What is your SL Newbie Story? What made you stay?

[Coffee Pancake]

Why are you even here ? Post your newbie story.

I have two.

I signed up, spent far too long picking an account name. Jumped though the welcome island hoops, somehow ended up on mainland wandering about. I vaguely remember being underwater. I was alone, it was boring and it looked like crap. I was expecting there to be other people or something and ... I logged off. Total session time maybe .. 20 minutes. I don't even remember the name of my account.

I was running Linux as my main desktop OS working from home, I read that a Linux client had been released and due to the complete lack of entertaining things to do on Linux at the time, downloaded the release and logged in. I was immediately teleported by my then RL partner to a small gaming social place she hung out with friends. I fiddled with my avatar, somehow ending up with a blue ground texture as my skin. Other people arrived, I was given some L$ and we all played a winner takes the pot version of Yahtzee while listening to the parcel stream and chatting. It was fun.

I logged in the next day, fixed my avatar a bit, discovered I needed something called a skin, explored .. and I've been here almost every day since.

[DonnaDK]

I remember feeling I'd really come far by making it off Rez Island (or whatever it was called) and onto Orientation Island...

Started running into other avatars and pushing them, like a true noob, because I couldn't believe all these people were actually real! Then one kicked me into the sea and I spent three weeks bugging him to pass me his brash kicker.

Met up with some bad girls in a goth-industrial club and spent a very happy year roaming the grid, acting like a jackass. Was so much fun! I wish I could be a noob in the 2010-2012 era again. It was like Las Vegas crossed with Baghdad...on acid.

[Marth Coberts]

Lemme see if I can remember mine...

 

-I remember those little tutorial areas meant for 100% newbies, been through one of those before going on my own for a bit.

I do not remember where I was, but about maybe half an hour in I learned I could fly, and thought it was the greatest thing ever.

Not too long after is when I was brought into Bloodlines. Not by a spampire, but an actual person. 'course I knew everyone with a name floating above their head was real (more or less, bots weren't as common back then) And THEN I got my first 'proper' avatar. Being one of them freebie furry ones.

 

From there I met loads more people, crushed on some of them, had a couple of odd jobs here and there, and was part of a good number of communities. Eventually I either lost interest or other parts of life took prominence, but I stopped playing SL for about 3 or 4 years, only came back like 7 months ago.

 

's actually kinda depressing. I remember when Infohubs were the most happening of places. Now chat hotspots are narrowed down to one or two spots on the mainlands.

Edited April 27, 2018 by Marth Coberts

[Cindy Evanier]

I was about 4 weeks in and about to give up.  So bored of guys wanting me to hop on the pink ball  (some things never change, except the pink ball is replaced by better engines now)

Anyway on the same day I wandered into a club and the manager there was so nice and welcoming  and her sense of humour matched mine.  We laughed and laughed.  Later that day I was sitting alone and this guy walked past.  His first day in SL but he had managed to fill out his profile a little.  Just the first life part saying he was from the same place as me.  I said Hi, and once he had worked out an IM,  that was it. Inseparable from that day to this for 9 years.  The girl at the club is also still a very close friend.  So that's what made me stay.  Two wonderful people - 8th March 2009

[LittleMe Jewell]

I'm not totally sure what kept me here at first. I remember wandering sort of aimlessly during my first few logins, bouncing to various spots that I either pulled from search or some sort of destination guide.  Most were just your typical sex spots.  I did manage to meet a few nice guys during my bouncing around, so that gave me some people to log in and dance with.  At some point, I discovered a hunt - Treasure Quest actually did real hunts back then and you got gifts.  I love hunts and deciphering clues, so I got hooked on those quickly and that gave me something else to log in for.  Somewhere in the first month or two I discovered the forums.  The Forum Cartel group was just forming and buying land for the inworld Hangout.  I joined the group and started meeting people that I enjoyed conversing with - and that got me fully hooked.

Edited April 27, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Nalytha]

5 hours ago, DonnaDK said:

Started running into other avatars and pushing them, like a true noob, because I couldn't believe all these people were actually real! Then one kicked me into the sea

I nearly spit out my coffee at this. I'm a very visual person 

[Claireschen Hesten]

I almost never stuck it out in SL having spent an eternity trying to come up with a name that wasn't taken my first log in attempts weren't good as nothing was loading i was on my final re-log just about to give up on SL forever i have no idea where i first rezzed but someone recognising i was new IM'd me and passed me some LM's for freebie places which i visited and i spent many days and weeks filling up my inventory and hanging round the sim there were a few places i'd hang in but Trilegy (free land) and latterly/currently having my own (rented) slice of SL to call home has kept me logging in 10 years later

[Jae Villa]

So... this is embarrassing

I arrived in the great big 2006 newbie invasion. Got out of orientation island and immediately ran into some Goreans (these were proper scary Goreans, the ones on Second Life these days seem so much more laidback). I was very confused and a non-Gorean guy wandered up offering me help. 

So that's how I ended up enslaved on day one. I'm not sure if RLV was around then but I certainly remember him getting me a collar. 

No slavery isn't the reason I stayed. My Master introduced me to his friends who were a bunch of ridiculously amusing people who enjoyed all the fun things... multiplying strawberry chairs, Tiny Empires, airship flying and random chats. I was hooked at that point. When my Master disappeared for RL reasons I drifted off of Second Life having become disconnected from that group... 

Then I came back last year. And what hooked me this time was the mesh bodies. The quality of the looks you could create and the diversity of clothing made me really interested. Got into furry briefly too as there's some amazing avatars in that community. And during that process made a group of friends of my own that have kept me coming back over and over. 

Now I'm in deep I've started exploring land owning, creating objects (balls that move... baby steps people... baby steps) and selling stuff. Learning that stuff keeps it fresh for me, and given the complexities of mesh, scripting etc. I'll never run out of things I don't understand and want to learn about!

[kershe]

The first time I logged in there was no one about. I could see myself on radar as a dot, but everyone else was a caret (^) and no matter how far I flew I couldn't reach them. I had no idea they were above me. I went back to where I first appeared and walked around. It was a pretty sim, but there was nothing to do. I walked to the next sim and as I went through the sim crossing I sank into the ground and got stuck underneath a store.

Next time I logged in I found another store on that sim that had a conversation bot. I used to go and talk to him, but that got old quickly.

Then I found out how to use search and I began going to sims that were based on places I'd lived. It was a very very long time before I saw another person, but in the meantime I figured out a lot of things about using SL.

I don't know how long it was before I found an inhabited sim, and I liked it so much I rented a room there, ...

Once I had human contact, everything started moving much faster.

I think the only reason I kept going is because a friend at a RL party told me about Second Life, and he was so excited about it that I figured eventually I would be too.

[Syo Emerald]

It sounds so bad, but it was money.

I figured out the basics of SL rather quickly and got myself dressed in freebies. Back then camping wasn't completely dead yet, so I discovered a place that paid a few L$ every 15 to 30 minutes. The music stream at that place was nice and their method of camping was using one of the dance pads or a pole. So I did that. And sometimes you got to chat with others there. One day, a woman who had been much longer in SL than all of the typical people at that place showed up and invited me and some others to her place for some games. We played some quiz games that paid money (that she had put in) and I won maybe around 100-200 L$ that evening. I felt so incredible rich. 

That was what got me started in avatar customization, which enabled me to participate in contests at clubs, which lead to meeting more people, spending more time inworld (because back then sploders were still a thing) and later I even worked at one of the clubs as a dancer and hostess. The owner of that club also gave me a small space (rent free) on his sim.

[Skell Dagger]

Quote

What made you stay?

My beloved partner.

I was relentlessly griefed by several people in multiple locations during my first few hours in SL. Eventually I'd logged off in frustration, thinking that SL was definitely not the place for me.

A couple of days later, my partner coaxed me to log on once again. He'd rented a tiny plot of land (in the region that we now - 11 years later - own almost entirely), taught himself to build, and created a little house way up in the sky that he called the Safehouse. One entire wall was a stained glass window, there was a big cherry tree in the middle of the grass-floored room, with pink petals floating to the ground, and a gentle windchime playing. He'd built it just for me, as a place to regroup and realise that SL was the place for me.

Edited April 27, 2018 by Skell Dagger

[Jeny Howlett]

Getting help from SL mentors made me stay and now i am paying it foward.

 

[Janet Voxel]

It’s actually my favorite SL story. I came here and wandered around newbie island for a while. I think back then there was a crappy tutorial or tutorial notecard, can’t remember which because it told you very basic stuff that your average video game player would know. 

The problem came when I tp’d away from newbie island. I couldn’t figure out where to go to even shop or how to make myself look as good as everybody else. I think someone directed me to Redgrave.

I saw a group of people and I asked them for help. They were....not on the up and up. But they really helped me by showing me where to shop, advice on my avatar and some nice hang outs to go to. The reason I say they weren’t on the up and up is because they gave me a folder of ripped skins and shapes and told me to learn how to do a shape before I even attempted to make a nice avi.

Now, years later,  I realize they were in Redgrave copybotting people. But at the time, giving me something to do and work on was a tiny life raft that kept me afloat until I discovered other things to do in SL.

[Penny Patton]

I first looked into SL in 2004, but I did not like any of the surnames that were available and was annoyed that I was limited to the names they were offering me. Since it cost $10 to create an account at the time I said "Screw it" and left without ever completing the account creation process.

I came back in January 2005. Settled on a surname I liked and created my account. Unfortunately, SL must have been experiencing Asset Server troubles at the time because none of the shape or texture changes I made stuck. I kept getting error messages and when I'd log out I'd lose everything. The next time I'd log in my shape would be some randomized mess and my textures were either blank or random library assets.  I felt cheated of my $10 so I cancelled the account and left.

It wasn't until the end of 2005 when I learned a former roommate of mine had been big into SL since 2002 (ironically, when we were living together). I asked them about it and they offered to help me get started if I created an account, so I did. They showed me how much of the new user tutorials were BS by taking me skin and hair shopping (all of the starter avatars at that time used system skins and hair and there was absolutely no mention of attachments or applying skin textures mentioned anywhere). They pointed me at some avatar texture templates (also not mentioned anywhere in the new user experience) and I was off and running. Within six months I had a successful clothing store and was cashing out a couple of hundred bucks a month.

[Destiny Marques]

I originally signed up for the first time in 2007, because I'd gotten this email about a Duran Duran concert in Second Life and thought to myself "what is this Second Life?? I must check it out!" So I signed up, logged in and my first thought was: "what in the actual f***!" It was just weird.

I initially landed in a Welcome area and people were just standing around everywhere. Some had hair floating around or attached to their butts, and I was thinking "This place is a mad house!" So, I wandered around for a bit and some guy approached me and started talking about Lord knows what. As I continued to walk around, he started following me.. at first I didn't really think anything of it, until he started asking me a series of weird sexual questions, which at that point I tried to fly away from him and that prompted him to take flight as well!

I was desperately trying to read the help boards that were posted around to figure out how to TP away, but I was stuck!! So I decided to log out and didn't log in again until 2009 after watching a documentary about Second Life. Needless to say, my second experience was much more pleasant.

[MegaRose]

I have a long history of drifting from one virtual pet site to another in this weird quest to own fictional things.  My Neopets, my Wajas, my Aywas, all of them eventually have to make room for new acquisitions that usually are weird fake animals but sometimes other stuff.  I had heard that Second Life is a place where people acquire made up stuff and there were pets in it.  So I made an account and put in an honest effort to understand how SL works.  By which I mean, I customized my avatar shape and then made a single twisty prim.  Then I got bored and wandered off to, I dunno, mostly Tumblr.

Six years later me and some friends (who are NOT generally obsessed with virtual pets) were hanging out in Discord talking about weird internet stuff and one friend brought it to our attention that there was about to be a mass death of imaginary bunnies in Second Life and that sure was weird.  He and I jumped in on old, abandoned SL accounts and did...not much of anything, but he had more experience with the old days of SL than I did and helped me figure out what I was doing.  Somehow that led to me putting together incredibly ugly ironic furry avatars and then I learned about making not-ugly avatars and now I wander around picking up event gifts and marketplace freebies and being a gaudily decorated vagrant.  We did not witness any dead rabbits, but I did pick up some KittyCatS and now I find myself doing quick financial planning in my head on how to acquire yet more fake animal things.

I still have some other, non-SL fake animal websites in my tabs RIGHT NOW, so I can acquire more and more imaginary sparkledogs.  But then sometimes I can go into SL and try on wigs, and that makes me happy.

[DjNolastname]

I'll have to say the variety of items and activities that made me want to stay. Every-time I look at the marketplace I discover a new even more amazing item than the last, for a great price as well!

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

Why did I come here?  Why did I stay?

When I first signed up, I was sidelined with an injury that had me stuck at home for a few months.  I was bouncing around on the internet one day bored and saw an advertisement for an online world.  "Meet people from around the world!  Make new friends!   Create your own dreams!"  Sounded good.  I had a lot of free time.  I lived (and still do) in a tiny town of 2000 very spread out, rural people.  It is a very small window to the world that is out there.  Very small.  The idea of meeting people from somewhere else, anywhere else was a big draw.  I signed up and logged in.  I underestimated what I would find here...

I don't remember where I first rezzed, but as a clicker-of-all-things I found myself in a busy infohub.  Korea.  It was total chaos, avatars everywhere, humans, furries, cartoon characters, blobs of snot (I kid you not).  The language I heard over voice channels was shocking and it wasn't that different in local chat.  I sat myself on a wall each time I logged in and watched and listened and tried to make sense of what I was seeing.  There was a sandbox there at the time so I played with my avs sliders, found freebies, tried to make things with the building tools. I never asked for help.  I kept going back to the same wall and sitting there in the midst of the chaos.  I did meet people that were very different from myself - a furry in a diaper who always wanted to cuddle, several vampires who actually stayed in character, a young woman who was really a guy and was honest about it, people who seemed to have nothing better to do than scream and call people names, people who enjoyed discussion and debate, people from all over the world.  I laughed, I was shocked, I saw something different every time I logged in and started recognizing a few regulars.  I tried other info hubs then found the search feature and discovered even more - beautiful builds, art, science, music and dancing.

Over the years I have learned a lot about computers and technology, I met some amazing people, I learned to build simple things with inworld tools, I gained new skills and my very small world expanded, and I learned about different people and cultures and that not everyone is honest or kind, but most people are.

Today Korea is abandoned.   I still miss the chaos and bustling activity of newbies, oldbies,  and trouble makers.  I spend a lot of time alone, but that is just my personality.  When I have the urge, fun is just a dance club or live music venue away.  If I feel social, I have groups I can check into to see what's going on.

Why did I come?  "Meet people from around the world!  Make new friends!   Create your own dreams!"

Why did I stay?  Because that is what I found.

 

 

 

 

[Saravendi]

I logged in and instantly got lost. I found the user interface confusing. Rez? Sandbox? Objects? Buy how? Pay where? Wear or add? What is an AO and omg....MESH is the thing....what’s mesh? Some AVI are beautiful and mine looked, well not so good. I tried everything but wasn’t happy with my look at all. So I left for a year. I came back and started to view YouTube videos and blogs and started learning and growing within this world. I now have a home, a partner gf, friends etc.... so loving  ♥•.¸¸.*ﾟ‘ﾟ･✿ second life! 

[Amanda Crisp]

I met somebody worth staying for....

 

[Phil Deakins]

My newbie story

In the late 80s and early 90, I was heavily into a multi-user, onine, scrolling text, D&D type of game, called Shades. It was almost an addiction. I wasn't there for the game, although I did complete it. I was there because I enjoyed being in that sort of virtual environment, even though the imagery of it had to be generated by your own head, and there was a good social side too. Things changed with that game, so, since I was also heavily into programming, I wrote my own. In fact I wrote 2 of them, the second being a 2-D graphic one. Then I went off and did a couple of other things for some years, but I never grew out of likng that kind of virtual environment in which you can move around.

It was late in 2006, when I was chatting (by email) with my cousin's daughter, that she told me she spent time in Second Life, which I'd never heard of but which sounded quite interesting. I signed up and it was right up street! It really was. It was like the mental images of the scrolling text games environments but now I could actually see where I was going, etc. I took to moving around in it like a duck to water. There was no gameplay, so I may not have lasted very long, but something happened that kept me here.

What made me stay

A few weeks after I joined, my cousin's daughter suggested that we start a business together, renting out skyboxes.  And that's what we did. That sort of gameplay was also right up my street. She didn't last very long, but I continued. One thing led to another, and I ended up not renting out skyboxes, but making and selling low prim furniture, and I did quite well at it.

That's what kept me here for many years, but what keeps me here now is quite different. Last year I stopped selling low prim furniture, which left me with nothing to do, and no real interest in SL. But I didn't leave. I don't really know why. It must be so ingrained into me. But I don't do anything. Well, mostly I don't. For a little while I've been busy programming (scripting), which holds my interest. All the usual things that people do, such as exploring, dancing, live music events, shopping, etc. have never appealed to me, and still don't. But I'm happy as things are, and I have no plans to close my accounts

 

Edited April 30, 2018 by Phil Deakins