Persephone Emerald

Love to Decorate did a survey of their uses (creators & customers) a while back and found that over half the people who responded felt that gatchas were past their time. Overpriced items & extremely rare rares were 2 of the common problems stated. I avoid gatchas because they end up costing me more than just buying a similar item somewhere else. If I really want a gatcha item, I look for it in a resale market. If we stop buying from gatchas, merchants will stop using them, but as long as they're making money from them, they will continue to use this gimmick.

Everyone's tastes are different. I prefer Esode to Wow, but my friend loves WoW & all the free skins you can get as a member of their group (which is not free to join). Always buy demos & get freebies of whatever skins you're thinking of buying. After viewing them in different light or viewer settings, then decide with ones you like best. If you like WoW, check out 7 Deadly Skins too. They have far fewer group freebies than Wow has, but to my eyes the skins have a similar kind of soft, "perfect" quality, & the group is only $L 50 to join. You might also Search MP for skins & sort from the best rated first, just to see what other people think are good skins.

When you become a Premium member, you can buy a 512 m parcel without having to pay a monthly tier. If you buy land for a group with at least one other avatar (which can be a free alt account), you can own up to 560 m without paying a monthly fee. If you make your alt account a premium one, you can have 1120 m without paying a monthy fee. This is the most cost-effective way to own a small parcel for a home. With 2 premium accounts, you'd pay $ 72 twice a year ($ 144/ year), but would get back enough lindens in your 2 weekly stipends so that your actual cost is only about $18 to $20 / year. Then you need to make a 3rd alt that's a free account though, so if your premium accounts are ever suspended for late payments or whatever, your free alt can come in & take care of any bussiness for you. - I'm telling you this because I don't know why you'd want a parcel that's smaller than 512 m. The more square meters you have, the more prims (or land imact) you get to use. Also a square or nearly square parcel, such as the standard 1024 m parcel, fits more houses or skyboxes than a 512 m parcel does.

One can easily rack up 60 groups worth of stores & sales groups that offer group gifts & discounts. Roleplayers and people who run roleplay sims can run up alot of groups. There will be a main group for announcements, groups for different factions, a group for people who rent shops or homes in the sim, and a group for sim administrations. Exclusive adult sims charge up to $L 500 to join, which allows members to use facilities with expensive adult furniture. When one joins any group that cost $L 500, most people don't want to drop it, so it's not hard to rack up several. The more varied one's interests in SL are, the easier it it to max out groups. I tend to have my groups maxed out or nearly maxed out all the time, because I have so many different kinds. What makes me most happy about this change is that many users have been saying we want more group gifts, so now when Linden Lab wants to give people an incentive to go premium, they're finally giving us something we want! I don't think anyone really wanted the free gifts, few wanted the premium sandboxes, and we seldom realize the advantage we have in getting better customer support than non-premium members do. - Now just give us 1025 m instead of only 512 m. :-)

I think to make friends it helps to have some interests in common. Do you like roleplay or hunts? You might find friends doing these things who aren't particlarly interested in your gender choice or sexual interests. Hunters Resourse is a good place inworld for finding current hunts. There are roleplay hubs to help find RP sims. Basilique is also a nice sim that has weekly salon discussions, live piano times & dancing. It's an open-minded adult sim with an imphasis on intelligent conversation, rather than the standard club scene. For me to make friends with someone in SL or RL, I need to have some shared interests with them & continuing conversations. I have friends who play a different gender in SL than the sex they were born as in RL. This is pretty common in SL, so I think your chances of finding open-minded, non-judgement friends in here might be easier than in RL in some ways. You might be better off staying away from the she-male clubs though, since this seems to be a particular sexual fantasy genre in SL.

Sorry. I misunderstood & responded badly. There should be an alpha layer in the Library of your Inventory that hides everything but the head. If not, you can make your own. Select Create New Body Part -> Alpha Layer, then check the Upper Body & Lower Body boxes to make them invisible. If you need an invisible texture, there in one in the Library named something like "Default Transparent". You can drag that into the alpha layer texture boxes.

This problem is why I never use Busy mode. If someone IMs me & I don't respond, they can assume I'm busy or AFK. I don't know when merchant might be happy with a MP reiview I left or heads up I gave them & then sends me an unsolicited gift. Only last week I recieved a $L 1000 gift card like that. Sorry you had to learn this the hard way. ( Hugs. )

Did you try the alpha that came with your mesh body? It might help to say which one you got. If you're using your own default head, you need to select the Retrofit option as well as wearing the alpha that comes with your body. There may be different alphas for different skin tones. There are some neck alphas on Marketplace you can try, but my guess is the one that came with your body will probably work best, as long as you follow their instructions.

Your best bet might be to go to the Linden Realms game & collect gems that you can exchange for linden$. There are some other games that pay in Lindens, but I'm not that familiar with how they work. Try to get things free or very cheap, because you can't afford to pay top prices. 1. Look on Marketplace and search from the lowest price up, for things you want. There are many free & cheap items on MP. 2. Join Fab Free & other groups for finding freebies & Midnight Madness boards. Also look at blogs for free stuff. 3. Join customer groups for shops you like & get their group gifts. 4. Go to the Hunters Resource or look online for hunts. Many are free, so all you have to do is look for the hunt items, like an Easter egg hunt. - Nobody is going to hire you if you have no skills, can't promise to be a dependable employee, and can't or won't work the sexual aspect of SL. (Even that takes experience, but some people will pay tips to see a naked avatar dancing on a pole.)

I like the analogy of SL being like Texas. Imagine if someone landed in a Texas airport & then somehow found themselve in a small town in the middle of nowhere. If they didn't have a guide or guidebook they, might never find the best sights & most interesting cities. They might also think there is nobody in this big state, if they happen to go exploring on a country road. Second Life is basically a very large virtual world, full of all kinds of people with various interests. Some will be friendly, and some won't be. Some will seem strange, but many will seem fairly normal too. There is a steep learning curve, but with a little help and patience, learning about this world can be fun. Other users can be your best helpers, but you have to be patient with us too, because we're often busy doing our own thing & may not be in the mood to direct a newbie. BTW, Here's a good blog article about SL. I also suggest checking out Bryn Oh's sim-wide art installation, "Lobby Cam", at her sim, Immersiva.

I think a large portion of the population of SL is in the USA, but there are Brits here, as well as Europeans, South Americans, Canadians, Austrailians, Middle Easterners, Japanese & more. I find that after midnight SLT (US Pacific coast time), I run into more Brits, Aussies & Europeans in SL. When you want to find people from a specific part of the RL world or who speak a specific language, use the Search function to find Groups for them. This is especially helpful for people who may not speak English or may not speak it very well. Then look for Places that cater to your nationality or to different interests you have. Do you like art galleries, poetry readings, live music, amusement parks, burlesque shows, building or whatever? Look for places & groups in Search for these things. Then select Show on Map to see if there are other people there (green dots). This is an easy way to find sims with other people in them.

Heaven's Gate Neo has some free lucky board skins & full avatars for newbies. This is a Japanese creator, so the avatars tend to have the young, soft anime look, but one of the newbie males looks a little more mature. They also have free child skins.

InVerse has nice, inexpensive furnised houses, many of which are low land impact mesh. Personally though, I think the furniture from Bazar is better, so why not buy one their houses & furnish it with their furniture? There are many fine designers of low land impact mesh homes & furiture now. I suggest joining a group that showcases them or going to the sale events for mesh furnishings. Search for Love to Decorate (LTD), FaMeshed, The Neighborhood, Uber, Fiffty Linden Fridays, and Consensual, just to name a few.

I'm a co-owner/manager of a new community in SL based around creativity, building & helping new residents. We have awesome builders making amazing builds, a fun train ride, building contests, & a community of new users who could really benefit from the experience of an oldie resident. We're planning an art exhibit in March with moving bubble dome exhibits by SL artists. We don't have RL-style residential homes, but we do have alot of fun playing around with bumper cars & stuff like that, whatever someone wants to make, rez & play with. Come check out Dream Creation. We're friendly & fun.

I think there are two main reasons why there are not more quality ethnic skins available, though they both boil down to the same reason. 1. There are not enough skin creators of color in RL. 2. There are not enough customers of color in RL. In other words, the majority of users are probably white. It's not that creators don't like ethic looks, but that they literally don't have any skin in the game and don't know how to make them look right. Add to that an insufficient number of customers asking for ethnic skins, and the result is very few good ones available. The solution is to find the few good ethnic skin creators and buy from them. Redgrave has some based on RL celebritities that are good. By Snow has some good free ethnic shapes. To get a really good breast or butt shape, you're going to have to get a fitted mesh avatar, no matter what race your avatar is. Other than that, I'd say look on Marketplace for ethnic skin & shapes. I have a beautiful honey-tone African woman avatar that has a modified free shape from By Snow & a skin I found on Marketplace. I also have a couple of good African male shapes & skins. I used the ones pictures below to illustrate a steampunk love story I started to write but didn't finish.

Is there a way to allow some roles in a group to keep objects rezzed, while others have an autoreturn time (& non-group members cannot rez objects)? Is there a way to set such differences by parcel? is there a way to set them by group roles? We're trying to avoid having different groups for different parcels, but perhaps we may have to do this in order to have a group sandbox area where most objects will stay for limited time vs. home & shop area where member objects need to stay put. What if we set shops & apartment areas to an autoreturn time even for group members, but renters have always allow Create Objects & Always Allow Bring in Objects as allowed abilities? Would this prevent non-tenant group members from leaving stuff in other people's shops & apartments?

The Drakensburg Mountains is a natural African sim. You might also try the Amazon River, but I'd be careful of the river. There are piranhas & crocodiles.

I don't know if the newer Zoobies are any smarter than they used to be, but I traded up from a Zoobie wolf to a VKC husky years ago. Zoobies can be set to attack strangers or specific people, so they're good for a watch dog that can push avatars off your parcel. VKC's seem more intelligent & independent, but have strange quirks too, like jumping very high or sometimes getting stuck at the edge of your parcel. My VKC dog seems to love her interactive toys much like a real dog might obsess on a favorite one. Depending on how you set them, they might even ignore your commands sometimes to play with a favorite squeeky. (The VKC cats are actually designed to be harder to train than the dogs, since RL cats are more independent than RL dogs.) Because VKC pets learn which behaviors you reward, they can each develop their own pseudo-personality - but only if you interact with them & reward or punish specific behaviors. (A reward is telling your pet, "(name) good". A punishment is telling it "(name) bad".) As for non-trained behavior, VKC dogs, are somehow attracted to other avatars & scripted objects, so they'll go around sniffing & greeting everyone & everything you have that's scripted, unless you tell them to do so quietly. This can be amusing or annoying, depending on your perspective. They can be told to follow other avatars, other VKC pets or Zoobie pets. They are in a sense friendlier than Zoobie pets, because they go to other avatars & let anyone pet them, while Zoobies will only allow the people you put on their friends list to pet them. If you want a funnier, friendlier, more unpredicatable pet, I'd suggest a VKC. If you want one that will chase off strangers, follow a set path, & only behave for the people on its friends list, get a Zoobie. Both can intereact on their own with their beds, food & water bowls, but I think VKCs have more interactive toys that you can buy. If you want a cat that talks to you & says funny things, you might consider Kitty Cats, but they require food.

This other thread might help you with some Marketplace links. Can-my-avatar-look-like-me-My-picture-is-linked

Newbies can be cute sometimes,...kind of like very young puppies. :-)

I heard about this book earlier. What do you think about the subject of real spirituality in virtual reality? Interview with Robert Geraci on the “Virtually Sacred”

Since you like German culture, I recommend visiting 1920's Berlin. I hear the folks there are pretty friendly. For Steampunk, check out Caledon , New Babbage , & Mieville . If you like hunting for nice freebies, hunts are good way to meet people & see new places. The Historical Hunts group hosts The Rensaissnce Hunt (going now), The Slik Road Hunt, STEAM (a steampunk hunt), and they're also an active, friendly group. There are also game enviornments in SL, such as zombie hunting & Linden Lab's The Cornfield. Looking on the Destinations page can give you more ideas of places to explore.

I think the Steve skin (no facial hair) might work better than the George skin, since your RL skin tone seems lighter. Search on Mature male to see what else you can find. Always buy demos before paying full price. You might like these: Aeros Avatar Maxwell :: demo , Steve Mature Skin M1 (by Unique Megastore) , Demo - Saint Avatar By Tellaq , Once you find a skin or full avatar that you like, find a modifiable body that's close to the look you want. Make a copy, then try to modify the copy body to look like your real shape & face. This is not something you can fully achieve overnight, but it's possible to tweak a modifiable shape until it looks very natural & realistic. Look at a few photographs of yourself & at your face & body in a mirror. When you see how your nose really looks, you can adjust your avatar's to look like it, then your eyes, your chin, your eyebrows, your ears, your jawline... Eventually you can get very close to your RL look, but the combination of skin & shape make a big difference on the final look. Shapes of ADAM & EVE - Douglas DEMO shape , Tt. George shape , Body & Soul - MATURE SERIES - Cousin Derek Avatar , Body & Soul - MATURE SERIES - Uncle Paul Avatar , Body & Soul - MATURE SERIES - Uncle Peter Avatar , Body & Soul - MATURE SERIES - NEW William Avatar , Eyes are the easy part. Find a merchant who makes nice, realistic eyes, then pick the iris color that most closely matches your own. I think having avatar eyes that looks like your own, makes it feel like people can see the real you through your avatar. It doesn't hurt if your avatar ends up looking a little younger or not exactly like your RL self, but when you personalize it, then it feels like it's you. (Edit to add links)

Since you're new & because of all the changes going on now in which types of mesh bodies & body parts are available, I suggest not spending too much money on any of them just yet. Get the free demos for each brand & try them to see what they look like. The first mesh bodies I got were for small mesh avatars - Minikin, Yabusaka Petite, & Little me. Minikin was a free avatar, but creators didn't have the option of making their own avatars with this mesh model & few creators made clothing for it. You can hardly find any clothing for Minikin bodies now. Little me also doesn't allow other creators to make bodies based on it's models & few creators make clothes for this one. Yabusaka, however, lets other creators make bodies based on it's model & gives away mesh forms for people to use for making clothing. This brand has now become the most popular small mesh avatar. The feet, hands & breasts on the default avatar shapes have long been problematic, so mesh replacements for these parts were some of the first made. Full-body meshes, with or without heads then followed. Most mesh bodies don't respond to changes you can make with the body adjustment sliders, but TheMeshProject body does, so you can adjust the size & shape of your avatar to be pretty much exactly as you'd like it to be. Because the breasts respond to the basic body sliders, they also respond to avatar physics, meaning your breasts & ass can jiggle when you move. My guess is that fitted mesh will replace standard mesh as the most popular type of mesh clothing & bodies, but right now it's harder to find fitted mesh & not all viewers will show it correctly. If you want to try a fitted mesh body, TheMeshProject has a free version with limited options. You won't be able to use most clothing with this one, so consider it a demo. If you decide to get one of their bodies with more options, remember that they're still in beta & therefore have a few problems & glitches. Customer service is not very good with them yet either. The Basic & Deluxe models can wear most mesh clothing & applier-type clothing sold for this brand of body. The Basic & Deluxe models include an alpha layer HUD that can hide specific bits of the mesh body to make it workable with standard mesh clothing, but fitted mesh clothing still works best. - Regular system layer clothing will never work with a mesh body, because your standard body has to be hidden with an alpha layer (as if it were beneath the mesh one). Whatever you do, customizing your body with mesh options requires buying specific kinds of clothing to fit it. This might mean spending more or having the style of body/body part you buy go out of style. Don't spend too much too quickly, just in case this could happen. If you like how your avatar looks, that's what's important, but don't spend a bunch of money & then regret it later. I didn't buy Slink hands or feet. I got some inexpensive mesh feet instead that don't have shoes made to fit them. Then I got this fitted mesh body & love it so far, despite the glitches & problems. Now I don't wear the mesh feet, because I have perfect feet, hands, breasts & ass all in one body. The skin choices are limited though, so the skin is not as detailed as many regular skins are & doesn't perfectly match my head. In the future, I expect more skin makers will create appliers for their skins, just as a few clothing designers are making appliers for clothing layers.

I have the Basic body & had the same thing happen to me after messing with the cleavage options. I had no problem before this, so I think the glitch must be tired to the cleavage adjustment. This is definitely a bug they need to know about to try to fix it. * Note: Going into the cleavage adjustment option & hitting Unstyle fixed the bug for me. *