The New Choices Of Where To Enter Second Life

Those crazy Lindens are at it again!



I had a feature proposal Choice of Mature or PG Welcome Areas & Default Home back on 2005-07-07.

It's interesting to me that they are offering something like this when my proposal gathered few votes. Was there another proposal that brought this change into being?

Was there any mention of this as recently as say 4 days ago or is this a surprise?

The sandbox... with a gun.

*facepalms*

This ought to be typed in all caps, but I'll spare you.Why anyone would come to SL for gunplay evades me; they might as well play on a teletype. Why it is promoted as a good facet of SL evades me equally. *facepalms*

'cause LL is marketing to teen-aged males with swollen trigger fingers and gonads?

just sayin....

did you mean that both their trigger fingers and their gonads are swollen, or that they had both (swollen trigger fingers) and (gonads ( swollen or not) ) ?

There are lots of people who've come to Second Life and what they want to do is shoot something. The sandbox with a gun gives them a place to go, and hopefully get to do the shooting they want with likeminded folk who will enjoy it, and not shoot the peaceful aspiring virtual architects , sculptors, and genital prosthesis crafters in the other sandbox areas.

I don't know what sandbox it is.

If they go to The Edge , they may have a view below.

They've gone to the mature area perhaps to see some flesh, what they get is a lot of wiggly nametags.

Will these choices be there home locations?

oh good lord

OK last I checked you are NOT ALLOWED to use guns in the sandboxes

mebbe I'm wrong. I mean yeah if yer building one you gotta test it and whatnot on willing subjects, friends etc

But has griefing (being shot 5 sims away while yer trying to build something) gotten so common place that now its an accepted and LL endorsed activity for sandboxes?

Somone enlighten me on this......

*face palms with a brick in my hand*

Last time I checked, the Orientation Island's TP panel for the sandbox now shows an old -style (50s) radio instead of the gun.

The gun is in edit mode, so I think they are trying to put across the whole build thing. But of course, no noob would realise that. They would see the gun and assume its some kind of shoot em up.

Yeah, gun was my bad - I wanted a simple object that displayed the featureset of SL's creation, and so used the gun. That screenshot is over a week old - it was replaced with a radio on the request of the Liaisons. The edge has changed to the Shelter - slightly more new resident oriented.

ben

Hmm, if I were a newbie now I'd choose the WA by default because I just wouldn't fancy the others. What a shame there isn't an obviously cultural/artistic/intelligent option.

Exactly. The reason why one cant build in the sandboxes anymore.

Having the Shelter as a rez point has has some definite effects on new residents.

1. Having an area to build that is not a free form sandbox, but not build prohibited either
This has encouraged learning about boxes and other objects.

2. Those trying to abuse the build and scripting areas are banned after being asked nicely to stop (insert deviant behavior here).

3. N00bs actually TALK to each other when not drowned out by "WA entertainers".

4. Part of part 3, but... n00bs now ask more questions (and get answers)

5. Newbies are exposed to many aspects of SL at once if they choose so (dancing, buying, boxes). I'm sure you all forgot how hard that was to start

The Shelter is a private place that could cater to absolutely any need but instead focuses on a place that is new resident friendly. This mixed with a hub right there is the best thing to happen to SL since (insert your favorite new feature here).

Compared to a public sandbox, Lumiere Noir's Ivory tower of Primitives would be a much more instructive destination for those who want to learn building. But I admit I share not in the Linden Lab Font of Wisdom.

Slightly more oriented? LOL

As someone who has regularly hung out for hours in the Welcome Area and now have been volunterring overnight at The Shelter, I can tell you that I also notice a big difference as described by Blueman.

New residents are welcomed and told to please feel free to ask any questions if they need any help an are encouraged to try building, use their inventory and interact with others. While some still just sorta walk into walls and do not say anything, the VAST majority will respond and right away start asking, "How do I move," "I wanna learn to build," or "Where can I go to script."

Instead of being inudated with soundclips and a host of other annoyances to some, they can often receive one on one attention to walk them through any host of things that need or want to know about geting started in Second Life. New residents I find at The Shelter are way more talkative and inquisitive that in the Welcome Area. I would like to think the welcoming atmosphere is the main reason for this.

Last I heard this program was going to be temporary for a week, but I would like to strongly suggest that this be made a permanent addition.

I'd like to see Linden Lab fix the broken connection to The Shelter so that people fresh off orientation island don't have to fly over 1km to actually get to The Shelter.

You may say I'm a dreamer....

Seconded. And how!