SL new user retention, expectation and usability

[cunomar]

Protection from jerks makes me wonder , for me any conversation at all might have been preferable to weeks wandering silent and empty places .

A new player has absolutely nothing to lose so if they wind up locked in a cage or something , shrugs , lesson learned start again - like every other game you get killed a few times before you get the gist of it .

What kept me returning was long empty evenings with nothing better to do and the nagging thought "nobody builds such a huge virtual world just so it can sit empty so what am i missing" ?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 minutes ago, cunomar said:

A new player has absolutely nothing to lose so if they wind up locked in a cage or something , shrugs , lesson learned start again - like every other game you get killed a few times before you get the gist of it .

Except that a great many SL residents are not gamers, Cunomar.

And we aren't "playing" Chell or Lara Croft or Joel Miller. Most of us here represent ourselves, and what happens here happens, in some sense, to us.

The stakes are higher for a great many people -- whatever your own feelings on the subject.

[cunomar]

"new players" not alts

It takes time for any new user to realize its not just a game , and for many of us twice as long again to accept it is just a game and it can't be anything more .

Edited August 25, 2022 by cunomar

[cunomar]

Again, decide who you want to appeal to . In my view nobody at all signs up looking for an actual second life , they don't come to bare their soul or find anything meaningful .

Some might come to try their hand at designing stuff perhaps , though as far as i can tell its all made outside sl with programs like blender ?

In my view many many more say hey look its free and all i need is a disposable email address and user name i will never remember to take a look .

Thats what i did and maybe a month later some computer glitch removed my saved login details and i was dead because i had no idea what my email address was . Shrugs , i'd lost nothing having invested only time and i was just about learning to dress my av in freebie galaxy stuff .

A week or 2 later i thought it a shame to waste what i'd learned so i did the same again only this time i wrote down my login details and 5 years later i still use the same name .

[Kalegthepsionicist]

2 hours ago, cunomar said:

"new players" not alts

It takes time for any new user to realize its not just a game , and for many of us twice as long again to accept it is just a game and it can't be anything more .

thats why I said there arw ptofesional pervert like to fk new player.

its become they kink.

but new comer especially woman with good attitude will leave theplatform when realize is the place of pervert to uh oh and satisfied their desire.

nobody want tobe a tools for a sexual disorder person

Edited August 25, 2022 by Kalegthepsionicist

[Coffee Pancake]

5 hours ago, Kalegthepsionicist said:

thats why I said there arw ptofesional pervert like to fk new player.

its become they kink.

but new comer especially woman with good attitude will leave theplatform when realize is the place of pervert to uh oh and satisfied their desire.

nobody want tobe a tools for a sexual disorder person

What are you talking about.

New players are no one's kink. "How do I .. , oh you right click the ball.., hahaha oh wow this is hilarious! how do I get rid of the dog in the bag?! hahahahahahahaha"

women with good attitude, sexual disorder person .. what .. you do realise that everything in SL is consensual and voluntary .. it takes two to tango, and everyone involved has to be into it or it's just stupid and very silly.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 hours ago, cunomar said:

Again, decide who you want to appeal to . In my view nobody at all signs up looking for an actual second life , they don't come to bare their soul or find anything meaningful

Says who?

Oh, right. You do.

"Your view" is a terribly limited one.  It's difficult to know whether it is the result of a sort of contempt for anyone who doesn't see SL as a disposable "game" as you apparently do, or just myopic vision. You really need to try to step outside of your own preconceptions and biases for a few minutes, and try to grasp the concept that people come here with different expectations, different life experiences, and different goals. Can you at least try to do that?

If there is one thing that characterizes the SL resident user base, it is diversity. You certainly are not describing what brought me to SL, or keeps me here.

8 hours ago, cunomar said:

A new player has absolutely nothing to lose so if they wind up locked in a cage or something , shrugs , lesson learned start again - like every other game you get killed a few times before you get the gist of it .

Ok, so let's try this again.

Within the first 45 minutes of choosing my starter avatar in 2008, I found myself staring at a sex bed belonging to guy who was hanging out at the welcome area to pick up noobie women. (He had promised to "show me" his Blues music collection.)

It wasn't my avatar he was interested in: his focus was upon me. And the impacts of that interaction -- had I allowed it to happen -- wouldn't have impacted my virtual embodiment: they would have been experienced by me.

The first time I turned down a pick up line at a club, I was told in IM that I was a "stuck up b****". That guy wasn't insulting a throw-away avatar: he was attacking me.

I learned very quickly that the people I was interacting with weren't in any sense NPCs, and that I was going to be treated by others as a real person. Not as a disposable account. And even if you prefer to treat your virtual incarnation as a meaningless shell, you are in no position to either describe, or dictate, how others approach their experience here.

[EnCore Mayne]

alls i read are defenses for sexual assaults. too revealing as to the user base?

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

I suspect the fact that people sign up for such a myriad of reasons may actually be a contributing factor to the poor retention rate of new users, as it complicates the process of guiding users through the signup process and delivering them to the type of content that actually prompted them to try SL in the first place.  Being presented with a lot of information which isn't particularly relevant to your reason for visiting SL is probably off-putting.

On the subject of allowing new users to customize their avatars during the sign up process, I read an article about a company called ReadyPlayerMe that's offering a third party avatar creation service (you can try the avatar creation process for free here).

It's mostly aimed at the new crop of "metaverse" platforms so the style of avatar is quite cartoonish/stylized but I think the general approach is something that could be applicable to the SL signup process too (although personally I'd rather see them copy the Black Desert Online character creation process, but that's probably asking a little too much).

[Scylla Rhiadra]

56 minutes ago, EnCore Mayne said:

alls i read are defenses for sexual assaults. too revealing as to the user base?

I'm sorry, what?

[Kathlen Onyx]

1 hour ago, EnCore Mayne said:

alls i read are defenses for sexual assaults. too revealing as to the user base?

You can't be sexually assaulted here. You have control over your avatar. If you feel threatened in that way click the X in the upper right hand of you viewer and log out.

[Love Zhaoying]

15 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

1 hour ago, EnCore Mayne said:

alls i read are defenses for sexual assaults. too revealing as to the user base?

I'm sorry, what?

This is what happens when threads derail. 

[cunomar]

OK lets get back on track by listing what you think makes people sign up to SL .

I will start with my terribly limited view by saying curiosity .

Same reason i look in shop windows not expecting to find anything but you never know .

[Blaise Glendevon]

10 hours ago, Kalegthepsionicist said:

thats why I said there arw ptofesional pervert like to fk new player.

its become they kink.

but new comer especially woman with good attitude will leave theplatform when realize is the place of pervert to uh oh and satisfied their desire.

nobody want tobe a tools for a sexual disorder person

What in the blue blazes is a "woman with good attitude" and why do I assume you mean "woman willing to entertain my nonsense"?

[Ardy Lay]

Where do you go in a (pick one or more)

• shopping center
• mall
• department store
• marketplace
• bazaar
• flea market
• emporium
• outlet
• supercenter
• mecca
• (other)

when you visit?

What are you looking for?

What do you want?

Now, ask yourself this:  Can you answer the above questions accurately for the next person that randomly happens along?  I know I cannot, usually.  Maybe it would be easier to ask them than guess.  How do people react to finding a directory of wares available when they arrive at a place from the first question?  Perhaps that varies with the purpose for the visit, and, thus, we have our conundrum.  If I am looking for something specific then I peruse the directory look for a store that I know sells it, but how do I know what stores sell it?  Should we approach attracting people to Second Life the same way people get attracted to

• shopping venues
• theme parks
• sports arenas
• empty parking lots
• parks
• nature trails
• swimming pools ?

Second Life:  Here is what is in it for you!

(/me collapses under weight of catalog.)  

[cunomar]

And you knew it before you signed up ?

Prior to signing up to SL my concept of a virtual world fell a million miles short of what i now know SL to be .

Chance brought me in with no expectations .

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by cunomar

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

What in the blue blazes is a "woman with good attitude" and why do I assume you mean "woman willing to entertain my nonsense"?

Was pretty plainly meant that a "woman with good attitude" is a woman not "willing to entertain the nonsense" and will leave the platform instead.

[Blaise Glendevon]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Was pretty plainly meant that a "woman with good attitude" is a woman not "willing to entertain the nonsense" and will leave the platform instead.

Nah.

[EliseAnne85]

3 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

You can't be sexually assaulted here. You have control over your avatar. If you feel threatened in that way click the X in the upper right hand of you viewer and log out.

When I was new, this was a long time ago, I was assaulted by that vampire bloodlines thing by stupidly accepting.   I don't know why I accepted something I did not know what it was about but I did.  I just can't remember, it was so long ago.  Bloodlines ended up being banned in the most popular clubs and that's where I hung out.  There was always a Dj and a Host to help with things I did not understand.  Believe it or not, I IM'd the hosts a lot at clubs for help when I was a newbie or they IM'd me about where the dances were, etc.  In the bloodlines incident, I did the above, logged out.  It startled me was all and I hardly remember it after all these years.

I always thought SL was much like RL...you have to figure it out as you go.  I wanted to join SL because  I heard you could get a job.  I wanted to see what that was all about and how it might help me have a SL without paying too much at first.  But, man have I spent in the years SL has been here (for me it's mostly been hair like many said in another thread).

[Harmony Evergarden]

On 8/14/2022 at 7:35 PM, Coffee Pancake said:

What are we screwing up in a new users first 10 minutes.

Do they press W to walk forward, type wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww in chat and freak out? Do they seen an avatar, fall face first into the uncanny valley, and are subconsciously biased from that moment on? Does the lack of smoothness and a hint of jank put them off? Do they have an immediate "how do I" question and then just give up?

In my case, I came in to SL because I was a gamer girl. The first sounds I heard was someone saying really awful things about Black people. Made me wonder what kind of racist hell had I wandered into. I left and didn't return until a group of my friends from Red Light Center all decided to move to Second Life...all of us came together. Therefore we learned together and made our own community. We did have a mentor, one who was a DJ in both metaverses who made it easy for all of us. 

I think that if newcomers were able to easily fit into a community, they would be more likely to stay. It is terrible not knowing who you can ask, and who you can recruit to explore with. That stays with you. 

[Blaise Glendevon]

21 minutes ago, Harmony Evergarden said:

In my case, I came in to SL because I was a gamer girl. The first sounds I heard was someone saying really awful things about Black people. Made me wonder what kind of racist hell had I wandered into.

Linden Lab has abandoned new user spaces, so they get occupied by the lowest common denominator of troll. If they want to increase user retention, having a Linden whose job is to monitor behavior in the new user areas or some kind of bot that boots people for using hate speech is going to have to be added. 

[animats]

8 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

ReadyPlayerMe that's offering a third party avatar creation service

That's an interesting system. It's outsourcing avatars to an external service. Each system using Ready Player Me avatars renders them from their servers with their code embedded into the viewer program. Ready Player Me handles all clothing sales and clothing changes. It's used by many low end games and virtual worlds that lack the resources to build a clothing system. Avatars are thus portable between the hundreds of games that use the system. Originally, it was free for content creators, but now there's an NFT system where they take a 50% cut on purchased clothing, or something like that. It seems to be headed for a business model where the good clothing is expensive.

SL doesn't need it, but it's worth knowing about it if you're into the technology.

Interestingly, Ready Player Me is  cartoony as a design decision. They tried photorealistic avatars, and in customer testing, the cartoony ones were more popular. So they decided to stop short of the uncanny valley where SL operates.

This is one of SL's problems.  Having made it to the uncanny valley, SL has to keep increasing avatar visual quality until it climbs out the other side. Hollywood went through this. See the trailer for "The Polar Express" (2004). See Creepy CGI Tom Hanks. Good movement tracking, dead skin look. Hollywood climbed out of that valley over the following decade, and games are climbing out of it now. This is why I plug for subsurface scattering, which gives that little bit of redness around where light hits skin that makes it look alive. Without that, you only have a specular slider with "dead" at one extreme and "plastic" at the other. No setting will look right in all lighting conditions. It's subtle, but it matters.

(I wonder if this is part of the reason furries are popular in SL. Fur avoids the human skin lighting problem.)

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, animats said:

This is one of SL's problems.  Having made it to the uncanny valley, SL has to keep increasing avatar visual quality until it climbs out the other side. Hollywood went through this. See the trailer for "The Polar Express" (2004). See Creepy CGI Tom Hanks. Good movement tracking, dead skin look. Hollywood climbed out of that valley over the following decade, and games are climbing out of it now. This is why I plug for subsurface scattering, which gives that little bit of redness around where light hits skin that makes it look alive. Without that, you only have a specular slider with "dead" at one extreme and "plastic" at the other. No setting will look right in all lighting conditions. It's subtle, but it matters.

(I wonder if this is part of the reason furries are popular in SL. Fur avoids the human skin lighting problem.)

SL realism is uncanny, there is no way of getting around that. It's also something we're oblivious to simply by virtue of investing time and emotion into this place.

[belindacarson]

10 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

You can't be sexually assaulted here. You have control over your avatar. If you feel threatened in that way click the X in the upper right hand of you viewer and log out.

Try telling that to the "entitled dahlings" on here.  😂😂😂😂😂

[Love Zhaoying]

40 minutes ago, belindacarson said:

Try telling that to the "entitled dahlings" on here.  😂😂😂😂😂

They are too busy sailing, trading Bellisseria homes, canceling the Forum, etc. to be bothered!