A Newbie's Point of View on the Newbie Experience.

Not sure if this is in the right Forum, but if it isn't then I'm sure it'll be moved.

Anyway.

I'm new to SL, a friend showed it to me and I thought it was an exciting and interesting online world to explore, and the most appealing part being that the basic account is free.

So I decided to start up an account.

First things, the initial account setup via the SL Website was easy; downloading the client wasn't a problem. Logging into the world for the first time was very self explanatory.

But after that.

I got completely lost. Upon my arrival on Orientation Island, I had absolutely no idea what to do. I think some instructions showed up on my screen but they were always fuzzy, or "out of focus" if that makes sense.

No one else on that Island knew what they were doing either, I probably met dozens of new players showing up for the first time, speaking many different languages and none of them knew what they were doing and everyone would ask every one else what to do next. It was all very confusing, I think I know now, how the workers at the Biblical "Tower of Babel" felt, after God struck their tongues and made them all speak different languages so none knew what the other was saying.

So... after wandering around some and getting certain "Out of Focus" prompts on my screen , I was able to figure out that at certain area's, I was supposed to do something. It wasn't easy trying to figure out what that was. In some situations, another English speaking New Player who already figured it out would come along and give advice.

But what about all those who didn't speak English, who didn't know what to do? I saw many of them go offline, likely in frustration, and never come back.

So after a few hours of wandering around this little Island and trying to figure out what to do, I start to wonder how I get to leave it. At that point I was quite frustrated, I had gotten up and left my computer to get something to eat. When I came back, surprise... one of the "Out of Focus" boxes was now "In Focus!" and I could read it. It told me I had a key to leave. Ironic, that I spent all that time wandering around forever, and never knew I had already been granted the ability to leave this Island. I gather, these little instruction windows stay Out of Focus for a certain amount of time to load, but wandering arounf the island so much and clicking on different things would refresh it and bring up another that was also always out of focus.

So to improve the Newbie Experience, in my opinion, things on this Island need to be made more obvious or easier to understand, and that instruction window shouldn't be out of focus all the time, making it impossible to read.

Also, there should be an Experienced Player, there on that Island all the time, to help quide these new players, and be able to answer their questions... which brings me to the next part of my Newbie Experience...

My arrival upon Help Island.

I was told, that when I got to this second Island, there would my "Helpers" there to answer my questions and help me.

That certainly turned out to be wrong. All I saw was more of the same... many, many new players wandering around, all speaking different languages and not knowing what to do.

Well I actually spent a few days on Help Island, logging in for a few hours after work, wandering around then logging off, only to do it again a night or two later. I watched, dozens, upon dozens of new players arrive here and still have absolutely no idea what they're doing, or what they're supposed to do.

Never once, did I ever see an experienced "Helper" show up, on this Help Island.

I did meet a few people during the time I spent there, and some I managed to help with the knowledge that I had learned for myself... Eventually, I decided to leave and go to the rest of the SL world. I had joined up with a couple others who were ready to leave as well.

Unfortunately; once we finally "teleported" away from Help Island and into the "real" world of SL... the game dropped everyone in seperate locations, scattered throughout the world, and none knew how to communicate with each other. None of the tutorials thus far had taught anything about how to manage a "Friends List" of any sorts, nor how to use the ingame IM's, which of course should be self explanatory but for most people just starting out, it apparently is not!

So.

I'm finally there, in SL... and I'm lost. I have no idea what to do, where to go, or anything, and the small party that I had left Help Island with, was scattered throughout the rest of the game world. Fortunately I knew enough from my experiences with playing other MMO's out there, I knew enough to figure out how to manage a Friend List and managed to successfully track several down, and get them to teleport together to a single location, where they could all continue to explore together.

But what about those who enter the world, and don't know how to do this? What about the groups of friends, who enter the world, for the first time, hoping they would be able to all set out together right away, but find that they're suddenly seperated, scattered all over, and lost?

There needs to be one, single location where all newbies automatically go upon leaving this Help Island, instead of scattering them all over. So then friends can stay together and there is no hassle of spending hours trying to track people down. Some of those who teleported off Help Island with me, were frustrated apparently, that they were lost and they arrived with no one they had met, and they went offline, and in the week that I've been on so far, I've never seen them back!

How many of those advertised 7 million accounts, are accounts belonging to a new player who got frustrated with the current "Newbie Experience" and left, and never came back?

Anyway... just my 2 cents, as I said I've only been active for a week and maybe some of these areas of concern are being looked into, I dont know... but I just compelled to share my experiences with starting in SL for the first time.

I'll close with only this... out of all the Online Games\MMO's, etc that I have tried... SecondLife had the most confusing and frustrating Newbie Experience that I've seen yet!

The intro used to be a nice simple little step-by-step walkthrough.

They had to go and bugger it up.

How sad! It's so hard for noob players! I can imagine just how that must have felt, and how your enthusiasm can get undermined because nobody will help or is there to try and help.

This is a really huge place. I've been to tons of locations and I still feel like I haven't seen anything. Even people who have been here lots longer still learn new things every day, so it's doubly hard for anyone new.

Sure wish you and your new friends didn't have to go through that. And this reminds me to be as patient and helpful as I reasonably can with new players because they're babies basically. This is why I never put my security system on aggressive mode, because I have a lot of land and inevitably several noob players per day will wander onto my property and I don't want them orbited because they don't know any better.

Same with new people I see walking around naked. I just giggle, but I don't go off on them. I try to help them get themselves dressed.

Matter of fact, I think I will start scheduling time to go to the Welcome Center and help...

The blurry notecard effect is due to something known as rezzing. Get used to it, it's part of SL Life. It's caused by a variety of things from the number of people in the sim, the number logged on total, network and bandwith issues, your hardware setup and Gnomes.

I think a copy of your post needs to go to the powers that be at Linden Lab. Retaining new players is a major issue for LL. It should get easier from here on out, sorry to hear of your problems.

Once upon a time, there *was* a single location where all newbies went. The only problem is, it got horrendously overcrowded. Bear in mind that on a busy day, a new SL user can join every 2 seconds. On SL's best day so far, a new user arrived almost every second.

I'm very sorry that you had a bad experience on Help Island. The reason why there were no Helpers there is probably because of this: there isn't just one Help Island, there are lots (more than 10), and often there just aren't enough helpers online at once to cover every one (bear in mind it can take more than one helper to cover a Help Island). Again, in the past there was only one Help Island and then a little later there were 3, but now the number has expanded so much that the helpers are swimming against the tide. I understand this is not an excuse and I'm very sorry you had a bad time on arrival.

I used to hang out tat the new people spawning areas when they were on the mainland, and help new people as they arrived, but due to idiot griefers abusing new people, older residents can't get to those areas anymore, whenever I created an alt character I would help a few new people through their escape to the bigworld giving them information and answers to their questions and some freebie stuff to encourage them to explore.

Since a couple of days I spend a couple of hrs on orientation island public to help out newbs and I was surprised by the amount of questions they had. I received a lot of thanks (and friendship offers LOL) and what struck me was the fact that a lot of older residents help out. Also I've seen one mentor in 3 days, I applied as well about 10 weeks ago but no result so far. LL really needs to do something about that. Staggering around not knowing what to do is extremely frustrating.

Mandy C

I have been a SL Greeter for nearly a year now... back then the 'tide' was barely manageable.. imagine for a moment what it is like to spend time on one of the help islands in the past 6 months... 2 ppl a second join second life.. so if they are evenly spread, every 20 seconds you have another person asking you the same group of questions, and you do that for a couple of hours. I made up gestures which would type line by line short messages giving the basic information, and got accused for chat spamming.

I asked the Lindens to put into place an official chat translator.. nothing. They removed the ability to place our own translators. I have instructions to use the translators in six different lanuages, made them into guestures, but the translators haven't been able to work for the past 6 months, since scripts were turnned off.

The greifers would pour in, drop houses and prims all over the place, use abusive language, shoot people and create a fiasco. Try getting hold of a Linden to sort that out? I was on the phone to the Pope the other day, even he said he couldn't get hold of a Linden!

This HUD thing they drop newbies, is next to useless. It shouldn't be 'helpers' at welcome island, it should be LL employees!

Wow, it seems that it has changed a lot since I joined. When I joined there was a path to follow and stations along the way; when I created my alt..same thing.

Has SL changed their intake recently? This sounds very bad and I don't know if I would have stayed in SL if this had been my first experience and I shudder to think of all the great experienced I would have missed.

I've had "Newbies" mention this before.

I think part of the problem is, Linden Labs should state, right on a drop down box (faster than rezzing) some basics on SL.

Maybe something like:

* There is NO pre-determined Goal in SL. You do what you want to. Can't do it in Real Life? Try doing it here!

* There is NO limitations on where you can go.

* There is NO leveling up, monsters to fight, etc.

Those are the 3 things I've seen most often asked.

When I started last November, there was a Linden audio stream that mixed music, event announcements, and newbie tips. That helped me get a good idea about what SL was for. I agree with someone above who says they need a drop-down menu explaining some of these things, but audio streams could help. If they really do have so many beginner spots, then they could funnel people by language to particular spots with that language's audio stream.

I know, the path was simple and self-explanatory. The experience now is completely different. I created an alt recently and was very much surprised at the way LL is apparently trying to 'rush through' newbies. Even if everything works right the information is scarce.

There are some optional tutorials too, but the main thing boils down to a square with four corners. In each corner the newbie is told by his HUD to do a task. One is walking, one is retrieving something from inventory, one is saying something in open chat, I have forgotten the fourth, but it was along the same lines. Maybe flying, or entering Appearance. Do those four, and you get a 'passport' to the mainland, without ever having gotten any idea about what SL is and can be, and without many of the skills you so naturally picked up along the old tutorial path in a much more inspiring way than the perfunctory "do this and get out" you get nowadays. I was appalled by the difference. Now, when you come into SL for the first time, there is nothing to show you that SL can be *fun*, and nothing to inspire the explorer spirit.

And ridiculously enough, the very first corner of the square is simply walking 10 feet to an animated target on the ground. Walk to the target (which can't be easier to find) and Boom! Nothing happens! Reset the exercise, go back and re-do the other tutorials, try walking to the animated target and still... Nothing.

My wife registered her account yesterday and I know she wasn't the only person with that problem. We spent two hours at her computer trying to figure out how to walk to an animated freakin' target. There were other people who obviously had the same issue - some were jumping on the target, flying and landing on it, running in circles around it, and of course screaming "WTF!"

Oh dear, dear, dear..this is very upsetting. I'm going to be extra nice to new residents now.

I loved the little path you walked in the old Orientation. The talking parrot..the people at the Appearance station all editing away...and the graduation fly across. It was cool.

I understand there are other portals to enter SL now run by different groups. Here's hoping they are better than this.

Hey, LL, you guys are smart..whats up with this? Not a good first impression.

I just started a few days ago, and if i didnt have a couple friends already here to show me around and get me started, I know I wouldn't have lasted more than a half hour.

In addition to the simplistic tutorial, there's no in-game help or manual that I can find. The website's a complete mess. I can find any number of tutorials on prim sculpting or scripting, but I can't find out how to RUN or other simple things like that.

And couldn't Linden think about upgrading the atrocious starter AVs and animations? I know they want to leave a market for sellers and all, but again, if my friends hadn't taken me right off and gotten me a new shape, skin, hair and AO I definitely would not have stuck around.

The way it's supposed to work is that you arrive on OI automatically equipped with an "OIHUD", which is the HUD that displays the tutorial information. The OIHUD is just an ordinary scripted object, exactly the same as a Resident could make. A while back, Mentors were given copies of the OIHUD to carry about, which was quite handy, except that they explode violently if rezzed or attached anywhere other than OI.

The first thing the OIHUD actually tells you to do is to explore around the island. Some people do this. Some people don't, and instead stand in the middle of the plaza asking what they're supposed to do. What the HUD actually wants you to do is to walk into one of the four coloured circles next to the central plaza, which will trigger it to change to show a new tutorial page, a different one for each.

(And when it changes, it loads a new texture, which has to rez. Bearing in mind that these are folks who have been in SL for only a few seconds and know nothing about rezzing, when the tutorial window suddenly goes blurry many of them think something's gone seriously wrong. It would be nice if they'd change it to use the hidden surface trick to preload these textures, or even just include a cache of all the OI material in the client installer. Also, again when I visited yesterday, the OIHUD is always in English, although I was told there are alternative versions in other languages, but the Spanish users I spoke to had gotten the English ones and were baffled.)

The four tasks they have to do are: walk onto a target on the ground, say something (anything) in chat, attach a Torch from their inventory, and answer a question about the icon that represents you on the map (although when I tested it recently with the latest version of OIHUD I have, it didn't make any difference if you got the question wrong). You are right that sometimes the Move test doesn't work properly. (I have no idea what method they are using for detecting where an avatar is, because it's impossible to even open the OIHUD for editing.)

After each task they have the option of proceeding onwards, beyond the circle they stepped on, to learn more about that particular aspect. For example, beyond the "Torch" option is a castle where they can buy and wear a simple suit of armor, or beyond the "move" option is a city where they can fly and use vehicles.

There is other explanation too - I think there are "hidden" videos and other things to find on OI.

Wow.

Thanks for the responses. I had no idea that quite a few "older" residents shared similar views or opinions, much less knew that LL at one point had originally had a much better "newbie setting" that quite a few of you remember going through and you were able to compare your experiences to mine.

I honestly thought, I'd post this... and it would just get lost in the forum somewhere, be forgotten.... or I'd get flamed for posting it, or worse yet, cause a flame war over it.

Obviously, there are quite a few out there, who do care about how the New Players first impression of SL is presented.

It is truly a shame that LL recreated the "Newbie Experience" .. I've visited the public version of "Orientation Island" and to me it seems to make much more sense then the one which all new players automatically start at

The public one, at least to me... was a lot easier to understand, and had a set path to follow, with a graduational "flight" to the end... as some of you have described as being a part of your first experiences in SL.

The current private starter island... Well unless you're on a super high powered computer system with all the RAM in the world and the fastest processor, it seems, then it takes forever to rez signs that are supposed to tell you what to do. Worst yet; they're all in English! Thats why there are so many furstrated New Players showing up there, for the first time, who don't speak English, and they don't know what to do, because they can't read those signs!

This is not going to sound very encouraging, and I am afriad that the Lindens will not be happy to read this next part but...

A couple weeks ago I was listening to a radio Talk Show; a major name in the industry, nationally syndicated all over the United States... The host of the show; Neal Boortz, was ranting off steam about HIS newbie Experience in Second Life!

I don't know why he chose to try it out, but he spent about 15 minutes one morning on his Show, just ranting away to millions upon millions of listeners all over the nation (and others elsewhere listening via internet) about how he arrived at this little Island and had absolutely no idea what to do, where to go, or who to talk to. He ranted all about how confusing it was, that there was no one there to help people and tell them what to do, and no precise intructions about what to do.

He described the Island in vivid detail and it was the current starter island of Orientation Island, the same that all newbies are automatically forced to start at.

It was a very bad impression he gave to Second Life, and this was on Live Talk Radio broadcast all over the United States. I never did hear the final outcome of his experiences, whether or not someone finally helped him or not or if he even continued with his account or not. I just remember he wasn't happy with his first experience, and complained openly about it on his own nationally syndicated talk radio show.

That alone should be reason enough to reform the newbie experience here... when you got major talk radio show hosts ranting about their first time experiences with your product on their radio show, to millions and millions of listeners... Well if it were my product that this radio host was upset about, my ears would be more then perked and I'd be going straight for the phone to call them up and say.. "What can we do to improve your experience?"

Then whatever they suggest be done for improvement, I'd definetely consider it very seriously...

..and that brings me to an idea...

Well a vision actually... based on the feedback I've read in this thread, and based on ideas I've gotten from the times I've spent within SL already...

I have a very large and very grand vision for drastically improving the "Newbie Experience"... and I believe it could work, but it would involve a LOT of work, and probably a lot of people... to make it work...

But alas... I'm just a newbie myself, on a Basic Account and barely scraping by on a weak RL income that barely leaves anything left to save or spare...

How does one such as that, go about creating such a grand vision as that, and making it into a reality in this world?

AND THIS... was EXACTLY my first impression.

I could not have said it better, and infact had no idea what that HUD was.

I am on a good, high powered system with 2 gigs RAM and running nVidia SLI..

So I assumed there was something wrong with the "interface" .. figured no way my system isn't good enough to handle this, I can run through Star Wars Galaxies with no lag! So I just kept running around this Orientation Island, and everytime I did, a new area would trigger a new "rez" of the interface and so on... and it would just take forever to rez and was always "out of focus" ... which actually hurt my eyes, trying to focus on what it was trying to say to me.

Hi, Jolene and welcome to Second Life. I started back in February, and probably would have quit that same day if it wasn't for the fact that my husband had been playing since November, so was very familiar with most things and could coach me. I started out on orientation island, but when I went to teleport to help island, it totally skipped that and took me to the main land as help island was full. To this day, I have no clue what's on help island as I never went there.
My husband got the official guide to secondlife book, and that helped us both a little. But without someone to teach you things, it's very difficult to learn things on your own. It's a shame, really, because SL is a cool place with tons of things to do, see and buy. I'm not able to be inworld as often or as much as I would like to be, but you can always send me an IM if you need any help with anything, and I'll be glad to do what i can. Just bring up my profile in search>people>Sunni Jewell and use the send IM tab on my profile. I knew nothing, but learned from my husband or asking others how to do my profile, how to edit, how to buy clothes and wear them, as well as hair and accessories, how to buy land and sell it. There are cool freebie items in your library in your inventory that can help get you started and other many places that offer freebies. Some aren't that great, some are awesome. I recommend mastering your inventory as soon as possible, because it can quickly get out of control. I treat mine as any file manager with created folders and sub folders. Believe me, you'll waste a lot of time seaching for things in your inventory if it's not organized. Also, I make clothes for my husband's store, and would be happy to help you out with clothing needs, as well as advice on skin and hair. Please don't assume that SL is nothing but stores and dance clubs...there are many interesting builds and places to see, as well as fun things to do. Search should become your best friend as soon as possible, I still use it constantly. It's through search that you can find just about anything you need or want in this world.
Like I said, i would be more than happy to help you out if needed, so even if I'm offline when you send a message i will answer through my e-mail or as soon as i log in. Just remind me who you are so I don't think it's a spammer. Good luck, and don't give up. There are many nice people willing to help a newbie when asked, and in no time you'll be shopping, playing and editing with the rest of us.

I must have missed this, probably because the thing wasn't rezzing and by the time it did rez I had triggered one of the tutorials...

All in all it's not a very welcoming place.



I've also heard stories of the 'attach the torch' test not working properly because one day the torch went missing from all the newbies libraries. Appears to have been quite a frantic affair, with helpers running all over the place distributing torches to newbie after newbie so they could complete the tutorial.



Never got around to those. Would have tried to find them if I had known they were there to find.

The first thing that needs to happen is LL needs to take notice of threads like this one, and I'm glad you brought it up. I remember the orientation island from last fall and it was a lot of fun. Last night, I'm teaching my wife how to play, and it was a nightmare.

There was an extremely important point that many people here made, and I'm going to repeat it:

FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT IMPRESSIONS YOU CAN MAKE.

If the first thing that people learn about Second Life is that it's bugged to hell, or that a simple command takes too long to rezz, or that English-speaking newbies are the only people who can help Portuguese-speaking newbies, they will NOT upgrade to a premium account. They will NOT convert their money into L$.

They will uninstall the program from their computer, and tell all their friends (or, in the case of Neal Boortz or Opie and Anthony - they also told the truth about SL - millions of potential customers) to stay the hell away.

How very disappointing.

Can someone forward this thread to LL, pretty please? Or at least tell me how to do it, thanks.

But, don't you see that this is the business model followed by Linden Lab? There is nothing wrong or missing, it is by design.

If the newbies can't make it into the world on their own, then they would simply be a burden on the otherwise overtaxed (or non-existant) support portal as members.

The way things currently are, the few that actually make it all the way in are resourceful enough to become members and to continue in their adventure IN SPITE of the the bugs, problems, lack of support, and general condition of SL.

The ones that don't make it in contributed as well, they added to the inflated numbers that LL can use with the press.

For almost a month now the Lindens have been experimenting on one of the Orientation Islands with a group of helpers. The results are posted in the wiki at: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OIslanders_Test_Team

Please visit the wiki and put your suggestions there. Several Lindens look at this page regulary and I have been told that Phillip Linden has an interest in the results of this project.