Residents oppinions on must have items for SL?

-The Linden Popgun. I got my start in scripting from ripping this thing apart and seeing how it works. Always a classic. Infamous for various creations both good and evil.

-Photoshop or equivalent. Because making your own skins/clothes is extremely rewarding. Not good at shading/details? Be creative! I have yet to see an avatar skin that is half black and half white, though it would be a very easy project.

-Freebie script packages, and freebies in general. Freebie scripts because they are a wealth of knowledge one can tinker with, figure out and combine. Also have useful stuff like flight assists/HUDs. Also, there's a lot of fun freebies in general. Why fight some sort of appearance war with the other users who spend ridiculous amounts of money on clothes and still end of looking like everyone else? Be original and have fun with your avatar.

-Anything efficient. Prims are the true resource in Second Life; the more prims your avatar wears, the more render lag it creates. Why add to problems by carrying 255 prim holstered guns and 150 prim boots? Not only that, but for builds, prims are everything because often one is limited by prims before they are limited by physical land size. The most detail of X for given prims is always going to be a "must-have."

Also, script efficiency is very important. Why carry a bunch of scripts that listen on channel 0 all the time, when they could run a lot more efficiently listening to another channel for commands? Why have a script run sensor all the time when it could just be used when needed? Script lag is another deadly thing on crowded land.

Decent animations--a walk that doesn't make you look like a monkey, a hugger so you can say goodbye to people properly and some dances so you can go to clubs and have some measure of control over how you shake your little avatar booty. I have all of those, and I got them all for free.

Prim hair--because nothing screams 'newbie' quite like default hair does.

A good skin--ditto.

Babbler--so you can at least get simple ideas across to people who don't speak your language.

Those are my essentials.

The things neither I nor my alts can live without:

- Decent hair (who that's from depends on the avatar's style)
- A top quality skin (Exotica is my favorite, very personal decision)
- Animation Overrider (very personal decision, I use the one from Exotica)

- MystiTool (please note I use additional products that overlap with this tool, but use the others because I prefer the way they work)

- Koshin teleporter hud (like the interface, sorry Mysti!)

- Kitten Lulu's AV Radar (like the interface and compass style, sorry Mysti)

- Builder's Buddy Calculator (on the fly, private channel command math. Great for finicky alignment or linden conversions, etc)

- Hug attachment (I have the freebie on, need a good one that can do proper nuzzles, hugs, tiny hugs, etc all in one...)

Oh, and as a builder....

- Rez-Foo!
- Dominic Webb's rez-vendor

A peg-leg and a very tall hat.

Couldn't agree more. This is where texturing comes in, as you can create illusions with textures to reduce prims. The example cited in the LL tutorial is that of a picket fence - rather than build it from prims, use a single rectangular panel with a partly transparent picket fence texture on it.

JASC Photoshop is a good piece of software, but expensive (in the UK about £40, which I work out as being about US$75!). I recommend a program called The Gimp - GNU Image Manipulation Program - which can be downloaded for free, along with manual and tutorials, at www.gimp.org
The user interface is a little clunkier than JASC, but with practice you can produce the same results - and I reiterate, it's free.

Shoes, lots of shoes. A Decent AO, and a home.

lotta talk of mystitool, but i prefer avpack. comes with the usual things plus bonuses like a linkable space station and free tportals that rule supreme.
outside of avpack:
2- good ao to at minimum fix the walk.
3- flight band (or feather)
4- autobuild builders platform (or similar)
5- freebies from sarah nerds, the passport skin, discounted outfits at canimal, free newbie hair at gurl6.

You can get the new version of Babbler if you search for Phreak under places I think; or in the map. Its by Max Case and its amazing. I love being able to talk to people from all over the world. And if the person you are speaking with doesn't have one, it even has a gift option so you can provide them with one! Amazing!

For me...

My hair (I'm a biiiig fan of Tami McCoy's stuff), skin and eyes (Robin Sojourner's work - the best kid skin, and great skins overall). Newbie skin and newbir hair isn't all that great, let's face it. It is the thing that separate the new residents from established ones.

MystiTool. So many useful features! Well worthj the pittance of a price, and even a lot of the useful stuff is also in the freebie version!

MultiTool, for the hug. Any hugger will do!

Decent gestures. Think beyond HOWLZZ and Whooooo!

There's other signature items with my avvie that I wo't go without (my glasses, my bracelets), but that's going to be differetnt for everybuggy. That said, I would say one must-have is simply somethign that makes you unique in a world of Brandys and Clints

Mari

Heh, this conversation has gone all over the place, shows how we get attached to quirky things. I hope the OP is finding this fact amusing, and is not taken aback at receiving earnest advice on building armor and giant avatars.

Myself, I seldom go anywhere (or hang out at home either) without a little blue and orange bird resting on my shoulder (thank you Wynx). I'm also fond of having plants around, a garden outside and potted plants inside-- but that's just me.

I like having my own home. This is an expense, requires being a premium member (I'm happy to support LL too) and buying land, but for my personality, it means a lot.

I'm going to take the advice about getting an AO, haven't bothered with it in the months I've been on line. But I've recently caught myself imitating the default SL walk in RL a few times - not good!! I'll look for an assertive walk that would look good in RL to turn this around, LOL. I guess AOs must be easy to figure out, judging by their prevalence.

-Fo

I've been usuing a preloaded ZHAO from Outrider, no muss no fuss, just wear it and go. I have noticed a lot of people who have Walks and Sits that I like are using Exotica, so I am going to check that out.

A flight script! So you can explore those hard to reach sky boxes. There are a few flight scripts around, they allow you to fly above 300m.

Everyone MUST have an Ingrid. If you can't get one, try her mom.

There is one MUST HAVE item I have not seen yet: a sculpted version of the Utah Teapot. The Utah Teapot was one of the first objects ever rendered in 3D, and has a rich history of being used as a reference object and as inside jokes in 3D modeling ever since.

Things I can't live without:

My Skanks R Us Pose stand (best freebie pose stand)
Prim Mirror by Jeffrey Gomez
my Omnicron by The Omega Concern (5 times less laggy than Mystitool)
Landmark to Textures R us

From what I read on MistiTool, what does it do that the other things you listed does not? Maybe there was something I missed in it's description.

I have Kitten Lulu's AV Radar Pro which has the flight assist, as it was suggested to me by an "Older" resident, I have to admit it's pretty slick when you are in a script enabled area. I also have MultiTool as well, though I do not have a Teleporter Hud yet and it sounds like it would be a helpful tool to easily access the few places I commonly go from those I rarely go to.

As for the discussion on Avs if did get a little more involved that I had hoped for the thread, but it offered some insights that may help me as I get more involved. I am still doing some reasearch on how the Battle Armor is constructed around the warrior, and trying to find a digital copy of my lost TROs that shows a multi perspective picture of it. My reason for asking the Av question was in the homes I could make an Av that matches the occupents biograpihics and make it no only present but anatomicly correct and pheasable. I don't ever look to the simple things first, they're not really rewarding in the end.

And yes the quirky thinks attachment has become apparent, but ofcourse who knows what quirky things I am not yet aware of that I may find amusing, or interesting.

a flight feather
a 'Stop all animations rose' (never known it fail... it takes about 20 seconds to kick in but its fantastic and stops you feeling like an idiot if you teleport before you stand up)

prim hair, decent skin and shape (shape you can refine yourself, skin you cant unless you are graphics wizz)

own home to change clothes in and entertain friends

Open mind

willingness to learn

think thats about it...

Well for myself I seem to have already achieved many of them, but it's interesting to see the variances.

Personnaly things I have gathered in the last month or so...

A good looking skin, shape, hair, and cloths.

Kitten Lulu's Av Radar Pro

An AO with a really odd name that I would recognize when I see it, it was passed on from another resident so I had to update the animations myself.

MultiTool

Babbler / De-babbler

A home sitting on 2560 Square Meters of what I consider fairly prime land. What can I say, it was cheap and I have a great neighbor that owns most of land around me and builds nice stuff.

Looking over the other suggestions, I must admit that the hug and kiss attachments are essential for me. I can't imagine having an avatar in SL that can't at least offer a hug!

my mom's cheaper

Who has these? I'd love to get one.

Having a script that works in no-script areas is, I believe, a TOS violation. No-script is a permission just like no-copy is.

(Edit: And making something work in no-script areas creates a dreadful amount of lag, too...)

That said, I'm not actually accusing MystiTool here, because the amount of time objects take to actually stop in no-script areas always varies and some scripts can run for a long while without stopping, even if they don't contain code to actually defeat no-script.

Thanks for the clarification, will definately look into getting MistyTool them.

I have a lot of stuff I "couldn't" do without.

That said, the only truly necessary item to have- if you have only one item at all in your whole inventory, is the flight feather. Everything else, absolutely everything I think, is for pretty, or shiny, or convenient. Without a flight-assist, you can't explore the world fully.

So you can be an orange skinned white tee'd avatar with those fugly birkenstocks (ugh) but so long as you have a flight assist you can travel. Without a flight assist, you're stuck below the clouds.