How to make newbies stay?

It's not? *blink*

That's really a semantics and perhaps even a philosphical issue, and although interesting to discuss, it isn't relevant to this thread, so as much as I would love to discuss, I'll refrain.

There's currently a lull in MMO(Massively Multiplayer Online) games, especially for those who detest player vs. player combat games. World of Warcraft dominates the genre, but it palls after a few years or so, and I know that I'm not alone in feeling that way.

MMO players who dislike PvP tend to enjoy character building, socializing and crafting. So SL theoretically should attract those who like MMO's, but detest PvP (although arguably, SL is intensely PvP, another interesting philospical discussion for another date.)

Yet it doesn't. As you noted, OI may be just fine for some types, but it's not been a raging success for others, who leave the game, err, whatever, in droves, despite the fact that it's free.

I'm having fun in SL, more so than my preferred game genre, but it's been a hard nut to crack. I spend a lot of time NOT playing SL in order to find fun things to do in SL, which is one of my pet peeves of games generally. There are a lot of great resources, but as it is now, there's not a lot of motivation given in OI to even bother.

Hence, my previous post.

As a long time ago new person.

I just wanted to get the ** off where I landed and sort my Avatar out and then explore.

Before Log In:

Upgrade Avatar Choice and agree with previous idea - 2 Avatars of around 18-25 age, 2 Avatars of 25-35 age, 2 Avatars of more mature age as sign up choices. Good skins, prim hair (for the love of god remove the current hair it still makes me ill) and one outfit with an AO that caters for walking and running and ability to fly.

Community. Allow the user to join a community during sign up on the website e.g. Music, Fashion, Business, Gaming, The Arts, etc etc. This community decides where they first rez and is staffed by mentors (can we trust them not to spam stolen content again hmmm I guess so) and upon their rez they are rezed in the area that is associated with their community choice. And don't be prudes - allow an "Adult Relationship" community selection.

First Rez:

Community Rez Point, will be hosted full time by greeters as stage 1 - general help and how to get started and stage 2 support mentors (stage 2 mentors will be expert users and have passed validation of their skills - I left mentors after the constant help the mentors themselves needed to use the interface - it was exhausting).

It will NOT have stupid obstacle courses that simply get you banging your head on your laptop, but content that the community will provide who specialize in those communities (come on Lindens you know we all contribute for free to this projects, we love them - give us more Mole names as we don't even want the free advertising - we do it because we love SL) that is associated. Get creative, think of sims like the Greenies which engage on that first experience - show the new user what Second Life really can be about.

First 30 days:

The rez point is still open to the avatar and potential thoughts for helping the user to been weened to mainstream groups associated to their choice (and also cross population, they might want to be part of Music and Business communities!) e.g FashCon style group (6000 users).


Key for me is:
Easy Sign Up
High End Choices - I really really don't want to wear that brown mullet you presented me with EVER again.
Integration into a community and shared interests with quality help on tap.

I volunteer to create a design community lol and I will work for free

A fresh, green newbee perspective.

First let me say that I'm 47 years old and never really played any computer games for any length of time at all, except for Sims 2 which me and my wife enjoyed for about 6 months.
I do 3D work in Lightwave in a semi-professional capacity.

The first online game I tried was a few months ago, a role-playing type populated with children. I think it was Runescape. Most of the converstation wasn't even game related but exclusively childish sniping and jibberish. It really turned me off and permanently left after 3 logins.

My wife and I watched an article about SL on TV- after enjoying Sims 2 for so long decided to check it out.

I did the usual registration proccess, chose my avatar and found myself dropped onto a sidewalk not knowing what was going on, except other folks milling about, seemingly just as lost as I was. There was nobody to help and after a while came across a little obscure sign that said the flashing red floor is a tutorial starting place.

Once given some kind of direction I was able to complete the tutorial which was helpful.

So ..... What to do now? I confusingly asked myself.
I clicked around and came across search - popular places and teleported.
There I landed at who knows where, this time without a single soul around, so I wandered around the place for a while before teleporting again several times to other locations.

I didn't know the community - if there were people they weren't talking and as far as I knew it was another childrens game so I just kept quiet like everyone else.

My wife had a very similar experience except that she has a very outgoing personality and springs converstation with anybody. She spends perhaps 12 hours a day for the last 4 days in SL, and learned quite a bit from other avatars.

I myself enjoy building things so I purchased a 512 land and work on it as a meeting place for my wife and both her real-life soon-to-be players and existing ones.

Which presents another challenge. There are a LOT of video tutorials out there which I've been immersed in but can't find one to show the basics of building windows and doors.
After 2 days of SL website tutorials and yahoo/google searching I posed the question on a different forum thread and was suggested to visit in-game classes and tutorials which I will definetly begin toninght.

Please take this post as constructive criticism, it's surely not a slam. The neccessary complexity of the different menus and game in general can be both intimidating and frustrating for the noob.

I'm not in a place to offer specific solutions, but for myself the biggest turn off was being tossed into a world and have to figure most everything out for myself with little help.

I can understand why many folks are dropped into my own experience and loose interest rather quickly. The first thing I thought when I found this thread is "A mentor? What's a mentor? It's the first time I've heard of it here at SL. Do they require L$, and how much?"

But despite the steep, sudden learning curve the game is definetly well thought out and enjoyable. I'm sure my wife and I will be residences here for quite a while and inviting our friends as well. She has family over seas and they always PM each other. It is easy to see all of us here in the near future.

They will have a better experience as we greet them and show them around in SL.

Zerock Parx
AKA Steve

To start... Welcome to SL! (^_^)y

And... Yeah... You advanced much faster than I did. I think it took me weeks to even chat with someone. When I finally did, it was to "shoo" that person off because I was still figuring things out. (=_=)

The controls and menus are wonky and do need improved documentation. Here I am, over a half year in, still saying "oh... That's what that does". (o.o)

I think that's all part of the open-ended nature of SL. Not only do instructions and tutorals require work, more work than most are willing to do. It also makes it difficult to really teach something without including a personal bias in your lesson. Really, if people came to me with avatar shape questions, the grid would be full of 4 foot tall avatars with sassy expressions on their faces. (=_=)*giggles* (^_^)

I'm guessing you've figured out who mentors are after reading this thread. I've noticed, so far, if someone can last more than about 3 months inworld without the desire to give-up... They're probably going to stay for a while. But I have seen that 1-2-3 month turnaround happen often. For me, it wasn't until 3 months that I actively started doing anything. It was only then that I started to practice building and such. (^_^)

As a response, I'm gonna shamelessly plug NCI.... Check it out in the Kuula region. It loaded with helpers (including myself) of many skill levels and understaings on how SL works. It was only when I found that place did my SL really start taking off. (^_^)y

Hi
Since 1996 I've been in several virtual worlds maybe 15 or more...
Where did i spent more time? In Activeworlds and SL
Why did i became addicted to Activeworlds because land was free and i had the chance to build.
LL should give 256 sqm for their first 30 or 60 days to new users.
Does not matter the size of the land it's the feeling of ownership it's something that they want to take care and make them return.
Nobody likes to be homeless they should have their own small land where they start and they go before close the viewer, their home.
Sound crazy for us but makes sense for them.
The new Avs are much better now, but none of them is sexy. The 1st physical impression is very important.
ok this is my contribution to this discussion

I still consider myself a noob, I've been in SL for about 4 months, but I still know very little and when I read the boards I often have no idea what people are talking about...but I work on a strictly need to know basis.

For me when I first entered SL it was very confusing, colliding around OI, not knowing where to go, no clear direction. I didn't see any mentors, just other new borns colliding around half naked.

I was lucky enough to have a good friend who had been around a few years, he took me out of OI, bought me skin, hair, AO and dropped me into the world, he then couched me.

It was awfully overwhelming, just learning to change my clothing, shop and open boxes. However, I caught on reasonably quick, search was pretty self explanatory as was the mini map and main map etc.

For noobs the basics are not straight forward, you pretty much just don't wanna look like a noob and that’s most people first objective - to denoob

the other problem is the technical issues, I only had 512 mb on my pc and couldn't understand why it took about 30seconds to walk one step. My friend advised me to up to at least 1gig......which solved that problem. Without him, I may well have given up on SL way back at the beginning due to sheer frustrations.

If you are not a technical person I think SL is a very frustrating place for noobs.

Could not agree more... Well said.

I'm a complete noob. I agree with Liralyn's post. As a former MMOG player who hated WoW, there's not much out there atm if you want more of a sandbox and no PvP. In the short time I've been in SL, I have spent a lot of time out of SL looking for things to do in SL and struggling with the interface. For me the interface is more jerky and awkward than the other online worlds I've been in.

I've had the same experience as Zerock: teleport somewhere and either find no one there or no conversation. I'm not one to start a conversation with people I don't know, which is my problem, but it makes it hard when you don't know anyone.

I wish that in the "spotlight" area on the web (or whatever it is called), they spotlighted several (more than 4) places for noobs and that there was noob section in the ingame search that listed some areas. I know there's a "newcomber friendly" parameter for searching, but if you don't know what to search for it isn't that helpful. I also wish the current spotlight section spotlighted more areas and that the content changed daily. I'm sure there's enough stuff in SL to do this, even if I haven't found any of it.

I think a huge help would be for each of us to welcome a new one at least every month or two. Take them around, explain how things are done, where to go...places they can go to like the Shelter where they can ask a hundred questions and get answers for 98 of them. Then be generous and give them 20L....show them where the decent free areas are, show them how to buy...etc. Maybe take them around diff clubs, explain how to get a job, the ups and downs of that versus just putting ten dollars of rl money, which is what I usually suggest anyway. If we each do our part...and ask in return that the person we helped, do the same for another new one...well, it would make for a better SL for all. I've done this myself countless times...a few have remained on my friend list...some have gone on, and made friends of their own. Just a thought, besides...it feels really good to know you've helped. I dont need a mentor badge to do this, I do it because it feels good and that is reward enough for me.

Another 'newbie' here, although I did join once before a couple of years back and lost interest almost immediately when I felt like I was far FAR too clueless to leave Help Island, but there was no more help left to be had. This time round I have been far more resilient and actually did venture into the map and clicked on a pink star (then spent the next two hours trying to work out how to remove "I love freebies" from above my name, LOL).

Only yesterday I came up to the box problem - speaking of freebies. I did figure it was something - not clothes, more like advertising because it was a box, not a "shirt" or "pants". Anyway, then I found out through here (first couple of pages) that these boxes can be open, but there was no explanation. I went through the knowledge base, and the wiki - still none the wiser. I came back to this thread and kept reading. Someone mentioned NCI. Tried the map search (didnt know about event search) and came up with nothing. Thankfully someone mentioned one of the islands they are on. Quick teleport and bugging some very friendly helpful person later and I can now open boxes and my Avatar is not as horrid as it was before.

Now I believe if I give myself a small SL allowance, I should be right. This thread has been exceptionally helpful.

However, thats out here - and I only found it because forums and the like interest me more than scare me. I had no idea where to go inworld. Whats really unhelpful is not really having a separation between the public areas and private properties on the map. I mean you could use the green dot population, but If you arent here to play mummy and daddy with your new barbie doll, then its not always the best idea, lol.

Definitely believe that there needs to be some recognition by LL of the good reputable helper groups and teleport links to their islands from both OI and help - or landmarks are good too. Can use it as a teaching exercise on how to use them.

Just my two cents.

I need help navigating

I suggest new citizens be given a choice of gender segregated OIs.
I suggest that a "culture shock" orientation piece be added to the OIs.

I love the idea of choosing a group to join when you first make an account and think it should be mandatory when signing up for the game. I am very new to SL and after the starter tutorials when you first log in I was completely lost and didn't know what to do. I had no idea what SL was about, except you could edit an avatar, fly and chat with people from all over. While flying is awesome, it isn't enough to keep the majority of virtual chatters interested. When I first started exploring, all I saw was a large amount of clothing shops with prices that I just new I could never afford (to us noobies, 100 L$ is A LOT of money). Luckily I met people that gave me all sorts of things like tutorials, clothing, notes full of free clothing shops, and just good information to help get my second life going. To force new players to choose a group before they even enter the SL worlds, in my opinion, would resolve a huge amount of that 'omg I have no idea what I'm doing' feeling and keep more people interested in learning what SL is all about. I have made SL sound like a simple virtual chat here only because to a large amount of new people (including myself when I first started out), thats exactly what it is. I know better now (thank the SL Gods lol).

I also think it would be helpful to add some of the note cards/folders that have been made and passed around. Such as the SL's Angels Information Notecard (contains many freebie & low budget clothing shops) and the Educational Landmarks folder (obviously contains educational landmarks haha). Why not incorporate this stuff into the beginner tutorials?

Still thinking about this... my friend Jackson had a great idea!

A separate grid for new users and mentors? Where everything is free. Where choices and options and interactions limited to reduce both client performance requirements and confusion. The growth opportunity here would be a lot like how AOL made the internet accessible to a whole new group of users. Perhaps make a premium account a requirement to enter the main grid.

Having been around for just over 12 months now, it think a noob pack would help. Lets say some lm's to "good" free stuff not the crap that most places have.

Also have a noob island, where thay can live, lets say for a month into their new life and not have to pay anything.

They can learn to live, explore, work etc. Geez most places won't employ some ppl till they are 30 days old for that very reason, that they just dont know whats going on.

LL can open up as much as they want with the stroke of a key for that purpose.

This is essentially what Help Island was designed to be - although if you insist that "everything must be free", the range of content available will be much less (since after all, we can't force people to make content).

The problems basically come down to the fact that the population is split between the two grids. In other words, a newbie arrives on one grid, but can't find the group/community/content they're interested in because it's on the other one - so they don't find it, and leave.

just a thought here but if im right SL put out a lot more back a few years ago. Well now there up and running even been on TV. There making there money Free land has stopped and they give every few L away.
But what if Linden lab were to reward for teaching new people very basic things not a lot more then is paid for camping just enough to get a fairly new person to take on the job so that as soon as you get to SL and land theres someone who is there greeting you and willing to show you some basics
I to was lost at first but was lucky enough to have a friend in world to help me. to bad i didn't even know how to get them there bonus for bringing me here at that time.
everyone comes out ahead you can make a little money new ppl learn a few things and maybe upgrade there account . that would help SL

My reason to upgrade was to get to these forums. its rather sad that all cannot see them only paid users.
That to me says something about LL.
After all what do you hear a lot from new ppl (how do I make money here) and yet the help wanted forum has 11 pages right now with most showing 0 response
So you find a lot of new folks sitting in camp sites with no interaction at all when they could be helping a newer person find freebies point them to groups and get them started out in SL at least you wouldnt feel so alone when you get here
This is not intended to any sort of put down
For all I know mentors may be paid if so thats good where do i sign up.
Thats not greed I would rather help than camp

Billybob,

Mentors are not paid (darn it!). But we do provide just the service that you suggest.

LL did actually used to pay Instructors - although it wasn't just for greeting people, it was for running education events.

And as usual - it was ruined by people cheating. Meet up with 10 buddies and just chat, but you'll all tell the Lindens it was a class, right, buddy? Next week _you_ can be the "instructor"!



That's because most people respond in-world to those ads.