Amina Sopwith

I don't think there's any way to get it back to what it was; as a previous poster said, it'll never be the new zeitgeisty thing any more and the world around us is very different now. I joined SL in 2007. I'm not technical and it took me quite a while to figure out how things worked. But it was still a new and original enough idea to keep me trying and exploring even though I hadn't a clue what I was doing. My av looked truly dreadful for quite a long time (I hadn't figured out about skins and shapes and was trying to do everything with sliders and colours - did I mention I'm not technical?) but nobody was rude and initially I had no interest in cybersex so I didn't really care. At the time my life was very different and I had a lot of time to spend inworld, which I think is key. SL does require quite a time commitment if you're going to get something significant out of it, especially if you're new and trying to learn the ropes. And especially now with mesh because Christ, my last mortgage was less complicated than this system. I've had a couple of users be snarky on the forums when I said it's complicated, but I know I'm not the only one who struggles with it (I'm not technical - did I mention that?). I've had plenty of conversations inworld about it and the number of calls for help in the mesh body/head groups plus the number of tutorials online about it prove that a lot of people have the same trouble. For my part, even after I thought I'd worked it out, my HUD disappeared, when I finally got it back by unboxing it again it disappeared again, then I couldn't remove it, and right now my legs and stomach are poking through my mesh clothes even though they should be set to invisible according to the HUD. I've decided I DGAF right now and I'm walking around looking like a rubbish wannabe 80s punk. So anyway. I now have a lot less time to spend inworld, which for me is very much a good thing, and most of my friends' lives moved on too. The recession passed and a lot of people who had been struggling with work got RL jobs that limit inworld time (definitely a good thing). SL always had a learning curve and now with mesh it's much, much steeper. No way on earth I'd stick around if I hadn't been here before, mesh is beautiful but a royal pain in the bum. Agree with PP who said SL is considered naff and unsexy now; even when it was relevant enough for The Register to report on, its nickname was Sadville. (Which is funny, to be fair.) Anyway, all this brings me to the trouble of "remedying" SL. Those of us who had the time back then often haven't got it now. It's not zeitgeisty; if anything, it's very dated despite all the very talented builders and scripters. There was always a bit of snobbery about "noob" looks, but now that people are expected to get to grip with mesh (which does look terrific) before they're taken seriously, the learning curve is perpendicular and will put a lot of people off. Social media, gaming and mobile have truly taken off and changed the landscape around SL. I don't think there's anything we can do to "remedy" it because it's clearly never going to be what it was, and maybe that's a good thing because it could come at the cost of progress. Mesh is an arse, but it's progress. I guess it's just going to change its nature and perhaps become a more exclusive place that is more for technical people who can build, script and figure out how to control their mesh HUDs without their bums hanging out their jeans. That doesn't make it worse, by many people's standards it would be better. Just different. Would be lovely to see roleplaying back to its heyday but I guess nothing lasts forever.

Thank you very much for all the help. Horses sound great! Lots of good places to sail, that sounds great. Regarding land travel, I seem to be hitting the same problems I did last time I tried this, some years ago. I can never get far without hitting barriers, visible or invisible, and just basically getting stuck. I found what appeared to be an original railway at Heterocera; it was lovely but surprisingly short, though I subsequently had an interesting boat tour around the Color Sims although I crashed before it finished (never change, SL!). Has anyone any advice for a place to start off where I might be able to travel in a fairly long, unbroken line? I can't seem to find any roads despite TP-ing to various spots on Heterocera and Sansara, where I'm told there are networks.

Thanks guys! I spent a little time last night on the train and boat around the Color Sims....I had actually never heard of them. Nor have I been aware of the names of any of the continents or known anything about SL geography, despite having once been a very involved SL resident for nearly four years. I guess since I've never had any interest in land ownership/rental, I've neglected a very large part of the SL experience. I'm still not interested in owning/renting land, but I am very interested now in just travelling around and exploring. Thinking of getting a ridable horse and pony trekking part of it!

Hello all. I'm back in SL after a prolonged hiatus and after reading a post on another thread, I'm loving the idea of doing a road/sea/air trip around SL, discovering places I wouldn't otherwise encounter and just getting an idea of where places actually ARE. I remember I did attempt to do something like this last time I was a regular user, and tried to walk/fly around rather than TP, but I always hit private region barriers, no-fly areas with weirdly uncrossable terrains, huge bodies of water that just didn't seem to end and I got bored of flying or literally fell out of the air...just never seemed to get very far somehow. Could I get some advice/tips on how to do this, what I'd need and where I was going wrong last time? I don't even know how large the full grid actually IS. There was a mention of roads in SL and I've never seen one outside of a RP or situational sim. Is a boat necessary for the water, or is it possible just to fly over it? If I find myself on another interminable body of water, does that mean I've gone wrong? All input gratefully received. I am an experienced SLer but very rusty after several years out so quite happy to hear basic level stuff, I probably need it. Thank you very much.

I love the idea of this. An SL road/sea trip. My time in SL right now is sporadic and I could be called away at any moment so I love the idea of an ongoing project of exploration where I won't be letting anyone down if I have to dash suddenly. In the past I have tried walking/flying to places but I never got far...always hit a private land barrier, no fly areas when flying was the only way I could cross, a body of water that was so large it never seemed to end. I did like the idea of getting a sense of where everything actually IS on the map but I never managed it. I actually don't think I've ever seen an SL road except within RP sims. Could you give me some tips/advice? I guess I'd need a bike/land vehicle and a boat? How do you make sure you don't run anyone over? Actually I will start a new thread asking for advice on how to do this. I love the idea.

I hated face lights. But then I hated a lot of things that were popular at the time. At any rate, if the lights and angles I'm using make people's heads look lovely to me, I'm happy with that. If others don't like my head, they are free to look the other way. (Much like in RL.) I'll probably get into it eventually but I am too bored with it right now to invest anything more in it for the moment.

All the ones I have tried, with all the skins I have tried, look like genetic experiments gone wrong. Clearly other users have managed to crack it, but I cannot find a combination that doesn't make me look like the love child of Donald Trump and a puffer fish. There's a thread elsewhere where people are showing their pre-mesh heads and with a few distorted exceptions, they mostly look absolutely fine to me. They certainly look better than anything I've managed to produce with bento. In fact, I was chatting inworld to a couple of people last night. One had a bento head, one a system head, both had great quality skins. The only way I could tell the difference was the animation on the bento. The system head looked lovely. Perhaps I need more time inworld before the difference starts bothering me but as for now, I'm bored of it. System it is.

Most of these look fine to me...

Is the difference between mesh heads and system ones with high quality skins really that obvious? I'm back in SL after several years out...was once very on trend and now a bit of a mess. I've tried bento heads with various skins and they all just look so stupid, plus the system for using it is so complicated. Combined with a mesh body, I'm amazed anything on grid still works...don't all these additional scripts and HUD clog everything up? Most system heads with good skins look absolutely fine to me.

In my SL heyday I RPed in a fantastic DC sim. Played characters including Harley Quinn, Black Canary and various disposable victims. Some ongoing plots involving prison breakouts, planned crimes and so on. If you do find a suitable sim, let me know. I'll come back here if I find one.

Thank you again for all the help and responses! I spent a bit of time messing around with it last night...don't know if the servers were slow or what but it was all still a headache even though I managed to get the darn things off. I don't think mesh is worth the hassle in and of itself, but I guess if I want to engage with people properly then I shouldn't look too dated. I don't plan on being naked very much this time around, but it's not the system body that looks dated as much as the prim/system clothing. Were people not annoyed when mesh took over and entire inventories were rendered useless?

Thanks again, guys. In the end I had to unbox it again and start from scratch. I am scared to remove the HUD now in case it happens again! Still, finally got those things off, so thank you.

How does one do that? Maybe that's where I've been going wrong.

Thanks guys, I'll try those suggestions when I next go in! My first few goes with mesh were fine once I worked it out, or thought I had...I have a couple of outfits and I seemed to be changing them ok and working out how to hide body parts that were poking through. Then I put on this belly dance costume, which included bra and glitch pants, and I cannot get the fugging HUD, for either my mesh body or the outfit itself, to show itself to get the buggers off. If I put more mesh clothes on, they're still there. If I remove the entire outfit, they're still there. If the suggestions here don't work, I guess I'll just have to stay a system noob, or live in Arabian Nights sims forever. I have to be honest, I don't think mesh, in and of itself, is worth all the hassle and the learning curve. I still don't understand what appliers are (all I understand is, I wear an alpha to hide my system body, I wear the mesh body on top of it and then I add clothes and use the HUD to control which layers show on the body and which don't, and which body parts show and which don't. I don't get the applier thing.). But I'm interested in RPing, so an av that's as relatively realistic as the others is a good idea, plus nobody makes system clothes any more. Someone said I ought to get a different viewer to make mesh work properly. I really hope that's not going to be necessary.

Yep, same here. Once on the bleeding edge of now, helped people tint their prim feet because I knew how to do it, came back a short while ago after some years away and I might as well be a noob. I did get a mesh body and found tutorials online and it seemed straightforward once I understood it. However, now I've got a bra and glitch pants on permanently because no matter what I do, the HUD I need to remove them does not appear when I wear/attach it. I've tried rebooting, even deleting and reloading SL completely...nothing. (Can anyone help? I can't get that fugging HUD to appear!) My new AO won't work half the time either. I'm just back in my system body most of the time now. I don't think mesh bodies necessarily look much better than a system one with a high quality skin, but mesh clothes do look much better. Better textures and I like the way they sit on your av as an extra layer, as in reality. But as a previous poster said, if you're not planning on being naked a lot and are in SL for things like wandering around interesting places, system body is fine. I feel for people who suddenly have an entire inventory of years of system/prim clothes that are completely obsolete now, though. Agree with the OP that if this were my first time in SL, I'd never stick it. It took some time to get the swing of things the first time round but it really is very complicated. I would just get bored and go away if I hadn't been here before.