How much do first impressions count?

from http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=3249

He does then goes on to say "But I knew there was something substantial underneath all that—many writers I respect take SL quite seriously—so I resolved to try.". And then goes on to apparently enjoy himself.

Of course, not everyone comes into SL with a resolution to persevere past their first impressions. But I do think his description is fairly accurate as a first impression for someone logging into SL today.

I gotta admit, if I were to download and try SL with no prior knowledge today, I imagine I'd give it a few hours at most before logging out and uninstalling.

Obviously if people are trying it through recommendation and have friends here, the retention rate might be higher, but I had never heard of SL when I first tried it, and walked in a complete stranger with no idea what to expect.

I wonder how many people log in, form a similar opinion to the one above and log out never to return?

It'd be interesting to see some statistics on retention rates and how many people are abandoning their accounts for good in the first hours/days/weeks.

Do you think the writer (and me ) are being fair here? Does SL suffer from an image problem that is putting people off sticking around?

Hey, pretty kewl then that one of the first people I met in SL was you, huh?

Seriously though, first impressions counted a lot for me, and I just had so many wonderful experiences--and still do. I think Help Island has been mattering much--not sure if the writer of that article was there, but I can definitely see what he means. He shoulda been whisked away on a whirlwind tour of creative chaos as only SL can deliver it. I also felt his article was begging for more pictures to illustrate the point, too.

I would say first impressions are immensely important.

People log in, go through the orientation island and help island, all is great. Then they hit the mainland and end up at the Welcome area.

Oh dear.

It's laggy. It's almost always full of 'away' avatars showing off their latest purchases, blinging it to hell with their unecessary prim-heavy creations. It's like swimming in molasses, you can hardly move. I get 1/3 of the average fps on the Welcome Area as I do on my own property.

That's why, whenever I get a 'greet' making first contact, I whisk them away from the WA as soon as I possibly can, to a large quiet area such as Clementina Park where I can teach them the basics of things like flying, following, mini map and suchlike before I let them loose on the grid generally.

When I first landed in SL, I had a particular reason for checking out SL, and wasn't going to let my first impression be my final judgement - if it had, I wouldn't be here now.

That's why I made a thread a while ago about 'cleaning up' the welcome area - possibly even a complete redesign is needed, so that people can socialise and whatever but not just hang around in clumps doing nothing but show off their disposable income. Since we're talking about redesiging telehubs/infohubs, maybe we need to think about redesigning the welcome area too? There's lots of space there but I feel it's really poorly laid out, doesn't give any real insight as to what SL can potentially be, and doesn't encourage people to move away from the central fountain area to see what's out there - being right on the corner of 4 sims won't help either because each client has to pull in shedloads of data from 4 different areas - and send it back.

Lewis

When i first got to the mainland, i remember thinking "dayum,this place is dark" I thought i might catch some kind of disease if i fell in the gutter. God knows where i was,or how i got there lol.

Then i noticed all the sexual influence this place has. Naturally,i bought myself a penis and remember thinking how surreal it felt at the time. rofl To this day that penis has been used once just out of curiosity.

To be honest,i came from There, and had read a bunch in the forums there sayng how SL was a dirty place full of sex and corruption.So i guess i had already known what to expect before i even installed SL.

I was logged in maybe 30 mins at most,then never came back for about 6 months. I wanted to like SL and gave it another chance mainly cuz There had become stale and boring. I'm glad i did.What i found on my second visit was building. I found all sorts of wonderful builds people had constructed and was awe inspired .I got hooked heh

My first impression was great, but then I did go to the Orientation/Help island and spent about 10-12 hours there in total. Met some great mentors and got fantastic demos and advice from many of them.

Used some of the Landmarks they gave me to explore the mainland and loved it.

A couple of weeks later a friend registered and wanted to get into the game asap so headed straight to the welcome area. I was with them at the time and must say that it was terribly disappointing! Luckily we didn't have to hang around there long

I think what put me off from the welcome area was the general level of perceived sleaze. I wouldn't describe myself as a prude, but I felt like i'd walked into a pick-up joint!? Not a bright new world

Granted that is a perception based on spending about 2-3 minutes there so it could be wildly wrong!

The last thing I'll comment on is that my fiend is female and was 'repeatedly' offered friendship by the same guy in the 'tutorial' section of creating your av look etc. This was even before the 'chat' lesson so I'm guessing said pest wasn't a newbie ...

Regards
Leon

I was unable to read the original article, their server is down, but that's a perfect description of an impression that's remained with me and been continually reinforced since the day I joined. Of course it's also an extremely accurate description of the culture that dominates SL what else could one expect ?

Shortly after I joined I was sitting down somewhere, alone, trying to work out wtf I was doing here when I was lucky ( or unlucky ) enough to meet someone whose remained my friend in SL ever since. He took my nooby self under his wing and showed me a grand tour around SL. By the end of the tour I was completely hooked. But really I would not have stayed had I not seen what the possibilities are. I would also like to know more about the retention of newcomers, I guess it's pretty dam low atm. I think it's one thing to be able to boast about 100k+ users, quite another when the system crawls to a stop when only 5000 of them are online.

I actually cancelled my account after my first try I was so unimpressed, can't remember what prompted me to come back (probably my geek curiosity got the better of me, maybe it was an article about something interesting in SL). I was really impressed by the vastness of the world, the friendliness of the people and the amount of stuff going on - but everything was just so damned slow, especially the movement. It was a long time before I really came across anything sexual and still don't see much of it (maybe I'm hanging out in the wrong places ) - I've never felt SL on the whole to be that dirty, but maybe that's me.

But then, on the other hand, I got bored using There far, far quicker and although I've tried to like it have found it to be one of the dullest things on the internet - there's flash games I've spent longer with. Same with Anarchy Online. I think it's worth noting that I hate paying a reccuring bill for anything, but am certainly considering upgrading to premium for my little plot of land once I've got a regular income.

I think newbies shouldn't be allowed to arrive in SL in absolute darkness.

First time I got in, I had to wander about in low light and had to turn the monitor brightness higher to see where I was going, not knowing how to rectify it.

Eventually, I built myself a candelabra to light my way using local lighting on 3 candles!

I so agree with this ! I've always thought online games should have options to pay for time spent online, and not monthly. SL's saving grace for me is its ability to pay for itself. I still think SL is far too expensive for what we actually get out it though. I consider myself fairly lucky that people like my stuff to buy enough to keep me in the game but to go any farther will be to turn it from an online relaxation to almost a full time job. Which is another amazing thing about the place, you really can make a full time job in here if you want to !

Probably on the order of about 50,000 sign-ups that have never logged in a second time.

I've long suggested that the LL marketing shows their product in the best possible - and somewhat unrealistic - conditions (e.g. videos that show hardware pans around already loaded scenes). I think they do themselves a disservice because the initial impression looks lousy in comparison to the marketing.

This guy's description is not far off the mark, although he obviously hasn't seen some of the better stuff that happens in sl, like Burning Life and the Avatar Expo and countless other projects that happen around the grid. When I started, I didn't like everything I saw, but a few things caught my eye and made me realize that sl can be very interesting. So I stayed.

That being said, first impressions do count. I think LL is fortunate to have places like Luskwood and some of the city sims, areas which have some cool builds and look cohesive, close to the Welcome Area.

Indeed. I agree that it should at least have the landing points moved further away from the common corners of the four sims, with separate "town square" sections for each, but perhaps it should be even further distributed and have new players distributed among multiple welcome areas located at the more interesting former telehubs.

what happens a lot is people come in, get confused, leave and then hear something cool about it from their friends or the press, come back in, stay a little longer, get bored, leave, and repeat.

It's a long sales cycle but we get them in the end.

I don't even think i'd get past the Welcome Area now a days. Logging in for the first time in that mess of stupidity has to be a horrifying experience to anyone with a brain.

That's part of the problem with SL, is that there IS a very nice interior with intelligent people well designed buildings and entertainment that doesn't end in ingo, but you have to find it. People have built this filtering process as the most obvious part of SL: log into SL and you see people making fools of themselves to get attention. Maybe you get past that and you ask around to see what's good to do around here, the answer you'll probably get is going to be clubs or sex. Maybe they manage to give that a chance and go to see the big ugly black boxes full of more idiots looking for attention and not an intelligent conversation to be found. By then i'd have to figure that the guy sees no hope in the game and logs off. And thus we have like a filter in the entrance of Second life (Part of the reason why I support the idea of not letting anyone into the WA except newbies and mentors), the filter kicks out anyone who's in SL to make new and exciting things, to be creative, or to have intelligent conversation then lets through all the people who want to go to a club and make an ass of themselves for attention and say "Hooooowwwwwlzzzzz" 23 times in the span of an hour. It's true, the only intelligent newbies I meet nowadays are the ones that said the first thing they did was leave the Welcome Area.

But yeah, when it comes to first impressions of SL, the first impression you get about this is definately that it's all about sex, money, gambling, and dance clubs, and intelligence, creativity, and creation are not a huge factor. The only way you can get the opposite impression is if you get found by someone from the "inner world" of SL so to speak, or you manage to stumble on one of those places few and far between in the world. After all, first impression is: Log in to the welcome area full of idiots. Look around the map full of clubs, sex and idiots. Look at the events, full of idiotic events.

Quit--uninstall.

Unless you are the idiot type and then it just kind of adds to the problem.

yargh.

A hefty *bump* because here are some little gems from part 2 of the same article - http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=3330

I retract what I said in the original post about him apparently liking SL











He's talking about you!

Are you gonna let him get away with that?

Sounds like heaven to me

I can't believe he knocked sex balls.

Seriously though, this guy is just lazy. He flew around for like 5 minutes and made some quick observations. I'm not a big fan of clubs and tringo and sex anims (not that there's anything wrong with that), but if that's all there was to SL, I wouldn't still be here. He should hit a sandbox and find out what people with a little creativity can do in SL.

Oh, he's not talking about me

I dont understand this guy. On one hand he complains about the crappy looks of some buildings but then on the other hand talks about people being too concerned with their (the avatar) looks. If he doesnt care about his avatar looks then why give a crap about ugly buildings? Are we all supposed to log in to SL and not modify our appearance? Or should everyone make ugly distorted avatars and run around telling fart jokes? When you decide to play SL (or anything for that matter) long enough, you'll want to shed some of that newbie-ness appearance.

He also complains about it being uninhabited. But one thing he must remember is that this is SECOND life and a majority of people are usually in their FIRST life. Even a popular game like WOW has many areas where no one hangs around.

The bottom line is that this guy had a predetermined review of SL and logged in to rush around finding things to confirm it.

Once I would have agreed with what you have said Ingrid, but I really think a lot of what the way he described SL is dead on. Regardless of what a lot of us like to think, SL is a freaking cesspool of bullshit. The really talented people that created things from scratch and aren’t stealing things from all the dark recesses of the internet, you can count them on one or two hands. The majority of content is co-opted, and a lot outright stolen from all over the internet.

This description is probably the most accurate I have seen of SL.



I spent some time bouncing around SL last week while I was too sick to play WoW and almost every place I visited with any “traffic” was full of AFK campers. They were zombie dancing the night away. Almost all of these locations revolved around or involved some sort of sex or random immorality and gambling does seem to be everywhere. It seems that about 10-20% (I am being generous) of SL is innovative and artistic, but the majority of it is just trash. Also, I have never been a fan of the suburban hell people seem to love to recreate in SL; very few people seem capable of thinking outside the box.

Yes, but the largest problem with SL is that there is no centralized method to communicate in world and there is no place all avatars really need to go to force any socialization or to have it happen naturally. Using your WoW reference, you know that you can go to any major city at any time and there will be people there because people need to go to cities to perform vital tasks. Also in WoW you can talk to everyone in a zone using general chat, and progression in the game is dependant upon at least some grouping with others to complete tasks which forces some communication between users. There is not reason to partner with or speak to another human being in SL unless you want to. There is nothing to do in the welcome area that requires avatars to visit there or any attractions that would make them want to visit there.

Overall SL is empty, there are vast spans of land that are completely emptyand you can wander around the world for a long time before encountering another avatar, then when you find them you have to hope they aren't AFK.

Sturgeon's Law. "90% of anything is bullshit."

The idea that only a minority are truly creative is absolutely true, not just in SL but in the world as a whole. On the other hand, the freedom of SL means those who might have had their creativity stifled elsewhere have an outlet, so... you win some, you lose some.

That said, a suburban "hell" is in itself a form of creative expression, when well-done. A lot of "stolen" content - video game character avatars and the like - are in a long semi-sanctioned tradition of "fan work and cosplay", and not in quite the same vein as uploading low-res JPGs of classical artworks and selling them for L$100 a pop.

So I agree, but am more optimistic. People aren't building far-out structures because most people prefer some familiar touchstone. I think a lot of people tire of the Barbie Fantasy Mansion life when they figure out it's all just prims... sort of an SL enlightenment. So far we continue to have a massive influx of new users, resulting in something like the AOLer syndrome on the Internet as a whole - a whole BUNCH of new people unused to SL going for something that seems pointless and stupid to the old-timers.

If I can get a little philosophical here, the next step of building in SL goes from mimicry, to functionality, to symbology. There is no need for roads in SL, yet we expect roads to take us somewhere - thus, using a road allows you to subtly steer the path of a visitor. A shop can look like anything - but my favorite store in SL is Dwellget, which is a cartoony department store; it works because without even looking to see if there are items for sale, it looks like it should be a store... It will take time for this to become predominant, if it ever does... but remember the old style of "free web site!" web pages that were ugly, full of blinking text and animated gifs? I don't run into so many of those any more - even the badly-designed sites have gained a certain sense of how a webpage should be designed. Just a matter of time.

I wanted to post the same thing but you beat me to it. There are some real keeners in SL who have made the effort to learn the tools so they can use SL as a creative outlet. Not everyone is that motivated, but the opportunity is there for those who are.

The guy who wrote the article didn't make much of an effort finding those people obviously. Or simply didn't want to. So he is dead to me. The media is full of $@#! anyways. Everything is biased.

But I could use the map (or popular places) to find populated areas and then use shout to communicate. Sure I could end up at a zombie camp and no one responds. I do find your comments on grouping and tasks interesting. But some people enjoy SL because its a break from other 'worlds' that put you on a treadmill and force you to do quests and other things. SL's beauty and nightmare is the freedom to do and create what you want; or do nothing. Many times I have logged into SL, gone to a hangout and listened to some DJs on the stream and not said hardly a word to anyone for a few hours. Usually Im multitasking or semi-afk. When you boil it all down SL is a chat program with no goals. Im not sure I'd want SL to force people to group or socialize, but the new user experience could use some revamping.

Well, I searched for a long time to find interesting discussion and creative collaberations in SL. For a while I was able to find them, but over time all those people stopped playing. I have been looking for that since then, but I sure as heck can't find it anymore. Some people in this thread are suggesting that it still exists, but it seems to be too well hidden for me to find anymore.