In 2008...

[Marcus Hancroft]

my avatar was born in SL.  I got to type in my first name, and then choose from a list of last names, to complete my avatar name.  I chose Hancroft, because it was a "normal" sounding last name.  Back then, once rezzed, new residents found themselves on Orientation Island.  There were stations they would go to, to learn how to fly, how to change clothes, and other main functions they would use inworld.  The largest size prim one could create was 10m X 10m.  There were megaprims a person could get at "Builders Brewery" (or websites devoted to delivering mega's to avatars inworld) that were larger than the maximum prim size, some over 100M, but if one tried to edit the size on those megaprims, they would automatically revert to the 10X10's.  

There was no such thing as mesh.  Clothes were layers on our avatars bodies, not attachments, though most did have sculpted prims that were included to complete the outfit. (collars, skirts, etc)  There were voting stands one could click at venues to vote it up in the rankings.  There were poseballs on every piece of furniture.  

Sometimes we couldn't log in and would get the "Monkey's are working on things" notice.

I had several plots of land on Weta Island in the Irukandji Continent, which was over 50 sims large.  I miss Irukandji a LOT.

Now, I look around SL, and everything looks so good!  Our avatars are orders of magnitude better!  Buildings are much better!  Mesh is much more realistic!

Still, I think back to those early days with fondness.  Remembering the times I accidentally wore a box on my hand instead of rezzing it on the ground to open it and looking like a fool.    The genitals all the fellas had was the Realasm.  The Lucky Chairs, just waiting for the letter "M" to come up, so I could pounce and get a prize of some sort!  And more.

So tell me, all you other oldsters, what do you remember about 2008 in SL?  Do you say something to the people you see inworld who have your same last name like I do? (I call them cousins!)  

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

I came to sl in 07 so I guess I should not reply...... we also had what you had.. last name matched to first, then orientation island... I think I still have my torch somewhere......

[Marcus Hancroft]

No, no, Tarina!  You are welcome to reply!  😁  And I'm happy you did!  OMG, I forgot about the torches!

[Emma Krokus]

My rez day was November 28th, 2008. I wanted an easy to type, short name. The first couple days are a blur now... at some point I tried to adjust some jewellery. The person who got me into SL was taking me to freebie places (McMoney's, Yadni's), I picked up everything!

I remember dancing on a picnic table at a beach club in platform bling heels, and some short skirted outfit and thinking it was the best :).

Someone asked me if I had prim hair - I had no idea what they were talking about and I was presented with a black hair with 2 cute buns on top.

I danced for tips (from the owner) at the Orbit Industrial Club - I loved that place, setting off particles everywhere, and gesturbating.

Somehow  maybe a month in or so, I landed in Chakryn Forest when it was still big and had that huge tree house. I stood under a tree that had glass baubles hanging down from it and looked up the hill where my avatar was walking and I was just in awe. Chakryn was my home for some time, whenever I was homeless -  l would log off sitting crosslegged under the waterfall.

Everyone seemed to be wearing wings or tails (Nekos). I shapeshifted constantly at that time - a new outfit every 10 minutes. Changing into a zebra or some other creature in the middle of the dance floor was great for giggles.

For a while, I lived in Uhre - I so loved the dragon battles - my fave memory is standing on a flying carpet sending healing rays to wounded dragons. 

I have so many more memories - perhaps I'll have to return here...

Emma  

ETA: I met one other Krokus and we were friends for a while. I do say Hi to Krokus cousins, didn't have replies from the others.

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Emma Krokus

[Chic Aeon]

30 minutes ago, Marcus Hancroft said:

There were poseballs on every piece of furniture. 

I remembered everything the same as you but this.  There actually WERE sit scripts back then and before.  I got one from a class I attended. You could only use one pose and you had to go into the script and type in the rotation and XYZ placements which could take forever -- partly because I didn't really now those parameters were supposed to work and of course each pose was uploaded differently so the numbers were never EVER the same.

 

I was born at the same time 2008 was -- pretty much exactly so it is easy to remember those early days. 

Mostly it was sitting for hair at Calla and playing trivia and now and then (rarely) actually winning a 50 linden question.  I spent a lot of time at Sn@tch where there were gifts galore and frequent "find the free item on the walls" events. Always fun. 

 

I started blogging not long after I arrived so I spent a LOT of time looking for good freebies. "Good" of course was relative -- as it still is -- and looking back at my early blog posts I shake my head. But both fun and free. House of Heart had lots of free hair hunts and now and there there would be a good color or style for me.    

 

Aside from camping for hair a Calla there was and Asian place that had great clothes to camp for. I don't recall the name but my blog would tell me if I went back to look. I think they have been gone for a long time.  I camped for lindens too and used that money to buy textures and upload clothing items (my first foray into creating -- I wasn't that good at it).  

 

I remember that there were lots of store models, basically camping with a brands clothing.  Search engine ratings back then were all about how many people were at your sim for how long.  The better camping places paid 3 lindens for every 10 minutes. My favorite  was the guitar player but there were some very creative "campers" including pin ball machines, repair people and window washers --- and of course the ever present DANCE PAD.

 

I do remember my first try at using megaprims.  Oh my!  I had no clue how to delete the full sim sized cube.  The sandboxes were anywhere between nasty and dangerous with griefers everywhere and if you could find a private or school sandbox that was a joy.  

 

Those are my recollections of year one. We have indeed come a long way.  

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Chic Aeon
spelling

[Marcus Hancroft]

26 minutes ago, Emma Krokus said:

 

I have so many more memories - perhaps I'll have to return here...

 

 

Please do, Miss Emma!  Loved your post!

[Marcus Hancroft]

16 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

I do remember my first try at using megaprims.  Oh my!  I had no clue how to delete the full sim sized cube.  The sandboxes were anywhere between nasty and dangerous with griefers everywhere and if you could find a private or school sandbox that was a joy.  

 

 

 

 

 

Yes!  The full sim size megas!  I forgot about those too!  Good memories!

[Rolig Loon]

I arrived early in 2007, went through Orientation Island, and then somehow ended up magically at a Japanese bus station.  I must have clicked something.  I have no idea.  I do remember that it was quite a surprise, because I hadn't considered the possibility of teleporting.  I logged out and logged back in again, expecting to be back at Orientation Island, but was still at the Japanese bus station.  It took me quite a bit of experimentation to discover how to teleport on purpose, and then a bit longer to figure out how to predict where I would end up.  Once I did that, I looked for a library, on the theory that librarians usually know which end is up and are friendly about answering stupid questions.

I stayed at the library for a very long time -- until 2015, actually -- because they not only helped me find my way around but offered me a home base for experimenting with building, scripting, and other basic skills. I made some of my best SL friends there, people that I still dance and chat with several times a week.  We've all moved on from the library now, except for trivia night once a month, but we still talk about the early years when we were all newbies.  SL has matured dramatically in the past 13 years.  I wouldn't want to go back to those primitive times again, but I am happy to have been here through them. 

[Zero Starchild]

I think everything was more fun then. More fun and less learning how to get dressed with mesh and BOM etc

[Madelaine McMasters]

I first set foot in SL in late 2007, but lasted only an hour, never getting off Orientation Island. I returned for good in April of 2008, as Madelaine Marbach. Within 48 hours, I was gifted L$250 by a woman so I could purchase pretty hair. I still have it. My li'l devil avi wears it. Like the rest of you, I feel nostalgia for those days, not because SL was better then (it surely wasn't) but because the thrill of the new never gets old.

It took me some time to learn that "Wear" was preferable to "Detach" followed by "Add", which would save me the embarrassment that forced me to change clothing under a barge in a canal on some fairly deserted region. Now I both know how do dress myself and don't mind being momentarily naked in the middle of Sunday services. SL has some a long way, and so have I.

[Nick0678]

Don't remember anything from 2008, i joined 2009 but definitely it was more fun back in those days and much more people and nobody cared if the avatars looked like VR top models or whatever. Plain and simple.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

1 hour ago, Ziggy Starsmith said:

I think everything was more fun then. More fun and less learning how to get dressed with mesh and BOM etc

That is truth

[Chaser Zaks]

I joined back in 02/05/2007, but my now account was in 2008, which I then left for reasons (i was underage and left sometime mid/late 2008 on my own will when finding out I had to be 18. Yes LL knows, and we resolved this situation. My real DOB is on file now. You can blame Neopets for advertising SL to me) and came back when specific reasons were no longer a factor.

I remember this, which I still have to this day(I wish I could re-visit this place!):

I recall the building tutorial area which LL was trusting enough of people to allow people to rez something without grey gooing the entire region, as well as the "Get the torch and wear it" quest, which resulted in a lot of new people wearing torches around SL.

But I also remember going to a place called FlyinTails Airfield and meeting a friend that had disappeared for unknown reasons. Someone was nice enough to me to give me some money to get a non-freebie avatar and pointed me to Luskwoods, where I was then promptly scammed by someone asking to borrow some L$ and promised to pay me back, which I was dumb back then and also very overtly nice(which I still am, but to a lesser extent).

I also remember the lack of sculpts. If sculpts were to be found, they were a rarity because no one knew how to use them. It was only a few years later while I was gone that people seemed to figure out how to use them. I still have some of the old primitive based avatars sitting in my inventory, such as the Phase 2 "Crax" avatar which I am unsure of the history of, either bootleg crux, original crux, or prototype crux. Or this "Violator" or "Spawns Enemy Avatar". Either way, they are fully primitive based, sculpts are verbatim!:

Also these where everywhere, and you'd get llInstantMessage'd to click it when entering areas:

Also no Marketplace. Wanted to find something, GO REGION HOPPING! No search unless the product you were searching for was seen as important enough to the seller to put into the parcel description. LL's viewer was the most popular back then too IIRC, so there was no "STOP CAMMING ME" stuff. And in my personal opinion, copybotting was much more of an issue back then than it is now. Now it is mostly just people ripping meshes from games these days.

Edited August 12, 2020 by Chaser Zaks

[Lindal Kidd]

3 hours ago, Emma Krokus said:

I landed in Chakryn Forest when it was still big

I loved Chakryn Forest!  Did you ever find the way into the huge hidden cave there?

I also loved the "Reflections" regions, especially the one where the whole region was an underground cavern...Hidden Reflections.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

3 hours ago, Marcus Hancroft said:

No, no, Tarina!  You are welcome to reply!  😁  And I'm happy you did!  OMG, I forgot about the torches!

Always remember your torch!

[Emma Krokus]

4 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

I loved Chakryn Forest!  Did you ever find the way into the huge hidden cave there?

I also loved the "Reflections" regions, especially the one where the whole region was an underground cavern...Hidden Reflections.

Chakryn is exists - but much changed. The giant cave is there still - I discovered it when i fell into it through the mountain. Since I've found the proper mountain pass to it.

Met two of my closest friends there and many others.

Not sure I ever visited Hidden Reflections... maybe it's still around... 

Avatars are hugely improved from those days, but I loved my avatar wearing Eloh Eliot (Le) Greed skin (given to me by a kind fairy in Chakryn Forest in late 2008) - early 2018 I had it surgically removed from me when I decided on a mesh body. Facelights were a must until I discovered windlights, having swapped to other viewers when LL brought in their v2 viewer.

At some point in 2009, I found out about hunts, that's where most of my clothes came from after I gave up on the freebie places. Doing the Twisted Hunt for the first time - I think I nearly went mad then, made good friends hunting though. It's much too hard for me now to bother with (it won't let me use area search).

The hunts were my introduction to many SL shops - it was difficult before Marketplace and blogs to find stuff. Through them I found out about Ali & Alli's and midnight mania boards and every Friday, I'd drop by to collect their latest hair freebies - I still like flexi hair now - SUE me! 

Early 2009, I started taking things apart and modding them which was my entry to building, and I started scripting when I dropped a rotation script into a cube (I was so proud!), then got interested in particles. I hate that things aren't as moddable these days - this includes most mesh even if it is modify - I learned so much messing around with prims. And had enormous fun... and I still do.

I am so glad I came here and hugely grateful to Linden Lab for hosting this giant playground and so appreciative of all the people whose creativity, generosity, kindness and hard work have made this world possible. 

Emma  

 

 

 

[KT Kingsley]

1 hour ago, Chaser Zaks said:

No search unless the product you were searching for was seen as important enough to the seller to put into the parcel description.

I do seem to remember that there was something in search that returned a list of named objects from all over the grid. Most things were sold in-world from prims that were named after their contents, so finding specific things was possible, though not all that convenient.

Though this may have been fading out by 2008, with the advent of the XStreet marketplace.

[Chic Aeon]

8 minutes ago, KT Kingsley said:

I do seem to remember that there was something in search that returned a list of named objects from all over the grid. Most things were sold in-world from prims that were named after their contents, so finding specific things was possible, though not all that convenient.

Though this may have been fading out by 2008, with the advent of the XStreet marketplace.

I LOVED that feature.  I used it often when looking for items to buy.   It was in the regular SL seach (white web pages as I remember)  as I never had anything to do with XStreet. It sent you RIGHT to the item you were looking for which was so very handy.  O f course search was MUCH different then.

 

Now we have "Places Pages" but even though I always make on I don't think people actually look at the Places pages often. 

 

[Akane Nacht]

My avie was born in 2008 too and those early days were really fun.

I remember putting on as many particle sparkly things as I could find and dancing on the rooftops at Darkwood Cathedral, and also riding my unicycle down the hill to Ahern Welcome Area, attired in my Freebie Dungeon ensemble. 

I think I must have skipped Help island as I don't recall it and didn't know how to do anything at first. All my help came from other residents.

[Maryanne Solo]

😍😋 Just a twinkle in some pixel couples eyes in 08 and popped into SL very early 2009.
I was living 3000kms from my RL family in the middle of nowhere and SL was my super safe haven of wonders.
(on dial-up internet too).
The only other software to keep people engaged for that duration of time would have to be MS word? wouldn't it?

Edited August 12, 2020 by Maryanne Solo

[Garnet Psaltery]

10 hours ago, Chaser Zaks said:

I remember this, which I still have to this day(I wish I could re-visit this place!):

 

Do you remember the rats in the Move corner?  They would over-spawn and clump together, forming a King Rat.

I remember this from when I piloted a long-gone alt there.

Edited August 12, 2020 by Garnet Psaltery

[Ardy Lay]

Is that the place where an in viewer tutorial instructed you to select a vehicle and run over cyber rats?

[Claireschen Hesten]

When i started in 2008 i have no idea where i first rezzed certainly not any kind of orientation island i think it was possibly help island judging by what little had rezzed i got given a couple of LM's to freebie dungeon and freebie warehouse and had to figure everything out on my own. if you wanted to buy things you had use search or there was SLX/Xstreet, OnRez, Slapt.me and i can't remember the other one but you had to pay a terminal inworld how ever much you wanted to spend definitely on SLX at least

[Panteleeva]

March 2012 me rezzed at welcome island with many starter avatars around,i liked to fly everywhere)

[Chaser Zaks]

On 8/12/2020 at 7:35 AM, Garnet Psaltery said:

Do you remember the rats in the Move corner?  They would over-spawn and clump together, forming a King Rat.

I remember this from when I piloted a long-gone alt there.

 

On 8/12/2020 at 7:46 AM, Ardy Lay said:

Is that the place where an in viewer tutorial instructed you to select a vehicle and run over cyber rats?

Yes! I did also find a video of old Orientation Island, unfortunately the cyber rats is a very brief segment, but here it is: