CaerolleClaudel

Caledon Oxbridge Gateway seems like the place people should land first, instead of whatever they call where they *do* land. I had to snicker at this, though: All these years, and I never knew this existed!!! I guess you need to mention to have RLV enabled, though? (snickers more, being the bad person she is)

Visited Caledon, actually found it in Places Search and in the Map! Nice. Need to look about more, but seems quite charming. And I did find some people there (including you, lol; EDIT: LOVE the pic in your First Live tab...in many ways I feel a lot has been lost with mesh heads, in many ways I prefer the way we used to look~), but not many: Unfortunately, none of them talked to me (I also didn't talk to them, but still...). Perhaps the time of day, I dunno. Or perhaps have to be in character? I defs was NOT dressed Steampunkish, lol. Going to explore a bit. The first place I landed was at the Welcome Center, which had a library and mentioned book readings or discussions or something (EDIT: and apparently 'donnybrooks,' lol). I didn't look about there, I went to the place that showed people instead.

OK, that is an interesting mental image... 😲

Hmm, I seem to recall a photo and an exchange between the two of you in a sorta-eponymous thread a while back...too lazy to look for it, but I think it is there...

Based on a thread I saw a while back from someone frustrated about newby discrimination, apparently it is a strategy (or tactic? I get those mixed up, lol) to deter Griefers. But who knows? And yeah, I went to a lot of places last night where I not-surprisingly got booted instantly, one place actually requiring you to be 60 days old. When I first got this new account, I actually got booted from a tattoo place for being less than 7 days old. I have considered going back to my old account until this one ages a bit, but pretty much decided against it.

Funny, I saw a beautiful Russian winter sim in (I think?) Destinations after I created my new account, and though I am totally against fur IRL, thought it would be lovely to get a Dr Zhivago outfit and go take some photos there. As usual, I went there first to scout the place, and was immediately booted because my avi was not 30-days-old. Hmm, OK, scratch that.~

SL is certainly far prettier now! To paraphrase the old song says, though, something's gained but something's lost.

The nice thing about the A rating is that you can go there and not worry about whatever you do getting you into trouble. I rent my multi-scene skybox specifically in an A region instead of an M region (which is the default) for that reason, and generally feel more comfortable going to A regions. That said, I am amazed at the sites and activities I see going on in M regions. Not sure how it passes, but it's the owner's concern, not mine. Speaking as someone who has been in SL for over 12 years, and has had a lot of interest in sex and and its many and interesting associated activities, I completely agree that overall there seems to be less 'in your face' sex than in the past. And in my experience, far fewer (as in almost none, even in mixed-gender sex sims) naked men with enormous attachments walking about. SL has gentrified quite a lot, and is far, far less of the wide-open, anything-goes place it once was. Probably a good thing to the vast majority of upstanding citizens, but a far more boring and bland place to a lot of us.~

Although it may be true only of the places I go, which tend to be places where people are striving to look good and expect that of others, my experience is that if you want people to interact with you, you need to be all mesh. Likely my experience is quite narrow, but there is a lot of SL like that these days. Of course, I am guessing there are plenty of sites for new people, and for people who are find with classics avis and clothes, but I never wind up at them, and I don't know that I ever see anyone with a classic avi the places I go. Sometimes I will run across someone with a classic head, and usually they state in their Profile they are doing it on principle. I do feel that these days to get the fullest experience of SL you need to spend the time and money to high-end your avis, for better or worse. Back in the day, all anyone had was the system avi, and while there were nicer clothes and skins and hair (which were as expensive as now, except you didn't have to buy a separate skin for your head and body), it could be a lot cheaper and easier to more-or-less fully participate in SL. I know I used to focus far more on the social experience and far less on appearance, and now it is exactly the opposite; I spend almost all my time in SL doing things alone, mostly involving dressing up my avi.

I now spend most of my time in SL pursuing my darkest deviance, playing virtual Barbie, as someone refers to it (in case you are not familiar with Barbie, she is a doll IRL for which you can get lots of clothes and accessories and do dress-up and pretend with, lol).

Search has always been horrible, and that has always been one of the most frustrating aspects of SL to me. Between the completely incompetent Search and the almost-completely-broken Destinations Guide website, discovery is horrible in SL. Add in MP being almost as pathetic as in-world Search, and showing every single version of an item individually, and it's just frustration on top of frustration. Then pile on top almost nothing in stores being eye-level so you can walk around and shop instead of having to cam everything, and it becomes soul-suckingly maddening. I spent two hours last night trying to find a place I ran across a while back. I never found it. It's just mind-blowing to me that a company whose product is totally online cannot be bothered to have a better search after 16 years than browsers had 30 years ago (I am guessing, but probably not far off, I think...). Perhaps I am doing it wrong, and if so, I would love to hear how to do it right.~

Good luck finding that these days, lol. EDIT: Apparently other than in Bbellissarria, lol.

I have rented in 'themed/managed' places before, and the big problem was that noone was ever around when I was on, even if most of the places were rented. People tend to be so spread out across time zones it can be difficult to find a community that really has a sense of community. However, this is just my personal experience, and other people may find things to be different. At least I hope they do, lol.

You might want to post in one of the Land Forum sub-forums, too. Even though you are wanting to rent rather than buy, you might get some suggestions there. Otherwise, wow, it is hard to find rental properties. I have spent hours and hours and hours using in-world search and the Marketplace website followed by visiting a lot of places. And as Claireschen said, for a community experience, with activity, you probably would be best in Bellisseria. The 'rent' would be $100/year, though, at the cheapest (though I think you can get a Premium account for $90/year atm).

Same with lesbian. Somehow lesbians must want to have sex with well-endowed black men, too. Back in the day, there were several serious women-only BDSM sims. I almost never left a certain one for a couple years. Now they are pretty much all gone, and nothing really around to replace them, at least that I can find using Search. Not many women-only sims period, now (no pun intended, lol), especially for the US Eastern time zone, and the ones that are there pretty much only play rock or country, and there is almost no conversation.

It's only been five hours, and about that many replies. But honestly, uninstalling SL and never returning is probably not bad advice, unless she is willing to put in quite a lot of time and effort and most likely a lot of money to get up to speed with SL2019.

Following on Fritigern's post, one nice thing about SL2019 is that most things have a Demo version, for free. Absolutely, before you buy a mesh body and head, Demo loads of them!!!! PS: Also Demo clothes and hair and anything else you can!!!! A couple other random but essential tips wrt mesh bodies and heads: If you get a head that comes with a dedicated shape, use that shape! If you don't, your head will almost certainly NOT look like the vendor's photo of the head. Also, wear the alpha, or the system head will show through. You can make tweaks to the shape to adjust the facial features, but some sliders will not work, and most will only give good results over a small range around where they were set on the vendor's shape. If the head includes eyes, or if you buy mesh eyes, you will need to alpha out the system eyes. Do the body second, still using the shape that came with the head. Be sure and use the included alpha. Adjust the sliders to give the shape you want. If you can find people with the same body you are using, and like how they look, they may be willing to share their settings with you to get you in sort of the right range. As with the head, many of the sliders will only take so much adjustment before things start looking bad. Btw, you cannot detach the system body, eyes, and several other parts, including the skin, even if you add a mesh head and body and other eyes or apply a skin to the mesh head and body. The various alphas cover the system parts. Some heads come with an all-in-one alpha that covers everything, instead of having to use two or three different alphas Demo the heads and bodies, adjusting them to try to get the look you want, and pick the ones that suit you best. Keep in mind that the selections of skins and make-up and hair and of course clothes vary vary widely with the different body and head vendors, and factor that into you choice. For example, it is easiest to find clothes for Maitreya bodies, but skins and make-up and hair for Catwa heads. But though I have spent a massive amount of time trying to get a Catwa head to look like I want, I have never been able to, and the heads I like are far less supported by skin, make-up, and hair vendors. Also, some bodies and head have options other don't, such as the ability to apply physics to your butt or expressions to your face. Finally, ADD not WEAR everything you can. I don't understand why Wear is even an option, or at least why it is the default on double-click. Wear will put thing on the same places, and will displace something else already there. Add will choose a new attachment point (you can even select it if you like, but I never find the need to do that) so that something else does not get displaced. This is just really a high-level intro. As others have mentioned, there is applying skin and make-up, alpha-ing out parts so they don't show, deciding if you want hands and feet from a different vendor than your body, and so forth. Honestly, the only way I got through it all was to get help from friends who had already figured it out, usually from friend of theirs. Probably most of us would be happy to help you in-world, if we can arrange our schedules with yours. Pretty much everything with SL is a fragmented, complicated, confusing mess, though. Caerolle

Be prepared to spend a LOT of money.

I actually remember my first rezz day very well, even though it was over 12 years ago. Some things are still similar (my most recent rezz day was less than a month ago), but SL is an extremely different place now. Personally, I can hardly imagine starting now and knowing nothing. Really, though, every time they have made huge changes to SL, I felt pretty lost and felt like I was starting new again in a lot of ways, as there is never any organized guidance, and it is very hard to find simple, comprehensive how-to info. I suppose there are some things on YouTube and perhaps in the SL wiki, but everything is fragmented, and all assumes you know a lot of other stuff. But, I have to admit, I have not tried a search since I was upgrading to a mesh head a few months ago, which was a nightmare. And perhaps I just suck at finding useful info. I *have* seen like 3-minute-long 'getting started in SL' vids on YT, but they seem to just be how to set up a login and a few things like that, and perhaps basic system avi stuff, but nothing like what you need to really get something out of SL. The worst part for me is how the social aspects have changed. I found interesting stuff almost immediately in SL, even knowing nothing about it, and found my 'tribe' in a couple of days, whereas now I log in and spend almost all my time just trying to find something of interest to do. OTOH, plenty of other people seem to find plenty to do (if you like rock or country or blues clubs and don't care about actually talking to anyone, you are set), so perhaps I have just spent too long in SL and need to move on to another interest.

I guess I don't remember that, lol. But that character did have charms for those who like bad boys with long black hair. I thought Hiro was sweet, and wanted to mother poor little KT. I liked the head mafia guy, too.

Well, it has an insane biker terrorist who sexually pursues and finally has sex with an underage girl, so there it that. And the way that encounter ends is interesting, though I was hoping it would kill him rather than just sedating him.

I read it as winners get one free name change, but I could be wrong. As I said before, I would be very surprised if the winners got first choice at the name they suggested. But I guess we will see, when and if the whole thing actually happens.

I know I am just cranky and cynical about all this, but to me some little text that (as you and Alyona says) most people treat as something cutesy, while the large text is what people really notice, is just not the same. It’s very confusing. Display names are really only effective in-world, in direct interaction only. The 500 posts bring up something else. I don’t know, perhaps that info is somewhere, but the only way I know about it is from hearing people mention it. Same with needing 5 or 25 or whatever posts to turn on signatures (really???). Everything LL does seems to be arcane and opaque, and not really very helpful to new users. I know I am lazy, but I am used to just joining forums or comment sections and just using them (which you can do here, too, and I did, but like add versus wear in-world, you are going to get caught out and learn stuff the hard way).

Lololol. Wow, talk about massively moving the goalposts, Yes, of course, there are many ways LL could implement a semi-valid poll, but you were specifically proposing the Forum as a that means, unless I misunderstood you? I dunno, maybe they figure Google makes massive profits, and that is how they do things, so must be a good way to go? My take is that LL has always had really bad management, and they have horrible judgement and poor focus and follow-through. Or, it could just be that I am far too picky and have unreasonable expectations. In the end, I don’t think it matters why, it more matters whether participating in SL is worth it to individual people to put up with the frustrations and disappointments, factoring in how much faith you have that things will be different going forward. Personally, I am not so sure it is at this point. OTOH, lots of people love the crap outta SL as it is, and think LL is doing a great job, so I doubt I would be missed.

Wow, I thought Singularity died years ago. I used it once-upon-a-time and loved it, but they seemed to stop development. Is it still using the old-school interface? I used it because it seemed faster, but I think people liked it because it was like the really old viewers. Or am I thinking of something else? (Cool Viewer, perhaps?)