New to Second Life, how do I make friends, and what is the true goal of Second Life?

[theif519]

I know there may be thousands of questions like these, and this one may be overlooked, but if I end up getting directed to a guide of some sort that helps answer my inquiries about this game, then so be it.

 

First... making friends: If one has trouble making friends in the real world, is extremely shy, and has a rather... low self-esteem, how are they supposed to make friends any easier in Second Life? For me, it's mostly a self-esteem issue; what if I'm being too boring, I don't want to the other person to feel obliged to keep my company, or what I don't make a good first impression? Thinking negatively like this has prevented me from making friends in real life, and I don't see how Second Life could make it any easier, except that you're not conversing with them in person, just over the internet.
I'm not particularly asking for a way to get over my self-esteem issues, but just how is it supposed to be easier?

 

Second... attending events: I'm in college myself, and I've attended clubs, I even frequent one, but I haven't made any friends in there either, due to reasons stated above. What am I supposed to do at the events, if I manage to find out about and attend one?  Where can I find out about events beforehand? Any events you recommend going to? How would you end up making friends in an event?

Third... Creating, Building, and finding a hobby: What exactly can you build, and what is the purpose of doing so? Is it something like a CAD (Computer Assisted Design, used in engineering) drawing? I have some experience but not much, and if I was interested in it, what would I get out of it? I know it could be considered a hobby, but if engineering isn't my thing, how would I find a hobby? I started last night and found a friend... someone rather wealthy and possibly well known and she has taught me some of the basics, but I'm sure she wouldn't want her name to be disclosed like this, so for now she will remain anonymous. She suggested exploring second life, but explore what? Are all of the worlds connected to each other? Can I just walk from one place to another, like Morrowind, until I find something, and hopefully someone that interests me (or I interest them)? Also, how did you become acquainted with Second Life? How did you find your hobby, and what do you do for fun?

Fourth... Relationships in Second Life: The same person I met last night went over a bit more than the basics, she did go on to... give examples when I inquired about people having sexual intercourse in the game... and I can see it is different from other games, and cybering in general... would all of that be the purpose of having a relationship with the opposite (or same) sex?

 

Fifth... History of Second Life: It states in the "Goals of Second Life" that there are no NPCs in Second Life... at all, except for bots used for advertising. How did Second Life start out then? If there were a handful of people using it, how did the community bloom into what it is right now? Did it start out as a regular chat room and then become something more... 3D? How long ago was it that you started playing, and how much have things changed since then?

 

Sixth and last... technical support: The graphics settings, opitimization of hardware, and there have been some glitches with the voice options and stuff... First, the graphics and optimization of hardware: The graphics of the game are rather poor for modern games, but it seems to be rather demanding for my hardware... I don't know if it's that it used OpenGL instead of DirectX, but my laptop can run Battlefield 3 at a rather high setting, and can max out Crysis 2, but Second Life runs like... well, like **bleep**. There's also the whole downloading of graphics thing, and everything, the map, characters, textures, is either non-existant or gray for around two to three minutes, and I blame my crappy university internet, but it is rather strange that it doesn't download it during the loading screen instead of allowing me to play while it downloads, don't get me wrong, it's a cool feature, but I'd like it if they had an option of having either a faster download or a slower one that allows you to play while it downloads. On to the glitches: every time I teleport somewhere, my mic apparently turns on, as was stated by the person I met last night who helped introduce me to the game, so I turned off voice communications entirely by selecting 'No Device' in the voice settings. Although I don't like talking... at all, I'd like to be able to have it readily available for the case that I do manage to use it. Has anyone else had problems with the mic turning on by itself? She said you can get "blocked" if you have it on all of the time in certain places.

 

TL;DR: How does on make friends? What events events should I attend and why? What is creating and building, and why and how do I make a hobby? Why should I explore? What is the point of having relationships (besides sex)? What is the history of Second Life (Read the fifth section)? Why are the graphics so bad yet run so slowly on my gaming laptop? How do I stop my mic from activating everytime I teleport somewhere?

 

 Also, thanks in advance for taking the time to read and answer

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

That's a lot of questions and I'm not going to attempt to answer them all.  What I do want to tell you is that it is actually easier to make friends in SL than RL.  I'm not an introvert but I am somewhat shy in RL (maybe more than somewhat but not so much that it's crippling).  I can relate to meeting people with that shyness in the way.  My main problem always has been "what do you talk about when you meet someone new?".  The people I've met in real life that I've become friends with have always centered on something in common......it could be work or some other interest like maybe a scenic view or fun ride at an amusement park.  It's easier to find something to talk about in that scenario.  It's the same in SL but so much easier to find that "common" interest because all it takes is a TP to some place that interests you (or a walk if you want to do it that way).  The trick is to find those places. I was lost when I first came to SL in 2005.  I didn't know where anything was or even what was out there (what I sense you feel the same way).  I did meet a person who later became my best SL friend (and that actually moved in RL after about a year......we live less than 10 miles from each in RL and didn't know that untl almost a year had passed).  She was lost like me and we leaned on each other to find stuff to do in SL.  That got me started in exploring SL (what your friend you mentioned was saying).  We found one of the most fun ways to "explore" was to open the big map, find a bunch of green dots (avatars) and TP to that location.  That often put us in clubs where people were dancing.  We learned how to use the dance balls so we could join in the fun........once we were there people starting acknowleding us and talking to us.  We both were honest and told them we were clueless......most helped up with little tidbits of information and tips to make life easier (such as freebies for clothes, skins, and fun things).  We gathered lots of landmarks to other places.  Before a week had passed we had so much to try out it was an adventure just to log in.  At that point we were the friends we had (just Gina and I against the whole SL world so to speak).  But it got us both mixing with the other residents and suddenly I wasn't so shy anymore.......no one thought much about your mistakes or your little quirks about life.  That's how I got over my "shyness"........but exposing myself to the residents of SL and refusing to take anything personal and making a determined effort to be friendly even if the response from some was not so friendly (just shrugged my shoulders knowing that most people are in the same boat when they come to SL and learned as much as I could about what's to do in SL).  I don't explore SL that way anymore.  I just find a Linden road or Railroad and start walking in some direction following wherever the road takes me..........and I've found some of the most fantasitc places that way.  I would suggest you give that a try.....you'll get an idea of what there is to do in SL by seeing what others have done.

To find events you can check the forums.......there are dozens of events "advertised" daily.  Check them out.  Another way is to try some of the "Destinations" on the log in screen.  You can search for things like "Live Music" (that is probably my most favorite event in SL).  Just go......don't worry about not knowing anyone there.  Most live music goers are all alone when they go........but many leave with friends (Live Music attenders are probably the friendliest of all groups in SL........join their groups for announcements about up coming events). It won't take you long at all to become one of the "regulars" and find you'll have more friends than you can keep track of.  When searching for events search for things that is interesting to you....if you like art then search art.  If you like gardening, search gardening.  You're going to wind up in some places you probably didn't really intend to be but just TP out........no one is going to say anything to you (and if they do the simpliest answer is just "Oooops.  Wrong place").  There are events for almost any interest imaginable..........just search for them.

Building in SL can be as complicated as you want it to be but the basics are very easy once you get a grasp on what it takes.  You might try searching "Ivory Tower of Prims".  That's a sim where newbies can read tutorials on building.......you go at your own pace and you can start from the most basic to the advanced.  It's where I got started in building a long long time ago.  I also used to go to sandboxes (after going through the tuts at the Ivory Tower) and watch others build..........I learned a lot by just observing.  But, like everything else in life (RL or SL) it take time for it to sink in.......but it's not hard, really.  My greatest interest in creation for SL wound up being textures (which is heavily related to building since a box is a box until you put a texture on it to make it something else).  I got GIMP (I just could not see me spending $600 to $800 for Photoshop to indulge in a "hobby") and struggled for a long time until I finally got what a high end image editing program is all about...........I did learn eventually (with the help of a book I found on Amazon.com) and that became my passion in SL.  Creating textures for clothing and building.  I could spend hours on end just playing around with textures or editing some real life photograph, then uploading it to SL and get my rush when someone said it looked great or otherwise complimented my "art".  You make friends that way too, by the way. 

You can do almost anything you want to do in SL. That's why it's impossible for anyone to tell you what the purpose is for SL.  For me it's a number of things........textures, building, listening to live music, going to a fun rock and roll club or just walking some Linden road around a continent looking at all the sights to see.  You have to find your "purpose"........and I'm sure you will once you find the sky's the limit on what to do in SL.

Second Life started out as a 3D virtual world.  It never was a chat room that grew in what SL is today.  Google Philip Rosedale (the man who came up with the idea and founded Linden Research, the company that owns Linden Lab which created Second Life).  Philip is a weird guy.....but, in many ways, genius.  SL was developed by Linden Lab (Philip Rosedale) but the content of SL was (and continues to be) created by the residents with their builds, textures and scripts.  LL provided the tools for residents to build the world.  That's the main reason so many people have been here for so many years.......it's made by us.  What you see was not created by LL, it was created by many residents (some who are regulars here on the forums), me and most likely you when you get basics learned.  No other virtual world exists quite like SL (except some of the Open Sim grids which are clones of SL.........Second Life is the grand daddy of them all).

And that fact that SL is user created is the answer to your question about how come SL runs so "crappy".  All that content that makes up SL is user created.........and probably 95% (or more) has been created by amateurs.  I know I created some very bad content myself until I learned what I was doing.........I know most creators did too.  Most to that bad content is still around in SL.  Practically nothing in optimized for graphics performance.  Textures are several times larger than they need to be or they are 32 bit color depth when 24 bit is the proper texture.  There are literally thousands (probably millions if it was possible to count them) of unoptimized textures.  Those larger than necessary textures with the improper color depth are the biggest contributor to that "gray" object or clothing item you see on your monitor screen.  It's not anything to do with OpenGL......it's the amateur texture that your graphics card has to render.  Hundreds or thousands that in your angle of view.........it will put the best graphics card ever made to a test to render everything quickly.  You don't have that problem with your online games Crysis 2.....it's all professionally made and optimized for performance.  Which leads to another reason SL runs like *bleep*.  Everything you see in SL is sent to your computer from LL's servers.....nothing about the world resides on your computer.  With the real time 3D graphics that is constantly being changed by the residents (uploading, deleting, moving around, adding, etc) it would be impossible for SL to be user created and housed on anyone's computer.  You got gigabytes and you got terrabytes......what comes after terrabytes?  Because I think it's entirely possible that it would take that much storage space to save all the content that makes up SL (your house is not big enough to house the disks required to store all that data).  And it's being added to constantly (I know there were evenings when I uploaded 20 to 30 textures......I'm sure I'm not the only one who does that occassionally).  The comparison of SL to any game is just not a valid comparison.  The graphics quality varies with the creator (some excellent and some really bad.....but it's all there and contributing to the crappy graphics).  For what's happening when you see anything in SL, it's amazing it even gets sent to your viewer.  So amazing that, to date, no one has come close to competing with SL in the virtual world with user created content.........and there have been attempts (no one has succeeded yet).

[Parhelion Palou]

I won't attempt to answer all your questions. It's late for me and I'm no expert at social matters. My comments are embedded in the following:

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theif519 wrote:

<snip>

First... making friends: If one has trouble making friends in the real world, is extremely shy, and has a rather... low self-esteem, how are they supposed to make friends any easier in Second Life? For me, it's mostly a self-esteem issue; what if I'm being too boring, I don't want to the other person to feel obliged to keep my company, or what I don't make a good first impression? Thinking negatively like this has prevented me from making friends in real life, and I don't see how Second Life could make it any easier, except that you're not conversing with them in person, just over the internet.

I'm not particularly asking for a way to get over my self-esteem issues, but just how is it supposed to be easier?

It's supposed to be easier because your avatar isn't really you ... it's anonymous. It doesn't work that way for me. I'm my avatar; my avatar is me. I don't make friends any easier in SL than in RL.

 Second... attending events: <snip>

Third... Creating, Building, and finding a hobby: What exactly can you build, and what is the purpose of doing so? Is it something like a CAD (Computer Assisted Design, used in engineering) drawing? I have some experience but not much, and if I was interested in it, what would I get out of it? I know it could be considered a hobby, but if engineering isn't my thing, how would I find a hobby? I started last night and found a friend... someone rather wealthy and possibly well known and she has taught me some of the basics, but I'm sure she wouldn't want her name to be disclosed like this, so for now she will remain anonymous. She suggested exploring second life, but explore what? Are all of the worlds connected to each other? Can I just walk from one place to another, like Morrowind, until I find something, and hopefully someone that interests me (or I interest them)? Also, how did you become acquainted with Second Life? How did you find your hobby, and what do you do for fun?

I got into SL to build and script. If you stick to building with prims, you can build in-world whatever your imagination and skills allow. Several groups have in-world classes on building & about any other SL-related subject, so you can build your skill. I started off learning to stack on box on another & worked up from there.

SL is a world made up of regions (square areas 256 meters per side) and void space. Blocks on the map that have names are regions. Areas that look like ocean and aren't named are voids - holes in the world. From adjoining regions void spaces look like ocean, but you can't move onto them. You can walk or teleport between connected regions. You have to teleport to get to isolated regions. Linden mainland areas are the biggest connected regions; most privately owned regions are either islands or small groupings. Use Destinations to find something that interests you & go to it. Some people use the map to find large groups of green dots (people) and teleport to them. I tend to do the opposite.

You don't have to build anything ... you can get into roleplaying, explore, go to clubs, build a business, do sports, ... pretty much anything that's done in RL and a lot of things not possible in RL. I suggest exploring and using search to find things that interest you. Once you find people who share your interests you'll find it easier to make friends.

Fourth... Relationships in Second Life: The same person I met last night went over a bit more than the basics, she did go on to... give examples when I inquired about people having sexual intercourse in the game... and I can see it is different from other games, and cybering in general... would all of that be the purpose of having a relationship with the opposite (or same) sex?

Some people treat SL relationships as a game; others consider SL relationships to be real. If everyone is straightforward about their intentions ahead of time, there's no problem. You don't need to have a relationship or cyber in SL. You can get age-verified (such as it is), go to the adult-rated regions & go crazy. It's up to you. Please remember that avatars are the virtual face of real people with real feelings. We're not NPCs.

 Fifth... History of Second Life: It states in the "Goals of Second Life" that there are no NPCs in Second Life... at all, except for bots used for advertising. How did Second Life start out then? If there were a handful of people using it, how did the community bloom into what it is right now? Did it start out as a regular chat room and then become something more... 3D? How long ago was it that you started playing, and how much have things changed since then?

SL started out as a smaller, cruder virtual world. It's always been 3D & it was never meant to be a chat room. I'd say it was more of a cohesive community in the early days. As it's expanded SL has turned into thousands of isolated communities. There's no mass communication to tie them together. I've been in SL for over 6 years. I've met people who have been in SL for almost 10 years. I know many people will disagree, but SL has become more sophisticated graphically and much more stable than it was in 2006. SL's growth has slowed drastically in the last couple years. I think the global economic downturn and Linden Lab's apparent lack of interest in SL are two of the reasons.

 Sixth and last... technical support: The graphics settings, opitimization of hardware, and there have been some glitches with the voice options and stuff... First, the graphics and optimization of hardware: The graphics of the game are rather poor for modern games, but it seems to be rather demanding for my hardware... I don't know if it's that it used OpenGL instead of DirectX, but my laptop can run Battlefield 3 at a rather high setting, and can max out Crysis 2, but Second Life runs like... well, like **bleep**. There's also the whole downloading of graphics thing, and everything, the map, characters, textures, is either non-existant or gray for around two to three minutes, and I blame my crappy university internet, but it is rather strange that it doesn't download it during the loading screen instead of allowing me to play while it downloads, don't get me wrong, it's a cool feature, but I'd like it if they had an option of having either a faster download or a slower one that allows you to play while it downloads. On to the glitches: every time I teleport somewhere, my mic apparently turns on, as was stated by the person I met last night who helped introduce me to the game, so I turned off voice communications entirely by selecting 'No Device' in the voice settings. Although I don't like talking... at all, I'd like to be able to have it readily available for the case that I do manage to use it. Has anyone else had problems with the mic turning on by itself? She said you can get "blocked" if you have it on all of the time in certain places.

Most games are static except for characters. The content is installed directly on your computer (gigabytes worth) so that all the servers need to do is update the NPCs and players. SL is a completely dynamic world. The content was built by the residents and anything can change at any time. That means everything needed to draw the scene has to be fed from the servers to the SL client all the time. OpenGL was used so that SL can be used on Mac & Linux machines too. Running SL well requires a good internet connection (both fast and reliable) and a good computer with a good video card. You can adjust for some problems by turning down the graphics settings, but it's hard to work around a very slow or intermittent internet connection.

I rarely use voice in SL, and I haven't run into the problem you describe. Somebody else may come up with the answer. Your friend is right ... having a persistently open mic could get you ejected/banned from some places.

 TL;DR: How does on make friends? What events events should I attend and why? What is creating and building, and why and how do I make a hobby? Why should I explore? What is the point of having relationships (besides sex)? What is the history of Second Life (Read the fifth section)? Why are the graphics so bad yet run so slowly on my gaming laptop? How do I stop my mic from activating everytime I teleport somewhere?

 

 Also, thanks in advance for taking the time to read and answer

 

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ETA: I was too slow working on my response. Peggy got there first (& did a better job, IMO).

[Griffin Ceawlin]

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theif519 wrote:

On to the glitches: every time I teleport somewhere, my mic apparently turns on, as was stated by the person I met last night who helped introduce me to the game, so I turned off voice communications entirely by selecting 'No Device' in the voice settings. Although I don't like talking... at all, I'd like to be able to have it readily available for the case that I do manage to use it. Has anyone else had problems with the mic turning on by itself?

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I have had this problem. Got to the point that I did a mic check everytime I completed a TP (click on/off). I never did figure out what the issue was (I do a complete uninstall every time I upgrade Firestorm, so...).

I don't think it's been an issue since I restored my PC, however (and can't check now since the video card in the tower burned out; it's never been an issue on my laptop).

[theif519]

Both you and the other guy have some really good replies, so is there a way to... upvote, like, or something like that?

[Griffin Ceawlin]

You can give kudos, but only in Answers, the Knowledge Base and the Creation Forums.

[Tex Monday]

Hello..and welcome to the wonderful world of Second Life...

I can understand how it is a bit more difficult for someone who isn't as outgoing to make friends in SL, but this gives you a chance to try different things that you would never think of doing in RL. Find someone you'd like to be friends with..read their profile...see if something interests you..then just say hello. 

Don't know if anyone mentioned this or not, but there are a ton of groups in SL. Go into the Search function and type in what interests you...Art, Music, Movies, Adult stuff :matte-motes-sunglasses-1:...whatever it is, there is probably a group in there. Once you're there..contact the moderator or owner and talk to them. They could have events that they hold..or go into the group chat for the group. If anyone's there, it's a great way to strike up a conversation.

Unfortunately, I can't really help with questions 2-6, but I do hope that at least gets you on the right path.

Good luck

[solstyse]

Why are you here? I don't mean that rudely, by the way. I mean, the sl experience is so different for each person, you really do need to think about what you wree hoping for when you came.

When I see someone named Thief519 asking how to make friends, what I think is "This guy must be looking for a roleplay sim." I could be wrong. It's just a guess. But if I'm right, I can help you. I'll have a ton more questions before I'll have any idea which sims to direct you to though. And if that IS what you're looking for, then as your character interacts with other characters, IM's will start happening, and comraderie will develop naturally.

The answer to your second question also depends on why you're here. What kind of events do you want to go to? Clubs? If so, what music style? Hunts? Well then what do you want in your inventory?

your third question, building. As time goes on, there will be something you really want in sl, and you'll somehow find out that nobody else has thought of it yet. Or maybe you'll see something else you want, but it costs more than you have. So you can either build what you want, or you can make things to sell so you can afford something else. If you ever plan to run a sim, you'll find that quite a bit that's out there is close to what you want, but not quite close enough. And if you never decide to build, that''s okay too.

Relationships.... You will find a mix here. Some try to get the same kind of attachment as you can in real life. Most realize how incredibly difficult that is. There will be people who form relationships for story (especially in the roleplay sims. Relationships there are often formed and broken up based on what makes sense to a larger story, not based on the emotions of the real person you're in that relationship with.)  Then there are people who will form relationships basically as a way to get some pixel sex. It is best for anyone you get into any kind of relationship with that you are both upfront about what the relationship really means to you both.

As for the technical stuff, the answers that others already gave you before I posted are the best. Just to give an example, though, clothes are 512 texture. Often, they're created in 1024, then shrunk down. In one outfit, if I forget to shrink one piece, but remembered to shrink another, then my clothes will appear at different rates. In a way, I think I'd rather if SL would just not allow the oversized texture. It would have spared me a $10 upload and a moment of accidental toplessness. (yes, the shirt was what I made 1024, so it rezzed slower than my skin.) And I still would have gotten my texture in, just by opening up photoshop, looking at the header, and saying, "Oh yeah. That's what I forgot to do."

The bottom line is, what you do in second life is really up to you. This is one of the few places in the world where the answers really are what they want them to be? So, what answers do you WANT for your questions?

[SassyOne]

Hi Theif519 Welcome to SL

First, I too am a shy person in RL, when i first came to SL i found a music club that i really liked and made a point of going to that same club every day, after awhile people recognised the name when i came in and then friendships started to form, over time i found it easier then to join in with what ever was going on in the club. Like real life everyone looks for and enjoys something different, some people liked me, some thought i was funny and some didnt.

Second what type of things do you enjoy in real life, or what things would you love to try or places you would love to see but for whatever reason cant do in real life? Inworld use search and see what events are on that may interest you, I like the live music events, also look on destination guide on dashboard for places, look in forum at favourite destinations.

Third, everything you see in SL, everything you use or wear has been created, there are free places in SL where you can learn how to build and create, also use google to find out how to do things and find tutorials. I found the idea of learning to build in a class environment a bit daunting so I started out using google lol. For me building is my hobby, i find it really satisfying, when i see something now in sl that i really like i go home and try and make it, hey it may not be as great as the one i seen but i enjoyed the learning experience.

Fourth My advice there would be take your time, learn about sl before you jump into anything like that because a lot of times things are not what they seem

Fifth and Sixth already been answered by others, most of all take your time, and enjoy the experience, have fun!!!