Getting Situated?

Not sure if I'm just a moron here, if I haven't dedicated enough exploring time yet, or what, but I'm hoping I can get some tips from the more savvy people on getting situated and involved with the world.

I signed up last week, primarily after seeing alot of articles on the buildable & scriptable environment; as a software designer this is of course intriguing to me and I dove right in. After jumping in, I played around a bit and went over to one of the public sandboxes - however, I found all the little subdivides full of peoples junk (and yes, it was mostly screen cluttering junk), and decided I was in fact intrigued enough to pay up for an account enough to buy my own land.

So, I grabbed myself a cheap little section of 512 m2 land, and started playing around. I'm still getting the hang of the scripting language - I haven't had much time in game OR with the docs to get the feel for it, but I've played a little with building (while I'm an experienced software developer, I've never quite gotten the hang of modeling so clearly i'm deficient there). I'm interested in playing with more things, and hoping among other things to get pointed in the direction of perhaps a community or a group focused on playing around with code to produce interesting effects.

The one thing however that seems to kill me, is when I have tried exploring, or logging onto my property, I see nothing but 500 story tall advertisements "Buy this land", and run across the kinds of people I'd typically ban from an IRC channel.

I know there is a more build/script oriented crowd out there (and i've seen other posts out there lamenting the recent decline into a more tech-unsavvy crowd, but I won't begrudge the less-savvy players the game - I just want people to not act like twinks), but what am I missing? What's the best way to really get a good feel for the game from the builder/scripter standpoint and dig up a group of likeminded people? Not to mention getting a reasonable place to build (it's tough on the parcel I have now, it's pretty boxed in with other buildings and advertisements, i'd be willing to investigate buying a bigger parcel if it gave me a bit of breathing room).

I suspect I'm rambling a bit here, and probably not making much sense, but here's to hoping someone else has a clue about what I'm talking about

There's a 1024 lot next to mine in Horseshoe that is for sale (do a find for Marlin Engineering, and choose the one in Horseshoe).

I'm a scripter/building in SL who is also a professional coder in RL, and I certainly empathize with you.

Send me an IM in-world, and we can talk.

- Jon

Hi Ritalin

Well, it really takes time to get a feel for SL. I took a lot of time when I was a newbie just exploring and talking to people. But, I'm also one of those people who will stick their toe in a pool and then ease myself in if it's not too cold.

One good place to go is The Shelter. It's a very welcoming place (geared toward new folks like you) and there are a lot of people who are willing to help you and tell you everything you'd like to know, to the best of their knowledge. Just type "The Shelter" in Find and you'll see it.

*places Ritalin's name in the "Book of Really Amusing Names"*

Thanks.

I'll have to dig up some more $L before I can move, but I'll message you next time I'm in world (probably this evening)

Hey, welcome aboard.

Sadly, as in life, there are a lot of morons around -- many of them even know LSL, and use it for nefarious purposes. It just takes a little time to roam around and meet solid people. But I assure you, there are plenty of solid people.

You can buy SL money on a few sites, the cheapest I know is www.gamingopenmarket.com at about $4 per L$1000
Also, there ar several places to build, not just sand boxes. If you see an open area right click the land, hit the "about land" button, click the "objects" tab and look at the "autoreturn other user's objects" box. If it has a 0 in the box you can build there without having things returned(until the owner physically returns them). If it has a number, it indicates how many minutes till the object is returned. Also look there at the avaliable simulater object usage, a large number means you can place many objects there. A small number means that land is almost full.

welcome to secondlife!

Lumiere Noir has a sandbox in natoma that people can use. if you search on sandbox, you'll find a few public ones other than the linden sanboxes.

the for sale prims will go away as people move into your area. the older sims have fewer for sale signs, and they have less churn. the older sims are on the west side of the main continent.

hanging out with other builders is a good way to learn. everyone is always showing each other how to do things. also, there are building contests. athena sim usually holds contests, but we're host a bunch of SL LGBT Pride events. primtionary is a good contest to learn some quick and dirty building techniques. the ivory tower of prims (even in its partial form) in natoma is worth visiting. i also find exploring and seeing what people have built is a good way to see what is possible (there are several sims with awesome builds, avalon, telador, montmarte, fairchang, dragon moon, seacliff, and way more than i can name). there are groups to help people - brace coral's helping hand notecard dispensers (near GOM's primary atms) list many of these groups. when cabinhead is up and running, i'd point you at it, but it's not ready yet, and by the time it is, you'll probably won't need it.

Here is where I insert my hearty recommendation to visit The Ivory Tower of Primitives. Especially if you're like me and have brief experience in creating and manipulating 3D objects.

Also on your list, for the free scripts if nothing else:

Yadni's Junkyard. Every newbie needs to go here right after the Shelter. More free junk than you can possibly use, but including vehicles, weapons, and other objects which you might be able to use for ideas or to add a script to.

Twelfth of Never Sami has a bunch of free stuff available here (along with lots of reasonably-priced artwork, sunglasses, and other assorted interesting oddities). I got a box of 90-some free scripts here that I'm still playing with.

There's another spot I can't remember -- is this the Newbie Bazaar? Even more free stuff including scripts and interesting objects you can play with. No end of ideas.

Another idea is to check Events and try to get to some of the scripting and modelling classes that some of the more experienced SLers still give. I've only managed to get to one or two of these but they're well worth your time.

Oh, yeh, and don't forget the boards. The Scripting sections are especially helpful.

To get a feel for the place, I'd recommend exploring.

When you see something you like, try touching it -- it might be set to let you take a copy or buy a copy.

Check out the Ivory Tower .. its a great place to learn the basics of working with prims, the basic building block.

There are sandboxs where you can build and experiment, might be a useful alternative to buying more land right away.

Its worth checking the events calendar to see if there are any classes listed. Also check for show n tell events ... useful for meeting people and seeing what sort of things they are working on.

Oh, and btw .. welcome to SL

I have 4500 sq. m. of land in Afton that i can let you use for free, but lately it's been kinda laggy

Hello I would never pretend to be a coder *LOL, why bother trying?!* but I can show you some lovely builds. I should be in world tonight and will try to look you up. Welcome to SL!

It took me a good 2 months of exploring and messing around before I got a feel for SL but then I am kind of slow. If you want to see some cool builds go to the Welcome Area and get a Pathfinder's Picks notecard from his dispenser. Most of these places are griefer free too.

And like Lo said the Shelter is a great place to meet intelligent non-griefer type people.

Thanks to some great help from Jon Marlin and Fiona Peregrine last night, I think I have a little more sure footing. I certainly have a good base from which to start coding, an idea of how and where selling works, and a pile of bookmarks to builder areas which I still have to peruse.

It's good to see such a helpful community; I expect I'll be churning out some uselessly silly object any day now, and hanging around some of the more social builder areas when I get a chance.

Selling your initial plot of land will help you get some lindens as well. You may be able to sell that 512 plot for 2500 or more, depending on the area.

May not be enough to get another plot but it will help