avatar How did you started in SL?

[ManuelAngel2004]

Last time I was wondering: "How did people started in Second Life? " and "What were they aiming to be?" I meant, a human, a vampire, or something else. Also I wonder if you continue to look the same way... 

When I first started I saw the "Angel" avatar and I liked it, but I was aiming to be a werewolf, but for some reason I didn't saw it so that's why my tag is ManuelAngel2004, if I had ever saw the werewolf I would've named myself ManuelWerewolf2004. 

 

This is how I look now as a werewolf: https://www.instagram.com/p/B7pNasOpd7v/?igshid=zcmke2d6tkan

 

 

Now you tell me how you looked then and how do you look now.

[Zzevir]

I was a human and I always going to be a human. I'm boring deal with it. 

[Fauve Aeon]

When I joined the avatars looked less varied and I didn’t join to be something, I joined to explore and make things and see what other people were doing in there. That’s still basically why I’m here, these reasons at their simplest. Some days I’m human, sometimes a doll, I’ve been a butterfly, a colorful puppy, a peacock and anything else I can think to wear.  I’m often invisible or lately, a wearing only a little sparkle poofer. 

[Garnet Psaltery]

On my arrival in April 2005 I had no thought of being anything other than human.  My aim was to set up a home then explore.  I developed a backstory where I was born in a parallel universe but I'm mostly human, with a dash of angel and vampire now.  Most of my early pictures vanished in a disk crash but I kept the first shape and some clothing I made so here's a recreation in the region where I began, followed by my current profile photo.

[Raevyn Addams]

I started off as human in Second Life and have been that way forever here. I can honestly say I've never been tempted to change.

When I first joined SL it was as a man (yes I am female in RL). He was a role play character on the Invisionfree forums, and since I was getting bored of that I looked for somewhere else to take him. I found SL by accident and signed him up. His only purpose was to take part in role play, specifically what I would later learn was better known as Urban role play and that's generally the route he remained on for a little while (he has since retired).

Rae, my second account (and now my main) was born a year or so later. My original account was pure fantasy, meaning he was nothing like me but he still represented as very much human with all their limitations. Rae on the other hand was consciously made in my image (though not as old and more an idealized version of the RL me). I thought that creating her this way would give me something I could better relate to in this virtual world. Rae was created from her very first day as overweight with brown hair and brown eyes. Details that were generic enough without being too "me". And since at the time SL was packed with rake-thin mostly blond supermodel types Rae was created to be the polar opposite of what I saw. She was often seen as a troll back then (people would bounce her off a region with warning IMs before she could say a word) though she wasn't there to cause problems -  but in the circles I ran at the time and the regions I visited that was how uncommon it was to see fat avatars. Now times have drastically changed. But the three key aspects of Rae have mostly stayed the same. (See the comparison pics here for what I mean):

Though she's engaged in RP over the years regardless wherever Rae went she was always 100% human with human flaws; even surrounded by zombies in a post apoc environment she was simply human. In sci-fi she's human. In fantasy genres she's human (though admittedly fantasy has never really appealed to me anyway).

I do tweak my avatar (often) but deviating too far from what I now associate with Rae never sits right with me or my close friends for that matter. On the rare occasion where I've changed her hair or eye colour or made her skinny my friends flip out. "That's not Rae!" they say. "That doesn't suit her." They don't deal well with change where she is concerned and to be honest neither do I because changes rarely last long before I revert her back to something more familiar.

I don't know if others can relate but after all these years it almost feels my avatar has grown into a life of her own. She's a character in a visual novel in a sense, at least to me. So she's not "me" anymore insomuch as a separate identity with her own friends, own life, own style. To deviate from that feels like I'm changing the core aspect of who Rae the human avatar is.

Now I/Rae spends much of my/her time either building or spending time with our "fake baby", the latter I consciously dress and tweak within limitations to closely resemble my avatar. I'd struggle to do that if I was anything other than human at this point in time given the lack of non-human additions for the Zooby Animesh babies. I'm sure one day that will change but I doubt that my avatar will. Rae has always been as she is now, sometimes builder, sometimes home-maker, or variations on the same theme. I'm too logically minded to fully embrace being any other species (though this is the one format where being what you want is encouraged). Were I tempted to venture down another route I'd have to make another alt account for that and after all these years I still don't have the urge to do so.

Edited January 31, 2020 by RaeLeeH
Can't spell.

[Manu Mysterious]

Quite simple, not as a prim but as NOOB...😁

[Lukorange]

I was searching for places to chat and meet people around the world. A blog had listed different web sites and one of them was Second Life lol.... I liked the sound of having a 3D character to explore so I decided to try it.

XD I never had a clear idea of what Second Life was ehhehe <.< and my first avatar was from the Fantasy list. The girl with purple hair   cause is my favorite color.

I didnt care much about mesh, bento, classic.... I spent my first days walking and talking with people :3 I really enjoyed it, then a friend was explaining me how to customize my avatar and well I got curious and continue the process by myself. I never felt bored or alone here and I keep thinking is such an amazing place to meet different people and develop creativity. I'm glad I found Second Life in that blog :")  ❤️ 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Lukorange

[Cristiano Midnight]

My cousin somehow got into the alpha of Second Life in late 2002, but he hated it. I was curious about it, so he let me have his account, but my impression was just as bad. I tried it a few times, got stuck under a building and could not get out, and didn't see anyone else or know what to do.

A few months later in 2003 I got a beta invite of my own and made this account. My impressions were better, but it still didn't immediately click with me. It wasn't until I started to learn to build things that it really started to draw me in, and from that point on I fell in love with Second Life.

I was active in it until around 2008/9, and then rarely signed until a few months ago. I didn't think I'd ever really be into SL again after so much time, but so much has changed and improved that I fell in love with it all over again. 

[Lindal Kidd]

Lovely to see you back, Cristiano!

[Lyric Demina]

When I started in 2007 and realized flying was a thing here, I decided to be a vampire.  For a week.  Until I realized it was more romantic to walk through castles and glide my hands over the stone walls.  

I spent my first month feeling-up castle walls.  

I’m no longer sure why I stayed lol  but glad I did 🤣

[Jameson2001]

Human avatar attached to my university sim trying to create a virtual classrom back in 2006.   I remember not very name choices at that time so took the last name Aabye.   When the university closed the sim in 2013 I left SL for a year and deleted all my inventory (very smart move NOT!).   Anyway, missed it and came back in 2014 tabula rasa (blank slate).  Had to start completely over and learn the ways of mesh, and how to traverse all the sims I missed the first time, it has been fun😁

 

 

[SusanPoora]

Simple. I started off because I loved The Sims.

And the rest is history😂

[Dean Haystack]

In 2008 I started hitting some chat rooms. Started with the usual IRC suspects but it was hard to feel welcomed there, not only the UI felt like the 70's but the denizens were always bummed out and always ready to give up on everything it would seem.
I kept looking and sure enough I found some far newer web-based chat rooms, the people there were much more fun to talk to.
With all that searching I got some ads for a thing called Habbo Hotel. For those who don't know, well look it up... but, long story short, it's 2D isometric very Lego-like platform, you make an avatar and you go around a hotel. I liked that layer, of having an actual avatar that could move around in a world and talk to people. It was quite fun for a whole 20 minutes when it because clear everyone in there were kids, so I bailed.

That's when I saw an ad for Second Life, so I checked it out. I had a brand new laptop with a sweet graphics card, so anything 3D I threw at it it just asked for seconds. Before I even made my account from the pictures that I saw I figured it was a chat room with 3D avatars, I didn't consider labeling it a video game and that I think was very important for the way I approached the platform, since on a video game there are expectations. Still today I feel like it is incorrect to call SL a video game, but that's an argument for another topic.
Immediately I raised an eyebrow when I saw the download was under 100MB, how the hell could that be after the pictures that I saw with a 3D world?
When I got in world it became apparent why, it was downloading assets as it needed them, which made me ask why doesn't it download everything first? This is a perception problem that still plagues people today.
After I've done the tutorial that included a Segway, hot new stuff at the time I was finally unleashed on the world. Now because my perception of the platform was that it was a 3D chat room and not a video game I didn't felt lost like so many other people report when they don't know what to do next and are just waiting for some objective.

I started by trying to modify my avatar, shape first, then I even make some clothes, read, a plain black shirt which I changed back because the other one I had was better. Either way, I was impressed I could make my own, and if I could draw one and pay for the upload, I could have my very own shirt. At the time this was very impressive to me that a platform would even allow such a thing.

The next few days I kept hoping around, it was a bit difficult to talk to people because little that I know my near-that-makes-no-difference stock avatar and no AO was making everyone eyeroll.

I kept exploring because it seemed like every time I logged in, I would find something else that would blow away my mind, I remember being in a place and walking outside a building only to find a road, I went to follow it and it seemed never ending, I think this was the first time I actually opened the map only to zoom out and see a massive world, there were little islands and they were massive islands. I remember thinking it was absolutely incredible that it was this big when compared to something like GTAIII for example, I could only imagine what sort of thing could be hidden around.

So two weeks in I found myself in an adult club, it was a skybox which I had never seen one before (at least that I noticed) and my immediate gut reaction was that it was a secret and it was up in the sky to "hide from the mods" so I hightailed outta there in a hurry. Eventually I found out that was very common in SL.

I kept coming back and exploring, finding myself lost in the most amazing places which I really appreciated, but the people were as hard to talk to as on the old IRC channels, I couldn't fully understand why but I would never get a feeling I was welcomed anywhere.
Then one time, like many other times, I was trying to have a conversation with someone when they said "I know something fun for us to do, let's go shopping and you are buying."
I should mention at this point I hadn't put any money into SL, and I wasn't really very willing to, so I was still using my starter avatar with my "custom shape" which I thought looked quite good (but was horrible) and this is an important point, a new comer will hardly be self aware and self critical enough to realize their avatars aren't very good.
But that line really got me thinking about my avatar.
When ever I went to a new place the most creative and well crafted avatars were obviously the ones that would get my attention, so they were the ones I would try to talk to, while my avatar wasn't creative or well crafted which made it un interesting.
So I started looking around shops, clothes, hair, skin, it all seemed too expensive and again, I (wrongly) wasn't willing to shell out my money, so I started looking into things like camping. That was pretty terrible, at the very best you'd get 1L$ for 15 min but those spots were always taken, people doing that would have to settle for far less maybe 1L$ every 60 min. Not good, specially when I wanted to out and explore SL, not sit around, leaving the viewer over night wasn't an option either, back then I'd get disconnected every hour or so and that was while I was active, if I left it AFK to go to the kitchen it was almost guaranteed that it would be disconnected by the time I came back.

Then I heard about some actual work.

I remember at the time it seemed like a new club was opening every week, they would hire all sorts of staff, from DJs to hosts to security, that is how I got my first L$ as a security, my job was to look around for anyone messing up to tell the owner so they would be banned. I remember putting in 4~5 hours for 50-100L$ pay... still better than camping and soon enough I had my skin, my outfit with shoes and my hair, plus my reworked shape. Now I was in business, I was very proud with my creation and people were actually starting to talk with me now, I would even get IMed first now and then which had never happened before!
I was probably a couple of months in by now, but I wasn't hooked on SL yet, I still didn't felt like I belonged and then one time someone mentioned "why don't you have an AO?" to which I replied "what the hell is an AO?"
Apparently there was yet another layer of customization that I hadn't noticed yet, another very important point, something a new comer won't even notice, doubly so if they view the platform as a video game and set their expectations accordingly.
So I went to look up AOs and they were prohibitively expensive, I didn't find any free ones, what I did saw was I could buy animations individually and so I did, a stand and a walk, I would have them open in my screen, if I wanted to walk, I would play the walking animation, if I wanted to stand, I would play the stand animation. Manually. Yeah... I probably done this for a month...
And then I came across a empty AO HUD, free, just add animations it said and so I got it, and started to read the documentation and soon enough there it was, my very own AO HUD that I "made" it felt incredible, not only because I would no longer have to manually toggle those animations and could actually just enjoy SL without thinking about it, I felt like I had really done something, and that was the moment, I was hooked on SL from there on, needless to say it became incredibly easier to engage with people and my friends list grew exponentially the more effort and the more changes I made to my avatar to keep making it better and better.

Looking back there were so many times I could have quit and just not be here today writing this, I might have never enjoyed everything that I have so far on the platform.
This is why I am a big advocate for new user experience, and why I spend a considerable amount of time trying to easy people in when ever I see they might be struggling with anything because it is hard enough to get people to try this platform, and the ones that do start, how many just quit because they don't have the patience that I did to figure all this out?
Specially when we consider messing around with new comers is almost a sport in SL, how is anyone suppose to stick around for long with such a harsh learning curve and everything set against them.

[Syo Emerald]

It all started with lots of boredom on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon in September 2010. At that point, I was well aware what SL was and had a pretty good understanding of what I had to expect. I was already thinking about SL as a virtual world, not as a game or 3D chatroom.

In 2010 all starter avatars were ugly and I was a bit suprised I couldn't customize my avatar before entering SL (which I was used to from every game/platform that let you create a custom character). So I simply picked one of the less hideous options, a blond, human woman with a casual outfit. If anything, my goal at that point was simply to get away from this default look and individualize my avatar.

I stayed human for quite a while, since branching out was either expensive (I was yet unwilling to pour a lot of money into SL) or looked even less appealing, since mesh wasn't a thing yet and so you had a market equally dominated by everything created since SLs start. And since non-human avatars weren't mainstream, they often got the short end of the stick and struggled with the limited abilities of prims.

So I stayed human. This changed at least part-time around 2012, when I found a furry avatar, that I liked. Sadly I had to be human for the club I worked at during those years and when mesh came into fashion, that furry avatar started to show its age. From that point on, I started to be an elf and in recent years, I added demon features into the mix.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Syo Emerald

[FairreLilette]

I started as a fairy-like human creature.

When I arrived in SL into a world of appliers, I just did not get it.  So, I stayed a Classic avatar for some time BUT I was learning to build so being a Classic avatar was fine.  

I never really liked the mesh head I choose as I thought the mesh heads were fully modify not partial modify.  At least the one I have is partial modify not full modify especially around the mouth and other areas the mesh tears.  

Then one day, I saw a Dinkie.  A small cat with human characteristics and I thought that is just about the cutest avatar I've ever seen.  The little cat in a dress danced with us "biggie" avatars at a club.

And, now I am a Dinkie too.  A tiny cat avatar with human characteristics that wears clothes.  The Dinkie, Tinies and Titchies are all so adorable...I always say they could be a No.1 TV show.  The way the Dinkies dance is just adorable, too.  I'm the happiest in SL I've ever been being a Dinkie.  

<<<< The avatar badge to my right for the forum is a Classic head.  My Classic head avatar was better than my mesh head avatar.  I'm glad I found Dinkieland though...it has made me very happy!

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Maitimo]

My avatar was an elf right from the start (2006), based primarily on the character Maedhros from Tolkien's Silmarillion, and my name Matti is short for Maitimo which is his Quenya name. 

And he stayed the same for 13 years...

 but lately I've shifted gender, and shifted my red hair to blonde.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Matty Luminos

[Tamanni]

I was reading a gaming subforum in Reddit and someone said "is Second Life even a thing anymore?" and everyone else said "LOL, no". I'd heard of it before, but this time I happened to have a spare few hours and decided to try it.

I didn't plan to be anything but human, but I was rather ordinary to begin with:

 

Then I discovered some freebie clothes and hair that were a bit punk, and I thought, yes, I've found my style here. I also decided to make my avatar a bit heavier, partly for realism and partly because when everyone is a skinny supermodel, skinny supermodels are boring. I get a lot of positive comments on my shape (unlike RL, lol).

It took about 3 weeks to decide that I would stay, and bought enough L$ to buy a mesh body and head.

For now, I am still human, though I've activated the "vampire teeth" on my head's hud, so maybe I'll be a vampire. But I have seen some amazing non-human avatars, so who knows. Maybe I won't stay human at all.

[Violet Vandyke]

I joined in 2007, not to BE anything, but to hang out and do stuff in a virtual world with friends I didn't get to see much in the real world because of distance or other reasons.  

I found a load of clothes that vaguely matched what I would wear in the real world and had fun with my friends, who were also avatar versions of their RL selves.  I got a bit of mainland where there were some sci-fi related things around, and I lived in a space station there.  I played around with building stuff and making basic clothes.  I had a couple of jobs.  

I didn't log in for a few years and came back, I think 3 or 4 years ago.  A lot had changed. Me walking about with my system body and system/prim clothes while everyone else was all mesh!  The avatar I used to be proud of looked like a cartoon next to everyone else.  So I soon upgraded how I looked!  

My RL friends, and the early friends I made inworld, have all left SL now so I'm no longer very sociable in it.  I just decorate homes and play with clothes really.  And do stuff/explore sims on my own when I feel like it. I'll talk to people in local in the more sociable areas but I don't tend to have actual friends.  I don't have time to commit to building, content creation etc although I do sometimes take the notion to try, just for fun.  (eg I did an online course on using Blender.) I can't commit to any particular day/time to be online so I don't do SL jobs anymore either.  

I'm still predominantly human and wearing an idealised version of what I'd like to wear in the real world.  (I don't dress quite like that in the real world anymore cos, unlike my avi, I aged and put on weight!! 😂 ) Just with a mesh body and well made clothes now.  And a lot more of them!!  Because one difference between RL me and SL me is that SL me loves shopping for them.  😳

I've played about with being non-human too.  So far I've enjoyed being a mermaid best.  But being a purple-skinned alien cyborg was fun too.  As was being a tiny cat.  I mean, you can change your species as easily as you can change your clothes so I do it when I feel like it!  Definitely mostly just human though. But still always changing.  If I could change my skin/hair/eye colour and body/face whenever I felt like it in RL too, I would!!  (I do always tend to go back to black/purple clothes and hair though,  just like in RL.)  
 
I set up an alt a couple of years ago for practical reasons (mainly cos I needed to start a group for something) so have wandered around as a male on occasion, but I don't have any friends or anything on that account.  I log in on it very occasionally when I have a practical reason for needing to, and I might then decide to go to a club or something as my alt for a short while.  He has a freebie Altamura body and mostly freebie clothes picked up in the first 30 days from newbie areas. He doesn't look great, but I don't see the point in spending much money on an account I barely use. 

Edited February 6, 2020 by Violet Vandyke

[Reese Wicken]

When I first started in SL, we had prims and system layers to work with.

I didn't know what I wanted to be, my first avatar was your standard ruth, I made her as small as I could.  But then I found Luskwood a few months later, bought lindens and turned into a wolf.

Finding clothing to fit a furry av back then was hard, but we did it!

Now a days, I'm a cute deer... Depending on my mood of course, I own a lot of rare gacha avatars that I either got from yard sales or the events themselves.

( I sell gacha avatars I don't want along with mods for others as I buy them from events. )

[Cristiano Midnight]

Sorry, posted in the wrong thread lol.

 

Edited February 7, 2020 by Cristiano Midnight
Wrong thread

[Garnet Psaltery]

On 2/6/2020 at 3:50 PM, Violet Vandyke said:

I joined in 2007, not to BE anything, but to hang out and do stuff in a virtual world with friends I didn't get to see much in the real world because of distance or other reasons.  

I found a load of clothes that vaguely matched what I would wear in the real world and had fun with my friends, who were also avatar versions of their RL selves.  I got a bit of mainland where there were some sci-fi related things around, and I lived in a space station there.  I played around with building stuff and making basic clothes.  I had a couple of jobs.  

I didn't log in for a few years and came back, I think 3 or 4 years ago.  A lot had changed. Me walking about with my system body and system/prim clothes while everyone else was all mesh!  The avatar I used to be proud of looked like a cartoon next to everyone else.  So I soon upgraded how I looked!  

My RL friends, and the early friends I made inworld, have all left SL now so I'm no longer very sociable in it.  I just decorate homes and play with clothes really.  And do stuff/explore sims on my own when I feel like it. I'll talk to people in local in the more sociable areas but I don't tend to have actual friends.  I don't have time to commit to building, content creation etc although I do sometimes take the notion to try, just for fun.  (eg I did an online course on using Blender.) I can't commit to any particular day/time to be online so I don't do SL jobs anymore either.  

I'm still predominantly human and wearing an idealised version of what I'd like to wear in the real world.  (I don't dress quite like that in the real world anymore cos, unlike my avi, I aged and put on weight!! 😂 ) Just with a mesh body and well made clothes now.  And a lot more of them!!  Because one difference between RL me and SL me is that SL me loves shopping for them.  😳

I've played about with being non-human too.  So far I've enjoyed being a mermaid best.  But being a purple-skinned alien cyborg was fun too.  As was being a tiny cat.  I mean, you can change your species as easily as you can change your clothes so I do it when I feel like it!  Definitely mostly just human though. But still always changing.  If I could change my skin/hair/eye colour and body/face whenever I felt like it in RL too, I would!!  (I do always tend to go back to black/purple clothes and hair though,  just like in RL.)  
 
I set up an alt a couple of years ago for practical reasons (mainly cos I needed to start a group for something) so have wandered around as a male on occasion, but I don't have any friends or anything on that account.  I log in on it very occasionally when I have a practical reason for needing to, and I might then decide to go to a club or something as my alt for a short while.  He has a freebie Altamura body and mostly freebie clothes picked up in the first 30 days from newbie areas. He doesn't look great, but I don't see the point in spending much money on an account I barely use. 

If you feel like wandering somewhere in company now and then do say hello inworld.  I'm sometimes a tiny cat if you fancy being that for a day as well.  

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

The Bitsy is fae and a time lord. It has always been this way.

[latinatransgirl]

i have the funniest story. so early on in life i would say i was computer poor. dont think i actually owned a PC till i was mid 20's. So even then it wasnt a high performance gaming PC. it was kind of low end i think emachine or something. So i remember there being a game called half-life. When i found this place i sort of made mistake of not remembering exactly. I didnt play that game so it wasnt much to remember. So for about the 1st year i would tell people yeah i heard of SL but didnt have a good enough computer back then. Then i saw a ad for HalfLife 2 and i realized i hadnt ever even SL till i game here. lucky find i suppose

[Anilyse7]

On 2/11/2020 at 10:15 PM, latinatransgirl said:

i have the funniest story. so early on in life i would say i was computer poor. dont think i actually owned a PC till i was mid 20's. So even then it wasnt a high performance gaming PC. it was kind of low end i think emachine or something. So i remember there being a game called half-life. When i found this place i sort of made mistake of not remembering exactly. I didnt play that game so it wasnt much to remember. So for about the 1st year i would tell people yeah i heard of SL but didnt have a good enough computer back then. Then i saw a ad for HalfLife 2 and i realized i hadnt ever even SL till i game here. lucky find i suppose

.....

....

WHAT?!

[Rhonda Huntress]

My first ever avatar was an Anubis jackal.  That was followed by a racoon, then a human male before I gave up and made "me" in SL.  All of those are lost to the void now. 

This account started as human and has remained mostly human with an occasional trip into demonology at times. I have been human for 11 years now.