Welcome area - what can we do about it?

One of the biggest things that concerns me about new players is the Welcome Area.

They've gone through all the orientation and help, and are ready to teleport to the mainland..... woohoo the excitement mounts.

They land....... there's people everywhere! Wonderful!

But.... they're all silent. Just standing there, not saying a word, not responding.

Sound familiar?

So many people seem to hang around the welcome area for absolutely no reason except to 'show off' their latest purchase, avatar, skin, clothing, bling, weapon, hair, whatever.

As things rez, the first thing the new player notices is...... everything is soooooooooo slow. Then they start to try and say hello to all the people nearby.... but nobody responds.

So people hit the mainland and see lag, and people mostly ignoring them. Is that really such a great introduction to the game?

Whenever I've met a 'greet', I tend to whisk them away to somewhere like Clementia Park where it's far less laggy and frankly more pretty to see, and teach them simple navigation, flying, tracking, mini map, making a friend, then find to teleport to a sandbox of their choice to teach how to rez and item and basic prim manipulation, and such on my "basic introductory programme". Finally I give them a heap of landmarks of great newbie places, and it they feel confident to proceed, off they go, knowing I'm only a PM away (having, of course, been taught how to use the Friend list).

I know some people have a genuine reason for loitering at the welcome area, and of course many greeters/mentors/live help will be around there..... but is there any easy way to improve the welcome area experience by removing the corpses?

Lewis

Wow. I have issues with the WA, but not as you've described it. I usually see a ton of people engaged in what, to me, is utterly inane conversation. I haven't noticed people ignoring. The few I have, if you check, are usually quite new and still getting their bearings. I am usually there on weekends though, when I am logging in as my group's financial control alt.

Recently, the new users I've met have been bursting with joy at how nice people have been - chit chatting with them, giving them free goodies, answering questions, etc.

I don't doubt your assessment, but I am truly concerned that people need so much help to get in gear. Does all the orientation do them no good or are they skipping it? Are they new to gaming and/or computing? Just lazy? I realize there are some things that are not intuitive, but IM, Friends List, Mapping, etc. seem fairly basic.

Oh, well. My extreme lack of patience and inability to relate is why I don't mentor or hang around the n00bs offering to help. I might ruin SL for them before they got a chance.

I think that the biggest structural problem with the WA is that is is automatically "home" for all landless newbies that have passed Orientation and/or Welcome Island and it stays that way. A more approprite name might be "Homeless Area".

This "clutters" up the WA with a quasi-nomadic group who haven't found a better place to log into.

I think it would be better to auto-home newbies to a random info-hub which would disperse them and give them something other than sandboxes as far as the eye can see to draw them away from the fountain.

This could not be hard to implement.

Just FYI. That isn't the WA any longer.

Hmm? What do you mean by this?

Since the introduction of the Help Island, theres no need for a Welcoming Area, therefore the lindens should really re-name to fit its purpose better or what not. The Help Island took its place.

The majority of newbies do NOT go to Help Island though -- they head straight for the mainland.

Therefore the Welcome Area is still in many ways the "Welcome Area".

Yes, but when I'm there, I rarely see a newbie pass by. So, where else are they going? Obviously not ahern/morris.

I assume they wander off into the neighboring areas after they're ignored by the people who usually hang around there, or log off because they can't move.

Not our problem. The Lindens obviously don't care, so not much to worry about it.

Anyway. The people who just sit there don't have to be doing anything productive, or nothing at all. We're not required to do anything in Linden provided land. That's already taken care of in the Help Island. So I honestly don't see what the argument is here other than people complaining about other people as usual.

Perhaps that's because you aren't a Greeter?

As I see my role as greeter, it's not a case of meet them once, show them a few things then forget about them. I let them know that any time they have a problem they can message me, and if I'm not online, how Live Help works. So I would disagree that WE (as greeters) aren't supposed to do anything in particular in Linden provided land. Frequently I have had messages from my 'greets' perhaps several days after I first meet them, asking things that to me or you may seem fairly basic, but as newbies they haven't figured it out yet.

I can get 20 fps at home or in quiet areas. When I hit the Welcome Area I am lucky to get 5 fps because of all the lag caused by the bling and stuff from people who loiter there. Maybe it doesn't bother you, but I'd rather like people's first impressions of SL to be positive - and if they are getting the same fps as I am, it does not give a terribly good impression. That's why when I greet someone I whisk them away from the welcome area as soon as I can to teach them the basics that they need to know. They'll end up at the WA next time they log in so it's not like they're losing out on anything.

Lewis

You say that as if it is a Bad Thing.

Maybe also non-new residents without land could get to choose a home location from any info-hub.

Since most newbies don't go through Help Island, I think anyone with an avatar less than 2-3 weeks old should be allowed to teleport to HI. Say, someone blows through orientation, lands in the Welcome Area, then sees a sign saying "Want to learn more about SL? Click here to visit Help Island, the premiere place for new users" or something like that, and voila, they get a second chance to get what they missed the first time. I think this would be a huge help for new users.

New Citizens Incorporated offers a "Home Location"--a way for a landless new player to set their home spot to NCI, and avoid the Welcome Area. To do this, they need to join the "NCI Homeowners Association" group (open enrollment) and then go to the 48m2 patch of land just beyond the arch over the entrance to NCI park, between the two rows of ferns (there is a sign), and set their home location here.

I've noticed myself an increase in lag in the WA. Since then I've been around it maybe once or twice.

It didnt seem as bad when I joined either.

by welcome area, you mean where? i immeadeatly went to the sandbox , didn't even go through tutorial island.. and look how well i turned out

...I do have strong opinions on the welcome areas. I think these are some of the least welcoming areas in SL. They appear to be the equivalent of those places in town RL where all the dropout teenagers sit and smoke and swear and poke fun at passers-by.

I think that both help island AND the welcome areas should be available to new players for the first month, and after that there ought to be a number of home areas for people who haven't found an alternative by the time they reach their first month's anniversary.

The welcome area goes through phases, as far as I can see. Sometimes it is so lively that anyone new gets jumped on and may feel intimidated by the number and aggressiveness of the people there...on other occasions it is soo quiet that they may well feel they have dropped into Zombieland...or that they are being ignored. I have been to the Welcome area as a Mentor and said hello several times without getting any response...which I don't recall happening anywhere else in game.

The other aspect of the hangers-on in the Welcome area is that only a small proportion of the people there appear to want to help people coming into the game. Mostly, as has been said, they have their own reasons for beng there, whether to show off their stuff...to find people to talk to...to intimidate new people...to take people to their land or join them to their group.

I think it would be great to restrict welcome areas to those who are less than a month, and mentors/greeters/livehelpers/lindens, and then to have gathering points around the grid, where people with similar interests can gather. These need not be Linden-supported, it could be an informal list...although it would be great if they WERE Linden-supported.

I'm thinking you could have a reflection of the forum threads...a building gather point, a design and textures gather point, a scripting gather point, a games gather point...then people who had been more than a month would be able to set their home point to a place where hopefully, people who are interested in the aspect of SL which most interests them, are likely to be.
Cali

I wonder whether that's the key to what to do with all the old telehubs/infohubs? It also might help those who lost out on land value - people selling scripts, for example, would want prime land around the Scripting "social area", those selling clothing would want to set their store around the Clothing "social area" etc etc etc.

Lewis

I suggested this very thing when the big p2p drama first came up. Demolish the WA and when a new resident is ready to move to the mainland they have an option of 6 Info Hubs in either PG or Mature for their first rez in-world. That Info Hub becomes their home unless they set it otherwise.

The options presented would look something like:

Isabel Info Hub (Mature) shopping & nightlife
Stillman Info Hub (PG) exploring & shopping


Each Info Hub should have the same kiosks available at the WA, although I would take them up 3 high as to conserve space. I would also designate a "Helper Info Hub" on private land where those who want to lend their services can congregate. Putting this on private land would enable an owner to ban individuals at their discretion who are making trouble. I think an awful lot of us would be more than happy to donate 512m to this cause and have traffic payments disabled. Or the Helper Info Hub could be set to a non-profit existing facility such as NCI or Yadni's.

Alternately, "homing" new residents at Help Island for their first month is also an excellent idea, they can leave anytime they like but will always rez-in at the HI hub for their first 30 days.

a lot of the lag in the WA is to do with Video lag.. its the corner of for sims.. I assume that slows lots down.. I have met some of my best SL friends in the WA and see it as a great meeting spot for people to hang out.. its a natural meeting point.
lots of people hang there and help new residents.. I myself give out clothing and items I built to interested residents new and old..

go to the wa on a saturday morning when its near empty.. you'll see its still slow!
Stop complaing lewis.. seems to be all you do >.>

There are several points I would like to say that I agree with in this thread. First is the p2p issue. Socially, the changing of the hubs over to p2p has hurt sl in the manner that people just don't get to meet each other as easily anymore. In the old way, you had a chance meeting as you tp'd in and now if you want interaction, you have to go seek it. You have to physically go somewhere and assert yourself in a manner that will get people to talk to you and some of us just aren't capable of that. We need the old hubs back. Also, the fact that there is really only one functioning WA now also hurts SL. I came in world at waterhead and now when I go there it's a ghost town. Why can't there be like 3 areas that alternate on where the newbies are sent? It will create a situation where 1) there aren't so many people in one sim, in fact if I'm in a sim that goes down it's 9 times out of 10 the wa sim, and 2) more people are spread out a bit and make the wa's less threatening to a new person. There are way too many people just hanging in the wa's just playing and it's not only distracting but irritating to have all these non helpful people around. As far as Einsmans statement, I have no idea what he means about never seeing a newbie there. I totally disagree with that as I see them all the time. I am always greeting a new person on that day with a hearty 'Happy Birthday, so and so! Welcome to Second Life!' and that right there always starts a conversation because newbies don't view this as a birthday. lol. The wa's, I definately agree, should not be allowed to be set as 'Home' by non land owning people. It just creates too much traffic through the wa's for no reason. There were a lot of good ideas posted in this thread. lets see how many of them we can get implemented. Thats also what the voting system is used for. Go use your votes and start some great ideas.

I'm not sure I understand this argument that there's "too much traffic" in the WA and access should be restricted. A year ago, maybe, but that argument was answered with the creation of Help Island, which offers a coddled, restricted-access introduction to the game for those who want one. The Ahern WA functions quite well as a neutral social hub for those who don't yet know whether they want to go to the BDSM Bar, the Bling Palace, or the Furry Rave, or just sit in a corner and build. There are often a couple of volunteers, titled or not, on hand, and at least a couple unanointed but nevertheless helpful residents for those who still need a little guidance. I take most of my Greet tours through the WA and let them know that it's one place they can set home. As for those times when it's less active, there are few places in SL that are active 24/7, and those mostly sell sex and/or gambling. Newbs will find these places soon enough on their own.

Im sorry that you see my "concerned and wishing to enhance the overall initial game experience for new players" attitude that way.

I'm trying to do something about it... what are you doing?

Lewis (WWID)

Is that such a bad thing? After all, how many things in real life are open 24/7?

I would personally rather go to a particular spot at a certain time because there's an event on and I know people will be there, rather than just to hang out there all the time.

Lots of people seem to pick one particular place - such as a club - as their 'home' and just spend all their time using the game as a big chatroom, and missing out on so much of the SL experience. I encourage newbies to explore and find loads of different places - and many of them do, and I believe they get a more enjoyable gameplay experience out of it.

One of the greatest attractions of SL, in my opinion, is the creativity of build from many players. Sitting inside a dark club that is nothing really more than a huge box with a few disco lights and scripted dancers wriggling round a pole, watched by afk campers, isn't really the most life-enhancing experience.

This also partly solves the 'dwell' problem, where a tiny number of places are considered 'the best' but actually dont' deserve it in the slightest, because popularity should not be based on how much money you have to bribe people to sit on your lot for hours on end.

Lewis (WWID)