Top 5 Tips for the Newly Born

Being someone that has been here for a week, i had no idea what was going on really and was nearly ready to give up.
I met a great person that saw me struggling and they helped me out and took me to their island, thats my home now and i can settle into meeting new people as well from all over. It only takes one person to make or break the experience.

Ive learn t heaps from your tips.
Thanks
T

Yes, some people in SL actually choose not to build or script or create marvelous things. Just like in RL. Some people choose to work in clubs as dancers and DJ's. If you're having fun in a club, please consider giving them a reasonable tip. Usually the club owner cannot afford to pay them a decent hourly wage, so your tips can help pay their tier.

I need help. I can find a single thing, anywhere, that addresses this. How in the world do you start your own business. What do I need to know? Where can I go to find answers?? (Since the 1.18.0.6 update, I can't even get to Help Island or Orientation Island). Please, someone give me something!

This is not intended to be a smart-a** reply.

In short, make something.
[1] Build something, if you don't know how, take a class thru Teasers University or Academy of Second Life or one of the other fine groups that help new players by teaching them certain basics. Be Creative. If you make a house, consider that a thousand other people have made one before you. What will make your's special enough to entice someone to buy it?

[2] Don't want to build? Learn to script. (see above learning institutes.) Good Scripters are in high demand. That said, for every GOOD scripter there are a hundred poor ones; ones who take the fast and easy path... and create a script that while it works, is also a lag fest.

[3] don't want to learn to script? Learn to animate. Buy a copy of Poser, or some other animation program (all external to SL). The Learning curve here is high. Create a new animation and upload it. Keep in mind the same thing... Hundreds of competing animations out there, and sex animations have been done to death. You'll need to come up with something unique to entice a buyer.

[4] Don't want to learn to animate? Get a copy of Photoshop or some other graphics program capable of handling the Targa graphics format. Either [A] learn to use it and create new textures with it. There are tens of thousands of textures in SL, so be creative. Be advised that your textures probably will be stolen by someone with no talent to create them on their own, but with a talent for theft. With textures, you have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the new Sculpties. Alternatively, use your textures to become a clothing maker, and again creativity counts.

[5] Create gestures. They're easy to do.... BUT you're up against some heavy established competition. Kurt Ludd springs to mind. One of the best if not THE best gesture maker. As a new gesture maker, you're trying to cut into his market share. Creativity counts again (notice a central theme here?), if you want to get a customer to buy from you instead of him or one of the other gesture makers.

[6] Make sounds. 16mhz, WAV format, no longer than 9.9 seconds, yadda yadda. You'll have to do this externally and upload them to SL... at 10L per upload. Interesting market here because so few do it. Creativity counts. Gesture makers use sounds in their gestures, so that is a potential market.

[7] Real estate. You'll be looked down on, cursed, called a land baron or worse. Oh, you'll also need a big pile of RL cash for seed money.

[8] I hesitate to mention this last one because if you've said no to all of the above, it's about the only thing left. Sell yourself. Sadly, there is a market for this in SL.

Okay.... now you've got a product to sell (object, script, texture, yourself, whatever).
Find a place to sell it. Rent a booth in a mall, or a store front. Buy your own land. Or, even just simply list it on SLExchange or SL boutique. Without some way to get your product to your customer, you won't make any sales unless it's in person.

Advertise it. If no one knows it's out there, no one will buy it. 'Nuff said. If it's good enough, word of mouth will spread. Example: Cubey Terra's aircraft. Even folks who don't have any of them (me) have heard of them, because they are so well made.

Related to this is the advice to take pride in your work, whatever you create. It'll show. If you make some half-a** piece of trash to make a quick L$, that'll show too. Given the choice between a higher priced quality product and a cheap low quality one, i'll buy quality every time. I believe most folks feel the same way (not all, just most).

There are no forms you need to fill out, fees to pay, taxes, etc (uh oh.... I probably just gave the Lindens some ideas). Just make your product, set it for sale, & tell folks about it.

I hope this has helped you a bit, and good luck with your future business.

Hi. May I please copy and paste that into a notecard for newbies. That's a great summarized recipe and really needs to be out there. Thanks for doing that.

Help yourself. This is after all a sticky thread, open to the public, not a private conversation; Any noob who navigates here and reads this thread (and they should for all the helpful posts everyone has posted here over time) would read the same thing.

Big tip that I just learned... Read the forums.. and find yourself taking notes like I just did.

wow thanks soooo much for this post

i've been visiting SL for about a month and a bit now and have just signed up properly yippeeeee i'm still very much trying to find my way around tho and have soooooo much to learn.
this post is a great tool for a newbie like me tho
thank you thank you thank you
valla

LOL! If I'd seen this thread on Saturday, I wouldn't have spent half my Sunday bumbling around SL. D'oh! I touched something on Help Island, and found myself in an area with a floating mall, a bunch of shops, almost no people, and a reset Home. And freaking out because I didn't have Prim hair! I was lost, and half the areas had No Entry barriers, and no one seemed to want to talk.

This weekend, it'll be the Ivory Tower and the Junkyard for me.

On that note ... outside of this thread, what path IS there for a newbie to take? I know there's Help and Orientation Island, but I for one didn't find any sort of "Here's 5 places to go next" guide or anything, and the people I talked to were as new as I (and the few helpers I saw were handling lines of people).

This is such a great thread! Can I just post a few of MY personal peeves...

- DON'T JUMP ON POSEBALLS WITH PEOPLE!!! I build all the furniture for my house because I have VERY unusual taste in decor and there's nothing out there that suits me. So I have to shop for animations quite often. I HATE when I'm in a store looking at animations to put into my creations, and I'm TESTING a couples pose fully clothed, and some naked noob interprets that as an open invitation for public sex. That's just ugly and rude... stay off poseballs unless invited. Animation shops are NOT sex clubs.

- READ THE RULES AT CLUBS, OBEY THEM, AND LISTEN TO WHAT PEOPLE ARE TELLING YOU. I work club security and management, and you would NOT believe how many noobs waltz in naked with bewbs or prim-c*ck hanging out and jump on the poles, silently ignoring our warnings to please put some clothes on and get off the stage. Jumping on a pole at a well-established strip club WILL NOT GET YOU LINDENS... it will get you un-sat from the pole, thrown out, and BANNED amid comments of "Gee, he/she sure was rude." If the club is girls-only or guys-only, please respect that as well; such rules were made for a reason and if your avvie is the other gender, they aren't welcome. DON'T lip off at the 8-foot-tall guy in black looming over you, the one who's wearing the shirt that says SECURITY. He may not be carrying any visible weapons, but chances are he's more well armed than you, his shields are up, and he has friends. Your newbie cage gun is not going to stop you from being giggled at and then tossed out of that place like a Frisbee.

- DON'T SHOVE PEOPLE AROUND. Doing it once is a simple mistake, and an "excuse me" may be in order. Most people consider shoving rude and inappropriate. If you do it to me, I'll use a script to movelock (which prevents you from pushing me off the edge of something) and go about my business. Keep pestering me and you're asking for trouble. Shoving doesn't get you attention, it doesn't get you lindens, and it doesn't get you sex. It gets you abuse reported, because if you show up enough times in my Pushes and Hits window, I can send that little screencap to the Lindens and let them deal with you.

- PROFILES ARE YOUR FRIENDS. USE THEM. Read them, write in them, comment if you see a cute one! I have info in my profile; whatever you need to know about me, which I'm willing to share, anyway, is in there. If you read my profile you'll learn that I'm a builder and amateur SL photographer, I have a livejournal that you can read, I'm a pretty funny guy, and I'm not really interested in anonymous sex or sharing RL (real life) information about myself, but I'm fairly open to making new friends and socializing with decent people in SL. Look at people's picks because a lot of times they put their info in there, and also recommend their favorite hangouts. And fill out your profile too! Blank profiles tell me you don't care about the game and I'll likely ignore you. Think of your profile as your introduction to the SL world at large. Many of us DO check profiles before initiating a conversation, and I've met some of my best friends in SL by reading a cute or funny profile and telling its owner that he or she has a great sense of humor.

- MOST OF ALL, KEEP AN OPEN MIND... Even the freakiest-looking avatars have real, live humans "driving" them. Don't be afraid to talk to someone who looks a little strange... some of my best friends in SL are odd creatures. You'll meet furries, punks, goths, centaurs, mermaids, insects, robots, and even cartoon characters. Don't be rude to someone just because of how they are "dressed". SL is an environment that fosters creativity, so why go with boring old Plain Jane avvies if you don't want to? Don't be afraid to live a little, and to let others enjoy their Second Life too.

In that same vein, I'm going to say what so many others have said and TRAVEL OFF THE BEATEN PATH. Take a walk or a slow fly across a mainland... yeah, there's lots of ugly spinning signs and advertising riff-raff, but in between the abandoned casinos and empty strip joints and porn shops that litter the landscape, you'll often find a lovely garden, beautifully styled neighborhood, or quaint cathedral or something else incredibly imaginative and cute. If the owner has a mailbox or answering machine, leave a message telling them you liked it. Take pictures of the interesting builds you see! Learn to take good pictures. (But don't take pictures of avvies in "private moments", thank you!) Make landmarks for the places you'd like to return and visit.

And freebies! Go through them, dump the junk, and keep the good stuff. Some of my favorite scripts that I use to this day are free ones. I'm currently assembling a freebie "survival" kit and when it's done I'll drop it at my house (which is open to the public, I'm one of those who doesn't mind visitors dropping by as long as they respect my neighbors' privacy) so that anyone stopping by can get a flight feather, visitor counter, a few low-lag scripts that I made, a message-taker, and a couple of other things I've found on my travels that I've found useful.

Overall, be kind, be courteous, be respectful, and please help yourself (the F1 key is YOUR FRIEND) but don't be afraid to ask questions if you get stumped! I sure wish I'd read these forums as a newbie... I think my SL "breaking-in" would have gone a lot more smoothly if I had!

There's not really a path. After Help/Orientation island, you're welcome to jump off into the world and there you are, wandering around. SL has no real "direction" to take. It is whatever you decide to make it.

May I recommend New Citizens International... they have classes there for new residents, and discussion forums are going on all the time. Ivory Tower is good if you want to pick up some building skills. If you want to make money, keep in mind that the GOOD employers generally want you to have a month or so in-game first.

You don't need lots and lots of lindens to have a good time or learn things. I had a "newbie" avatar for MONTHS... during that time I just wandered around, read helpful articles, made friends, learned the "system", and taught myself how to build. Take a few weeks to learn what's what before buying a bunch of stuff or trying to get rich. Second Life has its own economy and culture, and like anything, you need to know it before you can make it work for you.

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cant believe linden lab not allowing me on cause i was that short on my account to cover my land fees =))

Here a a few tips for the New SL dude or dudess on the block:

1. Don't offer Friendship to another person until you've had at least a good, meaningful conversation with the person. Now, I'm certainly not offended if someone I don't know offers friendship; I take it as a compliment--because it is. However, if we've barely exchanged a sentence between us, then it makes no sense.

2. When you're ready, rent a nice dwelling for at least a period of time, and try it out. Having your own place opens up a whole new SL world for you. You now have a place to bring friends, change clothes, and most importantly explore your creativity and imagination as you furnish your new place. In fact, shopping or searching for just the right table lamp, rug, TV, piano, dog, pictures, bed, etc. is a lot of fun for many people.

3. Keep coming back to this Resident Answers forum. I learned far more here than anywhere else. Many helpful, kind people peruse this forum who are apparently quite happy to help a fellow resident in need. At the same time, try to ignore the few boneheads on this forum who are "forum griefers" who enjoy being ingorant or condescending to others.

4. Don't try to restrict yourself at all times to having a particular SL persona. Just go with the flow as you "build" and clothe your avatar. Although we make many conscious decisions in how we decide to present ourselves to the SL world, I think many of our decisions come from the sub-conscious as well. I had no idea that I would "end up" the way I am. . .at least not completely.

5. Be careful with heartfelt emotions in SL. You may be amazed how much you can care for someone as time goes on even though you haven't even seen the person's RL photo or talked to the person on the phone. Further, the person you care about may be partnered or soon will be, even though he or she never told you. Of course, this stuff happens in RL, too, but it seems this type of dishonesty may be more rampant in SL.

Avanti

Hello Colette,

I am very curious: How can someone find out the places another person has visited in SL? I had not idea this could be done.

Thanks,
Avanti

1. If something strange happens, bug report is in the tools menu, at the bottom.

2. Bug reports only there to make you feel better. Resources are not spent on fixing bugs, but on creating features nobody asked for, like voice, windlight, and sculpties.

3. Don't look around. If you look around, all you will find is sex and malls. Not so long ago you'd see casino's too, but Linden Labs is slowly banning all the fun stuff.

4. Use search if you don't know where to go. Just use keywords that have to do with your interests, and use that to find places you want to check out. If those keywords are "sex" and/or "shopping" then you might as well just close search and fly forward, you'll bump into something any moment.

5. Run while you still can.

Here's my two cents worth:

1. Go to classes - I have found them invaluable and have learned so much. When you log in to SL, open your search window and search 'Events' for education. Then click 'notify' on all the classes that you think might be of interest to you. Some have cover charges but most are completely free and all class materials are supplied. You'll come away with new skills and maybe some new friends also.

2. When shopping, look around and then look around some more. Using the search window and visiting each place really pays off. Comparing prices and shopping around is a great habit to get into. I have seen a set of items being sold for 1600 in one place, and the very same set of items being sold for 50L$ in another place, so it really pays to shop around for the best prices.

3. Search the web! You'll find many resources which could be helpful to you. Use whatever key words you want. It may lead you to exactly what you need, tutorials, resources etc.

4. Join other SL related sites, post your profile and let yourself be known. Sites such as www.flickr.com allow you to open a free account, post your profile and pics, join SL related groups etc. You'll get to meet people who share your interest in SL and make some friends in the process.

5. Keep your inventory organized - you'd be surprised at how out-of-control it can get. Don't go grabbing every possible freebie you can just to have in in your inventory. Be choosy about what you accquire. Go through it once a week or month etc and sort through it. Using subfolders is a great way to keep organized. Also, you can use a simple prim to store other things, to reduce clutter.

Well, that's it from me!

At the risk of making people dislike me, I have to say that I found the many How to Behave posts a waste of time. SL is no different than any other website or online area - or RL - in this respect. People know how to treat other people. Those who choose to behave badly are going to do so even if they read these posts.

I also wish people wouldn't repeat the same thing five times, like "Explore." That tells me is you feel strongly about something, but it doesn't really inform me. As someone else said, explore where? How about listing five good spots instead? (And thanks to those who did list some good places!)

I've been here for just over a month now, and am still very much a newbie. I was thrilled to find this thread, but I opened it for tips on doing things in SL. The few solid tips are just great, but I really had to dig through the thread to find them.

<End of vent>



Okay... could someone tell this noob what a flight feather is and how to get one? I know how to fly, so I'm wondering what this adds to regular flying?

Here are my tips (more than 5), maybe not unique, but they've been very useful to me:

1. There's a newbie question session every Saturday night at 6:00 p.m. SL time (that's 9:00 for us RL East Coast folks), given by NCI (New Citizens, Inc.) in the auditorium on Usability Island. It's the only one I know of.

2. Ways to check yourself out:
a. Stand on a posing stand. This lets you see your avatar from the front, with arms out. you can't edit appearance while on the stand, but you can always get back on after making your changes. Help Island Public has posing stands to use in the freebie store, and you can get your own for free in various places. Mine is from ASL, which I think is the Academy of Second Learning.
b. Hold down the Alt key and click on yourself. You can zoom in and back, and circle around. It takes some practice, and you may quickly wear out that key on youer keyboard if you do it enough.
c. Use the dial thingy on your mouse to zoom in and out.
d. Pull down your View menu and click on Camera Control. This lets you adjust your view with the most precision, IMO.
There are other ways, too.
e. You don't have to be on a posing stand to use b, c, and d, but it does help to be stationary. Another way is to sit somewhere...

3. How to sit: Click the exact spot where you want to sit. You don't have to align yourself first with the seat. But if you click on the back of the seat, you'll end up sitting on the back of the seat, so click on the seat itself. Obvious to most, perhaps, but it took some embarrassing moments for me to learn this.

4. You'll have noticed that most info comes via notecard. Many of these, even the newbie ones (including a free hair voucher I got), are old and contain somewhat or totally obsolete information. So if something doesn't work as the card says, check the date and ask someone about it.

5. Hair:
- Your avatar comes with hair that can be adjusted, but it has no shine and it doesn't move. You can adjust the color and style and so on by right-clicking and choosing Appearance, then Hair.

- But you'll quickly see that there's better hair out there. This is hair created from the "prims" that all things come from in SL. Unlike clothes, the hair won't automatically fit. It often comes in small, medium and large sizes, but even the right size may need adjusting.

- First, you have to put on a baldie. This covers up your default avatar hair, and it may change your head shape to better fit the new hair. It may also change your eyebrows and even your eyes - not always for the better! You can make your own baldie by editing your avatar hairstyle. Save your current one first, then immediately save with a new name for the baldie, something like <your name>'s Baldie. The slide all the sliders to shorten/remove your own hair. This works with most new hair and lets you keep your own upper face.

- When you put on your hair, you may need to move it up or forward or back or to one side. Right-click, Edit and use Lift, Position and Rotate as needed. Check yourself out from all sides to make sure no blad spots show. If they do and you can't go up a size, use the Stretch control.

6. Camping: Yes, it can cause lag and even crashing when too many people are on a sim at once, but with no newbie signon bonuses, it's an easy way to earn money. Money Island is one place to do it, and a search will bring up others. It basically involves sitting somewhere for several minutes to increase the traffic count at that site. This is a great way to get some pocket change while cleaning up your inventory and reading the endless notecards.

7. If you are reading this, the SL probably already has some kind of payment info on file for you. It is just ridiculous, IMO, that it's required for reading forum posts. The forums could be opened for viewing to anyone with an account and the payment info required for posting. BUT if you don't have payment info on file and don't want to share it, you can get a PayPal account and use that as your payment info. You don't actually have to put money into the PayPal account.

8. SL really does have more than shopping malls and sex hangouts. Search on topics you're interested in: Literature, Music, Health, Jewish, Mexico, Harry Potter. Middle Earth, Victorian, Renaissance, IBM, whatever.

Wow, definitely some excellent advice that I wished I had had when I signed up!

I have a few bits that sort of add on to what people have said already...

1. Put your languages in your profile.
SL is an international place. Not everyone speaks English. I will nearly always check out someone's profile before I start a conversation with them. If you put in the tab field "Languages" the languages you speak, then I can hopefully find the best match. I speak English and German and have more than once had very halting conversations with people in English before realising that their native tongue was German! It also means that if I see only "Espanol" I won't frustrate both of us by trying to strike up a conversation.

2. Beware of Profile Picks
A couple of people have mentioned the idea of following Profile Picks to find new places. one word of caution from someone who has done it - more than once I have ended up in someone's bedroom because they used that TP point as the landmark to show how much they love their boyfriend! Be aware of what you are clicking on. The reverse of that is - don't put private places you don't want people TPing to in your picks!

3. Outfits are your friend
Learn how to use the Outfits feature in your Inventory. Creating a folder and putting stuff in it allows you to put everything in that folder on (and take it off) with one click (OK, two clicks). It looks slicker, too. And, as an add-on: Put the new outfit on, THEN take the old one off. That way you're not standing there naked, even for a split-second...

4. Getting rid of lag
Not everyone's computers and internet connections are the latest and greatest - learn how to use the "preferences" tab to scale back things - you'd be surprised at how ramping the detail sliders down, or turning off the viewing distance will speed up your SL experience. There are various articles out there talking about "tuning" your SL experience - you should be able to find them on Google.

5. What are you wearing?
A very quick tip to find out what you are currently wearing or have attached is to go to the search bar at the top of the inventory and type "worn". This will show you everything that is currently worn, and you can detach stuff you don't want quicker than trying to remember what it is called. The search bar at the top of the inventory is a huge help in finding stuff you have and compensating for the "Oh I'll sort that out later" factor.

6. People are Different
Different people are in SL for different reasons. Some want to use it as an extension of their lives in a virtual world, some want to live a completely different life. Respect that.

OK, that's what came to mind while reading this. Good luck, SL-ers

1) Try it out in private.
Whenever you get a new HUD, hair, shirt, whatever: Take it someplace private. That way if you rez it on your head by accident or it makes some sort of embarrassing emit or you wind up naked... No one will be around to see it.

2) If you don't know how, check the docs.
Searching the forums and FAQ on this website are invaluable sources of info. Read all documentation that comes with purchased items and SAVE it just in case you forget it later.

3) Just because you CAN go there doesn't mean you should.
Before you just waltz into someone's private residence, think about what you're doing. Just like in real life... just because the door's unlocked doesn't mean you should let yourself in.

4) Don't rez things on other people's private parcels of land. Even in the sky.
This eats up prim allowance they're paying for. So what if you found a nifty script that allows you to fly higher than the normal allowance? That doesn't give you the right to rez a house in the sky to get out of paying for a premium account or to skirt land use fees.

5) People can hear you.
Making rude comments about other people's avatars in public places is really no different than standing in the mall and insulting people as they pass. If you wouldn't do that in real life, don't do it in SL. It just makes you look bad. Not to mention judgemental, rude, and a variety of other antisocial things.

Well first off, I plug my Freebie Paradise, and I never feel bad about doing that because it's totally non profit and I think Me and Bella do a good job at eliminating the junk like items you find at most freebie places. I think it's a great place to lose the "newb" look.
Then I offer a few words of advice.

1)I give them a card that explains how to get the box of there head and unpack items because when I was a newb this one took me a week to catch onto.

2)Try to explain that although this is a "game" randomly shooting and humping people isn't cool because we feel very attached to our avatars as if they are a part of us.

3)Tell them randomly asking for money isn't cool. Start SL, learn the basics, play for fun and see what happens from there. People read magazine articles and think they will come into sl and get rich in 2 days.

And I'm sure there are a few other points I like to hit but thats all I can think of at the moment.

Grammar and punctuation are your friends.

And I read it....page 3 and counting!!! Good Stuff! Thank you all! See you in SL!

Cordy

I'm joining this one kind of lates but here are my tips...

1. Pants are polite.
Irregardless of whether you have the anatomy of a Barbie/Ken or you are the proud owner of a prim pickle - unless it's a nude area *wear some clothes*!!
2. Don't ask for people's age/sex/location. If they want you to know it, they'll offer it.
3. Don't ask for sex.
4. Or money.
5. Or to lick my eyeballs - it actually happened to me. The guy wanted to lick my eyeballs because I was unlikely to have had it done in RL. I can add it to my list of things I haven't had dome in SL too....
6. Respect people's property. As a homeowner it **really** bugs me to log on and find someone in my house. To stay there trying out all the furniture after I have mentioned they're in my house....grrrrr
7. Remember that behind every avavtar there is a person. Talk to people politely, listen, explore with them...and have fun

Oh that SO belongs in the Worst Pickup Lines thread.

1. Ask yourself why you're in Second Life. Expectations lead to disappointment.

2. Be aware that even though there is a lot of clutter and junk, there is also a myriad inspirational sights to be scene.

3. Don't buy land right away and start plopping up a ton of little ads...it's rude and quite frankly blasphemous to the Second Life model.

4. Don't expect to become a master of a craft overnight--if you are interested in a trade, learn it, live it, love it. In time you will see results. Rome wasn't...you know.

5. More traffic doesn't mean better--try out a few 'popular places' for the experience, but understand that the best content is harder to find--thank god.

my 2 Ls.