New Residents: Provide feedback on Orientation Experience

Hello all -

If you joined SL within the last two weeks, you've had the chance to try a new orientation experience involving training stations on an island separate from the mainland. We've been collecting some feedback and would love to hear more now that you've been in-world for a while.

Was it helpful? Any skills you wish you would have learned earlier? How long did it take you to complete?

Current Residents: Have no fear, our intention is to bring an Orientation Island online as part of the mainland so everyone can check out the experience.

thanks!

hunter

It seemed pretty good, from what I remember. I understand that it's not supposed to encompass everything you need to know, but it definitely got me going in the right direction.

I think you might want to add (if not already there, I kinda flew through it) some verbiage about the training classes, if those classes will carry over to retail. Those were an immense help to me.... I was building stuff within the first couple hours.

(not directly related) Also one thing I noticed is when I was editing my av for the first time, I switched it to male from female, but none of the /gesture sounds switched to male, I had to change those manually. Maybe I did something wrong.

Might wanna consider widening the walkways in some spots a bit... Newbie SL'ers don't have their VR legs yet and a couple spots I went off the path / bumped into things I shouldn't have.

I can't think of anything else off hand, but if I do, I'll append.

I was very happy to see the training stations in SL. It alllowed me an opportunity to get a feel of my AV and learn the basics.

Must admit when i first landed I didn't follow the path and started flying around and came to the last station. (Sorry free soul here)
But soon after exploring and seeing what my final destination was I went back to the start point. Think it took me 30 minutes but I stopped and chatted with other newbies along the way.

Overall the stations were super but I wish there was a station on building unless there's 1 there and I missed it. For example, at the building station have noobs build simple primitives such as cube, cone, etc. I know we get the basic in Intro to Building but I think I went 2 days in SL without a clue on how to build. Silly me I didnt know you had to click a editable ground to create an object.

Also, when I logged in on my first day I didn't see a Linden employee nearby to greet me. I believe this is very important. Gives us newbies a sense of security and acknowledgement that we aren't the only ones playing the game. Plus, if we have any questions or can't understand the stations there is someone there to assist us. (On day 2, i did see several Linden employees lurking around. )

Note: Didnt take me 2 days to go thru the course. On the first day I logged in change my avatar, flew to the last station by luck then logged off to host a event in TSO. On the second day I went thru all the stations.

What a great experience.

I joined into the beta last night but unfortunately did not have time to explore the orientation yet. I will gladly post about my experience after I run through it when I get home tonight!

So far I like what I see..

I have only been here for a couple of weeks (my two-week anniversary is tomorrow), and I have had the opportunity to meet so many great people who are willing to help me out with different things and willing to give me suggestions and feedback on my ideas.

I have made so many new and wonderful friends here, and I hope to make even more in the future.

Alexis, I'm really glad you came to SL. I've enjoyed our talks and hope to get to know you better

Kerstin

My first reaction in SL was, "Woah I'm a girl."

This was immediately followed by, "This is what I've been waiting for..."

The two comments are completely unrelated.

I was going through the starting tutorials and, barring minor technical difficulties, found them to be pretty self explanatory. Encouraging newbies to NOT spend the next 20 hours working on avatar customization is probably wise, though I can't imagine how any new player can spend less than 30 minutes ooh-ing and aahh-ing ad the possibilities once the sliders have been discovered.

I think the thing that took the most getting used to was general camera control. Navigation was relatively simple. Using arrow keys to get from point A to point B is generally commonplace now, and though I've read it in other threads about the desire to have a 1st Person viewpoint as a possible default camera option (I'm all for this too, by the way), I could control movement a lot easier than controlling what I was actually looking at. Nearly two weeks into testing, I am still often using the arrow keys (to physically move my avatar just to "reset" the camera) once I've managed to stray from one point to another and (more or less) lose the ability to regain my camera position.

Anyway, there is other feedback I have, but I think as far as intros and orientation goes, the newbie area is great. My only further recommendation would be to include a "practice" area once you're on the mainland so you could sort of go back and refresh your memory on things once you've left Newbie Eden.

Also, the thing I think I've been MOST impressed by is the positive attitude of the existing playerbase. There have been a few jerks, as will always be the case, lacking in tact or what have you, but generally people have been very supportive and ready to share information.

There is a STEEP learning curve for many of the newer testers, even for those of us that have tested games before, and it is nice to see that patience is not a virtue that is wasted on the virtual.

-Voodoo

I found Orientation to be a helpful tool in the game. Not so much helpful in the sense that it gave me any real abilities, but helpful in the sense that it got me used to the controls.

I know I never would've had a profile had it not been for orientation, nor would I know that holding Ctrl lets me lift objects.

There are some useful aspects of it, but most of the intricacies, I've learned through classes and personal failures. Mostly failures...

In my week, I've been shown a whole new world and it's easy to forget the small island on which I begn, but I wouldn't have the basic skills I have without it.

Utter newbie posting - I've only managed to spend about two hours in game so far (I'm GMT so can only play at weekends ), most of which was in the Orientation Experience.

I found it very useful - I still have a bit of trouble with the camera, but I guess that will come with practice. And yes, I spent far too long playing with the sliders despite the warning

It was great to be welcomed by a Linden person, although I didn't realise that they were talking just to me (ok, I'm dense) so I probably came across as rude for not always answering

I would have liked to have a station for scripting, but it sounds like there are regular tutorials so I guess it's not too much of a problem. I'm dying to get my teeth into scripting - roll on the weekend

Began 'playing' last week. The orientation was really a great introduction to the world. At the time I met a Linden, I really didnt know who they were.

I agree with the idea to add an introductory building station, or possibly set up an intermediate course on basic building - although through trial and error the basics are found quite readily.

One other suggestion might be to add a station including purchasing and editing land.

I am just starting my second week. I went thru the orientation and found it very valuable. As I am sure you are aware, it could contain many more valuable subjects. I ended up picking up most of my SL skills from other residents once I found some nicer folks who were willing to help a noob. Thanks Catherine !

Perhaps assigning volunteers to act as guides at the entry would be helpful or create a NOOBIE IM channels where volunteers could monitor that channel to help guide new players. I would be happy to help with this.

After a couple of days I put up a Team Speak Server and got to talk live with BBC and Bel on voice. I learned more about what is going on in SL from these two in 15 minutes of actual voice interaction that I did in the first 20 hours in world chatting in IM !!

The voice assisted learning curve is maybe one order of magnitute faster than chat. I have gotten several new players into the voice chat and we had then building on their own land in less than 10 minutes of voice based training.

Sturm

-Witty Sig still under consideration-

I finally had a chance to really explore last night. I had taken the orientation and found it useful, but more useful was the fact there were people around to help explain as well demonstrate how things were done.

I found I was learning by example and seeing things being done prompted me to try and find out how these things were possible as I found out they were possible./