A Positive Brainstorming / Suggestion Box Thread - Ideas for Improving Second Life Sociability, Usability and Retention

[Love Zhaoying]

Suggestion:

Keep doing certain things the way you are, those things that are keeping people around and engaged for so long.

Change those things that threaten to disengage people.  It's hard to tell when they are serious or just ranting, though.

[Cali Souther]

 

On 2/10/2023 at 10:05 AM, Ceka Cianci said:

I think something that would inspire creating things would be an avenue to look into.. Also something where we can be more creative like before and more useful creations from right here in world..

As the years have passed,  creating in SL has become infinitely more complicated.  It would be absolutely wonderful if it was easier to create and build - for those of us, who are not friends with Blender, etc.  😉

 

 

[animats]

Some of SL's problems are hard to fix. But new male users are still being started with 70's Disco Guy With Radio.  LL just isn't trying.

At least women get Woman with Big Hat and Big Purse with Small Dog, which is a good neutral place to start.

I'd suggest starting out new users with a reasonable mesh avatar and a library of maybe 10-20 mix and match mesh clothing items. At start, you get a randomized outfit from the starter items, so each new user looks unique. (The starter outfit, by the way, should be auto-saved to your Outfits folder. When I run into new users with clothing disasters, I talk them through to a working outfit, and then tell them how to save it in the Outfits folder, so that they always have a safe outfit to which they can go back. That makes experimenting with new clothing safe.)

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 hour ago, Cali Souther said:

 

As the years have passed,  creating in SL has become infinitely more complicated.  It would be absolutely wonderful if it was easier to create and build - for those of us, who are not friends with Blender, etc.  😉

 

 

It's been a while since I built anything substantial out of prims, in what way have they become more complicated to use?

As for Blender, it isn't the only option when it comes to creating content for SL and some of the alternatives are a lot easier to get to grips with.

[animats]

25 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

As for Blender, it isn't the only option when it comes to creating content for SL and some of the alternatives are a lot easier to get to grips with.

What do you suggest? Is there something like SketchUp that integrates well with SL?

Users should be offered a system with constructive solid geometry, where everything is a solid, like prims, not just a surface, like Blender. SketchUp, FreeCAD, Fusion360, and SolidWorks are like that. Those are good tools for buildings and solid things.

Now, that's terrible for clothing and avatars. Those need a completely different tool set, like Clo/Marvelous Designer/MetaTailor. One that's very clothing-aware and has lots of templates for standard clothing items.

Edited February 17, 2023 by animats

[HeathcliffMontague]

Are there still pop-ups with basic "How to" tips in newcomer areas?  If not, there probably should be. A couple of friends and I ran into a newbie today who didn't even know how to respond to IMs. They tried to respond to group chat in local, for example, turned out they'd joined a couple of groups without even knowing how they did it. "Am I in a group now? Is that bad? Is it forever? How do I get out of it?"

Kinda illustrates that newcomers come with all sorts of experience levels. On the other end of the spectrum are gamer newcomers who run around like Duracell bunnies. Slow down,take a breath and look around a bit, grasshopper  

[Prokofy Neva]

9 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Did someone already observe? There are two very different "Destination Guide" interfaces. One is the newbie spoon-fed version from World / Destination Guide with like 14 categories, each with maybe 20-30 entries and no subcategories. The other is the firehose Destination Guide webpage you can open in the viewer from Search, discussed above. At least some of the spoon-fed destinations and categories are selected from the firehose ones.

This is the right way to do it. Maybe the firehose should be more readily discoverable from the spoon-fed interface, and it's impressive to see a broad range of places available to explore, but there's no point in overwhelming newbies with complexity to start.

That's how I feel about avatars, too. I pray the spoon-fed NUX avatars are good enough that only the most fashionista 1% need to consider anything from the firehose for at least six weeks. The basic task of dressing the dolly is fraught with peril. ("I bought this fancy face skin and now my mouth is on the top of my head. What you mean, 'UV map'? I thought I was learning Second Life, not inventing it!") Even arrivals who came for the purpose of avatar customization are apt to give up in disgust if they see the whole convoluted incompatibility exercise that is the SL avatar. Given that mess, hide as much as possible as long as possible, until they're truly hooked.

And this will be unpopular, but I feel the same way about viewers. Let a hundred flowers bloom, sure; let developers scratch their own itch, sure; but newbies using the Linden viewer? Good! 

Sure, your favorite viewer has all these handy shortcuts indispensable for you. That's for you. For a newbie, those are "twisty little passages, all different." Nobody ever left SL because their viewer lacked those features. Nobody. But people do leave because it's too damned complicated. It does newbies no favors to proselytize the one true TPV.

Half the world already lives with merely a dozen Lelutka or a dozen Catwa heads or whatever; it's not like there are hundreds. So when the Lindens finally put mesh avatars with mesh bodies and heads into the Library, they will change this dynamic. Prices will come down, some will quit, it's the usual harsh "creative destructive" of Silicon Valley.

Yes, you can find and pull down the Destination Guide "firehose" -- but why would you want to? You'd have to be a real nerd like me, checking particularly the religious and international categories to update my own lists of such venues, many of which are NOT in Destinations as they are stringent about whom they accept, and any adult venue is automatically excluded. 

I find that newbies even manage to discover my rentals, and by then they've already heard the word on the street that they need to switch to Firestorm for its superior search for shopping (why the Lindens continue to deliberately cripple their Search is beyond me), for area search, for all the other little advantages - none of which are compelling for me. I go on Alchemy now and then to see a better search which is actually our old pre-2.0 search, with neat returns on topic.

To think that for the longest time, the newbie had to learn to drive a car and kill rats in a silly game...

 

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

40 minutes ago, animats said:

What do you suggest?

My own personal preference is 3D Coat which offers a very comprehensive set of voxel based modelling tools alongside traditional low-poly modeling and high-poly sculpting tools.

Modelling with voxels is a very different experience to working with geometry and allows you to focus more on the creative aspect and less on the technical since essentially voxel primitives in 3D Coat are "constructive solids" as you put it and can be merged, cut and intersected to create anything without ever dealing with a vertex or polygon, which makes 3D Coat a lot easier to start creating with for those completely unfamiliar with traditional 3D apps.

[Qie Niangao]

18 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Yes, you can find and pull down the Destination Guide "firehose" -- but why would you want to? You'd have to be a real nerd like me, checking particularly the religious and international categories to update my own lists of such venues, many of which are NOT in Destinations as they are stringent about whom they accept, and any adult venue is automatically excluded. 

True, but it is an impressive looking list and impressions can be important.

I never really considered its utility for checking in on specific categories to make sure I'm not missing anything. I'm not that diligent about SL stuff these days, but I can see where it would be useful for that.

Personally, I'm shiftless enough to suppose myself sufficiently "plugged-in" to the SL communities of interest that I'll stumble on stuff while it's still current. That, and I rely on folks like you and Inara Pey, patrolling the grid for all I miss.

[benchthis]

2 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Yes, you can find and pull down the Destination Guide "firehose" -- but why would you want to? You'd have to be a real nerd like me, checking particularly the religious and international categories to update my own lists of such venues, many of which are NOT in Destinations as they are stringent about whom they accept, and any adult venue is automatically excluded. 

True, but it is an impressive looking list and impressions can be important.

I never really considered its utility for checking in on specific categories to make sure I'm not missing anything. I'm not that diligent about SL stuff these days, but I can see where it would be useful for that.

Personally, I'm shiftless enough to suppose myself sufficiently "plugged-in" to the SL communities of interest that I'll stumble on stuff while it's still current. That, and I rely on folks like you and Inara Pey, patrolling the grid for all I miss.

Going through the destination directory, i'm finding a bunch of cool places i've never been to before, one place today, newcomer friendly area, a nice owner invited me to go on a bike ride and fish.

Nice content creators out there right now, barely hanging on, need this to work for them. I know lot of cute little shops I could request to be added to this list. 

One tweak to it would be after a destination is picked there's option to join (i guess that means log in??) or visit which brings up a map to teleport. I would get rid of that join button because from inside the viewer it closes the destination guide when clicked. Sometimes even though there is a visit button when clicked something happens where it does not bring up the map and have to log out and back into viewer for the visit map button to work. 

 

 

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

and any adult venue is automatically excluded. 

No, it's not.  There are several adult categories at the bottom.  One is even Newcomer Friendly Adult.

45 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

True, but it is an impressive looking list and impressions can be important.

Personally, I have always used the firehose version and never the condensed version. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[benchthis]

AND with new SL avatars coming, the mesh head and mesh body creators will need new users to see this list vs them expected to give up and quit when new bodies are released. Lets try to help them by making it easier for new people to find body upgrades easily vs having to depend on word of mouth. 

[Orwar]

2 hours ago, animats said:

Some of SL's problems are hard to fix. But new male users are still being started with 70's Disco Guy With Radio.  LL just isn't trying.

   To be fair, it's a good indicator of what it's going to be like having a male avatar in the long run; there's some really slim pickings when it comes to menswear if you demand both quality and style!

[Love Zhaoying]

20 minutes ago, Orwar said:

3 hours ago, animats said:

Some of SL's problems are hard to fix. But new male users are still being started with 70's Disco Guy With Radio.  LL just isn't trying.

   To be fair, it's a good indicator of what it's going to be like having a male avatar in the long run; there's some really slim pickings when it comes to menswear if you demand both quality and style!

All my first avatar needed was a loincloth.

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

All my first avatar needed was a loincloth.

Nudists beat you!  They don't need no clothes.  

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

No, it's not.  There are several adult categories at the bottom.  One is even Newcomer Friendly Adult.

Personally, I have always used the firehose version and never the condensed version. 

I can't speak for Prokofy but I'm assuming he meant the Adult section is hidden for newbies.  I think one needs proof of how old they are to access Adult parts of SL including on MP.  

[Rowan Amore]

21 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I can't speak for Prokofy but I'm assuming he meant the Adult section is hidden for newbies.  I think one needs proof of how old they are to access Adult parts of SL including on MP.  

LL hasn't required proof of age for years.  As long as you register as 18 or over, you can access adult content, new or old account.

[EliseAnne85]

49 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

LL hasn't required proof of age for years.  As long as you register as 18 or over, you can access adult content, new or old account.

Yeah, it's been so long ago for my main account, I don't remember.  

[Qie Niangao]

10 hours ago, benchthis said:

One tweak to it would be after a destination is picked there's option to join (i guess that means log in??) or visit which brings up a map to teleport. I would get rid of that join button because from inside the viewer it closes the destination guide when clicked. Sometimes even though there is a visit button when clicked something happens where it does not bring up the map and have to log out and back into viewer for the visit map button to work. 

Just FYI, I'm not seeing "Join" from inside the viewer at all, nor "Visit", just "Teleport" and "View on map". From the web, if not logged in to a SL account I get "Join Now" and "View on map", but when logged in I get the "Teleport" and "View on map" options.

(Because I install an ever shifting array of different versions of different viewers there's just no telling what may happen if I let an external web browser try to open Second Life.)

One thing I was surprised to see: The Adult destinations show up in the Guide even from an incognito web browser window. Maybe all Destination Guide content is G-rated even if the destination is on an Adult region, dunno.

No idea what this means, but even in an incognito browser there's a "Browse related Marketplace Items" section at the bottom of a Destination page—"related" apparently to the selected category, not the individual destination—including "Adult" listings, some with images missing. If I click the link the Marketplace opens with the image intact (haven't come across any actual non-G images, though, so maybe the missing images are just a Marketplace glitch).

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

One thing I was surprised to see: The Adult destinations show up in the Guide even from an incognito web browser window. Maybe all Destination Guide content is G-rated even if the destination is on an Adult region, dunno.

I posted about that earlier...

On 2/15/2023 at 2:50 PM, Rowan Amore said:

 

Adult-rated areas

Second Life’s Destination Guide aims to include a wide variety of communities and venues, including those in regions with Adult ratings. However, as a globally available service, Second Life is subject to many regional restrictions that prohibit advertising or promotion for some types of content and services, such as escorts and explicit content, including nudity.

Because content listed in the Destination Guide can be seen by users of all ages and in all territories, no descriptions — regardless of rating — should contain explicit or overtly sexual language or imagery.

Adult content is list in the viewer web search at the very bottom of the catagories.

 

[Sasy Scarborough]

• The SL website should be more detailed on sign up, as in you do not get to just make a name pick an avatar and you are in, but you should go through a series of steps that teach you what SL really is, and while you do those steps you choose things like your name, your look, but when you choose your look you are learning what an inventory is, how to get dressed how to change your mind and detach etc all in the browser itself. You get to learn about lindens and how to buy them, how to sell them what you may need them for. That you learn about purchasing land or renting a home and the things you can and cannot do with either. It should be clear that content creators are not LL employees, how to know who you are buying from, who to contact if you have issues with an item etc.
• The help hubs etc should be the first place you land at and they should not be fantasy looking builds that nothing in SL even looks close to. Every 5+ years they redo them and every time it is some out there look that is nothing to do with what SL residents will actually encounter and what would keep them here. They should look like the events, malls, live performance locations, LL should gather up a lot of content creators and have them set up a few items as gifts. I am aware there are free items locations, but you have to know they exist to find them, it should be at the start of your adventure into SL because once you have 50 items added to your inventory you are hooked :P.
• I did a jira on this and mentioned it at a meeting. You should have at minimum a 7 day name change option for all new residents. People join with names that they just pull out of air in the rush to get in world, and then once they are in world they start to learn that maybe that was not the right choice...if they had the chance to change their name once in that trial period it may make for a lot less Jonno465871871's and maybe something people are not going to have to rely on a display name to change.
• Yesterday I was bored, and I started thinking about that email we have been getting lately about what you have done in the past year, tping this many times etc. I thought wouldn't it be cool if we could actually achieve things in SL that were kind of status like things. The first that popped into mind was visiting every region, 17 years in I may have been able to achieve that by now. But there is so much out there, and yet there does not seem to be any way of knowing where you can just go, where you are allowed, what is there etc.
• What if WORLD Map had descriptors in more than just what they show now. Search terms you could use like 'Archery" and it would list every region that someone has rezzed archery items on ( i do not know where archery came from but it seemed innocent enough) or "Horse Riding" any region that has rezzed out ridable horses, or has tracks and allows you to come with your own Horses. I would love to explore SL more, but it seems that we just go to the same places that we have been before, or that are deemed worthy of being on destination guides and so on. Giving landowners the chance to create a more appealing description than the front page of land and it to actually benefit them. It could even be added to by a system that residents could verify, such as mentioned with TPing to places no longer there, if someone misuses the terms like keywords to gain traffic, but the items do not exist then the location can be up or down voted on.
• Another idea on achievements that could piggy back off of that world map keywords idea is a monthly Scavenger hunt. If LL provided 50 words that worked with hundreds of regions people could be tping all over the grid, finding places they have never seen before, it could be a great photo op as well, take your picture with the location etc add to a flickr pool etc.
• Speaking of Flickr pools, the curated pictures they put on the website are pretty, I got that opportunity once myself and I was so proud, but there is a whole pool of items that could be also just shared on the website, showing SL residents doing SL things, that group is already modded, so nothing could turn SL on its ear, it would be a really engaging way to see SL through the eyes of many instead of the marketing type images that are there now and often seem so stiff they look more Sims like than SL like.

sorry for the lots and lots, but I could do this all day.

[Love Zhaoying]

17 minutes ago, Sasy Scarborough said:

• The SL website should be more detailed on sign up, as in you do not get to just make a name pick an avatar and you are in, but you should go through a series of steps that teach you what SL really is, and while you do those steps you choose things like your name, your look, but when you choose your look you are learning what an inventory is, how to get dressed how to change your mind and detach etc all in the browser itself. You get to learn about lindens and how to buy them, how to sell them what you may need them for. That you learn about purchasing land or renting a home and the things you can and cannot do with either. It should be clear that content creators are not LL employees, how to know who you are buying from, who to contact if you have issues with an item etc.
• The help hubs etc should be the first place you land at and they should not be fantasy looking builds that nothing in SL even looks close to. Every 5+ years they redo them and every time it is some out there look that is nothing to do with what SL residents will actually encounter and what would keep them here. They should look like the events, malls, live performance locations, LL should gather up a lot of content creators and have them set up a few items as gifts. I am aware there are free items locations, but you have to know they exist to find them, it should be at the start of your adventure into SL because once you have 50 items added to your inventory you are hooked :P.
• I did a jira on this and mentioned it at a meeting. You should have at minimum a 7 day name change option for all new residents. People join with names that they just pull out of air in the rush to get in world, and then once they are in world they start to learn that maybe that was not the right choice...if they had the chance to change their name once in that trial period it may make for a lot less Jonno465871871's and maybe something people are not going to have to rely on a display name to change.
• Yesterday I was bored, and I started thinking about that email we have been getting lately about what you have done in the past year, tping this many times etc. I thought wouldn't it be cool if we could actually achieve things in SL that were kind of status like things. The first that popped into mind was visiting every region, 17 years in I may have been able to achieve that by now. But there is so much out there, and yet there does not seem to be any way of knowing where you can just go, where you are allowed, what is there etc.
• What if WORLD Map had descriptors in more than just what they show now. Search terms you could use like 'Archery" and it would list every region that someone has rezzed archery items on ( i do not know where archery came from but it seemed innocent enough) or "Horse Riding" any region that has rezzed out ridable horses, or has tracks and allows you to come with your own Horses. I would love to explore SL more, but it seems that we just go to the same places that we have been before, or that are deemed worthy of being on destination guides and so on. Giving landowners the chance to create a more appealing description than the front page of land and it to actually benefit them. It could even be added to by a system that residents could verify, such as mentioned with TPing to places no longer there, if someone misuses the terms like keywords to gain traffic, but the items do not exist then the location can be up or down voted on.
• Another idea on achievements that could piggy back off of that world map keywords idea is a monthly Scavenger hunt. If LL provided 50 words that worked with hundreds of regions people could be tping all over the grid, finding places they have never seen before, it could be a great photo op as well, take your picture with the location etc add to a flickr pool etc.
• Speaking of Flickr pools, the curated pictures they put on the website are pretty, I got that opportunity once myself and I was so proud, but there is a whole pool of items that could be also just shared on the website, showing SL residents doing SL things, that group is already modded, so nothing could turn SL on its ear, it would be a really engaging way to see SL through the eyes of many instead of the marketing type images that are there now and often seem so stiff they look more Sims like than SL like.

sorry for the lots and lots, but I could do this all day.

Wow, awesome suggestions! Thank you!

[Katherine Heartsong]

13 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Nudists beat you!  They don't need no clothes.  

There's a joke here, but I'm not ... err ... touching it.

[Love Zhaoying]

14 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Nudists beat you!  They don't need no clothes.  

I got enough grief wearing just a loincloth, I would have been shunned even worse without one!

Evolved to clothes-wearing Neko or no-clothes Feral. Much more acceptable by "polite society".

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Sasy Scarborough said:

What if WORLD Map had descriptors in more than just what they show now. Search terms you could use like 'Archery" and it would list every region that someone has rezzed archery items on ( i do not know where archery came from but it seemed innocent enough) or "Horse Riding" any region that has rezzed out ridable horses

I can't remember if the DESTINATION GUIDE has a category for ACTIVITIES or not.  I just cannot remember.

  So, playing off her idea, I suggest a category for Activities, boating, horse back riding, whatever (and those that are newbie friendly) go into the DESTINATION GUIDE.  If there already is that, never mind. 

My SL has tended to be home building or hanging at the Shire with the Tinies/Dinkies bunch so I just don't remember much about DESTINATION GUIDE and what categories it has.