How much do first impressions count?

Feh, Carl, you aren't even in the first dozen.

Yes--ignore all the points I made and go for the quip.

It seemed to be your defense for jumping in a thread and totally derailing it by making it about you.

there is no forgiveness for this sin, this..blasphemy!

When clearly it is about me.

FINE. Make your points. Please number them for ease of reference.

Okay--you have a good point. While, I think I'm justified in responding to a thread where businesses like mine are labeled as stealing, the discussion is not really germane to the topic of this thread.

I'm going to continue any such discussion in a new thread that I've created. I invite any interested parties to reply there:

/108/a2/89377/1.html#post902073

I've only ever played 2 MMOs, SL and Anarchy Online. Out of the two I found SL far easier to get into than AO, and more entertaining to start with. I'll briefly run through my experiences (possibly not in chronological order because that's not the way my memory works).

SL:
I arrived on OI and had a nice time looking around, getting used to the contols, playing with the look of my Av and eventually deciding to leave it default for now before headding to the mainland.

I arrived in the structure by the WA and saw the towers in Gibson in the distance - "Bloody hell, that's huge! And I can go right up to it and inside!". I spent a while flying around the mainland admiring the diversity of builds in some of the older sims. I really loved the randomness of some of it. I spend a while flying about in the clouds wondering how the hell to get to the sky builds and thinking it's cool that there's areas that are obviously easy to get to, but that you require some 'special' knowledge in order to get there.

I find performance on the mainland is far to bad to make what I wanted to (I initially wanted to use SL to create the control scheme for a platform game) and uninstall feeling quite disappointed. Just under a week later I decide to reinstall and go wandering about because I'm bored.

I decide to go and watch what some people are doing so fly to an area with lots of green dots. Turns out it's a foorest populated by furries. I clumsily fall out of the sky. Someone with a well made pink fox avatar IMs me "Heya newb!", blows me a kiss and vanishes in a puff of paticles. I think this is absolutely awesome, but accidently loose the IM window, never to speak to said person again.

I look about the map and see some sims labeled "sandbox". Knowing what a sandbox is I fly over and have a look. Again, I'm amazed by the variety of stuff going on. I'm taken to a beatiful beach and given some clothes by someone. I get confused with the clothes being set wrong and provide little interesting conversation because I'm trying to figure out why my shirts stop just above my chest so my new friend disappears. I don't mind because I'm left to explore the cool build, which provides me with a notecard explaining what the beach is about and telling me I'm welcome to explore, which makes me smile.

Flying about again I bump into someone wearing totally random parts of Star Wars costumes. They take me to sandy plot of land by a river and teach me some stuff about building and explains how they like to build there rather than in sandboxes because there's less lag. I'm confused when I find I can't fly the plane that is parked nearby since I didn't understand how integral the economy is to SL, but find out about 3rd person mouselook and how much easier it makes moving so don't mind at all because I'm enjoying my newfound freedom.

...God's I'm writing a lot here. I'll just note I also dropped in on a disco with some friendly peeps who explain a bit more about SL to me and I found the bazaar and thought it was cool to be able to pick up some freebies to play with.


AO:
I go through the intro sequence, getting confused as hell at having to pick so many character traits not knowing what any of them do. Arriving in the gameworld I swim from the crashed spaceship to the land, grumbling the whole time at how long it takes to move across such baren scenery.

I spend a while exploring and killing things before I get bored of the scenery and the repetative, predictable nature of the combat. I finally find a NPC that points me towards a town, nobody offers to help me despite the fact I'm obviously wandering back and forth between the same few places not knowing what to do.

In town I find lots of cliquey looking groups talking game stuff I don't understand. Someone flies off in a little spaceship and I realise I need one to move about without it taking forever. After some searching I find a shop selling them that helpfully tells me I have to pay them US$15 per month if I want to be able to own one. I leave the shop unhappy that I'll never be able to fly anywhere.

I find some apartments and rent one, thinking I'll make a little game out of collecting cool looking items and aranging them in there like my mate did in Morrowind. I enter the apartment to find it's a featureless save point.

I spend a couple of hours trying to build up my character to progess somewhere more interesting, get incredibly bored (even after someone let me join their group) and uninstall.

Nothing has yet made me want to try it again.

---

It took months before I actually started to do anything in SL, but for that time I was quite happy to log in to take a break from my work and just see what people had been building. Having goals in AO I knew what I should be doing (if not how to do it without a lot of trial and error finding out) but didn't find having some badass stats any kind of incentive to do it since the experience of doing it was so dull (just for the record, I spent days on end levelling characters in some of the Final Fantasy games).

SL: doing nothing=fun
AO: doing stuff=boring
Go figure.

If I can muster the enthusiasm to log in for more than 5 mins at a stretch I will try to find some info on these things.

"All the power of completely flexible VR with no pesky laws of physics, and all most folks can dream up is a neo-Tudor split-level with a baby grand in the foyer and a couple of DOGGYSTYLE M/F fuck-simulators in front of the fireplace."

I feel a lot of what is written in this article this man wrote, especially this, is very accurate. I have noticed that you could teleport to a sim and this is all you would see for miles around, blocky builds. Many creative and artistic prefabs are available, yet people choose these basic suburban ones with unrealistic bright textures. (Not meaning to get at any prefab creators)

The culture of SL is also very low. In general, I thought before I came to Second Life that there would be places you can go like internet chatrooms where people at any time of day or night might be discussing a particular subject. Maybe for instance a fantasy Inn where people roleplayed or discussed that, a science fiction place, a political debate forum, etc. Places where people would congregate for things other than virtually dancing without point for hours in a big gigantic box where no one is saying anything of substance.

Instead, you can count on one hand the number of such active groups with regular events. There are some, but nothing at the scale you would expect in a virtual world as flexible and free as Second Life.

I think what would have helped is if Linden Lab would create a beautiful city for new players, as a "city" is a familiar starting point in many games. In this city have various congregating spots, and stores rented out to those willing to pay for this prime area.

Not strictly relevant to what you are saying, but please forgive me. When I first came into second life it was as Seladore (with an 'e'), and it was, I believe, in April of 2003. I had a similar first impression - although in those days we didn't have so many gaudy malls. This, coupled with the fact that I had to pretend to be American (European residents weren't encouraged in those days) made me leave.

But something drew me back. One of the things was the forums. People's enthusiasm for the place shone through, and made me realise that perhaps I had missed something. This was in September. I couldn't get in using the old name, so I modified it slightly.

I suspect that for every resident the Lindens get, four or five don't make it past the sign-up process, or leave shortly afterwards. Certainly that is what has happened with people I know who have joined.

The Lindens are trying to address some of these issues, but there is a long way to go.

PS: According to my profile it was November rather than September

My first SL account, katykiwi song, was created in June 2003 when SL was a much smaller world than it is now in every way. My old PC could not handle SL and I stopped logging on because I was unable to even move or fly. But one of the first things I did when I upgraded my PC was return to SL in December 2003.

SL draws different interests than do the other virtual gaming worlds. Rather than seeking out content provided by Linden Lab, those who stay in SL are here because they find a world where they make their virtual experience rather than wait for it to be provided for them.

Its not better than other virtual worlds, its just a better fit for those who love it.

Not everyone will understand the draw of SL, but thats ok because other worlds exist that will satisfy what they seek.

That's where the strict 3d nature of SL makes it harder, and what P2P teleporting and llTeleportAgent may eventually change, but there really needs to be something else as well... and I think you've just woken me up to what that is.

When going from one discussion to another requires physical travel, and when you can't "listen in" to several chatrooms at once waiting for an interesting discussion to show up, you get a different kind of culture.

P2P and llTeleportAgent may reduce the physical travel aspect, but you also need some kind of navigable proxy. In the text-based virtual world I used to use these were called "zombies". You could script a "zombie" so you could look through its eyes, move it around, and it would look like a player except it would be flagged as a zombie and you could examine it to see who owned it.

Some similar mechanism, not an alt, but some kind of low-impact proxy that you could drive around and see out of (maybe by switching to its eyes, so your computer would only have to deal with one view at a time) that would show up as an agent where that mattered (including in security scripts and monitors, and maybe even as some different colored dots on the map), and listen to discussion through, but people would realise wasn't 100% 'manned'... and either "take it over" or teleport in to replace it when you want to...

Call it a "ghost", maybe?

Then you could hang out in a "chat room" type area without having to lock yourself into it.

That would really change the dynamics of the game, for the better.

I hate to agree with the article in the OP, it’s something I wish weren’t true, but I have found myself increasingly disappointed with SL.

I have only been here for a week. When I joined, I did not use the Welcome service. Maybe I should have, but well, I’m not great at talking to people I don’t know in a place that I’ve never been before, and I also like to figure out things as I go and get help only when I need it.

(In other words, offer me resources, but don’t hold my hand; I’m a big girl and can take care of myself.)

It took me a day or two to adequately figure out the basics of SL (navigation, clothing, shopping, inventory management, and so on). I then spent a few days browsing the stores, mostly out of curiosity.

That staled quickly. Does anyone make clothes that don’t look like they were lifted out of a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue or made for a 14-year-old mall rat or nightclub drag queen?

(And I guess I have to be honest, I never much liked bell bottoms the FIRST time they were in vogue! )

I think some of this has to do with the weaknesses of the clothing templates and where the “forced” separation is between tops and bottoms, but still… I was interested in Second Life for more than “shopping mall / dress up” time.

And that has been the other disappointment. There seems to be no shortage whatsoever of gambling houses, gentleman’s (*cough*) clubs, brothels, and trendy clothes stores, but very little of normal content I would expect to find in a city. It has been frustrating trying to find something normal to do and normal people to spend time with, at least by using the Find feature. I’ve spent a few hours ‘porting around Second Life and have only met a handful of people including:

1. White-trash adolescents hanging out in parking lots, purposefully running over people with their monster trucks and spouting profanity. (I didn’t want to believe it, but I guess the cliché was really true.)
   
2. Guys hitting on me (and every woman nearby) outside the dance clubs.
   
3. Girls shopping for trampy outfits.
   
4. A Gorean woman wearing a collar (who I almost talked to out of sheer curiosity but finally just didn’t have the energy to deal with…)
   
5. A woman telling some guy “stay away from me” and “get off” and “don’t touch me” – but for some reason she never just left but kept company with him. (Why do people accept that sort of treatment?)
   

Last night I spent over two hours trying to find some place worthwhile to go and came up with nothing better. Most of the time I just found ugly advertisements and stores selling the same tired inventory. I did find some beautiful architecture and seaside cafes and colorful gardens and art museums… but all uninhabited. All empty.

Please please PLEASE tell me there are others out there (and I guess I think there are, since I am bothering to post this) who are creative and deep and curious and skilled at what they do and see Second Life as a wonderful place to explore and learn and build and share.

Where do I go to find real people, before I lose hope and not bother anymore?


(If you could post some locations / coordinates, that would be lovely. I am hoping I just didn’t stumble across the right places yet, but for the life of me I cannot figure out where they’d be.)

Several people I talked to actually go and get SL accounts to try it. At least 5 people in my department and 3-4 of my friends signed up. Most of them lost interest in SL in less than 2-3 logins. They tried to use it as a means to chat with me but because I was not signed on all the time due to being at my job during the day, SL was not a good choice for IM either. To this day, I remain the only member that still signs on. So 0 out 8 referrals is not a good track record.

I saw several of my coworkers suffer through the body customization etc processes -- I say suffer because most of them did not care to create their avatars, they just wanted to see what SL was like. It would be nice to give new users the option to take a guided tour where they actually fly over real sims in a tour format instead of going through the whole orientation thing. As I said, sometimes what people want as new users is simply a tour, not a new user name, not a new lastname, not a blingtard outfit, not a pair of horrible jeans and t-shirt, and certainly not the welcome area.

I recommend that Lindens revamp of the default inventory that they hand out to new users. There's all this good free clothing and objects that are available, let's give them a better taste of what's out there. Perhaps we can have a competition for this? Design the best newcomer inventory package and get so and so prize.

The welcome area is a shame unto us all. Nowhere else have I seen so many people together and so little communication going on. A bunch of people gathered around a pool acting clickish and posing is hardly welcoming. This crowd also does not do justice to all the wonderful people I have met in SL in the last 3 years.

Now I am not saying that everyone that is at the Welcome Area is annoying, lag-inducing, and less than helpful. I have witnessed very helpful users being very cordial with newcomers as well. They deserve credit for sure for being such good welcomers.

The biggest chilling factor in any type of gaming environment is where the environment turns from "oh it's free, come and play" to "oh well, if you want to do that, you have to pay". When I joined in 2003 there was no clear way for a newcomer to acquire more linden dollars. That's not the case anymore -- I applaud the Lindens for addressing the currency issue and making the acquisition of linden cash much easier from a UI point of view.

Still the chilling factor remains. Most of my friends were put off by the fact that what they could do was so limited, and how poor they were in this new environment was so rubbed in their face constantly that they did not care to start from scratch in an online community. They had enough to keep them plenty busy in real life.

Troy