simplemint

When I signed up a few weeks ago, this wasn't the case. I am a new user to SL and have never registered before. In the picture that Chaser Zaks posted, it was the woman with the hat that I ended up getting. I do not remember having a pool to choose from - it's possible I misremembered, but had there been a pool, I highly doubt I would have chosen the woman with the hat.

Yes, the initial avatar given is always light-skinned. (At least, it was when I joined a couple of weeks ago). Mine was a light-skinned, female avatar. It would be nice if there was more choice at the beginning in terms of the avatar you start out with, at least with different choices so that people know that that is possible from the get-go without having to buy or seek out different skins. It was tough for me to figure out where the other starter avatars were - I didn't even know they had them - because I couldn't find the button for them! That's on me I suppose, but it might be nice if that could be better highlighted for newbies to let them know how to do it. I remember watching a YouTube video of a newbie, a Black woman, who was a bit disappointed that her character was light-skinned and didn't know how to change it to another. She ended up going shopping to buy herself a skin she preferred more. Could it be possible that people would end up not continuing should they not be clear about how to customize their avatar to something they would prefer more from the beginning, without shopping (whether based on skin colour, hair colour, fashion, etc.)?

... I solved my own question. No way to delete this, I guess, but I think what happened is that because the group tag wasn't registered, my payment was taken but the transaction not verified. That's why no delivery happened despite Linden being taken.

I tried to get into the Logo event for the new head to celebrate the anniversary. I paid the 1 linden for the head, and was waiting for the item to be delivered. Unfortunately, I was logged out of SL due to problems. The item was not delivered to me prior to me leaving, despite the money being taken. Do I need to pay again for the item to be delivered? Or if I wait long enough (even outside the sim), will it be eventually delivered to me? Thanks for your advice, I'm new to SL and this is my first really busy event so I don't know what to do. Update: I think a combination of the group tag not registering and the sim being really busy meant that money was taken but the transaction was never actually verified on Logo's end. Third attempt at the purchase seems to have triggered a transaction notice. I kept on being booted from the sim, perhaps because it was so busy, and so nothing was being delivered, but a kind user on SL eventually advised me to re-deliver the item from another Caspervends machine, and that worked!

They are not, at least from what I can tell. I joined the site about a week ago after seeing a YouTube video on it (not Carmen's). I was dropped onto the Firestorm welcome island, was taught how to move around and use the camera, then when I got plopped on the social island I went through the shopping portal, then didn't quite know how to get back to the social island. If it was located on the social island, I completely missed it. I only came across her videos because I manually searched for tutorial videos on YouTube. Her videos are great too! I think the difference between Carmen's and her's (Meela Vanderbuilt) is that Meela's are quite long. Some of her tutorial videos are streams I believe, about 1-2 hours. Fun to watch if you have the time, but not exactly a nice and concise thing a newbie can watch. Carmen's are much more slickly edited to short, consumable chunks, but she of course does not do tutorial videos. Different strokes for different folks, but I generally think that shorter content is more accessible. (30 minutes or under per video)

Thank you for your advice! One week later, the clothing bit is becoming easier to understand but I feel like I've done a lot of exploration on my own. It would be fantastic for Linden Lab to create their own mesh avatar similar to what's out there - I'm using a version of Ruth that I came across in a freebie shop I can't remember, as well as a free head from Genus. I'm still trying to figure out how to make the head/body colours match but I think it may be because it's not any of the bodies that the Genus head supports. I was able to find resources through various blogs and had time for trial and error, but I know that not all users do. I was watching some videos from Carmen King on SL as she's trying it for the first time and I saw a good deal of comments talking about how they really liked how SL looked but could not figure for the life of them how to work the avatars, and then never came back. I wish that these resources were consolidated more within SL so that people do not have to feel as if they have to go see outside sources (even though they can be quite valuable). I found the Wiki a bit overwhelming because of all the information that's on there, especially in the first few days. Some of the user-created newbie guides were better at breaking things down.

Regarding the game/no game debate/argument, as a newbie, I find this argument odd. I personally saw Second Life as a game before I started going through the forums because it looked like one to me - like a sandbox, open-world sort of game. There seemed to be all these destinations to see, different ways to dress up your avatar... If you had told me something along the lines of "Second Life is a virtual world where you can chat with other people", I'd be pretty confused about what a virtual world actually entailed. I saw the chat and community function mentioned as the main aspect of Second Life, but to be frank, if someone's looking to chat, I'd think they'd turn to social media like Facebook first, where the UI is much more intuitive. Or maybe they'd go to a forum like this one. I am sure there is a history and culture as to why people seem to prefer calling it a "virtual world", but in my opinion, this term is extremely dated. It is not often used in gaming circles nowadays, at least the ones I frequent - it would be better termed as a sandbox and/or open-world game. Maybe it's a generational thing? I'm a university student and none of the people I know my age play Second Life, but many of them are big into video games, mobile/online/on consoles. I think our generation has come to expect different things when we spend time online 'playing'/exploring a virtual world, when looking at the other options available out there (including things like good graphics, lack of lag). I think the lack of purpose in Second Life would be fine for many of my friends, so long as they're given some sort of directive about what kinds of options are available in-world, and so long as Second Life gives them a reason to stay and chat over any other games they may have on the go. Oh, and there is such thing as a pure sandbox game without objectives. The Sims is one that immediately jumps to mind. It's also one of the best-selling video games of all time, and is the best-selling PC franchise ever. Even if it isn't necessarily able to attract everyone in the first-person shooter crowd, it clearly sells extremely well.

Thank you for your advice @animats! I didn't know how to save outfits by name... this should be very helpful when I'm trying to figure out HUDs and making clothing work on my current mesh body (Ruth 2.0). I've found the payment site, but am having trouble linking my PayPal account... something about how I need to add bank information? Currently trying to figure that out now. I would prefer to pay over PayPal, but if not, I will add a credit card instead. I normally do not like to spend money on a hobby before I know whether I'm interested in it or not, but it seems like to participate in some of the hunts out there, you'll need at least 1L to pick up items. I don't live in the US, so we'll have to see how bad the conversion fees are before I decide how much to spend. Thanks for the heads up on the fee. Re: onboarding, some of the most off-putting interactions I saw were of people simply asking about whether it was possible to enter Second Life without spending $$, and then others bluntly telling them that they should basically expect to spend money to have fun and that $10-$20 USD is really a small chunk of change to create a beginner wardrobe with. In terms of the onboarding process, it's one thing to tell users, as you have, that there are free and discount options in-world that aren't necessarily going to be as recent or stylish as the paid stuff, that looking really good will cost more, and that most of your $ is going to other people and not the Linden corporation so it is worth it to spend $$; but another to basically imply that people cannot look good or cannot have fun without investing money right from the beginning. I also see this in a fair few of the beginner YouTube videos; they emphasize that spending $$ is the easiest way to dress an avatar but do not really go into much detail about freebie, newbie, and discount options people can check out as well if they're skeptical about spending early on. My thought is, people will be more likely to spend money in the future if they do decide Second Life is something they like, rather than potentially being turned away from the beginning, right after they sign up, because they perceive spending $$ is necessary. Encourage people to try Second Life for free, direct them to the free/discount options that are available first, and then let them decide if spending $$ is worthwhile.

I wanted to pop in on this thread to provide the perspective of a newbie. I just started a few days ago, after having seen Second Life featured in a YouTube video. I find that a lot of the YouTube videos that are out there on SecondLife are too long for easy consumption. Some are longer than others - I've seen some that are 1-2 hours long, yet are labelled as an introductory explanation to SecondLife! (To be fair, most of them are just snippets of streams people did, but still.) I personally don't learn too well in video format and find that for me, a lot of the ones out there aren't very compact/explanatory. I like the idea of videos that show what is fun to do on SecondLife, what is nice to see, but only if they're relatively compact (10-20 minutes). I've mostly taken to checking out SecondLife blogs and trying to Google everything as best as I can. SecondLife seems very intimidating as there is so much to explore. I will be completely honest, seeing some of the responses to newbies that have been made in prior threads/other blogs is a bit offputting. I understand that not every user wants to (or is obligated to) help a newbie out, but I saw some responses that just seemed so snooty that multiple times, I second-guessed whether Second Life was a community I was even interested in joining... I logically knew that the rude folks were likely a minority here, but it still made me feel intimidated to ask around ... The onboarding experience on the island I was plopped on (Firestorm Gateway) was not great. It taught me all the controls, which was definitely nice, but I'm still confused about how to put on clothes, what mesh is, how to configure payment, what kinds of places I can go to... I'm finding myself relying on a lot of user-made content (as well as sorting through replies on here), but it's tricky because some blogs are easier to read than others and some are woefully outdated. I will definitely be checking out New Resident Island. I'm still quite lost, but at least I'm a bit less moderately lost than I was a few days ago! I don't really mind who the information is coming from so long as the information is clear, concise, and easy to understand. Oh, and easy to find. For now, I am most interested in finding freebies to dress my avatar and doing hunts. The great thing is that there are lots of blogs on these subjects, so I've been able to find the information that I need fairly easily. Ease of finding information would be different if a new user was interested in other things.