope you'll give it another go.

I honestly don't know if I'll sign up again or not but I've sure been given plenty of reason to here, thank you all for that. No need to sell me on it. At this point I'm fairly sure I made a mistake and now it's just a matter of if this is the right place or not. I've had quite a few years with little or no spare time and all the sudden I find myself rattling around the house looking for something to do, I just need something to occupy the time and get my mind off of things.

I doubt my husband will rejoin though I could be wrong. He used to be a serious gamer, played an old pre-windows game called Harpoon then graduated to Utopia when the internet came along and made the worlds top lists there when he tried but it was more combat and strategy than social. He hardly likes to talk to me let alone to people he doesn't know, I don't know what he'd do with a whole world of strangers This wasn't really for him anyway. He was just trying to help me find ways to fill the time and seems to have lost interest in games.

Apologies for the hassle everyone, let's let this go now since it seems to have been much ado about nothing.

Edit to answer a couple of questions posted while I was writing this.

Posting after deleting... the notice said it would be effective as of the 31st, that's tomorrow. At the moment I'd assume it's still active but not for long. If it works after tomorrow I don't know, if it matters to you I guess I could try posting then and see.

Someone else asked about what would help new users... well... just covering the little things such as ban lines would help. Maybe draw a line between "you've been banned" and "you're trying to enter a private area". If both are giving the same notice that could it seems confuse some of us Maybe more emphasis on things to do and places to go for those who aren't paid members yet would be good too. The place looks nice and from the number of help and freebie outfits out there (and the responses here) it seems there are a lot of nice people but for those who try before they buy there doesn't seem a lot they can do. Seems mostly about land, building, and such like that. Give them a reason to enjoy it and eventually want to pay for more, or if it's there a more clear guide to where it's found.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Thanks for the effort everyone.

ohhhh

as you can tell I have never deleted an account hehe

I's advise the OP to give it another try, and to not take anything too personally in SL. Remember that everyone hs thir own way of playing. For some it really is a Second Life, they take it as seriously as their First, for some, it is First Life Plus, for some it is a RP/Fantasy Playground, or an artitic/business platform, and for some it's just a game. You will come across all of them mostly if you stay long enough.

There was a Logical and completley non-emotional reason for this response?

I figured they were either just fishing for more reaction or just trying to crawl out from under their mistake, in either case I don't care to amuse them. If ignorance is its own reward then they are well and truly blessed, and if ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge rather than an insult then they shouldn't feel insulted by being so richly rewarded themselves. After all I was ignorant about the game being new to it, they were ignorant in assuming about another person they don't know the first thing about in spite of a lifetime of practice at dealing with new people. Richly rewarded indeed.

If I wasn't supposed to be insulted then by their own terms and logic then they are a bit off-base to be insulted by it too. If on the other hand they did mean it as a troll or an insult there's no need to reward them for it.

Seems an easy either/or to me.