Transforming the Second Life Experience with Big Spaceship

The other day we got a Wii ( ok what has this to do with SL you say ) we put in a game and off we went. To move to the next stage you had to gain the skills and tools needed to move on.
At times it was a little frustrating but hey so is life, but i have moved through a fair way. Why cant SL have that ? Have a maze and when they can maneuver through it they get say shoes, and they have learn to walk. Go through a door and next can be about dressing say you have to match a picture with how your dressed ifyou pass then you win an outfit get the picture. We dont want SL filled with people who just want to run about naked or with their bits hanging out asking how to have sex, enough of them already. Im sure some will put it in the to hard basket and leave but those same ppl will not stay even when in the game for long. Or bring back the live helpers who were on the first drop off point so that they could get help not dumped into areas where the trolls can go and show off their tools to try and impress or try to turn them into Vamps

Yes, I couldn't believe they'd force you to run a flash applet just to see what's in their website either. So much for the handicapped.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

This is exactly the type of "tutorial" module to which I was referring. If these stages were downloaded as most RPG games, this would also cut down on the server load. These tutorial stages should be accessible even without an active internet connection, and one should be able to uninstall the tutorial stages without uninstalling the entire Second Life program. Most of the persistent graphics could be retained locally (i.e. on the individual users' computers) up to the amount desired. Presently the cache CAN only host 1000MB of data locally, this should be greatly expanded.

My only problem with "forcing" users to pass a tutorial level would be if there were no "warp flutes" that one could find (to use an example from Mario Bros), in case they wanted to practice their object making skills offline, then teleport directly to their favourite club inworld. It would be frustrating to have to complete the dress-up tutorial just to go back and practice flying skills. Does this make sense?

Just for my own information, do any of the Lindens have any estimates for the size of the total world in Second Life? Are the combined totals in the Gigabits or Terabits?

Love is the law, love under will.
Aryobrand "Serpente"

During my time as a Mentor/Greeter on Help Islands as they were known there, we experienced waves of newcomers. Those waves were caused by a magazine or TV article/report, giving a one sided illusion about sl.

One report was shown on French TV, reported about Anche Chung and her million(s) that she made... the flow of French newcomers was intense for weeks, nearly all them asking how they can become a millionaire.

Most reports (including a recent one reporting on 'Gameplay' on the internet), refered to SL as a Role Playing programme, I wonder how many people from the ilks of WOW created new accounts looking for the next fix, only to be dissapointed?

It is hard to gain a balanced report on SL, mainly due to the diversity and the speed in which the innovation and creativity going on, dynamically changes the landscape. If orientation doesn't meet the expectations of those coming in, based on any preconceived ideal, then retention of accounts/users will be lost.

QFT and since SL isnt really goal oriented there wont be a standard to teach, everyone will expect different things and even SL basics take a lot of patience which I find most dont have so it will tend to be a big waste of time.

Second Life, Linden Labs, User Base Retention.




WOAH THERE.....

Yes, please, Katt, I have been, for my sins, one of those people, employed by larger companies and organisations, to teach their employees three simple things.

1) A retained customer is worth three new customers.
It is simple logic, the existing customer already knows the system, the costs, the benefits, the methods, the people, the product. They have a good experience working with you and will prefer that, to having to gain all that experience again with another company. Further, the existing customer spends little time balancing your company against the opposition, its often ‘easier’ to stick with what you have, the customer normally does not court imbalance, frustration or the need to see great change. In your jargon, it is a win-win situation.


2) Existing customers will generate new customers.
Call it buzz, hype, anything, but the existing customer base, and the easy way you work with them, is seen right away by new customers trying to find a better customer experience. In other words, they will see how much your existing customers are happy with their relationship with you; they will want to be a part of it. You cannot lose. Treat your customers fairly, happily, promptly and courteously, and the new customers will do all they can to be a part of that experience. Keep your product priced at a level that keeps existing customers, and new customers will want to fall into step very quickly to take advantage of what they perceive the existing customer are enjoying.


3) Simpler and easier communications, wins customers.
It is easy, like you were taught in University, or by the boss of your early Company where you shined, or when you told your own employees, Keep It Simple! When communication is hard, multi faceted, meaningful jargon and complicated ways of saying things, you’re telling people you do not value them. Yes. By being complicated clever, you are setting yourself up to be apart from the people you need most, the customers. If they, for example, want a red doo-hicky, or a green one, let them have one, please, if you try to tell the customer he actually wants a blue thingy-ma-bob, you lose them. Simple. Keep it Simple.

The news media, refer to the over complicated language below, as spin... Its actually quite meaningless and does nothing for you when you apply it to a customer. It means, You have little to say, but like to use clever words. In the old days, it was called smoke and mirrors...




Lets re-write that horrible paragraph.. Together...

A company called ‘Big Spaceship’ will be working with us to improve things for new players.

The second sentence above doesn’t actually say anything of value.

It does show one thing that all your customers will see and recognise instantly Katt, you have no idea what to do or say so you fill the space with techno babble. You could have said the entire post in three sentances.

Example,” We feel if we make the start-up time for new players better, we can retain more customers.” We have employed a company called ‘Big Spaceship’ to work for us to help us get it better for new players. We think it will improve things for Second Life, part of Linden Labs.
That’s all you needed to say, dressing it up in spin shows you have lost the ability to keep it simple.


http://rivers-rock.blogspot.com

How will this affect the infohubs we have now around the grid?

I'm not aware of any impact this will have on Infohubs.

Yes it does, it says "We are going to arrange things so new customers don't get confused but we aren't going to nerf the program to do it."

That's important to me. But I do agree with you about communication.

Problem is you keep *thinking* your improving the new customer experience but your not. I don't know who is making and approving some of the changes your making but your pretty much doing the opposite of what you need to be doing. Your making it worse AND your driving off those already here with what are I can only say boneheaded changes. We want stability and you need to start thinking about the exorberant prices your charging for land. Quit outsourcing and start doing things yourself. The web site as it is now is informative and each change you have made so far has made finding things harder not easier.

Frankly the first hour experience was better when I started than it is now.

Thanks Glory. I'd say there is still certainly more to come for the new Resident experience, I hope that you are happier with it as it develops more.

-- Katt

I run into new residents [must be my location] regularly and the last few have been very lost and not able. Is the new "training" in place yet ? They can't find a profile on another Avatar -Tory Micheline

I finally today saw the new main page and to be honest don't really care for it, I think it could have been done a lot better.. Hope it helps out new residents more tho..

Hey Katt, thanks for being so helpful and answering all the important questions in great detail, finally providing some peace of mind to those of us who have been around for a few years and really thought that Linden Labs had completely stopped listening and was, with its new CEO, flushing itself down the revenue toilet along with all the US automakers who also, interestingly enough, believe that boatloads of "new customers" will somehow make their cars less crappy.

Oh wait.

SL Mentors have always been in the trenches when it comes to making new residents feel comfortable with SL, yet for the past twelve months, it appears that SL Mentors have been put on the back burner, and after reading this I now have an inkling why.

SO do SL mentors fit in this any way or are they to be totally excluded and forgotten.

Good to see you're keeping up to date with developments.

Have been asked by my esteemed colleagues not to rock the boat on this one, "sigh".

Well I pay premium membership fee's on two accounts, and pay monthly land tiers, and that little seat at the far end of the boat is mine, I paid for it.

NUE has been discussed for ages, and the one thing no one wants to address is the terrific effort that SL Mentors have added to this debate.

If you want people who know about NUE talk to the SL Mentors, they eat and breath this topic, day in and day out.

There is no need to spend my money on hiring anyone outside of SL when you have internal resources that have a fair idea what new users want.

If you want new users to get that warm fuzzy feeling about SL go back to grass roots, create a client that is stable, maintain the servers correctly, spend the money you receive from the premium members on buying more servers, stop out-sourcing to external companies, Hire Lindens from around the world - not just the American backyard - increase your global support foot print, get rid of free accounts - pay to play - minimum basic cost of say $5 a month to access SL ( and yes I know that a lot of free accounts have put a lot of time and effort into SL to make it what it is), improve your customer service practices - even to the small amount of rseponding to correspondance by say "thanks we got that".

Get the basics right from the off and new users will come, keep moving the goal posts and users will leave.

Listen to the people that have NUE knowledge, its not rocket science LL, it;s just basic commonsense business practice