How do I get clothes? I'm new.

[xxzxczxme]

In fact, it's actually my first day. But I'm really confused. The only clothes I've been able to pick up are from some museum I went to where there were a bunch of people whose outfits you could "keep" but they're all victorian style and stuff. How do I get to places that sell clothes?
Also, how do I buy them? With what money? I don't want to pay real money until I know I'll be stayin gon second life, so how do I get money? Thank you! c:

[JeanneAnne]

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xxzxczxme wrote:

In fact, it's actually my first day. But I'm really confused. The only clothes I've been able to pick up are from some museum I went to where there were a bunch of people whose outfits you could "keep" but they're all victorian style and stuff. How do I get to places that sell clothes?

Also, how do I buy them? With what money? I don't want to pay real money until I know I'll be stayin gon second life, so how do I get money? Thank you! c:

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Welcome to SL xxz.. & to the forum !!

You can get free clothes @ Freebie Galaxy & @ Freebie Dungeon. Thers other places too.. use "Search" to find em. You can also do midnite manias & lucky chairs to get free stuff .. & many shops give free stuff to lure you in hoping you'll buy other stuff

I hope you enjoy SL & sticka round .. it can be frustrating @ 1st but you'll figure things out as time goes by .. SL takes practice!! Dont hesitate to ask ppl how to do stuff .. most ppl in SL will be glad to help a newbie

Jeanne

[Innula Zenovka]

You might want to check out http://fabfree.wordpress.com/fabfree-30-days-list/  

Several merchants offer very good  free "starter packs" to avatars under 30 days old, and there are also several places that give out free clothes and stuff to everyone (also listed there).

You will that that blog also lists free offers and also hunts, which are a fun way of exploring when you're new, and also a good way to meet people and pick up some nice free prizes.

 

ETA -- There was recently a very interesting thread about this over at SLU: http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/new-users/67989-show-your-freebie-style.html -- we had a competition to create new accounts and outfit them as stylishly as possible without spending anything.    The results were astonishing.

 

 

 

[Ariel Vuissent]

There are some very nice freebies out there - others have already told you where to find some. To earn a little bit of money, you can find a job in SL; but as a newbie this can be not only somewhat difficult (since most employers are looking for someone with a little more inworld experience and knowledge), but also time consuming. There's a lot to explore; you may or may not want to spend your time working. If you're interested, though, look in search for "job," "hiring," and similar terms.

For the most part, if you get involved in some good hunts and find good freebie places, you can do a lot of exploring, make friends, and pull together a really great look for free!

[Jennifer Boyle]

IM me inworld, and I will give you a notecard with some ideas.

[Ikiro Tryce]

There are loads of freebie blogs out there, but my advice is to start checking out shops. Many, many stores have things called Lucky Boards, where you can get a prize just from waiting until the first letter of your username is called, and some have Midnight Madness boards. A lot of stores also have freebies, and things like group gifts, where you can get something for free just for being a part of a group. (And a good chunk of the groups have absolutely no requirements to join!)

 

There are also blogs that keep up with group gifts, lucky boards, and so on. I'll link some of my favorites:

http://slfreestyle.blogspot.com/

http://another-otaku-gay.tumblr.com/ (Which, just to add, there are a lot of great SL blogs on Tumblr, though not as many freebie ones.)

http://www.flickr.com/groups/sl-galaxy_blog_freebies/

http://secondlife24h.com/

http://resasfreebiecorner.wordpress.com/

http://slwonderland.blogspot.com/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/slhuntaddicts/

 

Other than that, there are two things I can think of that you can do. The first is called hunting. Hunting is where you go either within a shop or throughout multiple shops, and you search for a specific item. You have to scour the store and find the thing, and if you do, it leads to a prize that you buy for 0L. Sometimes the prizes are 10, 15, even 50L, but they're still vastly underpriced compared to most clothing. Hunts can be kind of a pain in the butt, because you have to actually look around, and some stores are huge, but they're fun and a lot of the prizes are amazing. That being said, there are many blogs dedicated to hunts, as well.

http://slhunts.wordpress.com/

http://slfreebiehunters.blogspot.com/

http://fabfree.wordpress.com/sl-hunts-advents/

 

Other than that, the only other options I can think of involve earning L. There are a bunch of different ways to do that. The first I might suggest is go to Linden Realms. It can be a pain in the butt and it's glitchy sometimes, but if you go through the quests and everything, you can get like 25-50L. From there, I'd advise you to go to a store called Mother Goose. I say that because there are not so many stores that offer cheap skins and shapes, and Mother Goose has a ton laying around the store for 1L, if you know where to look. And once you have that, you can get some decent outfits for free. You can also use camping and money trees, but, I'll be honest, they don't seem to be around anymore.

From there, once you have a decent skin and some clothing, you can do two things. The easiest would be to grab a friend and start doing contests. If you go to clubs, many of them hold contests, and you can see some of those in the events when you search for destinations in the viewer. Just look around, and check it out. You enter the contest and vote for your friend, and your friend votes for you. Not all contests work the same way, but I can tell you that if you go to the Shimmy Shack or the Docks, as two examples, then you'll get some kind of payout if you have a vote. The only catches are that you have to be dressed in theme, and you have to stay at the contest or you'll be inelligible to win.

Once you've won enough contests, and you have a decent wardrobe, then you can try to get a job. The most popular entry level jobs are dancers, hosts, and DJs. The catch on this is that you'll have to stick around for at least a month before people will start considering you for a job, just because they want to be sure that you know the ropes of SL. But, if you're very good at being sociable, or you have great tastes in music, then you'll fit right in.

 

Sorry I kind of went overboard there with information. But hopefully this will help you out. There just so much you can do to find clothing and earn lindens, it just takes a bit of work and research. But, by far, the best advice I can give you is to get out there and meet people. Make friends. You'll find that your experience will be much easier if you have somebody to guide you there. I know that was something that helped me out a lot. With that said, I wish you luck and I hope you enjoy SL!

[Penny Patton]

I'm engaging in the proud forum tradition of replying without reading what others have already posted, so I might be repeating some advice here.

 

Not spending money at first is good, even if you were already certain of staying. It's easy to get a skewed impression of what's available in SL by the quality of the starter avatars and avatars lingering in the starter environments. I'd definitely give it a week or so while you search out some of SL's more impressive locations to get a better idea of what's out there.

In the meantime, you have access to all of the clothes, hair, skins and accessories from any of the SL starter avatars, plus some more hidden away in the library folder. You can find these in Library>Clothing in your inventory.

Also check out Library>Accessories. Especially the Hair Design Options folder. Most people don't know about the hair options in there, many of them are extremely nice.

 

 From there, do lots of window shopping. Look for avatars that impress you, check out the "Picks" tab of their profile to see if they list any shops. When you visit a place you can create a landmark from the "World" menu at the top of your screen. Collect a bunch of landmarks of shops so you can go back to them after you have a good feel for the quality and prices of avatar clothing and accessories.

 

 Also be on the lookout for freebies. These can vary in quality and tend to, overall, not be as good as stuff you can buy, but there's definitely some gems out there.Some role-play sims provide free avatars for new players to jump into the RP with ro to use in exploring the sim without breaking theme (I know Doomed Ship, Tombstone and 1940's Berlin do this).

 

 Eventually, if you want to put together a quality avatar, you'll need to get some money and buy some stuff, or learn to make your own. Don't worry, tho, a $300 outfit is less than $1.25usd. Throwing $10usd or so at your account will get you plenty of play money to last you a while so long as you don't go crazy.

 

But like I said, window shop first. Check out freebies and the clothing you already have in the Library. Get a feel for what's out there and how much most places charge. Nothing worse than buying something only to find someone else makes a version that's a hundred times better at half the price.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Look at my blog on getting started:

http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/getting-started-in-second-life/

I've got a section on getting your first outfits that should be of use. Both in finding them and using them.

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Penny Patton wrote:

 Not spending money at first is good, even if you were already certain of staying. It's easy to get a skewed impression of what's available in SL by the quality of the starter avatars and avatars lingering in the starter environments. I'd definitely give it a week or so while you search out some of SL's more impressive locations to get a better idea of what's out there.

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This is very good advice. The quality of what you observe around you will likely go up a -lot- as you learn of new places. Be careful with your funds at first. I went to a few random older shops today and was surprised at the sorts of things I used to buy.

 

 

[Xyr Frost]

There are a few neat ways to do this. As others suggested, there are freebie stores. One more recent addition is Fab-Free, aka Fabulously Free in SL. Their site also links to a great full list of places offering freebies. Some are geared specifically toward new residents under 60 days old. This is my BEST pick for new people, as the freebies are more updated than some older stores.

Also, many stores offer free gifts to people who join their groups. To do this, go to their in world store, and you'll need to subscribe to their group using an object in their stores, usually located near the door, or a desk if they have one.

I'm not sure if it's still around, but there is a store called the Gnubie Store. They offer free and low priced items.

Lastly, if you prefer to earn money rather than rely solely on freebies, you can look for stores that offer employment. Some are customer service, some are clubs looking for dj's, hosts of events, or even dancers (dancing tends to be more adult content). If you have some money but not enough to buy expensive clothes, some stores have sale rooms/outlets, or even short term sales going on that you can take advantage of.

Hope this helps!

[Kelli May]

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xxzxczxme wrote:

...

Also, how do I buy them? With what money? I don't want to pay real money until I know I'll be stayin gon second life, so how do I get money? Thank you! c:

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That's a very good attitude to take. Learn a bit about SL first, and don't blow any real money on it. People have posted a stack of good advice on blogs and freebie places, so my advice is to take that advice! My follow-up, though, is that items from the free warehouse places are usually not a patch on promotional items gifted by stores.

The next step, once you've got a bit more of an idea about what's what, is to spend a little real money. It's not as drastic as it sounds. People in games like Team Fortress 2 spend $30 and upwards on a single hat or other accessory. $30 in SL will buy you somewhere in the region of L$8000, and a smart shopper could dress an avatar from head to toe many times over for that sort of money.

So when you're done finding your feet, my advice is to spend $10 or so (or your local equivalent) on L$, and forget about working for money. Unless you find something you can enjoy which pays well, in which case... you lucky git!

 

[Clarissa Lowell]

You must have gone to Caledon.

Join the Fab Free group or go to their shop and pick up free stuff from designers all over the grid in one stop.

There are so many freebies now. Unlike when I joined. Lucky you!