New Landing Point After Learning Island

[Caroline Takeda]

Hello fellow residents,

Usually when a new resident finishes his learning path on learning island and walks through the portal at the end he/she gets teleported to one of the Social Islands. I realized the other day, that this might have changed. I am not sure weather this is a new thing at all, as it has been a long time that I released a new character into the wild.

You end up now on a place called "Portal Park".

It is much smaller then Social Island and consists of several portals to specific Linden owned regions (such as the Linden Realms and Horizons). The design differs substantially compared to Social Island.

Have a look yourself:

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by Caroline Takeda

[Mollymews]

i like this change.  New people getting sent to the Portal Park after on-boarding thru the Learning Island

I think is better that new people can easily/simply get to a Linden-built new user experience (predictable stuff to do) on first time entering the world. Predictably Interesting stuff to do/explore immediately rather than wandering around wondering what to do as was/is the case with the Social Islands

 

[Alwin Alcott]

if these regions again are accessable by all, in the meaning of older residents, or able to be sticky there, the griefing and annoyances as on the social islands will just move with it.

[Caroline Takeda]

Alwin,

Interesting point. I will test this sending a LM to my main and see if I can access it. I do know that new residents get automatically set home there.
I personally never saw griefing on Social Island. Also I think older residents probably don't even know about Portal Park (yet).  They probably hang around Social Island and wonder where all the noobs are gone.

Edited October 1, 2020 by Caroline Takeda

[Caroline Takeda]

36 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

Interesting stuff to do/explore immediately rather than wandering around wondering what to do as was/is the case with the Social Islands

 

That was probably the Idea. Getting noobs involved in something game-like to start with.
Maybe a Linden reading this want to comment?

[Lucia Nightfire]

1 hour ago, Caroline Takeda said:

Also I think older residents probably don't even know about Portal Park (yet).

Portal Park has been around since 2014 and Linden Realms has been around since 2012.

I would hope a significant amount of older residents have encountered it by now.

[Alwin Alcott]

22 minutes ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

I would hope a significant amount of older residents have encountered it by now.

never been there   vagely remember it's mentioned somewhere, as entrance of some games(?), as no interest in those forgot easely.

[Gabriele Graves]

LL have used Portal Park for at least one Winter event and some other Linden events.  It isn't all about the games though they are obviously very prominent.  You can't teleport through the Portals unless you accept the Experience however.

Edited October 1, 2020 by Gabriele Graves
better wording.

[Caroline Takeda]

Ok,

I never heard of it before.
I wonder why the noobs get now directly ro portal park and not to social island.

[Gabriele Graves]

LL often try different  things with the new user experience.  Sometimes they just do it for a while and then go back to the way it was, sometimes they drastically change things.  I tend to agree with Molly that older residents were probably causing problems for new people and that is the reason.  It is interesting though because Portal Park was just one of a range of other destinations available from social island which now aren't getting the exposure anymore.

Edited October 1, 2020 by Gabriele Graves
clarification

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Caroline Takeda said:

That was probably the Idea. Getting noobs involved in something game-like to start with.

it might be that Linden are doing testing which they do sometimes. Send new signups thru different onboarding scenarios and see how well they do in retention

edit add. what Gabriele said about Linden trying different things with new signups

Edited October 1, 2020 by Mollymews

[Dyna Mole]

Portal Park (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Portal Park 1/128/128/24) has been around for 5 or 6 years now.  It's pretty heavily used. It's a main entry point for most of the LDPW projects like Paleoquest, Linden Realms, Horizons, Gaming Island, and the Cornfield as well as the seasonal areas (Halloween, Winter Wonderland, Isle of View), although you can teleport to many of them directly as well.  Some of those places ask you to accept an Experience before you go through a portal but others, like Winter Wonderland and Isle of View, don't.  They are all public venues, fun places to visit.

We just opened the Halloween portal on Monday, so you can use it to get to the Haunted Halloween Ride, which is genuinely scary.  From there, you can go through another portal to the new Haunted Neighborhood (or you can TP directly to Millbank).  Moles put a lot of effort into these seasonal areas each year as well as the large-scale games, Bellisseria properties, and other LDPW  projects around the grid.  

Edited October 1, 2020 by Dyna Mole

[Gabriele Graves]

59 minutes ago, Dyna Mole said:

Some of those places ask you to accept an Experience before you go through a portal but others, like Winter Wonderland and Isle of View, don't.

All of the Portals did at least at one point because I tried to go though them all and very specifically noted that.  The Portals for both Winter Wonderland and Isle of View are now closed of course because the events are closed.  The Halloween Portal does require an Experience to use the Portal however.

[Lindal Kidd]

I hope this isn't a permanent change.  Maybe I am just a stick in the mud, but I think this would make it a lot harder for those of us in the mentoring biz to help newcomers.

• The games can be opaque and frustrating even when you know what you are doing
• We'd get questions about how to play the games, rather than how to use SL in general
• Thousands of newbies overrunning Linden Realms and interacting with older residents before they know the basics and the pitfalls of SL

Not casting shade on the Moles or the great work they do, but...no.  Just, no.

[Dyna Mole]

1 hour ago, Gabriele Graves said:

All of the Portals did at least at one point because I tried to go though them all and very specifically noted that.  The Portals for both Winter Wonderland and Isle of View are now closed of course because the events are closed.  The Halloween Portal does require an Experience to use the Portal however.

Right.  Those two, plus the portal to TCMG, do not require you to be in an Experience.

[Mollymews]

16 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

I hope this isn't a permanent change.  Maybe I am just a stick in the mud, but I think this would make it a lot harder for those of us in the mentoring biz to help newcomers.

• The games can be opaque and frustrating even when you know what you are doing
• We'd get questions about how to play the games, rather than how to use SL in general
• Thousands of newbies overrunning Linden Realms and interacting with older residents before they know the basics and the pitfalls of SL

Not casting shade on the Moles or the great work they do, but...no.  Just, no.

it will depend I think on where Home is set for new residents. When the Social Islands came then Linden did a good thing.  When a new sign-up came to the Social Island from Learning Island then their Home is set to the Social Island. Which was really good as it provided the new person with a consistent familiar place to return too when they pressed the Home button. Way better than the old way of being sent to some different random Infohub

if the people who are sent to a Portal Park to start with, still have their Home set to a Social Island then on going Home they will still get access to the mentors and other helpy people on the Social Islands