Well Hello All!!

Hello !! I'm new to Second Life and thought that by stopping on the forums would be a great way to say hello to the community! Is there any little tips and tricks I should know about before I start my great adventure in the game ?

Hi Edward! Welcome to SL!

You are ahead of the curve finding the forums. This is a great place to get to know people, learn about inworld services and activities, and ask questions.

I'm sure you will get a lot of great tips from the people here. I will throw out a few off the top of my head.

Don't jump into buying land. Take some time to get to know how things work, and what you might want to do with land (and how many prims you need) before taking the plunge. If you decide you are interested in a home, rent first, and only pay a week or two at a time.

Sign up for an account at xstreet (formerly called SLexchange). It is a third party website where you can shop for things listed by inworld vendors. A great feature is that you can use it to search for 0L$ items, so you don;t have to spend anything. Here is a link to their homepage.
http://www.xstreetsl.com

The Gnubie Store is another great place for high quality freebies. You can find it using the all or the places tab of the inworld search.

Use the inworld search to find NCI and pop over to one of their many locations to pick up freebies, meet people, and check out their long list of free classes. It's a great way to learn new things that will help you enjoy you SL.

Again, welcome!

Hello there ! little tricks...

Always have a bottle of wine near the computer, in case lag is to bad and you have ssome time to kill... AND very important, install a soft cushion on the wall next to you, just in case you delete something you have been building for hours or you deleted a no copy item... or SL has screwed up, wich may happen someday

Biggest trick of all is, don't take it to serious, we are here for fun and meeting interesting people...

Welcome, Edward!

1. Before buying anything expensive (for example, a skin), try a demo!!!!

2. Skin and shape are two different things... exactly what the names imply. A shape can be made by anyone with patience in the Appearance mode. A good skin can be made by someone very graphically talented with outside graphics programs... and patience. The other 99% of us just buy them.

3. If you stick with the skin, hair, shoes etc. that were in your inventory library, you WILL be treated as a newbie wherever you go, even if your join date is 2006.

4. A lot of SL creators of skin, hair and clothing offer really cool stuff free* when you are under 30 days old!!!

5. You can find just about anything in SL for free* if you look hard enough... except land. If land is advertised as free, there will be a catch.

* There are plenty of threads in here about newbies and/or freebies, search for those and you will find lots of info.

6. Torley Linden's video tutorials on the SL Wiki pages are great... he is quite funny, and his tutorials cover everything from the most basic things (like how to get that giant box off your hand when you buy something) to more advanced topics such as making and uploading custom sounds.

7. Just like pictures of your kids, your roleplay (RP), or lack thereof, may not be interesting to others and vice versa. SL has plenty of room for all.

9. Play nice with others. People in SL are just... people. Most respond well to kindness and respect.

Haha thanks guys for the tips especially the wine one O.-.

I over heard some people in the game talk about a World Stock Exchange in SL. Does anyone know what is it exactly?

Oooh that brings up advice number 10: Never EVER EVER invest your hard earned RL ("Real Life" money in SL "banks", "stock exchanges", etc. They are NOT guaranteed by any form of government, and you can easily lose your money to shady pyramid schemes.

The official place to buy/sell L$ is the LindeX, run by Linden Lab, which owns/operates Second Life. You can also buy L$ at the above-mentioned XStreetSL, which is highly reputable. Do not buy L$ on eBay.

Welcome to Second Life!

I kinda figured that for the most part. But what exactly is the WSE?

I'm not exactly sure, but from what I gather, SL businesses can declare themselves to the WSE, issue stocks, etc, and other people can buy those stocks, just like in the real world. Unrealistically, though, the vast majority of SL businesses are one-person operations, and really don't need the venture capitalists/investors/etc that a RL business would need. The only major expense that an SL business would have would be the cost of land tier, which is the USD paid to LL every month for use of land. There are, of course, some few SL companies that do have paid employees, and these might need cash infusions through investors, but the vast majority do not, and therefore the WSE is more of a game than anything else. If you treat it as such, it can probably be fun. If you try to make real USD from it, you're better off using the RL stock exchange.

Gotcha Thanks !

My tips:

Walk away from trouble if you can, it's best to avoid battles - not that I've been caught up trouble much in my 2 years in SL.

Check out freebies - there are some good free things to be found. As someone who makes and sells things, perhaps I shouldn't be saying that - but I am!

Learn as much about Second Life as you can - building is fun and can be rewarding as a creative outlet and possibly, if you're lucky, financially in a modest way.

Stick with Second Life during the bad times - like when it's not working properly or you are a bit bored with it - things always improve again.

It's worth having a Premium account if you value a permanent location you can call home, build a structure on or whatever.

WSE: I thought it had folded completely, but the website still paints. Anyway, as stated on that site: "The World Stock Exchange is a Fictional Securities Exchange and Banking Role-playing game."

And that's a pretty good guide to any SL "business" venture: the Linden currency, L$s, are best considered a role-playing accessory. There are a couple other "stock exchanges" that haven't yet reached the end of their particular storylines, but unless one is really interested in elaborate games of competitive con-artistry, they're pretty silly.

A really low-level tip: If you're still using the little camera controls window, life will be much improved by forcing yourself to instead use the mouse gestures Alt-drag and Control-Alt-drag to zoom and swivel the cam. (The downside is that you'll soon find yourself trying to alt-zoom every non-SL thing on your screen.)

hi edward
as a relative newcomer myself, my 10 top tips would be as follows:
1. listen to advice and accept help when freely given and be thankful for it.
2. Do not accept anything from anybody you feel uncomfortable with.
3. Be nice to people and remember real people control the avis you interact with.
4. Dance a lot.
5. Go to educational places and be prepared to learn about sl for at least 6 months.
6. Rent a little place or skybox on recommendation, find roots and develop it.
7. Makes friends and seek out those of your ilk, explore.
8. Challenge yourself every day with something new.
9. Watch and learn and don't get involved in drama.
10. Enjoy.

That thread: /327/2c/171147/1.html has a lot of golden tips

Use your web browser's bookmarks or favorites to make a folder of SL related web sites. You could start out with

forums.secondlife.com
secondlife.com/account
wiki.secondlife.com
jira.secondlife.com
secondlife.com/support
secondlife.com/kb

sluniverse.com

and so on.

Always remember that real people are on the other side of the avatars that you meet. The same feelings as if it were rl. Most are very decent people and should be treated as such. Good luck in sl.

I wish i had found these forums when i first came to SL. Great tips and suggestions. Edward, welcome to SL. My main suggestion is don't be afaid to go out and find new places. I have found some of the most amazing places and friends on accident than the most popular places.

As someone else said, remember that there are real people behind the avatar on the screen.

Oh, and if you ever see a blue box pop up saying "so and so would like to bite you with "Fangs"..." DECLINE unless you want to become a vampire.

And as always, if you are ever unsure, come here and talk to people about it. I have found these forums to be very helpful with great people and great ideas.

And lastly, if you need a friend in game, send me a message. Konu Magic. I'll show you around and I am sure I have some stuff I can give you to get started with.

I was just about to post to the very same thread. Lots of good stuff there. Welcome, Edward!

Advice I usually give to newbies is:

Don't go looking for a job out of the gate. Jobs in SL are just like jobs in RL, to get anything out of them you have to spend a lot of time, effort or both. Find the fun side first, then find a job you may enjoy to compliment that. In the final analysis the only easy money to be had in SL is your credit card or paypal account.

Don't except request to animate your avatar from anyone you don't know and trust. There are devices out there that can do nasty things to you, or make you do nasty things without any further permissions being needed.

Likewise if anything asks to take L$ from you and you are unsure, decline it! Another source of grief for new people are devices that steal there money. Not all will and thus the "Don't take anything from anyone you don't know.".

I also want to add...once you have "aged" some in sl, don't be a snob against the noobs.

I am often amazed how snobbish the "oldies" are with the newbies. Well at least inword. People forget they were once new to sl.

Enter Second Life with an open mind : )) you never know WHAT you'll find : ))

lizzie

I like to say "Expect anything cause that's what you will find" lol

I found my RL soul mate, i NEVER expected that!!

Lizzie

Researcing is a good thing, and I hope you learn a lot from this thread, and from any other source you read.

However, I have found that no matter how much you read, there is still no substitute for experience.

So, no matter how thoroughly you have researched everything you can do in Second Life, here is my one, big piece of advice to you:

Do not spend any significant amount of money in Second Life until you have used it at least a month. Ideally, wait a few months before spending any significant amount of money.

Second Life doesn't operate like real life. Some of your real life experiences help you in Second Life; some of your real life experiences, throw them away when you're in Second Life. It takes time to become accustomed to the way the virtual reality works differently than the real reality.

Sure, put down a little bit of money on a nice set of clothes or something, or a good AO (Animation Override). A few dollars here and there are fine while you are learning Second Life (assuming you have a few spare dollars.)

But, until you are a Second Life veteran, do not spend any amount of money that you couldn't afford to just burn in your fireplace.

Thanks guys for all the advice !! I will definitely use it all !

I totally agree! It sucks to spend money on something... only to discover later that you could have made it yourself, or it's available free, or it's not what you had hoped.

Unless, of course, money is not an issue for you.... in which case... buy my stuff!