Sadvhi

I only have a Facebook for my avatar, and don't have one for my RL. I like keeping up with creators/shopping events, family community activities, and seeing photos of people's adventures in SL.

I prefer not to know anything about a person's RL identity

I disagree with this. What makes SL so enjoyable is that you can be anyone and anything your heart desires. Roleplay is a big part of that. Not everyone is in SL to engage in adult activities. When I first joined eight years ago, I spent the majority of my time decorating my house, landscaping, raising animals, playing flurbils, etc. I still do the same things only now I also do a lot of farming and cooking. I just happen to use an 11 year old av because that age was the happiest for me in real life.

As someone who has roleplayed an 11 year old for the past 8 years, I can attest that there are plenty of G rated sims and no need for child avatars to venture elsewhere. I fully support banning children from Adult sims. I can see how it would be tricky if they were adopted by a family that was renting on Adult land, or if their parents had non-PG furniture in the house even on a moderate sim.

I became a child in SL to avoid being approached sexually (I actually wore a hijab the first month I joined, hoping it would have the same affect, until I realized I had the option of using a child av). I try to stick to G-rated family community sims, so I haven't ever encountered any of the issues others may have experienced. The first sim I lived on was run by members of the LDS (Mormon) Church.

I recently purchased the Cloverleaf by Galland Homes, fits perfectly in 2048 sqm parcels. I actually modified mine to fit in my 1024 skybox and that worked wonderfully as well:)

I was always under the impression that children should never be seen without clothing in SL, much less be anywhere near naked adults. I even wear a swimsuit in my skybox shower just to be safe. lol

Gosh, it would be really silly if we were to get in trouble for mesh derezzing since it's totally out of our hands - this happens to me numerous times each day when teleporting. I wish there was a way to prevent this from happening.

I've used alts as both pets and children. When I could afford it, I made them into bots since my pc can't handle having two viewers running simultaneously. With huds like the Yuus Nuu, you can teleport them and have them follow you everywhere. You can also change their outfits remotely - and if you want them to have needs like real children, you can just set them up with an interactive hud like Cherubs Care, Life2 or Lifestyle. I have a friend who is planning on doing this with the new Zooby child avatars that are coming out later this month. You can also set up waypoints to have them move around independently and interact with objects and people (i.e., have them play with toys and interact with family members).

My biggest disappointment was the dysfunction & drama I encountered when I tried to find a family in SL. I have since chosen to remain an orphan perpetually - which works out well since I'm far too introverted to socialize on a regular basis.

I've taken long breaks from SL but always end up returning. Not sure what you enjoyed the most when you were here, but chances are whatever it was that captured your attention is still aroundI'm an extreme introvert and spend all of my time in SL alone, yet I still find enough things to do to occupy my time.

I've lived in family rp communities but chose to go premium (and use the free tier land provided) to control my excessive spending habits. I definitely made a lot of friends while living in those communities - lots of fun activities/events all of the time.

Thank you, Chic Aeon, for the feedback and for clarifying the financial aspect! I decided to go premium last night because I have no self-control when it comes to spending in SL. The only way to prevent this is to not use my credit card at all to make purchases. Now that I'm premium, I will no longer be using my credit card to buy things/rent land, since it's all paid for the entire year and I will just use the weekly stipend to buy things.

I have been debating going Premium as well and am wondering if my calculations are correct: $72 a year premium is the equivalent of 17,712L a year but due to the weekly 300L stipend, you get back 14,400 of those lindens which means you are really only paying 3,312L for premium, which is $13.47 per year. If I were to purchase double prim land which gives me 702 prims per 1024 sqm, I could essentially sell the weekly 300L and put it towards the extra 512 tier - I'd probably only have to pay about 50 cents per month extra for the land use fee, depending on the exchange rate. Normally 702 prims would cost 3690L per month, which would be a whopping 44,256L a year ($179.91). So in essence, I'd be saving $166.44 by going Premium. Are these calculations correct? I only had 4 hrs of sleep so my brain is a little wonky.

I'd definitely be willing to pay more for the double prims, esp as a premium member it would be great because you could sell your weekly 300L and put it towards the extra 512sqm tier payment.

Never mind, I just realized I can simply blacklist the object - if there is a way to just derender the lights emanating from the object, I'd be interested to know how do that:)

Is there any way you can derender an object belonging to someone else, so that you don't see the light coming from it? I know you can block sounds coming from objects, and wondered if the same sort of thing can be done to objects that are emitting light.

Thank you so much! I appreciate your going into such depth in explaining and clarifying this for me - I never even understood what the numbers are for until now. After implementing your advice, the items are now rezzing directly above the prim:) I'm tremendously grateful to each of you for taking the time to help me resolve the issue.

I have a rezz on touch script and need to change the position where the item is rezzed. I would like it to rezz directly over the prim (right now it seems to be rezzing quite far to the left side of the prim). I'm assuming the following is what I need to adjust: llGetPos() + <-0.5,0,0>, <0,0,0>, <0,0,0,0>, 1);

Wow thank you for mentioning this! The issue did first appear after applying a new skin (it's a Totsipop infant avatar) - am going to put my settings back to Medium and try to see if the issue goes away after starting from scratch with a brand new head, then re-applying the skin. Very curious about this now:)

Changing graphics quality/performance from medium setting to high in Firestorm resolved the issue.

Thank you! I see so many wonderful photos of skins, and the skin looks so warm in the photos but when I try it myself I look like a porcelain doll, with weird shadows that make my face look really artificial. I will keep hunting for one that looks more natural. Thanks again for your feedback!

I've tried many different mesh heads, but the skins I like the most are much too pale for my taste. I have a skin tinter tattoo layer that works with normal skins, and was wondering if there is something similar (or another alternative) that would work to darken the skins applied to mesh heads. I know there are often tattoo layers for makeup included with mesh heads, but I haven't heard of any sort of full face tattoo layer that you could tint to make your face appear a darker shade, like there is for regular skins.

For my adult avatar I use the Maitreya Lara body with a normal, modifiable shape that I purchased on Marketplace ages ago. I didn't need to buy a new skin since I was able to get my normal skin to match quite easily (I just use my regular skin, and the closest matching shade from the skins that came with the Lara body).

I just meant that the issue was tied to graphics quality settings and wasn't a "Firestorm issue" as I had wrongly assumed. I do wish I could make it so that my avatar looks good for everyone, even those using lower settings - but realize now that it's just not possible. Some folks are going to see my mesh looking wonky and I just have to accept that:)