Life Cycle of the Newbie

Disclaimer: Everything you are about to read is just for fun. I mean no harm, and don't mean to offend anyone. This is just to poke fun at something that seems to be commonplace here, and no offense to anyone is meant through this.

Hanging out in the welcome area in Morris last night, i noticed a trend in how Newbies progress after coming in world. So i made a list, and figured out the growth cycle of the being we like to call the newbie. Keep in mind that not all newbies pass through all stages, but all of them generally go through one of these stages.

1. The Entrance stage - This stage begins when they first enter the main land in Morris. Generally if there is a vetern there, the veteren will say hi, and it'll take the newbie a little bit to realize that they are talking to them, or they are still trying to load into the world.

2a. The first words - 2a and 2b aren't in any particular order. The newbie may decide to talk to you at first, or he may try and explore really quickly. If they decide to talk first, they will generally stay on their pad, as if it were a safe home, where nobody can get to them. But a few of the more rambuctious fellows will leave the safety of the pad to talk to you. The first words out of the newbies mouth will be one of two things in general, either a) "are you a computer?" or b) "hey (name)". If you run into the first type, assure them you are not a computer. If b, then your lucky.

2b. Exploration - this stage can be exchange with 2a. The newbies will either stay there and talk, or they will walk or fly away first. I call this "gaining their second life legs." Generally, they end up walking or flying farther than they intended, and you may even see some fly straight into the getting started sign.

3. Attachment stage - This stage is where the newbies can be at their most annoying. This is the stage where they begin looking through their inventories, and attach whatever they can to themselves, be it a Cabin, rocket, firework, whatever. If it's the cabin that they have attached, beware, some newbies do not know how to detach things, and may start freaking out because they have a cabin attached to their head. Some newbies will remove it when you ask, but some won't.

4. The poking stage - This stage can come at any point. The newbie will simply poke everything that they can to see if it would move. BEWARE: If you have something that does something on while you are around the newbie, they will continually poke it as much as possible. This goes with sounds too.

If you have any other Newbie growth step, post them here, but keep it clean, and remember, this is just for fun, i personally mean nothing i say here, just having some fun.

and then there are 2 more crossroad at which they must choose a path...
1. The transition from Newbie to:
a. Scripter
b. Builder
c. Slave to Fashion
d. Slave to Toys and Gadgets
e. Some or ALL of the above

Once that decision is made then they arrive at the, "Whats The Point?" Crossroads. It is here that they:
a. Realize the potential of SL and recognize their inner patience to wait on the "bigger/better" thing to come.
b. Find some personally insurmountable frustrations or limitations within SL and move on to some other game/world/whatever.
c. Determine that despite their best judgement to the contrary, they are addictd to SL and wont be moving on for eons and purchase a LifeTime subscription.
d. Put their master plan into effect and grief for the sheer joy of tormenting the people that simply cannot tolorate that type of behavior! Especially when their victims are powerless to stop it.

Personally I am a 1a/1b/1d but quickly approaching 2b status BECAUSE of the 2d types I am running into as of late.
Then again, these are just my own observations.

missed a few mportant ones in their.... avatar growth and education.

They will either:
A. Decide that the current default avatar they have is hideous, and try to fix it. Then they become curious as how to build things through various means (al beit it classes, tutorials, mentors, random passing individuals).. and then on to the events/getting rich socializing aspect.

or
B. Completely deny any type of "Social Hacking" if you will.. by being completely negative and/or skeptical to their entire enviroment and surroundings. Be Warned: Conformity is not much of a liking to these individuals.. and they thrive on YOU trying to make them happy so they can deny any comfort that you try to offer.

--H2o

Nicely put.

When asked "Are you a Computer or NPC?"

Do not I say do not respond with. "If I were a computer would I give you a wedgie and boot you to the next sim"

If they answer yes then say "Oops Computation overload" and bail out of world for 2 seconds.

Ok ok that was bad REEEEALY bad...but the thought had crossed my mind a time or two..no only if we could give them a wedgie and boot them....LOL

Shadow

I like the term " Social Hacking". It describes it pretty well I think

i agree, 'social hacking' is pretty damn eloquent... wish i had thought of it heh

Another phase the newbies go through is called the Gimmie Stage. If there are a lot of vets around with cool gadgets, generally, the newbie will want a copy of it all. They will ask everyone around to give them some cool stuff. And if anyone happens to give them something, all it does is make their thirst for free copies grow. Be Wary, once a newbie has had a taste of something free, their thirst will grow.