VRprofessor

Some are certainly alts but SL is tough unless you have some reason to be here (there?) If you show up 'cause you heard SL was interesting what do you do when you get here? Nothing. You get to one of the newbie islands and then what? Most likely you start asking people "how do I play this game?" The response you get, although correct, isn't helpful" "It's your world, make what you want of it." It is too much. Too overwhelming. So they leave. I've brought ~30 college students in world with only a 2 currently active. My first group was just told that they would meet for class in two weeks. It worked, but just barely. Even the student who should have loved SL left after class and hasn't been back. Second group was told to explore and learn how to function in SL. Better, but again no one stayed. There has to be something for the newbies to do that will engage them. The next group I bring in will be assigned to explore a handful of specific locations and meet a handful of specific people. I need to learn if this is what is refered to as a "hunt." Giving them a small number of specific tasks to accomplish will, I think, engage them more fully. I still don't expect many of them to stay--they are in college surounded buy new people--but I think the notion of an egaging first experience is they key. Of the two that are currently active, one mentioned running into two folks who took an interest in helping her, which created a positive experience for her. She may well stay around.

I read several threads about graphics cards and saw the same comment repeatedly: Choose an Nvidia card. Of the two folks I've visited with in world that were having graphics card problems both were using AMD cards. Not really evidence, but coupled with the repeated recommendations to choose nvidia, I went with nvidia. I only kind of understand the technical details, but I have three different nvidia cards (520, 550, and 550m) and while I don't get crazy good graphics, I get what is reasonable to expect from these cards. The 600 series cards are starting to show up, so I may have jumped a bit soon on the 500 series, but I'm sure I'll be okay for a while.

Depression, hopelessness, and grief are all different. I cannot do justice to the distinctions because I lack the training to do so, but I am aware that you can experience them individually or in combination. My somewhat limited background suggests to me that much of this conversation is about hopelessness rather than depression. Or perhaps frustration and grief.

If everything goes as planned I'll be bringing 30 - 40 college age newbies in to SL next fall. Can we have this conversation again then? Would love to have some of you help 'em out a bit.

Here is a thread I started asking a similar question. Some useful thoughts and links.

I've only read the first chapter, but this book should have some guidence on ethography in SL. My own advice is to put some info in your profile and start hanging out at popular places or places that intrigue you. Someone will eventually read your info and get intrigued. Become a participant/observer.

I'm relatively new, so I am experimenting with my own shape and skin. So far I have been mixing and matching whatever I can find from the basic avatars, in the freebie stores, or for pretty cheap. In large part this is because I'm not really sure what sort of look I want. I started with the male goth shape and was pretty happy for a while, but then decided I wanted a bit more muscle. My current shape looked really good when I first tried it, but has started to strike me as being too bulky. I'll try working the sliders with my current shape, but I find that I have a poor "eye" for fine tuning. Maybe I'll get lucky and get it right. If not, I'll continue expeimenting with free/cheap stuff and looking at different stores for the right shape. I am happier with my current skin, but once my shape has stablized I will go skin shopping again. To those with more experience: I notice a lot of skins with labels "for XXX shape" or "for YYY" shape. How flexible are skins for different shapes? So far I've only had one or two cases where my mixing/matching seemsed to create a problem. Have I been getting lucky or will a skin look good on a range of shapes as long as they are similar?

Kenbro--an encouraging thought. Thank you

OP--The sentence under discussion is poorly worded. You did, however, introduce yourself and tell us where you are going to school and who the target audience is. I appreciate that. I would point out that some of your survey language doesn't translate well to U.S. colleges/universities. Q1.8 ignores the social sciences and humanities entirely. If any of my students did take your survey they would be unable to answer this question.

I may be biased because I make my living by training people how to do research, and even do some research myself, but as long as the survey is well done I don't mind. Sadly the few I have seen posted to the forums don't strike me as being well done. I also realize that I have some U.S. centric expectations about informed consent, but really, how hard is it to tell the folks you want to survey a bit about yourself and your institution? If it really is for your disseration, tell us where you go to school and which department you are working in. I also recognize that the OP was mostly having a bit of fun with this topic, but I might want to conduct a survey someday. I saw some research today that I will read soon that might be useful to replicate with SL folks. I've already wondered whether I could conduct this research because of survey fatigue.

Manually cleared the cache and the SL viewer booted right up!

Thanks for the thoughts. The issue started with the wifi at work. I switched over to a cabled network link with no joy. Came back home--where it worked 24hours ago--back to wifi, same problem. I had hopes for a reboot when windows reported it had some program in the background that it was trying to shut down when I closed down windows. Still no joy. uninstalled. rebooted. new install. still no joy. Sigh. I think there was one more idea in these posts that I haven't tried yet. will go try it now. Again, thanks for the help. I've read so many threads with folks having problems while things have worked well for me. I was beginning to think I was immune. Guess not.

Basic research ethics requires informed consent which should include some information about your academic department and institution. I've seen at least two studies running in world that had no difficulty with that.

Yesterday SL viewer (most recent update) was working fine. Today I cannot get past "Initializing VFS" on start up. Uninstalled and reinstalled with no joy. I'm using Phoenix for the moment, but I really wonder what is going on. Any thoughts?

Based on what I have been able to learn so far it appears that SL doesn't yet play nice with html5. Is that correct or have I missed something? Thanks, VR

When I right click my SL desktop icon the menu allows me to choose the intel or nvidia graphics as the default. 8GB for me.

I installed a gtx550ti about 2 weeks ago, but have only used that computer a couple of times. For now I'm pretty happy with it. I built an i5-2500k system a few months ago.....OP, it wasn't hard but because I don't do it often I spent about 4 hours on a 1 hour job. The onboard graphics handle SL low settings well enough, and medium if I am on a low prim sim. The 550 improved things, but not as much as I expected--enough to justify the cost, but somehow I was expecting more. (I took some FPS readings before and after...need to get them posted.) Now I want a run an ethernet cable and see if I'm stalling out on wifi.

How much performance are you looking for? I put an NVIDIA GT520 in my office computer and that works well enough (on low settings) for anything I might legitimately want to accomplish from work. I put an NVIDIA GTX 550 in my home computer. I run on medium settings with results that are good enough for what I do. But not nearly good enough for those who want high fps at ultra settings. For that you need an even better card. If memory serves GTX 580 is the best you can currently get.

Hello Aimee, Has this form of research been approved by your research advisor? What academic department and university are you affiliated with? It is very hard to protect subject confidentiality on a public message board. Why are you not using one of the online survey tools? If you are based in the U.S. has your research recieved IRB approval?

Experiment with Freebies! You can change outfits among the starter avatars. From the starter guys I picked the one who's shape I liked the best. Then I got some freebie clothes and put together an acceptable outfit. The freebies vary a lot in quality, but trying on a few things gave me a solid idea of what I was looking for when I actually went shopping.

"So i guess my next question is what do the gamer types in SL do, if there are any lol?" Interested in role playing? There are a bunch of role play sims. NCI offers an intro to RP class--I gather that SL RP ranges from fairly tightly scripted activities to improv to "table top" style RP complete with dice rolling. There is a RP section in the forums, you might what to browse some of the threads to see what the RP folks are up to.

How well do you need SL to run? I was using a laptop that was considerably worse--low frame rates on the lowest graphics settings--but at the time I didn't feel the need for any better. Although it only took me a couple of months to covet better. I understand the folks recommending a desktop configuration--you really do get more computer for the dollar. I also understand that my choice was SL on laptop, divorce, or no SL. (Sometimes I'm allowed to hide away in my office, but most of the time it is laptop or go without internet.) For some people a laptop is the only viable option. If you need a laptop be prepared to pay extra--maybe quite a bit extra---for high level SL performance. Or a little bit more for okay SL performance. Are you in the U.S.? Here is one that is better than you were looking at for not too much more. (Not great mind you, but better than the one you linked to--the graphics card is still pretty low end, I estimate you'll get ~20fps with low graphics settings.) http://www.samsclub.com/sams/shop/product.jsp?productId=prod4860361&navAction= If you do go the notebook route make sure to shop around.

As a researcher myself I appreciate all of the folks who are so willing to respond to questions. To the original poster, you need to learn some basic research ethics. If you live in the U.S. you are required to have IRB approval for your survey and your (absent) consent form should mention both potential harms and benefits to those participating in the research. (If you live outside the U.S. you may not be required to have either IRB approval or a consent form, but good practice would be to include potential harms/benefits in your instructions to participants (which you are lacking.)) Posting your questions on a public forum is terrible practice--as one poster suggested you should link folks to a site where they can submit their answers confidentially. Asking people to message you back leaves your expectations about IM versus public response very unclear. Fortunately the questions are innocuous enough that those who replied in the forum are not likely to risk harm to themselves or their reputations--but that doesn't make it okay. You should always identify the purpose of your research project (to the extent that you can without biasing your results) to potential subjects. If it is not legally required where you live it is still good manners. It is also good manners to tell people who you work for. Is this for a class project? If so, what academic department? Is this a project affiliated with some research group at a university or in the private sector? That sort of information should be included. Depending on where you live, it may be required. To recap: IRB approval, confidentiality, informed consent are the minimum standards for research ethics.

You need someone who knows a lot more than me, but I'll give it a shot until someone like that comes along. First some clarification: are you rezzing with everything worn/attached or are you rezzing okay, but as soon as you try to put something on everything gets worn/attached? If it is the first and if you log on and don't rez right away (you stay a cloud for a while) try taking things off while you are a cloud. Not at all sure if this will help, but I had to try.

If music and chat are your highest priority, set your gaphics to "low." You can always upgrade settings from there.