Hello :)

Hello Everyone,

Today is the first day that I stepped foot in Second Life and I've been blown away. I've seen all kinds of things from Volcanoes to a Furry Tree, and I've been in this game for only 4 hours so far. I really want to enjoy myself in Second Life, but I don't know exactly were to start or where to have fun and I felt like pestering you guys . So if you could tell me some places and also some hints, tips, and advice It would be greatly appreciated !

Thanks,

Edwardg

First you need skin and clothes so you don't look like a total noob. There's tons of freebies. If you don't mind spending money, you can develop your own special style and get different avatars depending on your moods or situations.

Find places you like and start hanging out. You'll start meeting people and making friends. You'll expand your horizons through the people you meet.

I can get you a male starter kit and some landmarks next time I'm on.

Welcome to SL.

You don't need to do that, but thank you for the offer

And I will definitely start checking places I like out thanks !

Welcome to SL!

Using Search is a great way to find fun things to do.
Search > Events > category > choose from the scroll down list what you'd like to check out.
Education will show you the list of classes offered for the next few days.
I've taken classes from the NCI Centers, <ASL>, TUiNeo, Rockcliffe University for example.
If you'd like to find out about charity events, look at Support/Charities.

Into Star Trek, science, theater? Go to the Groups tab and type in some keywords and see what comes up. You can read about all kinds of different groups.

Discussion category has great lectures, speakers from every field that you can attend.

I can recommend 'Greenies Home' as a fun place to explore and marvel at the builders creativity.

'Bliss Gardens Nature Area' is another good place to go. You will get lost on the foot paths the first time, lol. You can take some tour rides of the sim, either by balloon or hangglider. The Nature Area is below the Garden store and there are signs directing you where to go.

If you'd like a quiet place to sit, I'd go to True North Designs in Goun. There is a lovely long beach and above the stores is a nature park with a waterfall. You can also go out to the old lighthouse to just sit and relax.

Amour Amusement park is another great place to go have some fun. I love the bumper cars and the mini-race track.

I still just type in a keyword in All or Classifieds, teleport to the location and then I'm off exploring the sim and what is nearby. I've found some facinating places that way.

Welcome to SL! Enjoy the sights, and if you get curious on how these things are made, visit Ivory Tower (use Search) for a really good tutorial on how to make things.

If you're coming from an MMO gaming background, it's ok to "buy gold" here. It's hard for newbs to make money here, so you might have more fun if you spend the same amount on $L (in-game money) that you would normally pay for a game subscription account.

Edited note: For those who don't come from an MMO background - it's generally considered scummy to use your credit card to buy in-game cash, which made SL unpleasant for me at first (trying to find ways to make money "legitimately", which was tedious and annoying). It took me awhile to figure out that buying $L is ok here. Money wasn't an issue - it's an honor thing for people with gaming backgrounds.

Edwardq,

Just found a thread from yesterday about the Greenies sims.
Apparently you buy an item in order to enter the sims, sort of an admission fee.
It will be up to you decide whether to do this or not.
The Greenies sims are worth seeing for the first time, and you can always go later.
This 'admission' thing literally just started, I was not aware of this when I did my first post.
I'd gone a few times in the last year when it was free to anyone to enter.
But, paying the land tier may have forced this change for Greenies.

It's good to see people come into SL excited about it and wanting to learn, too much I see people get frustrated with it. Welcome to SL and welcome to the forums.

Welcome! I'm 4 months old so not far from where you are in the wide eyed dept.

Someone already mentioned NCI. Not to join a group but to go to their NCI Beach in search and scour their freebie walls and grab all you can for clothes, shoes, etc etc. They even have free cheapie houses for in CASE you want to settle down. Many people dont and you dont need to invest in any real estate to have fun, especially at this point.

Word of warning because everyone does it - and I did it right there on Help Island with some T shirt and a box appeared on my elbow --- Some things come in boxes. If you encounter this, drop the box on the ground and rightclick to select open. Then click Copy to Inventory on the popup window showing what's inside. pick up the box with take if it does not automatically disappear. Your inventory will usually have a folder with the object or objects.

Can't rez or drop an object? Look in search for a sandbox. These are areas of SL which are used for building things, so there are fewer restrictions there. Ideal for trying on stuff. But be careful not to end up naked if it's a PG rated area (can see that at the top - everything is rated mature and pg).

Places. Everyone is going to tell you: go see Greenies home. It's a fascinating place and it will fine tune your flying skills.

If you want to build and create stuff, go to the Ivory Tower of Prims and take a walk through.

For cool architecture look for Miramare region.

For participating in or observing a social hangout, there's Welcome Center not far from Miramare, I'm trying to remember the area; it's at the corner of four regions and one is called ahern. So on the *map* if you look for Ahern and see a big stack of green dots in a corner, go for it.

Last but not least, a great weekly event to attend to see a good cross section of SL types and ogle at the wonders of creativity, attend Show and Tell in North Lummerland on Sunday from 2pm SL time (which is pacific USA time zone).

Dont be afraid to fly around a lot. I did that the first two months. mainland can be very interesting despite its fields of sale signs and the occasional banline property.

To the OP: Welcome to SL, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. I don't have any additional places to suggest that haven't already been mentioned but I definitely add a vote for the NCI, not only is it a good place to go to learn, its also very sociable, there's always people there happy to chat no matter what time of day. Search is your friend - just stick a keyword in, and off you go.

I'll also second the vote of not worrying about having a "job" in SL, and just buy some currency as and when you want it. But on the whole most things you can get free anyway so you don't actually need money at all.

(off-topic)

Its about time game companies like Blizzard took note of how currency is handled here. Players having the opportunity to purchase gold legitimately either from Blizzard directly, or through a player-exchange like the Lindex, would kill gold-farming in WoW stone dead. And no it wouldn't ruin the economy there either because still the best items you can get are "soulbound" (ie no-transfer) so you can't buy them anyhow, you still have to go in the raids and earn them.

Hi, Edward, and welcome! I'm going inworld shortly so I'll drop a male newbie starter kit on you that has various helpful things in it, including a box full of notecards from NCI (the incredibly helpful New Citizens Inc place) all about the basics of Second Life.

I second what everyone else has said about NCI. Once you find one of their areas, set it as your home location (World > Set Home to Here) and then you'll always have a place to go to. There are griefers in Second Life, just as they exist all over the place online, but once you have a home location set, if anyone hassles you or does anything to make you feel uncomfortable you can just open up the main map and click the Home button (or use the shortcut CTRL + Shift + H) and you'll be teleported home.

There are hundreds of blogs dedicated to Second Life, so look some of them up. They range from where to find great free items, to newbie guides, to places to go. One of the best blogs I've found for finding absolutely amazing places inworld is the NPIRL (Not Possible In Real Life) blog. Bookmark this and check it daily, and you'll find more amazing places to see in SL than you can shake a stick at *g*

http://npirl.blogspot.com/

You can keep a journal of your travels through Second Life, which is something I wish I'd done as a newbie. In your inventory folder, open up the notecards folder, right-click and select 'create new notecard'. Give it a name, and then just start typing. You can drag landmarks to places you liked, snapshots you've taken, and all kinds of things from your inventory into that notecard, to serve as a reminder of your travels. (Don't forget to save the notecard regularly, though *g*)

If you join the army some of the forum girls will even give you very special attention!

You're welcome.

Be careful, SL is addicting.

Welcome Edwardg!
If you have some time you might want to read some of this helpful thread:
/327/2c/171147/1.html

And your forum experience can be enhanced by this:
/327/b2/188445/1.html

My number one tip for newcomers is that SL is a lot like the real world except if someone cheats you out of money there is no police force to report it too. And there are lots of people running lots of scams; we hear from their victims all the time.

QFT


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPoSrNZTmJU

Welcome to SL and the forums Edwardg!

Welcome dude.

Welcome Edwardg

My suggestion for an interesting place to visit, at least once, is the Isle of Wyrms. Look in your Search Tab under Places and type in Isle of Wyrms Cathedral or IoW Cathedral (one of those two...sorry, going from memory). It is the home of dragons on SL and you can see some *very* interesting avatars and great people to chat with.

Tip: If you ever get a gesture that says "Hoo" or "Howlz" - delete it immediately

Hey, I like Howlz. Especially the acii wolf one.

Oy

Thank you everyone for the very warm welcome . And thank you to everyone who gave me the names of some great places to go visit ! I definitely will when I get back home from Vacation on monday !

also check out http://www.mermaiddiaries.com as there are a great number of fun places listed there.

and http://www.sl2go.com