How to make newbies stay?

Are you kidding? It takes a rocket surgeon to figure that out. (>_<

I've seen newbies kicked with those stupid "brash kick" attachments by people in those cliques to neighboring sims. That's really not going to help player retention. Not all of them are like this. But having a linden around would sort out the bad apples. If they want to leave, that wouldn't be the worse thing in the world. Welcome Areas are supposed to be welcoming, not personal hangouts for quasi griefers.

I've spent a LOT of time in the Morris welcome area, and started helping other newbies when I'd been 2-3 weeks in game myself.

Couple of things I've noticed:

1. It is almost impossible to help some people. They simply don't learn easily or quickly and get frustrated and SL is NOT a good place if you can't figure out the difference between right click and left click. If I can't teach 'em... I'm a good teacher, and patient, and there are some people you just can't help. At this point I wait until I see that they have at the least managed to detach the torch before helping.

2. People who come out of OI already having taken the torch off and colored their clothes/changed their hair are VERY teachable. I've found that a simple, "Do you need some help figuring this place out.... if you don't know IM's yet, click the little blue button above your history" message goes a long way.

3. One-on-one or one-on-two help goes a tremendous way.

I've found that some of the rudest newbies will calm down if approached courteously. A simple, "There are good places here to walk around naked, but the welcome area isn't one of them, can I give you some clothes?" goes a long way. I've had at least four newbies that "wanted to run around naked" get dressed and end up joining in.

4. The default AVs are universally wretched. When I talk female friends into joining SL, I tell them to get Girl Next Door simply because she's the fastest and easiest to fix. City Chic should be junked, no one looks good in it and it requires people understanding skins, shapes, prim hair, etc. to get out of it, and you have to change everything to fix anything. I keep a "full perm newbie female" pack in my inventory that I can hand to people and have them ship-shape quickly... It includes an AO and a flight feather.

I'd say at least half of the people I've helped I still see logging in and out regularly. Some have become friends. All who stay in contact say that the help I gave them early on was huge in making SL enjoyable for them.

For me, the most useful starting place is the NCI in Nova Civis Caledon. Freebie board, plus LOTS of tutorials, I still learn things there, and not the zoo of the welcome area or other more common points.

One complaint I have heard from people is that early on, if not helped one-on-one, they do not understand openign boxes. One person I know threw away hundreds if not thousands of lindens worth of stuff for not being told how to open a box. It is one of the first things I tell people.

I get a lot farther with helping people wearing my 11L outfit than I do wearing my 1500L outfit... Almost every mentor I see is dolled up to the nines... and it isn't really helpful since most newbies want to see what it's about before investing, I know I did.

This is one thing that I have never never understood, it became obvious to me that the most fundamental thing in SL early on is learning how to open a box. The iron mail vest you buy on OI should be supplied in a box and clear instructions given on how to open it, of course the problem with this is that there is no rezzing, which is probably in place to stop greifers sending items to alts in OI, the solution there would be to block the ability to send items via profile to OI.

Also when you arrive you get the choice to walk one of 4 directions, 'choices?' they give 'choices?' how confusing is that, should I learn to dress first, how to talk, how to squash rats?

If the process was designed for all new avs to walk in one direction and learn proactively, and 'together', their entrance to SL would be so much more fun and enhanced, also for those who just don't get it, they would learn from those who did by watching, or even just saying "hey how did you do that?", also encouraging communication.

"make newbies stay" ...?!?!

Sorry folks ... or even more-so, sorry to the "faithful" ... but if you can't read the writing on the wall maybe you should stop importing it as a .bmp; SL is going *down* , the "Lindens" have failed to sell it off to someone with investment capital and the next thing is brewing not too far from the horizon ... make sure you're conversant with the Croquet Consortium at least (http://www.opencroquet.org) coz they're still the most likely candidate for a VR where you can really do business, not just sell skins and shags to newbies...

Who knows where the next phoenix will rise but personally I'd rather not employ re-treaded east-European web cam hostesses backed by Russian mafiosi etc etc ... the "creative" is long gone from SL and believe me the Lindens know it.


Bail ... bail, cash out and bail while you can.


Best regards ... wasn't it WC Fields who said;

"Never give a seeker an even break" ....?


Sachdev Saiman AKA Dave Smith

The original OI did have just a single path. The problem is that the OI designers are constantly weighing the risk of providing more and more help and teaching, with the risk of putting off people who aren't interested in learning.

The problem, to be very blunt, is that the kind of person who "can't be bothered" may actually be a better customer - because when there is something they want they are more likely to spend US$, instead of creating things themselves, finding other methods, or adapting (all of which would require bother) Thus, OI has to accommodate both those people, plus those who are genuinely interested in learning.

Sigh. What's really frustrating is that we've HAD this discussion a thousand times already.

At any rate, here are my 2 cents:
Firstly, everything that Lindal said, a few pages ago.

Secondly, as per the Infohub discussion, assign particular Mentors to particular OIs and/or Help Islands, give them ban/eject/freeze power in those sims only, so as to get rid of the eejits who give "friendship bracelets" to unsuspecting newbies.

Thirdly, shave down the OI. I've been through both the old path version and the new "crossroads" version. I personally preferred the path version, as it was made very clear as to which direction I should go, what I should do next, etc. Too many choices in the very beginning make people scared. In the best FPS games, your very first mission is to walk out the door and shoot a barrel or something, or pick something up, or whatever. It's not a freakin hour long (or more for some people!) tutorial that slogs and bogs and is generally pointless.

Get rid of the Editing Appearance section, or send it to the end of the line. It shouldn't be the first thing people do. It should be an aside, after walking, talking, flying, and teleporting.

Fourthly, after completing OI, give the newbies a choice of actions: "Hooray, you finished Orientation Island! Now, choose where to go next. Do you want to learn more about changing your appearance, editing objects? We'll send you to a Help Island where you can learn at your own pace. Do you want to meet people and talk to other users? We'll send you to [Insert randomly chosen helpful newbie place here] where you can learn about the social aspects of Second Life. Do you like to Roleplay? Here's a list of fun themed areas. Or do you want to spread your wings and start exploring right away? We'll teleport you to [a randomly chosen area], acclaimed by SL residents as a neat place to visit."

Now THAT'S the best idea I've ever seen. Oh, please say a Linden is reading. (>_<

I was lurking at this thread as a newbie and thought that, as a newbie, I could offer some insight. I will tell you that the first time I visited, after about a hour, I logged off and uninstalled the software. But I decided to try again the next day and I am so glad that I did.

I think that OI needs to be more organized. A newbie shows up and has no idea what is happening. I was not sure where to go or what to do. I explored some but was generally lost. I think that there should be fixed stations that teach the basics of SL. Kind of like a scavenger hunt. I did not know if I went through all the educational areas and had a hard time navigating. Perhaps lit floor arrows and numbers so newbies can 1)figure out where to go and what to do 2)they know if they have completed all the stations.

I agree with an earlier post that there should be an introduction to the point of OI is from the very beginning - kind of like a rundown before they even start.

Just my unsolicited 2c

Coco

Are the SL Public Works Sites being developed on Linden owned Islands that do not have any parcels sold to residents?

I believe retention can be achieved with full Linden Islands with builds developed by community residents and manned by Linden-approved community groups. Allow these groups to hold beginner classes right there at the rez point for anyone that wants them.

POSTIVE USE FOR BOTS: Set-up auto group- joiners so new players can join education groups, freebie delivery groups and social networking groups - instea of them flying around and getting tagged by Free Linden$ and nightclub groups.

Have official Mentor Groups supervise clusters of these Linden Welcome Islands. Provide a appreciation program for the Community Volunteer Groups.

Collar them.

I haven't been in world that long but the truth is i don't even remember how i got there. i DO remember ending up at a freebie place but i couldn't tell you how i got there. What sticks most with me is that outside the store i saw someone with a tag that read Guardian Angel and i started talking to him. I asked him all the questions i had...and i had to be inworld to know what to ask. I didn't know what to ask on OI..i had to be inworld to know the questions. I lucked out because he was part of a group called First Home, which has, sadly, disbanded. He took me to their house, gave me landmarks, information about SL, introduced me to more "angels" and then showed me how to make that my "home". and he said "if you have any questions, just type them in this window and someone will answer you."

what this experience did was that it made me feel part of a community right away. whenever i had a question after that, i had someone to ask. it was a safe place. it also gave me the courage to explore SL because I knew I had backup if i needed it. i consider myself very lucky to have had this help.

so...i guess my point is that its not enough to be there on OI..it is equally important to be visible and available inworld. its nice that NCI has the locations and helpers, but that means the new avatar has to first be able to find the NCI locations. that didn't happen with me for at least 2 weeks.

Now, whenever i meet a new person inworld, i always offer them friendship and tell them to message me with any questions. i keep them on my list till the questions die out. then i remove them and i consider that a success

what SL needs is more Guardian Angels INWORLD...someone who can answer questions as they come up. Someone who can tell newcomers how to look at their feet and see they're wearing two different pairs of shoes and how to fix that

You're lucky, Guardian Angel's around this place could have very well been a strip club.

I think the best thing would be to automatically include every new resident in a special tutorial group, with experienced volunteers/mentors/Lindens as group owners/members, talking to them, teaching them, answering their questions. After about 12-24 hours of ingame time, the newbie would be forced to leave the group and make way for others. Make several groups like that if needed. I'm sure there are hundreds of experienced players who would gladly join a group like that, just to help, but even if there are no veterans around, a few automated lines in group chat could encourage newbies to talk to each other, make friends, etc. (The most important thing is to make them active, like automatically ask them to say hello, maybe even introduce themselves in group chat, etc.) It's a lot easier to be patient if you're not alone.

An intro would be also very useful, especially if you combine it with the idea above. There are plenty of nice "home-made" videos around the net, promoting SL on Youtube, etc. Why not use the same method in-game? An intro could give the new ones some ideas about the things you can do, and also tell them to listen and learn from their instructors.

Oh, one more thing, make it mandatory for every newbie to fill some parts of their profile info, like what languages do they speak/understand for example. There's no use of teaching someone in english if he only speaks german. There are huge groups/communities in-game for those who don't speak english, an automated message in group chat could point them in the right direction - TPs to some german sims, profiles for some german groups for german speakers for example, etc. Obviously this has to be organized. Lindens should ask the leaders of those communities to help with this.

Wasn't Aleco looking for slaves in his profile? *giggles*

change exit sign on newbie orientation island to join main game

Lie to them.

Here’s my two cents about on this matter…

Most online games actually give you a some sort of tour before you actually play the real game just so you get an idea of how to get around and use your skills. For example, Lord of the Rings, has an area that you can partially complete before you move out into the real fighting world. In this area, they teach you how to get around, how to use your weapons, and then, when you think you are ready for the real online world, you leave. In Final Fantasy, your character watches a movie like skit and the area that you are rezzed or spawned in is explained to you. You are given directions as to where to go to get residence, where you can buy and sell items to make money, etc, and then you are set free to explore. In World of Warcraft, they place you in an area that is your level and then they tell you of the characters that can help you and of characters with markers over their heads that can aid you to your next task. You click on these markers and they give you a task to complete and tell you what your reward for completion of these tasks is. The Sims Online which is being taken offline (for I don’t know how long) also helps you in some way to guide you how to get around the area you have chosen to reside in, you are given a certain amount of Simoleans to survive on and then you are told how you can make your own.
What I am saying is each one has it own way of enticing the users to gain more knowledge about online system they have decided to enter and although they are not the same, the concept is similar and SL can learn from these.

Upon my learning of shutting down of Sims Online, I sought an alternative social networking group which I could utilize my growing 3D and programming skills and continue my social networking. My WOW friends spoke to me about SL and I decided to try it. I downloaded the software and installed it on my gaming computer, the first response to SL was (hmmm nothing). I read the directions and learned all of the things they had to teach on the island and that wasn’t bad. Once I learned the little they had to show me there, I wanted to know more, like how can I make money to move on. I was so used to having, at least some money provided, that I could not understand why they didn’t provide you with at least $L20, something. I was told that you don’t need money you can get the items you need for free.

I roamed around quite a while by myself discovering that SL was a very, for lack of a better word, “naked” place. It took me at least a week to figure out how to avoid those places, I finally met a very nice AV, (who looked fabulous by the way) and she asked me if I needed help, by that time, I pretty much learned the ropes myself and could honestly say no.

I learned by teleporting into to places I obviously did not mean to teleport into and reading and watching a lot online tutorials. I bought my first property when I was almost two weeks new and that was what kept me in SL. I have a beautiful beachfront property with great neighbors who stop by and chat when they are online. It’s a place of refuge when I tire of searching for new ventures, jet skiing, dancing and a place I can spend time learning to build, script, etc. without being grieved or hassled in any way, a place where I can unpack my new clothes and try them on without getting naked in front of everybody (lol – did that by accident once).

How to keep a newbie interested in SL? Learn from the most popular online games; see what they do to keep them and what they do to teach them how to get around in their online areas. The teaching part is important especially since most people want to jump right into the world without reading or anything. In addition, even though you don’t need money to buy things, I think that they should put some money in your AV’s pockets. I read this “How to earn L$ in Second Life” which I thought they should put on Orientation Island about making money so that some of the newbies could read it, you can check it out at /118/7b/121897/1.html. It may not prevent all newbies from wondering where their next SL Dollar is coming from but it will put their mindset in the right place, shake them into SL mode and get them started on the right foot.

1) One of the key needs for user retention is integration and buy-in to an online community. I would personally like to see an expansion of the infohub system that would allow similar communities to develop around various areas.

Scattering new players to the four winds is not going to be helpful -- one of the major complaints about SL is the vast emptiness. I frequenlty hear people that come to a place to chat just because they see "green dots" and we actually respond to them, offer them help, tell them how to obtain money, give them some things to do and places to visit, help customize the avatar, etc...

Yes, places where people attract griefers, spammers, and scammers, but that's part of any online community. That's part of life. One just has to find the proper balance between moderation and freedom for a place to flourish.

2) We need better redirection of non-English speaking new players to sims they can more easily communicate with others. I have landmarks to the Slovenian, Chinese, French, Brazillian, etc.. hot spots. But it needs to be done at a higher level than the new player infohub greeter. I noticed a few new help boards recently pop-up at some infohubs with direction, but there needs to be more of this.

3) If you want to increase the rate of retention, then make it harder for those who don't have the proper equipment set-up to get onto SL. In some, but not all cases, they should be totally blocked from signing into the grid. i.e. The person who I had last month trying to play from a dial-up connection. He was rather upset that he had boobs and kept asking what he could do to get rid of his Ruth-shape.




I don't think they need to be larger. I prefer the smaller, more intimate infohubs to Ahern and Miramare. For a P.O.V. of helping or even talking to new players, there are far too many new people rezzing into those places than can be easily dealt with.




Havok 4 killed the bug that caused the BJK to function. My AR's declined a lot after that was implemented.

As a somewhat new (returning player, who plays SL very rarely) I pretty much agree with this, especially Oryx's Steps 3 and 4. The beginning tutorials need to be on "train tracks" with few, if any, branching options and focussed on the basics, which is how to walk and talk, use the interface, etc. The interface is too cumbersome in SL to leave learning it to chance, and I'm a good example of that. Like I still keep trying to right click and hold to rotate my point of view, although I know that doesn't work in SL and I need to click on two different sets of camera buttons to achieve the same effect.

Rewards would be good to keep new players interested through the tedium of learning things like how to rotate the camera, and they don't need to be anything better than is already offered for free. (Don't give them a free library - make them earn it! That's something that us game players are used to doing, and have fun doing it.) For example, they should be taught how to open a box, and if they succeed, they should get something cool, and the next step would be how to "equip" it. A prim item, like hair, that doesn't quite fit, would be good for this, which would then lead into how to adjust it to make it fit right.

After the basics are covered, then provide branching choices depending upon the player's interests (which my husband and I call "breadcrumbs" in games - we play lots of games, enough to recognize the tactics to keep people playing). Such as improving appearance or how to build or how to use scripts and populate an AO with poses/animations they prefer. I don't know what happened to the Ivory Tower, but something similar should be provided by Linden Labs (i.e., follow the train track approach used in Ivory Tower with liberal in game representations of the different stages of the build project, with breadcrumbs sprinkled in), and should not be dependent upon other players generosity. There are two major paths to follow to make money in this game - offer your services (which often involve doing something icky) or build things for sale. LL should do everything it can to make sure that the latter is a viable option, because the first one is just not going to cut it for most people (camping worked fine only because you could do it afk - hardly a recommendation for fun, but that was good as it got for making money in this game and now it's pretty much dried up), other than building something and trying to sell it).

Because after wandering around and seeing the cool things that others have built, the only real fun thing to do is to build. Yeah, I know about the social parts of SL, but since I'm an MMO player who only plays SL occasionally, I just pretty much can't relate to the long term residents, except those who are interested in building. Yet building in SL is expensive if you only play occasionally (but that's another rant, although it goes to the heart of retention of people whose interests go beyond paper dolls and drama).

Edited note: Not meaning to sound "holier than thou". When I play SL anymore, I only shop - playing paper dolls - since building structures, landscapes, etc. is too expensive. And making personal items (clothes, shoes, hair, skin) requires too much investment in time and money in other programs (if I wanted to spend that much money, time and effort using other programs in order to have fun in SL - what do I need SL for exactly?)

(Was just informed that Ivory Tower is still there!)

This intrigues me. I have been in SL for about 2 years, and I tried Sims as well, but after I started in SL. While I was impressed with the much better quality of the starting avatar in Sims, I very quickly got totally frustrated with the whole thing, ended up tearing my hair out and swearing in the same way Sims do when they can't walk past the coffee table. I was frustrated by the difficulty of controling sims avatars compared with SL ones, and with the difficulty of making and creating content in Sims. I know its possible but I was never able to figure out how, whereas creating content in SL is comparitively easy.

So I'm very much the other way round - an established SL-er, tried Sims, didn't like it.

But SL is not a game.

One problem that we face is that people come into the world for a wide variety of reasons, and have as wide a variety of goals. Some people love love love the whole avatar customization thing, and happily spend hours when they arrive designing their bodies and basic clothing. (Sure, they'll throw that clothing away in a couple of days when they discover the better stuff that can't be made that way, but they still get a kick out of it, or at least I did.) Some people couldn't care less, and live as purple shirt girl or white T-shirt guy for a year. Some people want to meet new friends right away; others want to go out and build, and still others want to go out and blow things and people up, or get involved in a role play area.

It's hard to design an orientation experience that will make all of these people happy. The first group (design yourself) is actually served reasonably well now by the standard Linden Lab OI. For the second (the chatters) it's a roll of the dice; it all depends on who is on your OI at the time, and on Help Island or in the Welcome Area after you leave OI. The builders are probably bored silly on OI, but are in much better shape if they continue on to Help Island. The combat and role play people are more problematic; there is nothing in the orientation experience to please them. Unless they find a Mentor who can guide them in the right direction, or have mad computer skills and can tease the information out of Search (assuming they can even figure out how to use it), they are likely to leave Second Life.

Again, not all of these people are driven by anything like the sorts of motivations that are typical in games. The ones looking for social connection are likely to find all of your proposed exercises tedious; what you have to give them is PEOPLE, not things.



Doing these tasks in a game-like way will work for some residents, and I encourage people to design them. But that won't work for everybody, both because of lack of interest in some of the tasks and differences in learning style

Some of the things you are talking about (like adjusting prims) are handled really well in Torley's video tutorials, a resource that we should be making more of an effort to point out to newcomers. The only problem with the vidtuts is that there are now so many of them that we need a tutorial guide to the tutorials! That is, some way of giving people a clue about which tutorials might interest them and be of value to their Second Life.

An idea to help the language issue: When you join up and fill in your details and pick a name etc, it should be mandatory here to choose your preferred language. You would then be filtered to an OI and then a HI all in your own language, and Mentors who speak those languages would be able to assist more easily. The Mentor group channel is full of requests like "French-speaking mentor needed in OI34". But if there was "OI-French" and "OI-German" etc, then the mentors who speak those languages could always be in the right place. Residents could be provided with assistance, instructions and notecards in their own language.

The other problem is that some people race off of OI and HI without really paying much attention, so they miss the important things. It should be mandatory that you're not able to leave OI intil you've mastered certain key skills: walking around, flying, chatting, using Search and the map, and opening a box. I confess I was one of those people that didn't really pay much attention but I found it very easy to pick up anyway. I don't recall ever being taught how to open a box, but I must have figured it out fairly early on.

When I first joined SL, the OI was the walkthrough with the parrot, it took about 20 minutes (or more, depending how long you take playing with your appearance) and I personally think that it was much better than the way the OIs are now. Now people are presented with too many choices too early on and I think a single-path walkthrough would help eliminate a lot of confusion.