Better than average builder with a problem.

[Tara Innis]

Hey guys! I will try to keep this short. I love to build! I will usually rent large parcels for no other reason but to build amazing things not found anywhere on SL. (much like many of you)

I am not an expert builder but I keep my designs "photo Realistic" 

My issue is not traffic. It more about getting people away from the landing spot and encouraging them to explore. Any pro tips you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

[Quistess Alpha]

I'm not much of a builder/architect, but my tip would be to make the landing point higher elevation than the explorable areas, "looking up" is not something that comes naturally with SL's camera controls.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

The "landing zone congestion" is a pretty widespread problem, and I'm a part of that problem. 😋

It's generally just much faster and easier to "explore" an area by detaching my camera from my avatar, rather than walking/running/flying around.

[Tara Innis]

Ahhhhhh, Exploring by cam. Lil secret... Me too! lol but also a builders nightmare. I enjoy people walking into an area and staging the experience. Guilty and I hate myself for it.

[Tara Innis]

9 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

I'm not much of a builder/architect, but my tip would be to make the landing point higher elevation than the explorable areas, "looking up" is not something that comes naturally with SL's camera controls.

Honest, what you just said make super sense to me!!!!!!! 

[Jennifer Boyle]

Perhaps signage suggesting that visitors walk instead of camming around?

Can experiences offer anything that would help?

[GreyLasagna]

I bet you can find nice tips about it if you search for "open world game map design" on youtube. In videos like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HMtju0BjAo&ab_channel=CraigPerko you can see that pretty much the first tip he gives is the same Quistess Alpha said. Other tips on the video would be:

 

*Use "Sign Posting" or large objects/locations that attract people's attention and make them want to explore. These can be seen from higher spots on your map.
*Use  objects or, as he calls them, "Soft Barriers" to guide the explorer. These don't have major relevance and won't completely block people from passing by but provide some sort of guidance for interesting parts. They could be small ones (like the destroyed cars in the video).

Maybe learn about color theory. You can use color to make things stand out above the less relevant things. If you build a city and there is a building you might want to make it stand out, for whatever reason, make sure it's not just another colorful building in a river of colors, tone down (or up, depending on what you building) the color of less relevant stuff, create contrast. Maybe learn about color theory

One last thing. You can tell stories without any dialogue, just using objects in whatever environment you building. Fallout and Bioshock games do this all the time. Here is a video about  it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwlnCn2EB9o&ab_channel=GameMaker'sToolkit

These are pretty much universal tips for virtual worlds, doesn''t matter if you consider SL as a game or not. 

 

[Thecla]

I think there are a variety of ways to get people to explore, but what tactics you use are a function of what kind of experience you have built. The obvious way to encourage exploring is to provide an obvious path for users to follow away from the landing point. In one of my builds, a hotel, all of the floors are separate skyboxes, with movement between floors by teleport through an experience on the parcel. There's no way for anyone to "cam around" anything other than the current floor they are on.

One of the more remarkable builds in SL that I have come across recently is "Wonderland" which has some amazingly fun an inventive ways of getting people to explore. It's worth a look.

Above all, you need to tempt and seduce your visitor. You need to make them WANT to explore. If their first impression on landing is not positive and does not provoke curiosity, no tactics are going to be of much help.

[Jenny Ashland]

People are going to shop a certain way in SL. A lot people access SL on devices that are not ideal for viewing SL. Therefore you will always get cam shoppers. There is one solution that will ease some congestion. Set the landing point, but leave the TP routing to "anywhere" that way if people like something, they can create their own landmark that will put them in front of the item they want rather then the landing point. I have double click on land makes me TP to point, so I can go places faster. I do an area search then "TP to item". There is nothing worse then doing this and being brought back to a landing point, instead of where you intended to go. When this happens more people will cam shop. 

[Jennifer Boyle]

On 5/16/2023 at 2:38 PM, Jenny Ashland said:

There is nothing worse then doing this and being brought back to a landing point, instead of where you intended to go. When this happens more people will cam shop. 

Yes! I hate it when that happens! And sometimes get irritated enough just to leave without buying something I likely would have otherwise.