Brand new and need some help please.

I just created my character and thought I had better find out a few things before I continue.

YES - I have read the forum and have done some searches. These are things I need to get help with or clear up so I understand. NOT in any order...

# What is "sandbox". I read that when you start you can get a home in a sandbox (area) but I can't find exactly WHAT a sandbox area is LOL. When I do a search it talks about this as if you already know what you are talking about.

# You need a Premium Account to get any $?? If you just want to try this all out first - how can you make enough money to actually TEST it all out? I read that you get some money on some kind of (weekly??) basis IF you have the Premium Account - but not how to get any money with a FREE account?

# What is the First thing you should do? Go to the training Island? Just wonder around and explore? etc?

Any Tips - Hints - advice for the best way to Test-Out this game would be most appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

You practice building and creation in a sandbox, it's not a home location. It's an area designed to help you develop your skills. They are very useful.

You don't need to have a premium account to make money, in fact you can buy L$ and maybe earn some via a job. Look through the classified forums, although this is the busiest forum the other forums are full of very useful hints and tips. If you learn to create your own items you may well be able to sell them.

Take your time here, it's a steep learning curve but it well worth persevering with.

You really don't need much, if any, L$ to check out the game and see if it is for you. There are TONS of freebies out there. Search is not working well at the moment, but when it is search for Freebies and go load up with stuff. Don't buy anything until you have seen what you can get for free.

As Ciarin said, Sandboxes are a great place to learn to build, but they are not "homes" per se where you can build a house that is your own.

Are you in SL right now? I can send you a folder with some landmarks of cool places to go. Expect getting to know SL to take awhile, but it is worth it.

I'm not sure if it's still available but I believe if you verify your account with a valid payment method (not actually upgrading to Premium) you get a $250L bonus. That will get you started. And as long as you are under 30 days old you can visit "Money Trees" and take from them...........money trees are for newbies only supported by older residents with donations.

You can go to places like "The Shelter", "The Ivory Towers of Prims", and "NCI" for loads of help in world..........just do a search for "places". Ask questions at those places..........any "older" resident at those places are the most helpful types in Second Life.......you will not be made to feel dumb so any question is a good question. Also when you visit sandboxes take a few minutes to watch and see what others are doing and then try something out "mimicking" as best you can what you see others do..........that helped me a lot. But, if you first go to "The Ivory Towers of Prims" it will help greatly.

You can purchase $L's from the SL website using your "account" page. But you will be "capped" for 30 days on the amount or real life dollars you can spend.........it's to protect you from unauthorized use of your CC or PayPal money. Sort of pain in the butt but it's only for 30 days.

Thank you all SOOO much for the replies and information!

I am not ingame right now - trying to help hubby with some "honey-do's" so just checking the forum when I get a minute.

What is a "Prim"?

I am afraid I will not fit into the 30-day-new catagory - as you can see from my sig - I registered last year - but never got around to actually learning the game or playing it. I just decided to Re-Visit and this time try to get involved.

If I build - or learn to build - in Sandbox - what happens to my creation? Is it something that is movable or is it permently in this Sandbox? Are there different Sandboxes in Different areas of the world? If so - where is a good one that would be central with lots of other Newbies and helpers?

I know I will have A LOT more questions after I move my character somewhere away from the first log-in area ROFL....

Thanks again!!

Prims: A prim is the basic building block of objects. It starts in a basic form, like a cube or sphere, and can be manipulated in various ways (stretching, cutting, hollowing, and so on). You can link together multiple prims to create more complex objects. And all land in SL has prim limits -- for example, a 512 parcel can support 117 prims -- so it is good to use fewer prims to build things when possible.

Building in sandboxes: Sandboxes have auto-return set, so anything you leave there will eventually get removed and sent to your lost-and-found folder -- but it is considered good practice to clean up after yourself so the sandbox is more open for others to use.

If you don't want to keep something you built, just delete it (right click on it, select More, then select Delete). If you DO want to keep it, take it into your inventory (right click, select Take).

If you are building something complex, It is a good idea to take a copy of it into inventory periodically to save your work (there's a separate right-click option for take-a-copy).

Finding a good sandbox: Use the search feature (when it's working, of course) and search Places for the word sandbox. Some are run by the Lindens, and others are private. They can be small, or they can cover a whole sim.

Unfortunately, popular sandboxes are likely to be useless... the lag will make it difficult to move, and rezzing objects will happen very slowly. (It does help if you create a large platform and raise it up in the sky, then build on that.) Also, popular sandboxes are targets for griefers, making things even more difficult.

So I would recommend trying out a few places you find in Search, and landmark the ones you find suitable. Then when you need them again, you can teleport around and find one that is the quietest and fastest at that particular time.

ETA (Edited to add): There is a large Linden-owned sandbox in Plum, right next to a small Welcome Area. If you are looking for a sandbox frequented by other new players, this is a good one. It can be VERY busy and a bit griefy most of the time, but I can often find an empty place to work on my own.

And while you're there, fly north to visit Obscuro Valkyrie's lovely "Now and Zen" property in Lime... it's a beautiful and quiet place to relax after playing in the hectic sandbox.

Ava - thank you so much for all the helpful information! I just printed all of this forum out so I have a handy hard-copy to refer to LOL.

Thank you ALL again!!

be sure to look at the 'Top Five Tips for the Newly Born' at the top of this forum. and ask for the newbie pack I and others give out, if you see us inworld..

Goodluck and welcome to SL

imogen

Welcome to SL

Some things you should know about this place:

– Pretty much everything is currently borked, broken and bugged. Don't expect anything to work as intended. Well, in a way it does work as intended, since Linden Lab announced that all services are fully restored, which probably means that it will stay this way. Buy a headset and use voice chat, that's pretty much the only usable feature at the moment. But don't expect it to work forever. Soon we will get pretty new clouds, and they might dump voice chat in order to make them work.

– The Search menu doesn't show all there is. There's a lot more, but Linden Lab in their infinite wisdom have decided that no one should be able to find all content. It might show up again or not, one never knows. But rest assured: Second Life isn't as empty as it currently looks.

– If you have any questions, there is something called the knowledge base, but it has been hidden too. Helpful links to knowledge base articles, placed all over the SL website, will no longer work.

– Buying something inworld is currently a gamble. You never know if you will receive your wares or not, if you'll pay once or twice, and if the ware (assuming you did receive it) stays in your inventory and for how long it stays there before the inventory loss bug hits you. Alas, online gambling is illegal in the USA and also against Linden Lab's TOS now, which probably means that spending money in SL is a criminal offense.
Besides, Linden Lab made it pretty clear that they don't want new users to buy Linden Dollars. They might punish you if you do.

– Don't buy any SL items "outworld" (on the internet) either. In theory, all SL content can be freely traded. In practice, LL might throw you out, take your money and charge a fine if you, let's say, buy L$ on eBay.

– News about the countless bugs and newly disabled features are posted on the blog. But whatever you read there, don't believe a word. It's all smoke and mirrors. You should check it regularly though, since LL has the habit to arbitrarily set up new rules from time to time, declaring perfectly harmless actions a bannable offense.

– If you ever need customer support, rest assured that there is no such thing.

One bit of advice from me is to check out all the freebies - you can clothe yourself quite well without spending a single Linden Dollar.

If you are female avatar and need a decent free skin to make your body more realistic, the CS Passport Malibu is pretty good. I don't know about male skins but there are probably good freebie ones of those too.

Good places for obtaining free items are New Citizens Plaza and Freebies Warehouse (there are more than one of these.

I'd stay as a basic account for a month or so as you explore and then it's worth going premium if you want a home or shop of your own.

You can build a home in a sandbox but it will clear after a few hours so you need to link the bits and save it to inventory. If you make yourself a sky platform in a sandbox you can build with less likelihood of interruption by griefers (troublemakers) or well-meaning but annoying bystanders!!!

A good tip, other than the ones already stated...sometimes you can strike up a chat with people in-world and they will be happy to help you along, answering questions, giving you landmarks, etc...

Most residents are quite friendly, and have had others help them along the way so they don't mind helping others.

Jorjie, because you are new, I'll give you a different perspective on Al's comments.


Sometimes things don't work the way are supposed to. And sometimes when they don't, it's hard to get the problem fixed.

But most things work, and most of the time problems can be fixed.

When things go wrong for people, they often come here and complain loudly. When something system-wide breaks down even for a short time, many people will come here and complain VERY loudly.

The fact is that SL is a very complex system, and doesn't seem to be on a particularly stable base technologically. So problems WILL happen. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself. Treat it as the entertainment that it is, and don't risk anything you cannot afford to lose.


Many people resist upgrades to the system because upgrades often "break" SL for some. Sometimes the problem is system-wide so everyone is affected, and sometimes it is local -- for example, my current computer can run the current SL, but it can't handle the upcoming "pretty new clouds", and unfortunately leaves SL looking far less real than it does to me now.

Some people object to the changes for cultural reasons -- they don't want change because they like how things are now. And some people worry that new additions will make the system slower (laggier) or more unstable than it is now.

Finally, some people object to certain upgrades because they feel LL is wasting time adding unimportant features while ignoring requests for important fixes and features.

That said, many people like the changes that LL implements. So, some people want the changes, and some people don't. They come here to the forums and debate the pros and cons, and get quite riled up about it in some cases!


Absolutely correct. The search feature in-world is atrociously bad. It is slow and awkward, it does not return all matching entries, and it does not sort them according to relevance.

At least when searching for a particular product, we do have a useful alternative in the website SL Exchange:

http://slexchange.com/

This is an excellent way to search for a particular product, or to browse them by category. I highly recommend it.


The Knowledge Base is still very useful, but LL did make a mistake in hiding it inside the Support Portal.

To make use of it, just log into the support portal and use the search. I recommend starting with a simple search and browsing the results. For example, if you'd like to know what is allowed in a PG sim, just search for 'PG' rather than typing out the full question.


Again, sometimes things don't work the way they are supposed to. Keeping an eye on the blog and the forums is a good idea so you'll be aware of major system problems that will affect transactions.

For minor glitches, be realistic about what exactly you've lost. A 200L pair of shoes is only 70 cents. Would you have a major freak out if you accidentally dropped 70 cents down the drain? (If so, SL is NOT the place for you!) Even a 5000L mansion is less than $20. That's not nothing, but it certainly isn't worth going to court over.

Just remember that there IS risk. Don't risk more than you can afford to lose. And consider taking measures to protect yourself from risk. Like me, you might focus on purchases that are copyable instead of transferrable. It means I can't recoup the cost by selling if I get tired of something, but it also means I can make back-up copies to protect myself from inventory loss. The choice is yours to make depending on what you value most.


Now Al's just being facetious, you won't get in trouble for simply making purchases.

Yes, LL has banned gambling in SL because online gambling is illegal in the U.S. (And I would guess UNREGULATED gambling like that found in SL is illegal in most other users' countries as well.) Many people on the forums are debating whether this ban was necessary, but the fact is that LL is a business and they have every right to protect themselves from legal risk. Pushing the boundaries of the law could result in outrageous legal bills, or even in SL being closed down entirely.


First and most important: DO NOT BUY L$ ON EBAY!!!

Criminals who hack accounts or steal credit card numbers to buy lindens often sell them on eBay or other third-party sites. LL often is able to trace the fraudulently-obtained lindens to the buyer, and they then take back the lindens you bought PLUS a 50% penalty.

The best way to avoid this risk is to buy lindens on the Lindex (on the secondlife.com site) or through a vendor using LL's Risk API. And of course LL does not TELL us who uses the Risk API!

There are, however, two places to buy that are reputable and are considered by pretty much everyone to be totally safe. The first is SL Exchange (mentioned above), and the second is Anshe Chung. The exchange rate on SLX is pretty good, but you will get a bad rate from Anshe.

As for buying, it is safe to purchase things on the SLX web site. In fact, their customer support is much better than LL's. When a technical glitch causes a purchased item to not be delivered, you'll have a much better chance of getting a replacement if you have bought it through SLX. Plus you can leave reviews of the product, which is nice.


Definitely read the blog. Sometimes things predicted for the future never come to pass. And sometimes they post something is fixed, but it turns out they were mistaken. But most of the time it is correct, and it often contains important and/or useful information.


Yep, sometimes LL changes the rules. As a business they have the right to protect themselves from legal liability in ANY of the countries they are doing business (including having customers there), and they have the right to protect themselves from public relations fiascos.

Again, some people don't like the changes, while others welcome them. These inevitably become very hot topics of debate here on the forums. But in the end, LL owns Second Life and has the right to do with it what they want.


There are plenty of people who have successfully received customer support. I am one of them. It's not always fast, and you usually have to be persistent about it. Always start by submitting a ticket so that is on record, and then follow up with phone or live chat if the ticket is not addressed in a timely manner.

It certainly isn't adequate customer service, and it can take effort on your part to get it, but it does exist.

-----

Okay, that's it for now. To finish up, I'll give you my best advice:

(1) Don't risk what you can't afford to lose.

(2) Don't take it too seriously.

(3) Enjoy it while you can!

I just found a link to a site for SL newbies while browsing another forum.

It may help you out. I haven't looked at it in detail, but it's clear that it's creator put some time and effort into it.

http://slifeguide.googlepages.com/

Oh, and they have the BBcode disabled around here so you will have to copy the url out from between the url tags and paste it into your browser.

Hope this helps.

Things have been a little less smooth the last two days, so don't judge SL performance by today. I usually don't have issues, but the past 48 hours has been an exception.

Land buying is rather complex and there's a lot of information you need to know. It has tier fees that are like ongoing maintenance fees you have to keep buying on a regular basis or lose the land, so you want to be really sure you understand the ins and outs of property first, what the local restrictions (aka "covenants" involve, and a lot of important info.

In the short term, renting a parcel will give you a chance to have a home without a longterm commitment. I live in a subsidized newbie neighborhood that rents lands to people under 120 days for a rate much lower than the usual market rate, 512 square meter lots for $L150/wk or 1024 m2 lots for $L250/wk. That's about $2.74-$4.36USD per month. After a character is > 120 days old, you need to move out to let other new players have access, so its not a long term solution. Check Search: Classifieds: Land Rentals: Newbie. The group I rent through is called Ravenglass. Many of the plots can come with a free throwaway prefab house (you can simply delete it if you want to build stuff there instead. I used a prefab house till I learned enough to build my own from scratch.)

You're welcome to come visit my area and see what I've done with my plot and what other plots are nearby, this is the slurl http://slurl.com/secondlife/Columbia/224/68/35 or teleport to Colimbia on the main map, I'm over along the water in the SE corner of the sim.

Of course there is no need for a "home" at all, but I find it a fun way to get used to using/manipulating objects by decorating your own little corner of the world, you have more privacy than a sandbox for making things, and I simply find it a nice way to recharge your mental batteries, by Teleporting Home after a lot of activities and just unwinding in my own home to music etc.


Just curious, your forum name says you have a "Join Date: Aug 2006" but you only just created your character? Was this from an account you created a year ago but never used till now? You might not qualify for the subsidized rentals I quoted if your character also has a Aug 2006 "born" date. However if the account was created but the character never created till now, then it won't be a problem, depends on what your characters "birth date" is listed as.

You're right Ava, my post was just a rant I mostly agree with your comments, just one thing:



I am all for new features and have nothing against changes. I was glad when flexi prims and light sources were introduced, and sculpties are a nice new feature too. But I also expect a halfway stable service.

LL assured us that voice support would cause no lag. Now look at the grid: classified search works only at 10% efficiency (searches only the ad title) - again, places ads disabled again. HUDs broken again (textures black and not loading). Teleport issues again, map not loading again, assets not loading again, things vanishing after rez etc. We had all these issues already, they were all more or less resolved (by disabling some features), and now we have them back, thanks to the rolling restart for voice support. On a friday, right before the weekend.

These issues will likely cost me US$500 - 800, when I consider my usual weekend sales. Not calculating the costs for the now useless classified ads. Nothing of this will be refunded. In addition, I have to stay online during the weekend to handle the countless customer service issues. People tend to get slightly pissed when their wares poof after they rez them or their HUD controls turn black, and I'm the one they shout at since Live Help was removed and no Linden is ever reachable.

And all this trouble "In order to improve the voice experience available in the First Look: Voice client". A beta feature that no one asked for, hastily thrown onto the main grid, the grid where customers who pay LL more than a thousand dollars monthly are trying to run a business. Not LL's problem, they post "all services are fully restored" and leave for the weekend.

If new features were not implemented in this haphazard way but thoroughly tested on a beta grid first, and if new features wouldn't always break old content and be the death sentence for other, highly valued features (like the rating system), I wouldn't complain. New shiny things are always nice to have, I agree that sculpties are useful and WindLight looks kinda nice. But please not communism style... "Good news, comrades! We managed to get you some fresh vegetables. But that means you won't get meat all week".

One more thing Jorjie. A lot of us are quite proud of what we've built and love to invite people over to see it, but I've noticed that sometimes new residents are a little wary. Maybe they think they're going to be kidnapped or assaulted or something. Well I just wanted to say that whatever happens in SL, no one can really harm you, you can ALWAYS just log out whenever you wish. So don't be timid, you're quite safe. Take a chance.

Thanks for being understanding Aleister... I just wanted to make sure a new person didn't get the wrong idea and get scared off without even trying.

I absolutely agree that LL does not prioritize the upgrades well, at least not for those of us using the system. From their point of view, I'm sure they are most concerned about adding things that will get them press coverage filled with adulation.

And the upgrades certainly do some damage, at least to some of us. I personally am running a computer that is barely able to handle SL, and each upgrade has made it worse for me. I can afford a new computer, but the only one I really want does not currently come with an SL-compatible graphics card (and the card is not switchable). I just keep hoping my dream computer will upgrade to a better graphics card before SL "upgrades" to the point I can't use it!

System-wise, regardless of what they upgrade, it doesn't seem to change the fact that the base technology is inadequate. The physics engine is archaic, and the database systems are clearly not scaling well. Although I tend to laugh every time another person predicts the imminent demise of SL, I don't actually think it will last long-term. Eventually someone will take the lessons learned in SL and create a system that is designed to be robust and scalable from the first, and hopefully fully decentralized like the internet itself is, without some big overlord company responsible for the entire thing. Then we'll all transfer over to that, and SL will just gradually fade away. I just hope it happens in my lifetime!

># You need a Premium Account to get any $?? If you just want to try this all out first - how can you make enough money to actually TEST it all out? I read that you get some money on some kind of (weekly??) basis IF you have the Premium Account - but not how to get any money with a FREE account?

Jorjie, if you have valid payment information (Paypal or a credit card) on your account, you can purchase L$ whether or not you are a premium member. I am a basic member, and I buy L$ from time to time. The limits are low at first, but that will give you some walking-around money if you really feel you need it. I second (third? fourth?) the advice to check out available freebies before spending much.

> # What is the First thing you should do? Go to the training Island? Just wonder around and explore? etc?

Well, if the Search menu wasn't down, I'd suggest hitting the events tab and searching on education, then night life/entertainment. I learned so much from taking basic classes about building and SL! There are some blogs out there with suggestions of places to visit - the one that comes to mind is Natalia Zelmanov's Second Life Diary, but there are others.

> Any Tips - Hints - advice for the best way to Test-Out this game would be most appreciated!

A home location is not really necessary - it's a nice option to have if you want a regular spot to log into, instead of just wherever you last logged off. NCI at Kuula has a strip of land you can set as your home location if you join their homeowners' group. The NCI plazas are well worth visiting and hanging around in any event. Ditto the Shelter. Beyond that, just get out, meet people, and explore.

Good Luck!

I hope I'm not stepping out of line reccomending the blog I write for now and then, but check out http://www.secondseeker.com for reviews of various places to visit. Best of all, it is free.

Wake

Take up Zen. It really does help!

www.lewisnerd.com has some useful help guides written on it for new players; although that's the site for his building company the tab is there, click on "help guides" for a list.

Broccoli